Best Spaghetti Sauce Ever

Now that fall is approaching and the mornings and evenings are cooler it's time for hearty home cooked meals. One that I made over the weekend was a huge batch of spaghetti sauce that I can freeze and heat up for quick dinners later. I have tried many different recipes but this one is so far my favorite! It combines different meats, veggies and best of all wine!

Meat Sauce (adapted eat.live.run) 

1.5 lbs ground grass fed beef 

.5 lbs Italian chicken sausage

.5lbs of pork sausage

20 oz sliced mushrooms

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1 yellow onion, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1.5 tbsp olive oil

1 28-oz can tomato puree

1 12-oz can tomato paste

24 oz tomato sauce

BIG splash red wine (anywhere from 1/2 cup to 2 cups)

6 oz freshly grated Romano cheese

1 tbsp dried oregano

1 tbsp dried basil

1 bay leaf

1-2 tbsp sugar

garlic salt + pepper as needed

spaghetti noodles + additional grated cheese for serving

Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Once hot, add the onion, bell peppers and sliced mushrooms. Saute for about six – eight minutes, until mushrooms are soft. Add ground beef and sausage meat. Cook until meat browns, stirring frequently with a large rubber spatula.

Add tomato puree, tomato sauce and tomato paste to the pot. Stir well. Then, add the bay leaf, wine, spices, sugar and cheese. Stir well and bring sauce to a simmer.

Simmer sauce for an hour and a half over low heat, stirring occasionally. Taste it as you cook, adding more wine, spices or garlic salt to suite your taste buds. The longer the sauce cooks, the better it will taste!

Frozen dinner

This week is a busy week Monday, Tues and Thursday this week I have a chiropractor appt after work then crossfit from 6:30-7:30. Then Wednesday John and I have an appt to meet with a wedding photographer. Friday we leave to visit John's friend in NYC. So dinner this week are going to be fast and not exciting.

Tonight after crossfit I headed to the Whole Foods since we were away this weekend, by the time I got home it was already 8pm and cooking something for dinner was not an option in my book. Thus I turned to the freezer and pulled out this.

They were actually pretty tasty as far as frozen meal are concerned. I bought this during one of my Trader Joe trips, I think they have the best prepared meals.

I'm off to bed so I can get up and do it all again.

P.S. I am already sore so tomorrow is going to be painful!!

Pasta with zucchini and tomatoes

This week for food shopping I decided to hit up Wilson's market instead of the grocery store. Wilson's is basically a huge farmers market about a 15min drive from our apt. I love this place the produce it always fantastic! The only down side is I always have to visit a regular grocery store afterwards because they don't carry staples there so it's always a 2 stop trip.

This week I went a little further and spoiled myself with bread from Great Harvest, I bought a Dakota Seeded Wheat and a Cinnamon raisin for breakfast. There bread is homemade will all natural ingredients and is amazing, it is a little on the pricy side  (about $5 a loaf) but is totally worth it in my book. Plus they have one of those cards if you buy so many loafs you get one free. I fall into these traps a lot I love free things especially on products I  would buy anyway so a free item once in a while is an added bonus.

Anyways back to dinner I bought some zucchini and mixed tomatoes at the market to use for this meal.

The zucchini I cut into thin ribbons and marinated them in the following:

• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme leaves
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

 The tomatoes I left as is, then cooked the noodles reserving 1 cup of the cooking water.

Once the noodles were finished I rinsed (sin I know but letting them cool they get sticky, and I hate that) But for the record I only rinse my noodles when I am not using them right away, in case you needed to know. :)

Then in a pan I heated some evoo and added garlic and crushed red peppers and the zucchini. Once the zucchini was cooked I added in the tomaotes to warm them up then the pasta.

Add the reserved cooking water as needed.
One the side I did make garlic bread but accidentally burnt it when I forgot it was in the oven until I started smelling burnt garlic. So instead we just had plain Dakota Seeded Wheat butter bread.

Breakfast sausage and pasta

Yup your reading that right, I was trying to throw together a quick dinner so I could work on getting things ready for my trip and Memorial day. I thought I had some leftover sausage in the freezer that I planned on throwing in with the pasta sauce but turns out the only thing I had on hand was breakfast sausage.

source

So I add them instead, what the heck sausage is sausage right?

It didn't turn out that bad, you couldn't really tell that it was breakfast sausage because I had used roasted red pepper sauce and the flavors in that trumped the sausage flavors. :)