My Spaghetti Sauce

 

This recipe is also on my recipes page, but not for long – I’m in the process of switching things around, and I’ve decided to get rid of the recipes page in favor of adding a search bar and just plain categorizing my posts better.  So enough of the technical stuff…

 

Today was busy with breadmaking, as my friend CF and I have been on vacation (well, I was just on a two-week break) and haven’t made any bread in two weeks.  But today we made five loaves of our best bread ever!  We’ve finally worked out the textural issues, so I’m almost ready to share the recipe, but I just don’t feel like we’re pros yet.  Soon, hopefully!  By the time we were done, I didn’t feel like doing anything but making the spaghetti, so I skipped the Italian bread – the fresh sandwich bread filled in pretty well, though.  I’ve been looking for a new Italian bread recipe anyway – one that doesn’t use the breadmaker, and perhaps one that works well with freshly ground flour – and I was just too tired to experiment after baking all afternoon.

 

This recipe has endured some tweaking over the years to make it even better.  It is very chunky, so if you like the thinner stuff, this may not be for you.  I use to leave out some of the veggies if I had certain friends over, but I no longer do that.

 

Here is what you need:

 

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 onion, diced

3-4 cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 cup of fresh mushrooms or 1 small can of mushroom pieces and stems

1 green bell pepper, diced

Italian seasoning, to taste

3/4 of a pound ground beef or turkey

2 inches of stick pepperoni, diced

2 15-ounce cans of tomato sauce

1 small can of tomato paste

 

1) Caramelize the onion in the olive oil.  I try to use a very small amount of oil, since the sauce will get more oily with the addition of the meat.

2) Once the onions have changed color, add the garlic, mushrooms, and bell pepper, then cover with a layer of Italian seasoning (or your favorite combination of Italian spices).  Saute until the garlic has softened.

3) Add ground meat and brown.  Once browned, add pepperoni, tomato sauce, and tomato paste.  Let simmer until ready to serve.

 

I’m hoping to have a bumper crop of tomatoes this summer so I can preserve my own tomato sauce and tomato paste.  I do have a problem with rabbits eating my crops, though, so I’ve got to get that figured out before my spring garden goes in.  Any ideas?

This post listed at the Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap.

More Fall Food: Turkey and Pumpkin Chili

 

Who doesn’t love fall?  And what a better food to celebrate the season and warm up with than a chili made with pumpkin and ground turkey?!  My good friend Cherie in the Bay area turned me on to this, so here’s a big thank you for the tip!  Enough with the exclamation points now.

 

She warned me that it needed lots of seasoning (because hers came out kind of bland), but I made sure to add all the spices when I sauteed the onions, etc., since that’s when I usually add spices to other dishes.  I didn’t add as much jalapeno as it called for, either, because I wanted my kids to eat it, but the little bit I tasted in the chili indicated that two whole jalapenos would have really complemented the sweetness.  My husband added some pepperjack cheese to his, which he said rounded it out very nicely.  The only other substitution was coconut oil in place of olive oil, which worked well and didn’t add any distinctly coconuty flavor.

 

The recipe says it makes six servings, but my husband and I finished most of it off. My daughter only ate a little bit, and I had enough left over for a lunch-sized portion tomorrow.  We did eat two bowls each, though, so I guess that comes out to the full six servings.   I also ate two pieces of my bread with it, but that was all part of a strategy to eat a smaller amount of chocolate cake at my friend’s birthday party later in the evening.

 

Next week, I’m going to try a recipe another friend sent me for Vegetarian Chili with Chocolate.  Did I mention that I love chocolate?