Spaghetti Sauce!

What do you do when someone gives you one of those massive, food-service-size cans of tomato sauce?

You make a PANT-LOAD of spaghetti sauce.

This is super simple and you can turn it into vegan in a snap by simply omitting the butter.  I'd just add in a bit of extra olive oil instead.  You start off by dumping said giant can into a pot on the stove over low heat and adding about 1/3 cup of butter.  You may notice, from the bits floating, that I love chunky sauce, so I also plopped in three cans of diced tomatoes and a few that were in the fridge at risk of turning.  You could chop up mushrooms and peppers to add here, if you prefer, but I prefer a bit simpler of a sauce.

I also added  4 tbsp of olive oil, 2 tbsp of balsamic vinegar, 1/2 cup of dried onion (was out of fresh - GASP -), and about 1/2 tsp each of sugar, cayenne, and thyme.

The rest of the spices I used include oregano, rosemary, basil, salt, pepper, and garlic.  I didn't give measurements because these will vary depending on how robust you want your sauce.  I added a little of each, then would put the lid on the pot and let it simmer for about 15-20 minutes.  If it needed more, I added a little more of whatever I thought it needed until it tasted right.  Some people like a more bland sauce and some (read: the Wookie and I) like a very strong, garlicky, herby sauce.

Next step: freezing.  This trick, it turns out, doesn't work so well at all.  Even when I wrapped the bag around the cup it kept slipping and sauce almost went everywhere, so after the second attempt at this, I just held it open my damn self.  :)

I portioned this in 2 cups per bag for freezing.  The best method for this (IMO), is to fill the bag, then set it on a flat surface with all the sauce resting at the bottom.

Then, SLOWLY, ever so slowly, lay the bag while still holding the zippy part up.  This will allow the sauce to lay flat and force out most or all of the air.  Once you see the sauce start to rise towards the zipper, as you can see in the photo, then zip it closed!

This allows for them to lay flat, pretty and stacked in the freezer, but with little to no pesky air bubbles.  Much more of a space-saver than those annoying plastic bowls that always just get ice chips in them anyway.

When you're ready for pasta (or pizza, or dipping sauce), just take a bag out and run it under room-temperature water for a few minutes and it thaws right out, ready to be re-heated.

How does it taste?

FABULOUS.  I will never, ever, ever buy pasta sauce again.  Ever.  From now on, I'll just go get a massive can and make stacks like this.  It was cheaper, very easy, lasts a long time, and tastes light years beyond store-bought sauce.  We even gave a few bags away to some friends and got hella compliments.  Go me.

<3

WW

Vegetable Stock

This is such an easy staple you can make and keep on hand and later on I'll be posting dark chicken stock as well.  Stocks are good to have around because they can add a depth and richness to otherwise bland foods.  Making stocks on your own is good because you can control the amount of salt that goes into them as well as controlling what/if any spices and herbs go in.  Basically, if you DIY this you can control the entire flavor and I like that.  This one is a vegetable stock, so its vegan and vegetarian-friendly (duh).

This is one of the easier things to keep on hand.  When I chop vegetables for another recipe, instead of throwing away any good parts or hearts I cut out, I just rinse them and stick them into a container in the freezer.  Once I have a few containers, I toss it all into a stock pot and boil it up.  Due to that, this stock was made with green and white vegetables because that's what I'd been cooking with mostly for the last week or two, but almost anything can go into this.  Sometimes you'll have green stock and sometimes you'll have tomato-based or carrot-y stock.  Just adds to the fun, really.  :)

I used roughly:

2/3 head of cabbage
4 stalks celery (mainly ends/parts I'd trimmed off, just not the leafy tips)
1 cauliflower heart (the inside chunky part I didn't use for the actual recipe I'd made with it)
3 green onions (what was left of the green parts and the white, too, I just peeled off the outside layer, washed them, and cut off the roots)
1/2 an onion's worth of chopped onion (frozen leftovers)
3 bay leaves
1/4 cup parsley
1 tbsp thyme
1 tbsp pepper
4 cloves garlic
salt to taste

I used two stock pots for this, but only photographed one.

Toss it all in the pot and then put just enough water to cover it all up.

Bring it to a boil and let it go for about one hour.  Covered or not, your choice.  Just add more water if it gets low if you leave it uncovered.

After about an hour, everything should be wilted and kind of questionable-looking.

At that point, you can strain it into another pot to get all the vegetables out of it.  If you have a cheesecloth or fine strainer to get all the herbs and such out, then that's good, too.  I don't.  Its no biggie to freeze it with the herbs in it.

Freeze it up in some ice cube trays, and there you have it!  Just pop however many cubes you need straight into your recipes or thaw before hand.  Cooking pasta, rice, or couscous in this stuff makes a world of difference.

Easy!

<3
The Wookie Wifey