My Red Sauce Inspiration

Over the years I have been trying to create “thee” red sauce based on how I like it. My mom used to make red sauce for spaghetti and it was tasty but I disliked how watery it would be at times. Mostly because she'd used canned tomatoes which made it a bit more watery. It was still tasty don't get me wrong but I decided I wanted to make it in such a way that it was more along my taste as well as just experimenting with trying to find the right consistency along with it tasting oh so good.

My mom has been an inspiration for a lot of my cooking because she took the time to teach me how to cook many things, how to cut up whole chickens along with some of the not so fun things like shelling peas and beans for endless hours but the fun part was eating them and hearing her yell at me to stop eating what I shelled. LOL That was the best part of all.

Mom (2006)

Okay onward with what I was writing about. Basically I had the right taste while living in the United States because I could acquire all the ingredients I needed to make the red sauce tasty as well as the thick consistency that I have grown so fond of. In the great US of A I could buy anything I wanted to use in the sauce but since I've been living in Greenland for the last year, ingredients I am used to getting is either harder to get or can't get them at all. So because of that I have had to improvise and I'm still trying to get the sauce to taste nearly like I had it tasting when I was living in the United States.

Down below is what I'm currently using to make my red sauce. If you decide to try making it, you will have to improvise because I don't measure anything when making it. So everything listed will be listed either by taste or by measurement depending on what it is. Also it should be noted that I tend to rotate the kinds of meats I use in it too. Sometimes I might use two or three different meats. Ground beef is the main meat but I usually include other meats as well.

Ground beef (about one pound or half kilo)

Chicken breast without the bone (about one pound or half kilo)

Pork loin without bone (about one pound or half kilo)

Sausage (about ½ pound or ½ kilo) NOTE: I don't always use this meat because it changes how the sauce taste. So if you're looking to have a more robust taste of sausage in it, go for it.

NOTE: use any meat you want for this. The above is what I like to use.

3 small cans of tomato paste

1 can of tomato sauce

1 can of diced tomatoes

1 jar of pre-made pasta sauce

1 jar of sliced mushrooms

1 large onion sliced

3 cloves garlic minced or diced

½ red bell pepper sliced

½ yellow bell pepper sliced

NOTE: You can substitute both half peppers for one green bell pepper, I like to use the colorful ones because they are pretty and because they taste sweeter. :)

Spices:

Garlic salt

Rosemary

Thyme

Basil

Oregano

Marjoram

Tastefully Simple Italian Garlic Blend Seasoning

butter

In a large sized fry pan melt a couple of spoon sized pats of butter. Add onion, pepper, garlic and mushrooms into pan. Saute them for a few minutes. While the vegetables are cooking, season breast meat and then dip into flour and get them ready for a precook braise in the same pan as the vegetables. Move the vegetables to the outer edges of the skillet and then put the chicken breast in. Brown on both sides and then remove from skillet.

Prepare pork loin in the same manner as the chicken breast and brown on both sides and remove from pan also. Lastly add the ground beef. While the ground beef is cooking, add seasonings to meat/vegetable mixture and continue to cook till ground beef is done. While this is cooking, open all cans of tomato mixtures and add to very large pot. Also slice the chicken breast and pork loin into strips.

Once tomato mixture is added to pot, add the same seasonings listed in ingredient list. Put the sauce on a low heating temperature. Once it has started getting warm the sauce should start thickening due to the tomato paste. This is where you will be seasoning to taste. Add the chicken breast, pork loin, vegetables and ground beef to the tomato mixture. Cook on low setting or simmer setting and add spices to taste. I tend to simmer for at least two hours so that all seasoning has a chance to do what it's meant to do as far as taste. Please note that if sauce is tart, just add a little sugar and that will resolve that. The longer it simmers the better it taste.

Cook any pasta you want for the red sauce. I like to cook up a pot full of fettuccine.

Serve pasta & sauce with either a tossed salad or with steamed broccoli and garlic bread.