Homemade Sauce - An All Day Affair!

I've been itching to make some sauce for many months now. When I make sauce I make a ginormous batch so I can freeze it and have homemade sauce on hand when I need it! I think one of the most time consuming steps in making sauce is browning the meat. I'm half Italian coming from my mother's side of the family and grew up watching my Nonni, Grandmother & mother make their own version of "sauce". I can't say that I have an actual recipe per say as much as I know the basic techniques and just taste as I go and add whatever I think it needs. Because of this, I think it comes out a little bit different each time I make it.

So, you will need a big enough pot to both brown the meat and cook the sauce in as you want all the tasty tidbits that the seared meat leaves behind for added flavor. I inherited my grandmother's giant aluminum pot so it's super light and works like a charm and it reminds me of her every time I pull it out.

It's always a superb idea to use a tasty red wine (preferably a wine that you love to drink) to deglaze the pan after searing all the meat and before adding the tomatoes. One of my go-tos is Red Curtain Shiraz for both drinking and cooking with. This time I tried a new wine, Anakena Carmenere and it turned out to add a tasty flavor to tonight's sauce.

What's in it:

• 2 large onions diced

• 4 cloves garlic, smashed

• 6 skin on chicken drumsticks

• 2 mild italian sausage links

• 1.5 lb ground beef

• 1 lb ground pork

• 1.5-2 cups red wine

• (3) 6 lb cans of San Marzano whole tomatoes with basil

• blend of italian seasonings, salt, pepper to taste

• 1 bunch of basil with stems

1. Browning the meat:  Heat up the pot over medium-high heat, once hot add EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil, learn it) about 2 turns of the pan. Season chicken with salt & pepper on all sides and brown, remove and let rest on paper towel lined plate. Add sausage and brown on all sides, let rest on paper lined paper plate. Add ground meat and break up with a spatula so evenly distributed around the bottom of the pot. Let it develop a brown crust, stir and add salt, pepper to taste. Add basil stems to the meat and pour in wine to deglaze, scrapping bottom to get up all the tasty bits. 

2. Turn the pot off, gently pour the tomatoes into the pot with the ground meat in it. Turn the heat on to medium-low. Season and gently mash the tomatoes with the potato masher. Add the sausage links back to the sauce. Cook on medium low, stirring occasionally every 30 mins - hour for 6-8 hours. It is important to start tasting the sauce about 2 hours into cooking, adding salt & pepper to taste. Also, it's important to taste to check for bitterness, if it's bitter just add some sugar. The longer it cooks the sweeter it will get. 

And in goes all the tomatoes... stir with a potato masher to combine
and mash up the big chunks as you cook the sauce down.

3. Add the chicken drumsticks into the sauce during the last 3 hours of cooking. Add the fresh basil leaves during the last 30 mins of cooking. 

With this much sauce, I will most likely make a lasagna to freeze or eat next week. The night that I made the sauce I made some corkscrew (fun shape!) pasta and an italian salad. 

Sauce with corkscrew pasta

Last year around Thanksgiving (while making stuffing), I realized you can just as easily freeze bread cubes to use for croutons. I just pick up a baguette and chop into cubes, bake the cubes on a baking sheet for 5-10 minutes. Then, place in a storage bag in your freezer until you are ready to use. The night you want to make croutons, take however many out that you want let sit at room temp for 5-10 minutes. Preheat oven to 325 - 350 degrees. Toss the cubes in olive oil, S&P, garlic powder & oregano (any herbs would be nice). Scatter on a foil lined cookie sheet and bake 5-10 minutes, tossing halfway through. Keep an eye on them because you don't want them to go too far and become solid rocks. I like to sprinkle them lightly with parmesan right when they come out of the oven so the cheese melts into them. 

Iceberg lettuce, red onion, carrots, hard boiled egg,
olives, croutons & italian dressing

Enjoy!