Spruced Up Spaghetti Sauce

A Guest Blog by Susan Elliott

The typical cook for a day eat for a month menu involves a lot of preparation and little to nothing more than defrosting and heating at meal time. This is not that type of recipe. However, preparing key ingredients in bulk, like a fabulous pasta sauce, will allow you to have a fantastic meal without a lot of work at meal time.

Spruced Up Spaghetti Sauce

Let’s be honest, store bought spaghetti sauce is store bought spaghetti sauce. It doesn’t matter the brand or the ingredients. Store bought spaghetti sauce is often just repackaged sauce that sells anywhere from .99 cents to over four dollars.
I have a secret that I have been doing for years, and something that I saw with my own eyes done by a chef friend of mine. Buy the cheapest spaghetti sauce and add ingredients to make it your own.

Cooking spaghetti sauce from scratch is extremely time consuming, but using store bought sauce for a base cuts down on hours of cooking time. The following recipe makes enough sauce for at least four meals for a family of five and can be frozen for later use.


Ingredients
Diced onion
Diced bell pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
2 Tablespoons minced garlic
2 lbs Italian breakfast sausage
3 lbs ground chuck
Salt
Pepper
6 cans premade spaghetti sauce
2 cans diced tomatoes
¼ cup aged balsamic vinegar
3 Tablespoons Italian seasoning

Dice the onion and bell pepper into small bite size pieces. Place the vegetables into a heated skillet with about three tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and two tablespoons of minced garlic. Cook the onions and bell pepper until they are soft.

Add ground sausage and ground chuck. Brown evenly. If desired, add salt and pepper.
Drain the meat, but retain the vegetables and minced garlic. Place the meat, onions and bell pepper into a large stock pot. Add six cans of spaghetti sauce, 2 cans of diced tomatoes and mix thoroughly. Add the balsamic vinegar and Italian seasoning.

Cook on low to medium heat for about one hour.

Allow the spaghetti sauce to cool completely.

Write the words spaghetti sauce and the date on four one-quart size freezer bags. Divide the sauce between the freezer bags. Place the bags into the freezer. Make sure that the bags are laid flat. They should keep for up to six months in the freezer.

Remove a bag of spaghetti sauce from the freezer on the morning of the day you plan to serve spaghetti. That evening boil the water for your spaghetti, and place the defrosted spaghetti sauce into a stock pot. Heat the sauce thoroughly and add to your cooked noodles.

In our household, we place the cooked noodles into a dish and ladle the spaghetti sauce onto the top of the noodles. If desired add parmesan or mozzarella cheese to the top of your spaghetti.

Fish Chowder for a Crowd

This recipe feeds up to 12 people.

3 lb. fresh or frozen cod or orange roughy filets
2 lb. red potatoes, washed well and chopped
3 cups chopped onions
3/4 cup chopped celery
1/3 cup butter, cut into pieces
3 bay leaves
2 tsp. sea salt
3/4 tsp. drid dill weed
3/4 tsp. black pepper
3 3/4 cups water
3 cups whipping cream
1/3 cup snipped fresh parsley

Thaw fish, rinse well and pat dry. Cut fish into 2" pieces, cover and chill until needed. Using a 6 quart crock pot, combine potatoes, onions, celery, butter, and seasonings. Stir in the water and mix. Cover the crockpot and cooke on high for 3 1/3 hours.

Place fish on top of the vegetable mixture. Cover and continue to cook on high for 35 to 45 minutes, or until fish flakes when stroked with fork. Remove the bay leaves. Using a fork, stir the fish into the vegetable mixture, breaking it into bite-sized pieces. Stir in whipping cream and parsley. Heat for 10 to 15 more minutes. Serve with crackers.

Fish chowder is a favorite on a cold winter day. For a little variety, you might add a cup of small cooked salad shrimp, a small can of crab meat, or a cup of cooked scallops. Instead of crackers, hushpuppies go well with this soup.

