Pasta Sauce

Good Morning!

Here is a pasta sauce that I use based off of a recipe I found online called “'Baby’s Got Sauce' Italian Sauce". I tweaked it a bit. I hope you like it!

1 Batch--------------------------------------------2 batches-------------------------------4 Batches

Olive Oil----------------------------------------same----------------------------------same

1 large onion-----------------------------------2 onions------------------------------4 onions

7-8 cloves garlic, crushed---------------------14-16 cloves--------------------------28-32 cloves

Italian Sausage-6-8 links or 1 lb ground—12-16 links or 2 lbs-------------------24-32 links or 4 lbs

1 can Tomato paste----------------------------2 cans tomato paste-----------------4 cans tomato paste

2-28 oz cans whole peeled tomatoes--------4-28 oz cans--------------------------8-28 oz cans

1-28 oz can Crushed or diced Tomatoes----2 cans ---------------------------------4 cans

2-4 3.5 oz jars of baby food carrots-----------4-8 jars------------------------------8-16 jars

Fresh Basil diced fine--------------------------same---------------------------------same

Fresh Oregano diced fine----------------------same---------------------------------same

Fresh Thyme diced fine------------------------same---------------------------------same

5 Bay Leaves ------------------------------------10 bay leaves-----------------------20 bay leaves

Port or sweet red wine (optional but REALLY adds to the flavor)

Salt

Pepper

Crushed Red Pepper (about a tablespoon)

A large, deep pot

Optional:

Capers

Olives

Red Bell Pepper

Zuccini

Put 3 Tablespoons of olive oil in pot to brown sausage. Remove from pot and set aside. Add enough olive oil to cover bottom of pot 1/8-1/4 inch and bring back to hot temperature. Saute onions in pot until they become translucent. Lightly salt and pepper onions.

Add crushed garlic, can of tomato paste. Cook on medium high for a few minutes to mellow flavor of tomato paste. Watch carefully to prevent burning, especially of garlic.

Add whole peeled tomatoes.* Add diced/crushed tomatoes**.

Add herbs***

Add sausage back in.

Add baby food carrots. Carrots give the sauce a wonderful light bit of sweetness. You can mince whole carrots, but I found that baby food carrots are exceptional in the recipe, and much easier to use.

Continue to taste every twenty minutes to gauge flavor of sauce to see if salt or pepper is necessary. If you like spicy sauce, add crushed red peppers.

Optional: Port or sweet red wine (merlot, etc). Port gives and incredible depth and compliment of flavor to the meat and tomatoes. In fact, we often put a splash of port in everything from soup to chili. It truly just ties all the flavors together in such a perfect way, giving a depth and richness. A few Tablespoons should do, but you can taste and see if more is needed.

*These need to be crushed either in the pot or in the can. I find it much easier to crush/chop them in the can. OR you can use already diced tomatoes in the larger cans.

**I like to use fire roasted tomatoes or other flavored tomatoes.

***I often use dried herbs. I would start with 1 Tbls and see how strong they taste. You can also get tubes of herbs in the fresh produce section, which are very convenient.

The longer this cooks, the better it tastes. I generally make this first for my freezer meal days and let it simmer all day long until I assemble lasagne at the end of the day :) It also freezes well by itself for spaghetti sauce.

Cooking Day!!!

My Sweet Bees! How are you this wonderful day?!? GREAT I hope :)

This is my first freezer cook day since starting the blog!!! SuperBee is taking home ec this year and so he and I did the cooking :).

As per my usual, my ambition and my ability did NOT match up :). So whilst I envisioned making a good 5 dishes, we settled for three: make ahead been burritos, sauce (and then lasagne), and broccoli cheese rice casserole. I prebaked italian sausage and pork sausage in the oven. The lasagne recipe was slightly abbreviated in that we did not do two FULL ricotta layers, but only one ricotta layer. There were enough layers that I thought it would be ok if we SSTTREEETTCCHHHEDDDD it out to make another couple of lasagnes :) I think it will be better that way. I also ended up with no tomato paste, but i think it was ok....I just kept the sauce on the stove for several hours for the tomato flavor to develop. I figure that the old italians did not have tiny little tins of tomato paste and still managed to make good food :)

Let me tell you that the Burritos 1)were a hit and 2)make a TON of 8" burritos, especially if you are new to rolling burritos :). The final count was ....37, I think. That was for ONE batch of the burrito mix!!! (I was going to "start small" in case PeekieBee did not like them....well she has a lot to plow through now :) )

I had gone shopping yesterday and did NOT make an actual list of the amounts of necessities, just sort of what I needed. So I ended up with too much mexican cheese and not enough mozz cheese. BUT we are nothing if not resourceful, so some of my Italian lasagnes turned into sort of a mexican lasagne :)

I also realized I had to clean the freezer out from the watermelon that I had frozen a good...oh....5-7 years ago? A quick run to the transfer site, and I had room to put in several broc cheese and rice casseroles and several lasagnes, all in 8x8 pans and all in gallon baggies and labeled. We used down time to both eat cookies and run the dishwasher, so there is not a huge mess. (for which PeekieBee is thankful :) ).

