Fresh Tomato Spaghetti Sauce

I finally made a couple things worth sharing.  I'll start with this one since you may also be looking for a way to use your abundant tomatoes. We had a bowlful, so I broke one of my own cooking rules and made spaghetti sauce from scratch. It wasn't too bad to make and the sauce turned out pretty well. Lauren had thirds.

Since I had tomatoes and basil in the garden, I doled out the 99 cents for fresh parsley (by the way, what else do I make with fresh parsley?).  The recipe is from food.com, but I don't feel like looking for the link. I found it by doing a Bing search for spaghetti sauce with fresh tomatoes.


Fresh Tomato Spaghetti Sauce

4 lbs fresh tomatoes, peeled and chopped
2 medium onions, chopped (I'd peel them too)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
4 sprigs parsley
1 tablespoon sugar
grated parmesan cheese

Heat olive oil in a large iron skillet or heavy saucepan. Add onion, basil, garlic, and salt; saute until onion is tender, 5-7  minutes. Add tomatoes, parsley, and sugar; heat to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, uncovered for about 2 hours, stirring often, or until sauce has thickened. Remove parsley. (Edited to add: at this point, I used an immersion blender to mostly puree the sauce so it was smoother and more like jarred spaghetti sauce.) Serve over spaghetti or other Italian pasta and top with Parmesan cheese.

I read another recipe that said to add half a carrot to reduce the acidity of the tomatoes and add some sweetness, so I did that, and I thought the sauce was almost too sweet. If you do that, I would reduce the sugar a bit.

Veggie Pasta Stir Fry

My mom was kind enough to give me some zucchini and tomatoes last weekend, which means we get to have one of our new favorite recipes tonight. I found this in an old family cookbook. (thanks, Janette Anderson, whoever you are...) It is really, really good, and very economical, especially if you can grow your own veggies.

8 oz. pasta, cooked
2 T. butter or oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 small zucchini, sliced
1/2 c. fresh mushrooms, sliced
1/4 c. chopped onion
1 large or two smaller tomatoes, diced
2 t. Italian seasoning
Olive oil
Grated Parmesan cheese

In a wok or skillet, melt butter or heat oil, add onion and garlic and cooked until tender. Add zucchini and mushrooms and cook until crisp-tender. Drain pasta and add with tomatoes, stirring until just heated through. Add Italian seasoning, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with freshly grated parmesan just before serving. Makes 4 servings (depending on who's eating it...)

Note: I have used canned mushrooms and they also work, although they are not as good. I also used Romano cheese because we had it lying around and it was very good! You will probably want to add salt.


What's your favorite way to use zucchini?