celticdragonfly | Calling foodies: spaghetti sauce

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Calling foodies: spaghetti sauce

So I've been reading various things in one of my email lists on the Eeeevils of high fructose corn syrup. I'd been thinking for some time it was NOT a good thing, this is a large part of why I canned my own strawberry jam for the family. The more I have been reading the more I'd like to get less of it in our diets. Not that I'm going to go on a diet as such - sounds like you can get a lot of benefit just getting away from the HFCS and onto more regular sugar.

So thinking of various and sundry foods that have a lot in it, and one of the things I was thinking of tonight is that I've been wanting for some time to make my own spaghetti sauce. Usually for us spaghetti means the stuff out of the jar, cook ground beef and add it, maybe a little merlot, handful of minced onion, some minced garlic if I have it. Really, that simple.

I would like to get away from the stuff out of the jar. So I want to get recommendations for what to make, proportions and such. Tomato sauce, tomato paste, etc., it's all a blur to me. It has to be SIMPLE. No, really, I know some of the foodies on my list, simpler than that. (I'm here because I've already rejected the stuff in the traditional cookbooks I've been given as overcomplex) We don't care for chunks-o-tomato, and Karl won't eat mushrooms, sigh. I'm wondering if we're going to need to add sugar so that it will taste right to us, since there IS so much HFCS in the stuff-outa-the-jar. Perhaps that's something I could slowly tone down over time.

My concern with doing it with the cans-o-tomato-whatever is that I also hear a lot of complains about "commercially canned veggies have way way too much salt!" But I really don't know if I want to learn to can my own tomato-sauce. From what

kattelyn told me, it sounds like I'd need BUSHELS of tomatos for a few pints. Yeek.

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Hunts brand offers chopped tomatoes, tomato sauce and tomato paste with no salt added! What a boone!

Okay.

So, then - tomato sauce and tomato paste. What do I do with it? It's gotta come out thick. You know our standard is "put the wooden spoon into it and see if it keeps standing"

My mother's s'ghetti sauce is mainly tomato PUREE [less water than sauce] plus tomato paste, simmered for about an hour with cooked ground beef, onion snd garlic. She puts chopped canned tomatoes in it as well but if you don't like that, leave it out.

See? Not everything I make is Complicated!

I use Hunt's or Contadina, whichever is cheaper at the commissary. I just checked cans and neither contained any sugar or added salt.

My pasta sauce is at its simplest (whether I add meat or veggies depends on what the sauce will be adorning) is this:

1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 8-oz can tomato paste
Approximately 2 cloves minced garlic
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried basil
1/4 cup red wine

For sweetener, I usually toss in 1 packet Splenda. Since I don't think that's what you're after, you might try Mario Battali's trick, which is to use 1 medium carrot, grated.

The tomato paste, garlic, and herbs get stir-fried together in 1 tablespoon olive oil. Add the tomatoes, red wine, and sweetener. Cover, turn heat to low, and simmer for about 30 minutes.

If I'm not mistaken, I have a recipe in my "memories" section as well.

This sounds great! How long does it keep, if you make a big batch up ahead of time?

Also, I don't like solid tomatoe pieces--if I replaced the crushed tomatoes w/ more tomato paste, about how much would I need to make up the volume?

Oh, I'm guessing you can freeze it, right?

I don't like solid tomato pieces either, because the seeds gross me out. I find the crushed tomatoes are pretty liquid, but with more character than straightup tomato sauce. It's *diced* tomatoes you're picturing with the whole tomato bits.

I've never made up a big batch, but I know from smaller batches with leftovers (there are only 2 of us in the household) that it freezes and cans just fine. I wouldn't refrigerate it for more than 3 days.

If you want to add meat, have your cooked meat ready and as soon as the sauce is put together, add it, then cover and simmer.

Try my "No Boil Lasagna" recipe from my "memories" section.

Cool, thank you!

