Do you ever just wonder where the time went? That has honestly been the question I have been asking myself pretty regularly for the last 4 years (or should I just say since my daughter was born!) Despite my delay of posting a blog (sorry about that, by the way), I have been cooking up a storm over here… including all of my favorite oldies, as well as trying some new things.
As you can see, we have our fill (and then some) of tomatoes over here!
Our garden is absolutely exploding with tomatoes! The last time I told you about my garden, we had a serious abundance of cucumbers… Well, i didn’t really know too many ways to eat them all! We were literally picking off about 8 cucumbers a day on average for a while there! We ended up eating a lot on salads… snacking on tortillas filled with diced cucumber/tofutti cream cheese (which is even better with a little salsa, says my 2 1/2 year old)… and we juiced the rest that we got to before they went too rubbery. I really found that apple/cucumber juice (give or take a carrot or two) is really delicious! As is watermelon/cucumber/apple juice. I meant to pickle some of our cucumbers, but I wanted to invest in a good canning set-up instead of using the quick-jar method using a pickling pack. I also had a recipe for a cold cucumber soup that I wanted to try (that also contained coconut milk, which I LOOOVE), but honestly, I’m just not really a fan of cold soup and I didn’t ever get around to making it… But alas, now it seems that our cucumber plants are dying. Next year I may just keep it at 2-3 plants. 6 plants just produced too many cucumbers for us to consume at once!
So… tomato sauce!! This is my basic pasta sauce recipe. It’s easy, its quick, it freezes beautifully and its a GREAT way to use up extra veggies and (of coarse) tomatoes. If you have fresh herbs, feel free to substitute them for the dry (if doing so, use a little more than the dry amounts). And feel free to add extra tomatoes, spices or veggies of your choice!
I find that making tomato sauce is a bit of an art… You can follow a recipe, but I find its best just to taste it occasionally and add what you think it needs more of 🙂 That being said, this is a great recipe to eat as is… but sometimes it changes slightly depending on what veggies are sitting in our fridge. Sometimes I even stir in a pack or two of faux beef crumbles if we’re in the mood for a “meaty” sauce.
Your Vegan Neighbor’s Traditional Tomato Sauce
1) Saute together everything but the tomatoes (and sugar) until the onion is tender.
2) Mix in the tomatoes and sugar. Simmer 15-30 minutes, to let the flavors blend, stirring occasionally.
Veggies:
- 1 yellow onion, chopped
- 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
- 8-10 mushrooms, sliced (optional)
- 1 green or red pepper, chopped (or use 1/2 cup of each!)
Spices:
- 2 tsp dry oregano
- 1 tsp each dry basil, thyme
- generous 1/2 tsp pepper
- pinch fresh rosemary
- 2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
- generous 1 tsp salt
- 2-3 Tbsp olive oil
Tomatoes:
- 1 28-oz can crushed tomatoes (or4 cups fresh, pureed)
- 1 15-oz. can tomato paste (or two 6 oz cans)
- 5-8 fresh tomatoes, diced (the bigger the better)
- 1 or 2 tsp sugar, as needed, to balance the acidity
okay, so this picture is a little boring, but here is my humble plate of noodles topped with tomato sauce
my husbands plate looking much fancier topped with homemade sauce, nutritional yeast and fresh basil… leaves me wondering “why didn’t I do that?!”
This is roughly the amount of sauce the recipe makes. The big one went into the freezer, and the small one served 4 plates with leftovers!
If you missed my faux meatball recipe, check it out here! I plan on experimenting with another meatball recipe soon!
Your Vegan Neighbor 