Cheater's salsa/spaghetti sauce - frozen instead of canned
This will also be published in Becky Holm's Douglas County News.
Canning too much work? Try freezing instead!
By Larisa Sparrowhawk
Every August I am suddenly overwhelmed with tomatoes. I used to make cases of both spaghetti sauce and salsa, but lately that just seems like too much work. Instead, I make a couple of batches of a dual purpose sauce to freeze. It can be used on noodles, chips or tortillas, mixed into rice for Spanish rice or poured onto roast before cooking. Because it contains lentils, it has protein and you can eat it as it is or add leftover meat from another meal to it. I’ll give approximate directions that you can adjust according to how bountiful your harvest is.
7 parts tomatoes, cut
1 part tomatillos, cut
1 part chopped onions
1 part chopped fresh basil
1 part chopped bell or hot peppers if desired
1 part lentils
A garlic clove or two, a splash of water, a pinch of salt, a little cayenne pepper, a teaspoon or so of celery seed and some chopped dried tomatoes or mushrooms if desired for a richer sauce.
If you add a little cooked chopped sausage to the sauce, you can extend the flavor of sausage (making it seem like there is more of it!) by adding whatever spice the sausage tastes like—usually sage or anise seed.
I don’t even bother cutting the tomatoes small. I blend them with half of the onions because it is faster and that way I don’t have to add a lot of water for the lentils to cook in. Also blending the tomatoes means you don’t have to de-skin them first. Let the mix simmer for a couple hours at least. At this point I often skim off the thinner part and eat it as soup and then cool and freeze the rest.
Enjoy!
By the way, for more inexpensive and wholesome foods to make at home, visit Wardeh Harmon's GNOWFGLINS Tuesday Twister! http://gnowfglins.com/2009/08/24/tuesday-twister-blog-carnival-2009-08-25/
Labels: onions, salsa, spaghetti sauce, tomatoes
posted by Larisa at
9:43 AM
3 Comments:
This is really great, Larisa! I love that you added lentils. Thanks for sharing it in the Twister! ~Wardeh
Thanks! The lentils help absorb the tomato juice and also increase the stick-to-your-ribs usefulness of the sauce - i.e., it could be eaten as soup or rolled up in one of your soaked tortillas for an entree. I used to make cheater enchiladas when I was in a huge hurry with a mix a lot like this. I didn't even bother rolling it up - I just put tortillas down in the pan, put glop on top, sprinkled a little cheese on, put another layer of tortillas and glop down, finished with a little more cheese and baked it about an hour. Nobody cared that I didn't make it "right."
And the large amount of basil is important. It gives it a lovely kick and aroma without making it too hot. I usually add a little more dried basil, too!
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