Today was such a gorgeous day outside with it being 75 degrees. It definitely put me in a good mood for the rest of the day, but I was getting secondhand stress from the people around me. One of my roommates was having almost the worst day possible at work, and there was nothing I could do except to offer my support via text until she got home and I could talk to her there. Additionally, I learned that my sister’s boyfriend’s parents were getting a divorce after 25 years of marriage. They have been dating for a while, so it was hard for me to hear it since I was friends with him at this point. Even more, I learned that I was going to be interviewed on Thursday for my first actual nursing job for when I graduate college. Even though she essentially told me the job is mine and the interview is just a formality, I am still nervous. I felt like we all needed a little bit of a distraction, so I decided to try my hand at some homemade meat sauce.
Stress level: 4/10
Yield: 6-8 servings depending on your sauce level
Time: varies, 2.5 hours for me
Ingredients:
Directions:
Stress level: 4/10
Yield: 6-8 servings depending on your sauce level
Time: varies, 2.5 hours for me
Ingredients:
- 1 lb ground beef
- ¾ white onion
- 3 garlic cloves
- ¼ medium green bell pepper
- 1 medium carrot
- 2 28 oz cans crushed tomatoes with basil (without preservatives, limit the salt too)
- 1 14 oz can tomato sauce (without preservatives and salt)
- 2 tsp dried basil
- 1 tbs dried oregano
- 1 tbs dried parsley
- 1-2 tsp black pepper (to taste)
- 1-2 tsp salt (to taste)
- 1 tsp brown sugar
Directions:
- Finely chop the onion and bell pepper, set aside. Grate the carrot into a small bowl, set aside. Peel and coarsely chop the garlic cloves, set with onion and pepper.
- Brown the ground beef in large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Drain most of the fat, then sauté the onion, pepper, and garlic in the pan until the onion becomes translucent. Season with a small amount of the salt and pepper. Transfer mixture into large pot.
- Place pot onto medium heat; add the crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, and the spices. Stir well.
This was actually a super easy and flavorful meat sauce. The trick is to really let it simmer for as long as you possibly can to extract the most flavor out of the spices and tomatoes. I used canned tomatoes and dried spices to cut down on the time for this recipe. I would have had to peel, deseed, and dice 12-15 tomatoes to yield the same amount of product. The spices are also easier to just dump in rather than worrying about when to put in some of the spices rather than others (fresh basil’s flavor cooks off too quickly if you cook it too much).
It was a low key recipe, yet it still required a bit of effort. I consulted my culinary advisor on this recipe and she recommended I use the highest quality canned tomatoes I could find, which was a great suggestion because I would have otherwise just used canned cheap Kroger tomatoes. She also told me that I should grate the carrot rather than chopping it to let the texture of the carrot sort of melt into the recipe. This worked very well because it sweetened the sauce and reduced part of the acidity, but I could not actually taste the carrot in it. Her last recommendation was to go easy on the bell pepper. It has a good flavor to add to the sauce, but it can apparently overwhelm it very easily. Prior to her recommendation, I was considering ½ to a whole bell pepper in it, so I’m glad I consulted with her first.
I got to work a little bit more on my onion chopping skills, peeling carrots and garlic, grating the carrot, and sauteing all of those vegetables with the meat to blend the flavor. Even though this recipe took a while to make, it was easy to leave it to cook for several minutes while I did some schoolwork. Then, whenever I finished a quiz or a certain number of questions, I got up to stir the pot, taste it, and tweak the spices as I saw fit. This recipe really was a great blend of some effort and time creating a great homemade dish. As much as I love Prego sauce, making this was so much more satisfying. Even better, I got to share it with my roommate who had the terrible day. My stress level went down to a 2/10 after making this recipe.
It was a low key recipe, yet it still required a bit of effort. I consulted my culinary advisor on this recipe and she recommended I use the highest quality canned tomatoes I could find, which was a great suggestion because I would have otherwise just used canned cheap Kroger tomatoes. She also told me that I should grate the carrot rather than chopping it to let the texture of the carrot sort of melt into the recipe. This worked very well because it sweetened the sauce and reduced part of the acidity, but I could not actually taste the carrot in it. Her last recommendation was to go easy on the bell pepper. It has a good flavor to add to the sauce, but it can apparently overwhelm it very easily. Prior to her recommendation, I was considering ½ to a whole bell pepper in it, so I’m glad I consulted with her first.
I got to work a little bit more on my onion chopping skills, peeling carrots and garlic, grating the carrot, and sauteing all of those vegetables with the meat to blend the flavor. Even though this recipe took a while to make, it was easy to leave it to cook for several minutes while I did some schoolwork. Then, whenever I finished a quiz or a certain number of questions, I got up to stir the pot, taste it, and tweak the spices as I saw fit. This recipe really was a great blend of some effort and time creating a great homemade dish. As much as I love Prego sauce, making this was so much more satisfying. Even better, I got to share it with my roommate who had the terrible day. My stress level went down to a 2/10 after making this recipe.