She Who Will Be Obeyed!: Really good and fast spaghetti sauce

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September 19, 2004

Really good and fast spaghetti sauce

I'm not sure if this counts as a recipe, but I am going to enter this in the Carnival of the Recipes. If you have a recipe you would like to share with the Blogosphere, send it to recipe.carnival(at)gmail.com and it will be highlighted in this week's carnival which will be hosted by Jennifer of Mellow Drama.

Through the years, I have learned how to take off the shelf a jar of this or that and turn it into something that tastes a lot better and homemade. I shall now share with you my secret for turning any jarred spaghetti sauce into something that people will remember.

Now, before I get into this, I do make a spaghetti sauce that takes 8 to 12 hours to make, but since I have a full time job, I have figured out ways to cut the cooking time quite a bit without losing flavor.

Here are the ingredients:
1 quart size jar of whatever kind of spaghetti sauce you might like, Ragu, Prego, whatever.
1 to 1 1/2 pounds of ground beef
1 to 1 1/2 pounds of good Italian sausage - mild, medium or hot - chopped up
1 large onion, chopped
several cloves of garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon or more (to taste, but at least one teaspoon) of Red Pepper Flakes
A handful of fresh basil, chopped, or about 1 tablespoon of dry basil
A handful of fresh oregano, chopped, or about 1 tablespoon of dried oregano
a few sprigs of fresh thyme, chopped, or about 1 teaspoon dried
about a 1/2 teaspoon fresh rosemary, chopped or a large pinch, dried
You can substitute a couple of tablespoons of Italian seasoning for the above herbs if you wish.
1 28 ounce can of Tomato Puree (not sauce!)
Olive Oil
salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon sugar
Red Wine
1/4th to 1/2 pound of fresh mozzarella, if you can get it - fresh mozzarella is very soft and is better the fresher that it is
a couple of ounces of grated aged Parmesan cheese
How to prepare
Heat a large, deep saucepan until hot, then add a tablespoon or two of olive oil (hot pan, cold oil, food won't stick!)
Saut� the onions for a few minutes in the olive oil, then add garlic
After another few minutes, add ground beef and Italian sausage, turn heat to low and cover pan with lid.
It will take 15 or 20 minutes for the beef and sausage to brown - keep an eye on it and stir when needed.
When the meat is browned, drain the onions, ground beef and Italian sausage and return to pan.
Add the store bought spaghetti sauce, the 28 ounce can of Tomato puree and all the herbs.
Add the sugar, 1 tablespoon of salt and at least 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper. Stir and allow to simmer for about an hour.
While you are cooking, you should have a nice glass of red wine or two. My rule is this, for every glass of red wine you drink, add a glass of red wine to the sauce - this does wonderful things to a tomato based sauce, if you have never tried it, well, it's pretty hard to describe, but it is good!!!
Taste the sauce at this point - you may need to add more salt, more spices - use your own judgment.
When the flavors are the way you like them, take the fresh mozzarella and cut it into small slices - add the slices to the sauce and stir.
This is very good after only about 1 to 1 1/2 hours of simmering - the longer you cook it, the better it is, but is is a lot easier than starting completely from scratch, and faster.
Serve the sauce over spaghetti or your preferred pasta, and sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.

Enjoy. We do!

Posted by Beth at September 19, 2004 8:52 PM

Comments

Sauce with Cheese in it? I'm game! I don't have the time to make my mother in laws sauce, so we've been doing prego. I've wanted to doctor it up for awhile, but I can't cook by taste as well as by recipe. I'll try this!

Posted by: Boudicca at September 20, 2004 3:38 PM

I personally don't know much about cooking, but one thing that my cooking-savvy aunt taught me is that you if you add red wine to your sauce, you need to add sugar, and vice versa too. Your recipe has both, luckily, but just so's other people reading this know, if you're going to play around with the sauce, don't add the wine without the sugar or the sugar without the wine, or the flavors will be off. Or so sayeth my aunt, and she knows from cooking.

Posted by: Asparagirl at September 24, 2004 2:02 PM