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Homemade Spaghetti Sauce


With tomato season in full force, we are working hard to eat up our tomatoes.  I canned a few more quarts of tomatoes as we made a batch of apple butter last weekend.


As you can see, some of the apple butter will be holiday gifts.


Apple butter is such an old fashioned-type food so a lot of people are thrilled to get it.   Have you ever bought apple butter at the store?  Exactly.  Sometimes I'll just take some over to people's house when I visit with a loaf of Old Fashioned White bread  from Great Harvest Bakery which is the perfect match for our apple butter.  We couldn't let our canning season go by without making more apple butter.  I also couldn't let all these tomatoes go into quart jars without making some spaghetti sauce so last weekend we had spaghetti with homemade spaghetti sauce.  I love fall!

I thought this would be a good first dinner for my sister-in-law who was driving here from Montana on a road trip visiting friends and relatives.  She was scheduled to arrive about 4:00 pm so in the morning, I picked this many tomatoes and brought them in...about 3-4 pounds.


I cleaned them the same way as canning tomatoes until my sink looked like this.
The result was a pot of tomato chunks.

The chunks will cook down to a good consistency throughout the day as it simmers slowly but first I added some oregano and basil from the garden.


Chop the basil and oregano finely and add 3-4 Tbsp. of the fresh herbs to the pot of tomatoes.

I was almost ready to start the simmering process put first there were a few more ingredients I wanted to add to my spaghetti sauce.


You can add any ingredients you want but my favorites are onions, garlic and Italian sausage.  So, first I sautéed one onion and 4-5 cloves of garlic in a little olive oil.


When they become translucent, add to the pot of tomatoes.


Next, cook 1 pound of Italian sausage over medium heat.  I like to use organic, chicken Italian sausage, there is hardly any fat in it so you don't have any fat to pour off.  If you use meat with fat, pour off any of fat.  You don't want spaghetti sauce with fat floating on top.


Now, you can add your meat to the sauce but save the pan for your next ingredient... mushrooms.



I like a few mushrooms in my spaghetti sauce so sauté mushrooms and add them to your pot of tomatoes.



Your pot of tomatoes has now turned into spaghetti sauce and after it simmers all day, it will look like this.


Now, all you have to do is make a nice salad


with lots of cucumbers from the garden, of course,


and some bread sticks to top it off.


    Bon Appetit!
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