Sloppy Joe Sandwiches for a Crowd: A Great Ground Beef Recipe

A simple, quick, and fairly inexpensive way to feed a large crowd is to give them sloppy joe sandwiches. If you don't want to go to the trouble of measuring out all the ingredients below, you can use 14 oz. to 16 oz. bottles of your favorite store bought barbeque sauce. If freezing this for later use, freeze in 2 cup freezer containers. Two cups of sloppy joe meat will make between 6 and 8 sandwiches, depending on how much you put in each. To use straight from the freezer, place 2 to 4 tablespoons of water in the bottom of a medium saucepan. Add the frozen meat, and slowly bring to a low simmer and cook for 15 minutes or until hot and back to the original consistency (water you added has evaporated). This is a great crowd pleaser, whether your crowd is a family of four, or a family get-together of 40 or so.

Barbecued Hamburger Sloppy Joes

1 cups chopped onions
4 lbs. ground beef
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. dry mustard
1/4 cup butter
1-14 oz. bottle catsup
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. salt

Sauté onion in butter in large soup stock pan. Add ground beef. Brown lightly. Drain off excess fat. Add rest of ingredients and simmer. Cover for 30 minutes. Use to fill 30 to 40 warm buns. Or cool and freeze in 1 pint freezing containers. One pint will make 6 to 8 sloppy joes. Serve with sliced onion, cole slaw, and pickle wedges.

This hamburger recipe is a family favorite!

Two More Recipes for Use with the Six Meals from One Chicken Recipe

The last two chicken recipes for use with the Six Meals from One Chicken recipe require either biscuit dough or cornbread. I have included recipes for both biscuits and cornbread below. These are great for family meals or for quick meals when unexpected guests arrive. Serve either of these meals with salad and iced tea for a true southern experience.

Homemade Chicken and Dumplings

1 container of chicken from six meals from one chicken recipe, thawed
1 tsp. pepper
1 tbsp. minced garlic
1 tsp. salt
3 containers of chicken broth from six meals from one chicken recipe, thawed
1/2 tsp. tarragon
1 quart water, or as required to have your soup pot 3/4 full of liquid


Biscuit (Dumpling) Dough:
3 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. salt
4 tsp. baking powder
1/3 cup oil
1 cup and 1 tbsp. milk

In a large stockpot, bring chicken, pepper, garlic, salt, tarragon, broth, and water to a boil.

Stir together the dry ingredients to the dough. Add oil to the center of the dry ingredients, then pour milk onto oil. Stir until dough forms a ball. Drop by 1/4 cupfuls into boiling chicken mixture, tapping each to force it to submerge. It will float back up--this is ok. Once all dumplings are in the pan, bring pan back to boiling, then reduce heat. Cover loosely and allow to simmer for 20 minutes. Serves 4 to 6.

Chicken and Dressing Casserole

2 pans of cornbread, baked, cooled, and crumbled (recipe below)
3 boiled eggs, sliced
1 cup chopped celery
1/2 tsp. poultry seasoning
1 tsp. pepper
1/2 loaf of bread, stale or day old bread is best, toasted
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tbsp. sage
1 tsp. sea salt
3 containers of chicken broth from six meals from one chicken recipe
1 container of chicken with liver and heart from six meals from one chicken recipe, thawed
1 can chicken broth, if needed--everything is cooked, so it is safe to taste to determine if you need more broth or seasonings

Mix all ingredients. Add a little water if too stiff to pour into pan. Pour into a large baking dish, and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees. Cover for the first 30 minutes.

Homemade Cornbread

2 cups yellow cornmeal
1 cup flour
2 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup oil
Milk--enough to make a medium consistency dough (usually about 1 1/2 cups--depends on the weather)

Mix all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Pour oil and eggs into the dry mixture and stir until it forms small pea sized clumps of dough. Add 1 cup of milk and stir. If needed add 1/2 cup more milk. Do not over stir. Pour into well greased pan (works best in a cast iron skillet), and bake for 20 minutes at 420 degrees. Serve with beans or soup, or freeze for dressing casserole. Left over pieces can be frozen to add to other recipes, too.

Additional recipes for homecooked meals can be found at Moms Red Kitchen and Around Moms Kitchen Table Blog.