Recipes!
Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of original posts lately, it’s been pretty hectic since starting the last semester of my undergrad.
In honor of it being a snowy-Sunday, I am posting the spaghetti sauce recipe I made today!
Sometimes, I make this a bit more magical by blessing the pot first and asking Hestia to cook with me, but today was a bit more mundane.
So here we go!
Ingredients:
5 cloves garlic
1 medium onion, chopped finely (I don’t like chunks, feel free to make it chunky if you like!)
2 cans stewed tomatoes - food processed/blended into puree (or you can just buy the puree, my local aldi didn’t have puree on grocery day).
1 large can crushed tomatoes
1 pound of ground beef (totally optional)
Italian seasoning mix (basil, oregano, thyme, marjoram, rosemary, sage, savory)
Parsley
Garlic Powder (I do love garlic)
Salt
Pepper
Directions:
In a large pot at medium heat (5 on a scale of 1-10, lots of stoves do 1-10 now) drop either 1 tbsp olive oil or 1 tbsp butter (I prefer butter) and let it melt/heat.
Once hot enough (if you sploosh a tiny drop or two of water in it should sizzle, careful of splatter) add the onion and garlic, stir occasionally until the onions start to look translucent.
Now, add the ground beef. Cook until the beef is browned (fully cooked) you don’t want to sauce it raw or it will take forever to cook.
Once the ground beef is done, pour in all 3 cans of tomatoes and stir. Then add your seasonings to taste - I start with 5 tbsp of the Italian mix (roughly equal parts of each), 1 tbsp garlic powder, 2 tsp salt, and 2 tsp pepper, continue to taste and season from there!
I let it stew for at least an hour, never turning the heat above 5 (low and slow is the key here). Afterwards it keeps for a week in the fridge, or you can jar it if that’s more your style.
Interesting Note:
If you’re like me and acids tend to be hard on your stomach, you can also add 2 tbsp of baking soda. It will bubble and do foamy things as acids are wont to do when in contact with baking soda. For the sake of your nose, don’t cover this again until it’s thoroughly done bubbling, but once it is, the flavor really isn’t affected (if you do too much it’ll get very salty, I made that mistake once). Otherwise, it’s now acid-reflux-tummy friendly.
Serve hot over pasta, my favorite is farfalle (the bowtie shape). It’s a good, cheap meal, if you buy the store brand cans and omit the beef, you can do this for about $8-10 USD and eat for about a week. Stick with the powdered garlic instead of fresh and it’s even cheaper. Hooray for in house cooking!
Can of tomatoes: ~ $0.50 each (x 3-4 = $2)
Onion: ~ $0.75
1 lb. ground beef: range - (sometimes only $3.00 if you find a good sale)
Seasonings: range, but worth it to have if you can swing it.
-I’m from the Northeastern part of the US, so these are just estimates for you!