Tomorrow I hope to do muffin tin meals :) Though the week IS filling up, so it might be next week. I am DYING to try the mini cherry pies :)

Blessings and love to all y'all!

Lasagne

Good Morning my beautiful bees! I have a new recipe for you! This is an oldie but a goodie that I make.

Now, I am going to give you this recipe which calls for jarred sauces, etc. BUT I am also going to talk about how I freeze beef and make sauce. You just do WHATEVER is more likely to get the meals into the freezer! If you have a jarred sauce you like, USE IT! Don't worry about making a sauce from scratch :).

I like to make this on the same day I cook off a lot of sausage and or ground beef. I take the defrosted sausage/beef (it comes with the pork and beef I order from a local farm) and put it in a pyrex baking dish, cover it tightly with tin foil, and bake it at 350 until it is done. I use some of that in my lasagne recipe, and the rest I put in the freezer (to freeze, it is best to spread it on a thin layer on a pan and freeze, then put in baggies. However, I often just put straight into baggies but in thin enough layer for me to break off what I need. I am laz...ahem....expedient that way :) ).

On the day I do this, I generally make pasta sauce as well that is REALLY good. It has a secret ingredient that completely takes the flavor to another level. Well actually TWO secret ingredients. :D

So since I already have the sausage made, and already have the sauce made, it is nothing at all to assemble the lasagnes. I do not cook the noodles first. I just use the regular lasagne noodles dry. I do not bake the lasagnes then, just assemble and put in the freezer. When I reheat, I do so in the microwave and the cheese on top still browns. GREAT GREAT freezer meal!

Lasagne

1 Batch 2 batches 4 batches

12 lasagne noodles----------------------------24 lasagne noodles--------------------- 48 noodles (two boxes)

15 oz ricotta cheese----------------------------30 oz ricotta cheese--------------------60 oz ricotta cheese

1 box frozen chopped spinach----------------2 boxes spinach------------------------4 boxes spinach

2 beaten eggs----------------------------------4 beaten eggs---------------------------8 beaten eggs

1 ½ tsp garlic powder-------------------------3 tsp garlic powder--------------------6 tsp garlic powder

1 jar marinara sauce --------------------------2 jars marinara sauce-----------------4 jars marinara sauce

3 cups shredded mozz ------------------------6 cups shredded mozz---------------12 cups shredded mozz

Salt and pepper to taste------------------------same -----------------------------------same

Optional:

1 lb Italian sausage or beef (cooked) -------2 lbs Italian sausage or beef--------4 lbs Italian sausage or beef

1 jar alfredo sauce---------------------------- 2 jars alfredo sauce -----------------4 jars alfredo sauce

½ cup parm cheese --------------------------1 cup parm cheese ------------------2 cups parm cheese

Thaw and well drain spinach. In a bowl, combine ricotta, spinach, eggs, garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste. Spread ½ cup of marinara sauce in a disposable 13x9 dish*. Layer with 3 lasagne pieces**, ½ cup sauce, half of the ricotta, ½ cup mozzarella. Repeat layers once. Top with remaining noodles, sauce, then cheese****. Wrap and place in freezer. On baking day, preheat oven to 375 and bake until inner middle is thoroughly cooked. These can also be microwaved and turn out just as good.

*Note: I make these in 8x8 disposable pans, so each batch actually makes almost two batches.

**Note: It is not necessary to cook the noodles first as long as you are sure that the sauce layers cover the noodles. The noodles will soften and cook as they absorb liquid from the sauce.

***Note: you can mix the sausage into the sauce, or use it as its own layer after the first layer of noodles and sauce. Then add the sausage, then the cheese over it.

****Note: if you are going to add the alfredo sauce, place on top of sauce on top of last noodles. Same with the parmesan. END WITH MOZZARELLA CHEESE!

*****Note: you can also use mexican cheese, or mixes of cheese if you want slightly different flavors.