I was enjoying a great Twitter chat the other day, #ecowed . The topic was food storage, and it morphed into how to use up foods that you get a LOT of all at once, like melons and zucchini, etc. I mentioned that I use zuch in my spaghetti sauce and some of the other veggies that I put in my recipe.
Since I talked about it, of course, I had to make it the next time I made dinner.
My sauce began out of a recipe from an old book that was discarded at our local library. It had recipes that would fit into Tupperware dishes(from the company). It is one of my favorite recipe books, and I turn to it often for ideas. With a nod to Tupperware, my sauce uses carrots as a naturally sweet flavor enhancer. I also like to include zucchini, garlic, onions, broccoli and pretty much anything else that is filling my veggie basket on the counter that day. Since the vegetables are cooked down and then blended, it really doesn’t matter what you put in there-they are invisible once the sauce is cooked.
So, here is the beginnings of this yummy sauce:
I use good olive oil to saute, and do it on the lowest heat I can. Season with salt, pepper and Italian seasonings. If using fresh, add them last. I like to add dried while it is cooking, and add fresh during the last 10 minutes. The extra moisture is from the zuchini shreds. I am actually using my frozen stash, because I didn’t even plant any this year. If anyone tells you that you can’t use year old frozen zucchini, they are wrong. When everything is soft and mushy, it is time to blend.
Dump the whole pot of hot veggies into the food processor :
I just blend everything until it is pretty smooth. When I first started, I made sure to pulverize it into paste. Now, the kids are used to my sauce, and it doesn’t matter if a little carrot bit is showing. Finally, add this back to the sauce(I like to use tomtoes and blend them up with a stick blender. If I don’t have those in the pantry, plain tomato sauce in a #10 can works great! It is simply tomato sauce with no added seasonings or flavors).
Here it is all blended:
And finally…TaDa!! Yummy sauce. I like to freeze it in quart sized bags. Line them up head to toe in a cake pan(in case of leaks). Once they are frozen, they stack really well.
