Pasta Sauce!

One of our weekly go to meals is pasta night. Which is then followed by pizza night, using leftover pasta sauce.

When we were first married, I tried to make pasta sauce “from scratch”. It was terrible. So I called my mom and got her recipe. I still couldn’t get to taste right. I gave up, and resorted to purchasing overpriced cans of flavored tomato product  pasta sauce.

Although, I do not use this recipe, I keep it. It is just a little reminder of my mom.
Although, I do not use this recipe, I keep it. It is just a little reminder of my mom.

One day a came across a recipe that said it was guaranteed to produce the perfect sauce every time. I tried it, it was so crazy simple, and we liked it! Of course after trying I had to tweek it, and make it our own. Now, I think it is way better, and still crazy easy.

We love the sauce: plain, with meat balls, with homemade pork Italian sausage, on pizza, to dip for Pao Bread, over pasta, over zoodles, over carrot noodles, you get the point, it is the best all-purpose pasta sauce.

pasta-1

This sauce makes a big batch, about enough for the month, like I said we have it weekly. I like to do it in the crock pot, and my small one (4 quart) is the perfect size for it. The sauce freezes perfectly, and will last “indefinitely” according to the USDA. Be ware that the longer you store it the quality will go down.  ALWAYS, always follow good food safety guidelines. The USDA has a great resource here.

There are two ways you can make this, on the stove (quicker, but it will need more attention) or in a crock-pot (dump and go, it’s a no brainer). If we don’t count individual cans, this recipe has a 10 ingredients. Gather them up and a can opener, cause it is Pasta Night!

pasta-two

You will need two onions, extra virgin olive oil, garlic, salt, cracked black pepper, 4-14 oz cans of diced tomatoes (or two 28 oz cans), one 28 oz can crushed tomatoes or tomato puree (not sauce), 12 oz tomato paste, Italian seasoning, and fresh basil (or dry).

ingredients-pasta-sauce

Turn your crock pot onto low, and add a good layer of EVOO to the bottom (about 1/4 cup). Slice up your onions, now they don’t need to be sliced pretty or even, and throw that in. Add the garlic, about 2 tablespoons, maybe 3 whole cloves. I stopped buying whole garlic, cause I can’t stand the smell on my hands for the whole day, so I get the jar of minced garlic. Add the rest of the spices, a generous mounded tablespoon of sea salt, a mounded teaspoon of cracked pepper (not ground black pepper), 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning, and 12 fresh leaves of basil, or about 1 teaspoon dry basil. Give it all a stir and add the cans of diced tomatoes, tomato puree and tomato paste.

spices-and-onions

Let this cook for about 6 hours, stirring occasionally if you are home. I like to crack the lid of the crock-pot about halfway through so some of the liquid will evaporate off.

crack-the-lid

This will give you a chunky sauce or you can puree it all up with a stick blender or in a blender. Be careful, the sauce will be HOT! We tend to like it thick, so I puree it and the simmer it a little longer on high with the lid cracked.

Freeze extra in quart size zipper bags. Lay them flat in the freezer and they will defrost quickly! I put about 2.5 cups of sauce in a bag to freeze and get about 4 bags of sauce.

Simple Pasta Sauce
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
This is a simple, no fuss pasta sauce that is sure to become your go to for pasta night.
Ashley Teare:
Recipe type: Sauce
Cuisine: Italian
Serves: 10 cups
Ingredients
  • 2 small onions, sliced
  • ¼ c extra virgin olive oil
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced or whole
  • 1 heaping Tablespoon salt
  • 1 heaping teaspoon cracked black pepper
  • 2 tsp Italian seasoning
  • 12 leaves fresh basil (or dry about 1 tsp)
  • 4-14 oz cans of diced tomatoes (or two 28 oz cans)
  • 1-28 oz can crushed tomatoes or tomato puree (not sauce)
  • 12 oz tomato paste
Directions
  1. Turn your crock pot onto low, and add a good layer of EVOO to the bottom (about ¼ cup).
  2. Add in the onions, garlic, and spices.
  3. Stir and add the remain cans of tomatoes and tomato paste.
  4. Cook for about 6 hours, stirring occasionally.
  5. If you like a chunky sauce serve as is.
  6. For a uniform texture, you can puree it all up with a stick blender or in a blender. Be careful, the sauce will be HOT!
Notes
For stove top:

