Favorite Spaghetti Sauce (make it the day before you need it)
(*Quick variation for Turkish version: season and cook ground beef and stir in a jar of marinara sauce. Cook egg noodles and after draining, stir into them the meat sauce and a big scoop of plain yogurt (preferably not low-fat). Stir together and it makes it creamy, slightly tangy, and super delicious meal!)
We love a good spaghetti sauce, and usually just throw it together with whatever we have on hand, which sometimes is simply a fantastic jar of marinara. A good jar of fresh tasting sauce with few ingredients: pureed tomatoes, evoo, salt, onion, garlic, and basil. This is fantastic topped with parmesan. (You could cook a bit of sausage and ground beef together and add to the sauce if you want the meat).
My favorite spaghetti sauce as a child was made by my German Oma. Oma was a good lady in the ward who watched me and Jeremy while my mom went back to school after her divorce. She made a meaty brownish/red sauce, probably half stroganoff, ha ha. Very savory, not sweet. Sauces can vary so much and all of them good!
If we want a deep, simmered-two-day sauce we do this whole shabang below. You may have to play around with the herbs and meats to get a taste you like. How you use them makes a big difference.
Fresh marinara sauce above, long-simmered meat sauce below.
Karisa's Spaghetti Sauce- start early if you can and let it simmer all day, or make it early the day before and let flavors meld overnight in the fridge.
2/3 c. evoo (extra virgin olive oil) *yes it's a lot- pretend you're Italian- it makes the sauce taste better both fresh and as a leftover- (and restaurants still use more)
1 large onion, diced large
1/2 green bell pepper, diced large
1 small carrot, diced large
1 small celery stalk, diced large
4 large mushrooms, cleaned, diced large
8-24 cloves fresh garlic, peeled but not chopped (yes that much)
1/2 tsp fennel seed, or rosemary just to add some bold meaty flavors (fresh if you can find it- if you can't find it, replace the celery with some fennel bulb)
Salt and pepper to taste as you go along
2 cups beef stock or broth
In a large pot, heat oil and sauté over med-low heat the first 6 ingredients through mushrooms for about 15 minutes, adding salt and pepper for flavor. Then add the whole garlic cloves and fennel seed and cook for about 5-10 minutes stirring so that the outsides of the garlic barely browns and the insides are soft- don't burn it! At this point, pour the beef broth into the blender and add the sautéed vegetables using a slotted spoon to remove them from the oil and add them to the blender. Puree, and then return vegetables and broth to the oil in the pot.
Now that you have a flavorful base, add the remaining sauce ingredients. I don't follow this exactly- use what you feel like to build a sauce.
28 oz can tomato sauce
2 28 oz cans tomato puree
tomato paste, if needed to thicken, or water to thin
a bit of Chili powder or Cayenne pepper
pinch dill
2 Tbsp basil or handful of fresh basil
1 tsp oregano
big pinch marjoram
bay leaf
1/8 c. brown sugar (optional- I don't like added sweet)
salt and pepper to taste again
*Make meatballs separate (recipe below) and add to the sauce later, or leave out the meat completely). If you don't want to make meatballs, you can choose to brown some meat (usually beef with a little sausage) in a separate pan, drain off oil, and then add into the mixture above.
Now add in the tomato products, red pepper, and herbs. (Add brown sugar if using). Cook for several hours until the flavors are right and it is a nice sauce. Let cool for a couple hours, and refrigerate covered overnight to let flavors meld. The next day, just heat it up when you're ready to cook your pasta.
*For pasta: cook
pasta al dente with a bit of salt in the water, then reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta water, and drain the rest. Toss noodles with a pat of butter or evoo, and plate topped with ladle of
sauce, sprinkling of Parmesan cheese, and fresh basil if you have it. If plating with noodles and sauce already mixed, toss the drained pasta with the sauce and the reserved hot pasta water, and the cheese, stirring it all together vigorously to marry them all together. Makes the sauce stay on the noodles more.
Girl's Camp story: I fed this to hundreds at Girl's Camp and it was fantastic. Everyone got big meatballs with it too which I made ahead of time, then added to the sauce when it was time to warm everything up to serve. I borrowed the biggest pot I'd ever seen which we cooked over a gas set-up outdoors (no kitchen). I cooked the spaghetti noodles at home to al dente, rinsed them in cold water, drained them, tossed them with evoo, and refrigerated in big zip lock bags. Then at camp we just boiled water in several pots and put the noodles in a strainer/colander, dipped them in the boiling water to rewarm, dumped them in a foil pan, and they were perfect and ready to serve. It was great! Only needing to warm already cooked food meant less mess at camp, and no dealing with unreliable heating sources. (Plus pasta will never cook right, or in time if you have a large crowd, and someone will get burned draining it!).
German Grandma Story: I had an Oma who watched us after my mom divorced my dad so that my mom could go back to school and finish her degree. Oma would make us spaghetti with a meat sauce that more resembled Stroganoff, just with some tomato sauce or tomato puree added to it. It wasn't sweet at all, just a thin silky tomato-beef-cream sauce over egg noodles. She was good to us. She played memory with us, and other games. And she got us silk worms, which we cared for and fed mulberry leaves and watched as they made cocoons and then turned into moths. We unraveled the silk cocoons and it was magical.
Pat's Spaghetti Sauce- this is a great one too for a quicker sauce
Jimmy Dean Hot sausage and/or hamburger
onion
garlic
tomato sauce
pinch brown sugar
Italian seasoning
salt
Parmesan cheese sometimes
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
salt and pepper to taste
1 small onion, minced
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