Merciful God, You are great in compassion and Your tenderness for us is without measure. We ask You to give us today our daily bread, and also provide for the needs of all of Your hungry children around the world. Through Christ Your Son and Our Lord. Amen.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Sauce and Sausages

.


One of my family's favorite dishes is plain ol' spaghetti and sauce. Of course, my homemade sauce is key to that dish, and their most favorite variety is when I add sausage to my sauce, cooking it for several hours, to infuse the flavors of the yummy sausage into the sauce. My sauce is really very simple, and to an authentic Italian, is probably not the real thing, but to my family it's yummy and they are the only ones I have to please.

This recipe makes a lot. You could certainly cut it in half or even in fourths, but really, just freeze it and you'll have a few meals to spare. Just start with a large pot.

The sausages are really very crucial to this recipe, so pick something you know you like. I go to a special butcher shop just to buy sausages. They come in mild, festival and spicy and I go for the festival which is mildly spicy.


Sauce and Sausage

4 T. extra virgin olive oil
10 Italian sausages
1 T. fresh crushed garlic
3 (28 oz) cans tomato puree
3 (28 oz) cans tomato sauce
1/2 c. sugar (we like our sauce sweet so you might want to start with half that quantity and add more to taste)
1/2 T. salt
1/2 T. seasoning salt (I use Lawry's)
1 T. dried oregano
1 T. dried basil
1 t. dried thyme leaves
1 t. freshly ground pepper
1/2 c. red wine (optional)

Heat pot and add olive oil. Add five of the sausages and cook, turning, to brown. Remove those sausages and add remaining sausages, cooking to brown.



Reduce heat to low. Add all sausages into pan and add garlic. When garlic starts to sizzles (do not let it brown), add puree and sauce to pot. Add sugar and seasonings, and wine. Stir and bring to a simmer. When sauce starts to simmer, reduce to medium low and cover.

Cook sauce, at a low simmer, for two to three hours, stirring occasionally to prevent sauce from burning on the bottom.

Serve sauce over pasta with sausages, or enjoy sausages on Italian buns with sauce.


Printer version



.



3 comments:

Sara said...

Something in sausage gives my kids (and me) headaches, but I really miss making my mom's yummy sauce. We like a lot of red wine in ours!

Barbara said...

Oh, Sara, I would be so sad if I couldn't eat sausage, and I'm not sure just a headache would keep me away! Are you sure it wasn't all that red wine? Just kidding. I often add a couple glugs to my sauce, too, but didn't this last time when I wrote down my ingredients.

Shaun said...

I am on a roll, cooking things I see on this blog. Made this dish this past week - it was fabulous and resolved the whole issue in our house where I like meaty sauce and the kids don't. This way the adults can have tasty sausage and kids can have meat-free sauce. Only change I made was to run the sauce through with a few passes of the emmersion blender - again for the kids sake. I am thinking I could totally hide a couple more veggies in here - maybe red bell pepper and a zucchini...Hmmm.