I had a lot of tomatoes and a fair amount of carrots that I wanted to use up, and I planned on adding a bunch of kale to the mix as well, but used it in a smoothie instead. That was OK because I really loved the vibrant orange color of the sauce. Feel free to add any vegetable to this sauce that you have on hand though as it can take it. And the green flecks from kale or spinach would be pretty as well. Yellow or orange peppers would be a nice addition too.
Without minced meat, this would make a wonderful vegetarian sauce for pasta, with the addition of some nutritional yeast to add some Parmesan-like funkiness.
Since this made about 8 cups of sauce, there will be enough leftover to use as a base for soup for 2. I made a Hubbard Squash Soup Garnished with Crispy Sourdough Croutons, Parmesan and Cape Gooseberries which was basically a soup made by blitzing cooked Hubbard squash flesh with the rest of the tomato sauce base and a little chicken stock to thin it to soup consistency .
10-12 medium sized ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
3 carrots, ends removed, peeled and roughly chopped
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
5 cloves of garlic, peeled
2 Tbsps dry red wine
! Tbsp olive oil
1 bay leaf
Couple of sprigs of thyme
Salt to taste
To make the tomato base sauce:
Heat the olive oil in a deep skillet. Add the onion, garlic and some salt and stir to combine.
Add the carrots and aromatics and stir to combine.
Pour in the wine and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring from time to time, in order to burn off the alcohol.
Tip in the tomatoes, juice and seeds included, and stir to combine.
Lower the heat and add 2 cups of water and some salt. Stir to combine, cover and cook for 45 minutes, stirring from time to time.
Remove to a blender (making sure you remove the bay leaf and as much of the thyme as you can first) and blitz until smooth.
There's your sauce made.
To turn it into a Bolognese:
Add a couple of teaspoons of olive oil to the pan in which you cooked the vegetables. Heat the oil over medium heat and then add 1 pound of minced beef to the pan and 1/2 pound of minced veal. Salt well and cook until no red remains.
Ladle by ladle, a little at a time, add just enough of the tomato sauce base to the meat to create a thick meat based sauce as illustrated in the middle picture above.
Stir in 1 cup of grated Parmesan and continue to combine with the sauce until the cheese has melted. Check for seasoning.
To serve, mix 3/4 of the meat sauce with a package of linguine, cooked according to the directions on the package. Portion into 4 bowls, top with the remaining meat sauce and sprinkle on some additional Parmesan.
An easy end of the week dinner.
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