Here's the really simple version of my sauce:

Two pounds of lean beef (ground sirloin is my usual choice, although last time I had them take two pounds of London Broil and grind it up for me, but the 90% lean ground beef will also work.)
One clove garlic, chopped
One white onion, chopped
One can of tomato paste (I always get the kind with garlic in it)
Two cans of tomato sauce (I usually get the kind that says "With Italian Spices")
One Tablespoon of Molasses
Lots of wine

Once the garlic and onion are chopped, sautee them in your largest skillet in an excessive amount of olive oil - somewhere between half again to twice the amount you really need.
Once the garlic and onion are properly sauteed, remove them from the skillet and put them in a bowl to the side.
Put the meat in the heated olive oil (which will be infused with the flavor of the garlic and onion,) and pour about a third of the bottle of wine over it.
Turn the burner to its highest setting, and stir the meat while the wine and oil reduce away - once you have have almost no liquid in the pan, you're ready to move on to the next step.
Add the tomato paste and tomato sauce to the meat.
Fill the tomato paste can just a bit below the top with wine, and swish it around a bit to dissolve some of the paste stuck to the side of the can into the wine. Transfer the wine to one of the cans of tomato sauce and swich the wine around to dissolve all the sauce stuck to its sides into teh wine, and then repeat with the other can of tomato sauce. Once that's done, pour the wine from the sauce can onto the meat.
Add the garlic and onions to the meat, paste and sauce.
Pour more wine on top of all of that, and stir until it's all mixed up.
Once that has become thoroughly mixed together, add the molasses, and lower to medium heat.

You'll want to customise that a bit, but I think if you try this you'll like it. I call it my Jazz Combo Sauce, because I always use whatever spices catch my fancy while I'm rummaging through the cabinet.

So you never actually drain the meat after cooking it?

No, you've cooked away what grease was produced by the time that you're ready to start adding everything else to the mix. That's why you cook it at the highest temperature, and use really lean beef.

You'll usually want to add some sugar anyway, to cut the acidity of the tomatoes.

Here's how I do my homemade sauce, which takes between 12 or 24 hours.

Start a crockpot on low. Since you're not into chunks of tomato, you can leave out the stewed tomatoes I normally put in. Use 2-3 cans of totato sauce, (check to make sure no HFCS is added), and 2-3 cans of tomato paste, (same deal)

Add some bottled italian seasoning, garlic if wanted, and some red wine. And about 1-2 spoonfuls of sugar.

Leave to cook down overnight if 24, or cook for the rest of the day for 12. About midway though, add whatever veggies you want to add. Check the taste, add more spices (if wanted), or sugar (if too acid) If it's cooked down too much, add tomato paste. Add more wine to taste if desired.

About 4 hours before dinner, brown some ground beef, turkey, or sausage. Make it as lean as possible so you don't have a lot of fat to drain off. Add to the sauce, bring it up a couple notches. (or add some frozen beef or chicken meatballs).

You also may want to saute a small amount of mushrooms for those who want them to add into their sauce after the fact.

It's a practiced art.

There should be low salt varieties of tinned tomatoes avaliable. Everything here has low salt versions these days (which I don't like, but that's just me).

450gm tin of low salt crushed tomatoes (I think that would be about a 1 pound tin? - and if you don't want 'chunks' then just push it through a sieve first to make it smooth)
large onion, diced
clove or two of garlic
*two sticks of celery, diced
*a grated carrot or two
*a grated medium size zucchini (you want about a double handful of grated carrot/zucchini)
500 gms mince (again, about a pound - do you guys call it ground beef or something?)
salt, pepper, wine and herbs to taste
* - optional. I just empty my fridge into the pot, pretty much :)

Fry up the mince (I use the lean stuff, but if you use normal mince you might want to get rid of the fat) and throw in the onion/celery/carrot/zucchini and cook that for 5 minutes, or as long as it takes you to open the tin of tomatoes (I can never find the can opener!). Pour in the liquid from the top of the can and stir that in and give it a minute or two, then pour in the rest of the tin and add the herbs/wine etc. Let that simmer for ohh at least 10 minutes, and anywhere up to half an hour. Feeds 4-6, depending how hungry you are.

Full of vegies, low salt, low sugar, low fat, kid friendly (well, my kid likes it at any rate) and yum! Hope that was simple enough? I don't think I'm that good or fancy a cook, but my mum says I'm a frikken gormet and cook weird stuff. I've got a good recipe for meatballs that makes for a nice change, if you want that? Oh, and the above freezes really well, so if you've got space in the freezer, make up a triple batch and freeze it into portions. And I chuck asparagus and eggplant and corn and beans and everything into it, depending what I've got. Shouldn't take you more than 15 minutes, from whoa to go.

