I also make some into a really basic tomato sauce. I quarter tomatoes and cook them down with a little salt and a splash of olive oil. After they simmer for a while, I insert the stick blender and puree the whole thing. After pouring into jars, I freeze it. Usually by the end of summer, the freezer is full of tomatoes and sauce. I use a mix of these in soups all fall and winter long. Most of it ends up in chili, but I never run out of uses.
Somehow I have only made three or four batches of chili this football season. I guess we have been busy and I have had a lot of other things I wanted to try. So, the freezer is still pretty full. This worked out great for today. I opened the pantry, dug out some tomatoes and went to work to make a sauce fitting of Marlene's Meatballs. Here is what I came up with:
Sunday Gravy
Ingredients:
3-4 strips of bacon, chopped
1 T olive oil
1 yellow onion diced
1 stalk celery
1-2 carrots
pinch of red pepper flakes
3-4 cloves of garlic or 1/2 T garlic powder
1 cup beef stock
1 Qt tomato sauce
1 Qt chopped tomatoes (could substitute canned tomatoes for sauce and chopped tomatoes)
1 T balsalmic vinegar
3 bay leaves
2 T dried basil leaves
2-3 sprigs fresh oregano
1 cup dry red wine
1 tsp salt
- In a dutch oven, saute the olive oil, bits of bacon, onion and celery until veggies are soft and bacon is cooked.
- Add red pepper flakes and garlic, saute until fragrant.
- Pour in red wine and scrape up any bits that might be on the bottom of the pan
- Mix in remaining ingredients
- The sauce will be very loose and almost look like a vegetable soup. Don't panic! Bring to a boil and then lower to a simmer. Simmer on low for a couple of hours, then cover.
- After at least four hours, remove bay leaves and use an immersion blender to bring sauce to your desired consistency.
- Add meat, cover and simmer for as long as you can stand it. The longer the better.
It was worth the wait! The sauce was started around 9:30 this morning and we ate at 5:00. I would make it again. It was a great way to use some of the tomatoes from the freezer and made the house smell wonderful.
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