Farmer's Market Spaghetti

So... I finally got around to using those homegrown tomatoes the other day that Greg acquired from the farmer's market.  I wanted to make one last spaghetti sauce with fresh tomatoes before the summer bounty is over!

I made this up as I went along, but I wrote everything down, because it was SO delicious.  I froze the batches I made, and we thawed one and had it over whole wheat spaghetti tonight with a salad.  I was too excited to take pictures of our delicious feast! 

I cooked my spaghetti sauce in the crockpot all day, but this would be even better if you could simmer it on the stove for an afternoon to reduce the water a little.

Warning: this simply will not work with store bought tomatoes.  They have no flavor.  If you want to make spaghetti sauce with canned tomatoes see this post.

Spaghetti Sauce:

Ingredients
20ish  medium homegrown tomatoes
small amount of olive oil
1 small-medium yellow onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
8 oz mushrooms, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp dried basil 1/4 cup red wine

• Get some water boiling on the stove.
• Prepare your tomatoes:
• Mark an X with a knife through the skin on the bottom of each tomato
• In batches of about four, blanch the tomatoes for a couple of minutes in the boiling water
• Once cool enough to handle, peel the tomatoes with your fingers. If the skin does not come off easily, you did not blanch them long enough
• Dice tomatoes, and remove excess liquid and seeds (don't worry about doing this perfectly, I just let the extra run off of my cutting board into the sink..  a few seeds won't be a big deal)
• Meanwhile you could start the onions, red pepper, mushrooms, and garlic:
• Saute onions over medium with a small amount of olive oil until they start to sweat a little.
• Add the red pepper and mushrooms and saute until softened (about 7 minutes), not browned
• Add the garlic and saute for 1 minute more. Remove from heat.
• At this point you can add all of the ingredients to the crockpot and cook it on low for 5-7 hours. If you are cooking it on the stove: combine all ingredients, and bring to a light boil, then turn the heat down and let it simmer.  You could simmer this for a little as 30 minutes, but a couple of hours on very low would be perfect. 20 minutes before you are done cooking, add 1/4 cup of red wine.
• Transfer about half of the mixture to a blender and blend until the big chunks are gone. Return to pot.
• Serve over spaghetti, spaghetti squash, or any other favorite!

Too much goodness! Spaghetti Squash with Spaghetti sauce!

Here's the short story.  I have been wanting to start a food/life blog for awhile now but never seem to have the time.  Now that school is getting underway again I am sure I will have even less time, but the problem is I have made SO much fun food this week that I felt I should share some ideas.  I don't have the pictures I would like for these, but it's a start and I will update and revise later. 

First of all, if you have never had Spaghetti Squash you MUST try it ASAP.  It's healthy for you and so easy to prepare.  A couple of nights ago, I made it with homemade spaghetti sauce.  I like to make spaghetti sauce from fresh tomatoes, but no salt added canned tomatoes work well too.

You can google many ways to cook a Spaghetti Squash and pictures to see the magic of it, but I don't have any this week. So the short answer is: Cut in half, rub with olive oil, roast with cut sides down for 30-40 minutes at 350 degrees.   After it cools for awhile, use a fork and run it across the flesh. A magical thing happens and suddenly you have hundreds of spaghetti like strands to set aside and use for your pasta.

Here's my basic, quick, spaghetti sauce.  You can cook this in the slow cooker for a few hours for a more complex flavor, but 25-30 minutes will do on a simmer.

2 tsp TB olive oil
1/2 small onion diced
2 cloves minced garlic
2  14oz cans organic-no salt added diced tomatoes
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 red wine

Saute onion in olive oil over medium heat until translucent.  Add garlic and saute a minute more.  Add remaining ingredients. Use a potato masher to mash up some of the tomatoes.  Bring to a gentle boil, then turn down to a simmer and simmer for about 30 minutes (or however much time you have).  About 5 minutes before you are done simmering, add the red wine.  It should have a little time for the alcohol flavor to cook out.

That is how easy a basic spaghetti sauce is.  It gets a little more complicated if you use fresh tomatoes, but not much.  Also, you can add whatever you like. Suggestions: saute some green pepper and mushrooms with the onions.