I've never had sweet-tasting spaghetti sauce, and the stuff in the jar here has 9 grams per hundred of sugar (and it's just regular old sugar, nothing fancy - and tomatoes are sweet anyway so most of that is naturaly there). Maybe we mean completely different things when we say 'spaghetti sauce'? The stuff in the jar here is really just pureed tomatoes with onion, garlic and herbs added to it already.

Wow, this is a long comment, and a badly written one too! I'll just shut up now :D Let me know if there's anything you want clarified etc.

Will your family eat olives and capers? Pasta puttanesca is one of my favorites.

2 T vegetable oil
2-4 anchovy filets (from a can) or a squirt of anchovy paste
4-6 garlic cloves, chopped.
Small can chopped black olives
About 2-3 Tb capers
A couple of cans chopped tomatoes (er, I usually make this for myself, not 2 adults and a kid, so I'm not sure how much), along with a small can or two of tomato paste (thickens it up a bit)

Saute anchvies (or paste) in oil with garlic until anchovy metls away. Throw everything else in, bring to simmer, simmer 8-10 minutes. Taste to see how the flavors blend - they meld after 8-10 minutes into a harmonious whole. If you feel it needs more of an acid bite, add a couple of teaspoons of apple cider vinegar or lemon juice, if you feel it needs to be blander, throw in a little bit of sugar and taste. Adding sugar to red pasta sauces turns them into jar-tasting sauces, I've found.

The anchovy melts away, even the filets, and leave a light, wonderful flavor that's not in the least bit fishlike. It's like Thai fish sauce - a little bit of this icky thing turns the whole dish sublime.

If you want more substance, brown a pound of ground beef while the sauce is simmering, drain, and mix the sauce into the beef, then add pasta, otherwise just add pasta.

My pasta sauce uses tinned chopped tomatoes (they sort of melt during cooking) as well as tomato paste, which probably has salt AND sugar, but I'm sure it would say on the jar... I'm pretty sure you can get reduced-salt versions of these things. But I'd be stumped trying to tell you quantities, because it's the first thing I learned to make, and over the years it has evolved to 'add X until it looks/smells right'. And has become extremely tomatoey.

Can't go wrong with lots of herbs, garlic, onion, and if possible, red wine, though.

Okay here is what our doc says, a very non-reactionary guy - if you dont' have a condition that salt agravates - don't worry about it. Your body gets rid of what it can't use, it'not going to cause anything or kill you.

If you have high blood pressure and told to cut it down, sure, salt can tussle with your meds, otherwise go eat some nice chips and salty nuts.

Now this is a BULK recipe we eat it a lot so it's easier to make ONE big batch every couple months - You can reduce the amounts.

I will make a batch and it will give me 9-11 3 cup bowls that I freeze. TWnety minutes you have dinner.

You will need a food processor to do it right and I have a I think 18 quart pot I make this in.

My husband was absolutely shocked that it had carrots in it, he loves this sauce and he's a serious meat eater. Everyone who has had this is just bowled over, and some beg me for a frozen bowl of sauce to take home.

It's a Bolognese ragu.

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TWO Industrial cans of spagetti sauce (I use dei fratelli from Costco or the like) or as many ounces in jarred sauce (I ONLY use the all natural, and do not get a chunky version, just a nice smooth if not thin spagetti sauce)

1 large can of chicken broth
or equivialant mix of broth and red wine

1/5 pounds carrots and 1 pound onions (both chopped extremely fine - think couscous size - in Food Proc.)

3 pounds ground beef (or a mix of ground/pork/veal) Brown and run in food processor to grind up fine. (use some of the chicken broth to help the prcesssor grind it if needed)
-- dont' use ground turkey, you really need the flavor.

half quart of heavy cream (you can use milk, but NOT skim.) Cream is not a watery... and adds a better soothness.

Add more fresh garlic, pepper, basil, rosemary...

You can add chopped black olives, or green peppers if you want, but try it this way firsy, it's also just as easy to add that stuff later and cook it on the stove a bit again too.

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Add all this into a BIG pot, you will have to mix it all really well. It will be very loose at first. Turn on very low heat. You will need to stir i t often (every 10-20 min), and stir up the solids that will settle to keep it from scorching. I use a timer to remind me and a wisk to stir it all up, it really helps more than a spoon.