Add the EVOO and heat until shimmery, add the onions and cook until translucent.
Add the garlic and spices and stir until fragrant, add in the tomatoes and tomato paste. *add in the fresh basil after the tomatoes*
Simmer on low for about an hour.

 

 

 

3-Month Food Storage

One thing that Mormon’s are known for is how they hoard food. I have been working on a little, yet huge project as part of an assignment for school. (Did I forget to tell you about how I went back to school, I will have to tell you all about the later.) For my project I am working on setting up a 3-month food supply of food my family will actually eat. 3-month food supply of food that fits our budget. 3-month food supply that fits our dietary needs.

For my family, I need our food storage to be gluten-free, mostly dairy-free (we can eat a bit of dairy but too much causes issues), and bean-free, no legumes here. One exception is that I can handle fermented yeast bread. So we will have some wheat flour in our storage for that. I will have to tell you more about fermented bread and how it is “gluten-free”.

With the help of Preparedldsfamily.blogspot.com, I was able to create a list of food items for us. Here is a link to PLDS Family’s plethora of knowledge. Seriously, there is no way I could even touch on all the information that site contains.

As a family of 3, having a 3 month supply hasn’t ever been this thing that I have felt I needed to get done ASAP. I also, would not consider myself a “Prepper” by any means. We have 72-hour kits, ready to go, will BASIC BASIC supplies. Ideally, I would like have a lot more for them, but funds are tight and so is space.

Monday, I was driving to do our Monday stuff, and I got to catch The Diane Rehm Show, one of my favorite shows on NPR. The part of the show that I caught was the interview with Ted Koppel. He recently wrote the book, Lights out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared Surviving The Aftermath. This interview really hit home the importance of getting our 3-month supply and getting it fast.

This is the part that really got me:

KOPPEL: …the government doesn’t have enough food to supply tens of millions of people for a period of a month or two.Even if they were to invest, let’s say, $100 billion in buying freeze-dried foods, which keeps for 25 to 30 years, it would take years before that much food could be grown, harvested, processed and accumulated. We need to start beginning. We need to start doing something. We need to talk to people about what would happen if one region of the country were blacked out and how we would accommodate those people if they needed to move to another region of the country.
REHM: What…
KOPPEL: Without plans we can’t do it.
REHM: What about investing greater resources into our own cybersecurity?
KOPPEL: I think those of us — I’m not sure that we can individually protect ourselves in the context of cybersecurity. Can we protect ourselves in terms of having adequate food and water available? Look, I’m aware of the fact there are millions of people in this country who can’t put food on the table every day. But those of us who can afford to have a supply, if we did and if we began rotating that supply — so it’s not a question of sitting on a three-months supply and never using it, rotating, eating it, consuming it and then replacing it, then at least if the government steps up to help those who can’t afford it, it would be a lot easier and there would be fewer people to take care of.

(continue to read or listen the interview here) I know it isn’t a shock the the government won’t be able to support us. But, having 3-month supply isn’t just for me and my family, it is for all of those around me.

One of my goals for my 3-month food supply, is to create rotating food storage, and a one that is affordable. Our goals is to create a weekly shopping list keeping the items to under $15 a week.

It is taking a lot of work, and it is frustrating. There are things that we go through SUPER fast, and things that take a while. So finding the balance of when to buy something so that we always have it, has be hard and I think I have finally done it. PHEW!

We are lucky that in the place we are staying, has this really nice setup in the basement perfect for storing 75 pounds x 3 people…