You will want to cook this about 2.5 to 3 hours. The contents of the pot should have reduced a few inches. and your wisk will stand up in it.

If you dont cook it long enough when you pour ot over spagetti it will have some excess water pool, it's okay if you does this just cook it longer, or if already frozen just cook it on a stove a bit beofre serving.

LET SAUCE COOL BEFORE FREEZING!
Use Gladware in the bare miniumum size you want to serve up. Plan about 1/4 cup of airspace for cooking.

One quart zip locks work great and thats what i've used mostly (measure and fill, leave NO air) LAY FLAT to freeze. Use knife to cut off bag and then put the sauce-sickle in a microwave bowl, nuke 10 min, serve.

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Preparatiton after freezing:

I find freezing it into gladware or ziplock bags (no air!) into 3 cups portions works great (works out to two 1/2 LARGE portions or three normal ones).

I start the the pasta water to boil, and when the noodles go in I put the frozen sauce inthe mocrowave for 10 minutes. It's a fabulous 20 minute dinner.

The sauce is fabulous for everything due it being thick and fine, and because of the ground meat and veg it clings to the noodles, and he meat doesn't push out to the edges - great for spagetti which usually shuns most thick sauce, good over chiken, perfect for lasagna... great with meatballs... you name it. Even godo as a dip for bread or cheese sticks. It really is very adaptable.

HEB has sodium-free canned whole tomatoes. I chop 'em up but you can put them in the blender.

Heat a glop of olive oil.
Brown garlic and onions.
Brown Italian sausage.
Add tomatoes, basil, oregano, pepper, and red wine vinegar.
Turn heat down, simmer until it's thick enough.

I'm not a fan of sugar of any kind in spaghetti sauce, but I understand that in Europe they tend to use a dash of cinnamon instead of sugar. Interesting.

Whatever you wind up doing, do it sooner than later. The heat waves in California killed off a lot of this year's tomato crop intended for the canned goods. I'm probably going to just go get #10 cans [the size of my head] to get the family through to next spring.

I'm sending you an email with my Tomato Sauce recipe. My tomato sauce has become so popular that I now make it about 20-30 quarts at time. (I'm sending you the single-batch recipe.) I do can my sauce, and it's really not at all difficult. This sauce definitely meets the requirements of being very thick, but without any chunks of tomato. You can literally eat my sauce with a fork. It's very easy to make, but please feel free to let me know if you have any questions.

Good luck!

I strongly recommend the Woody's Smokehouse semi-commercial/"small-press" *g* spaghetti sauces (which come in various varieties/flavors). I don't *think* they have HFCS or other nontraditional ingredients, but I'm not sure. Yes, it *is* still "stuff from a jar", but it's small-batch local stuff which is much closer to "homemade" than most purchased foods.

All the varieties I've tried are quite thick yet smooth and non-chunky, and absolutely *explode* with flavor. Being of the "'too much of a good thing' is an oxymoron" persuasion myself (shocking, I know *g*), I frequently use it as a "base sauce" to which I add one or more kinds of chunky stuff: sauteed 'shrooms, sliced black olives, diced roasted red bell peppers, sundried tomatoes--pretty much my standard list of omelet fillings, in fact, other than Bacos and cheese. But, while I don't recall what sweeteners they may or may not already contain, I've never felt the need to add sugar. (Some of the tarter parts of the "flavor explosion" may be due to lower sugar content, though.)

Drawbacks: the stuff is *pricey* ($6/pint-ish), and I don't know if it's available ANYWHERE except the Woody's Smokehouse truck-stop quite a ways south of D/FW on I-45 (Centerville, I think). I generally drop about $50 on various types of jars-o-flavory-goodness there every time I make a DFW road trip--if you're interested, I might be able to pick up a few jars for you on the way to FenCon.

Hon, come over some night that we're making it just a touch early and Miles or I would be happy to show you the proportions. I just can't tell you them here cause I don't know them as far as how much stuff I throw in more than "a pinch of this" "a dash of that" and "a good size mound of the other"

*grins* you know I rarely ever make anything with exact measurements, but I've found out through showing other folks how to cook that some of my measurements are spot on with teaspoon and tablespoon and whatnot.

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Calling foodies: spaghetti sauce

Tomato news!

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Re: Tomato news!

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Tomato Sauce

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