Our Fra Diavolo Sauce from the Garden

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

OK, I realize this was not supposed to be the next post, but here it is anyway. And it's amended from yesterday, courtesy of my hubby, who put extra stuff in that I either didn't remember, or he did without my notice!

Last weekend we made pasta sauce from the tomatoes and peppers in our garden - not a lot, but about 5 quarts. So here's how we did it:

20 Cloves of Garlic, slivered, finely chopped or minced
1 Large Onion, chopped or diced into 1/4 - 1 inch pieces
Sweet Peppers - 1 each, Red and Green Bell, chopped or diced into 1/4 - 1 inch pieces
1 Italian Roaster Pepper, chopped or diced into 1/4 - 1 inch pieces
Hot Peppers - 1 each, Hungarian Yellow, Cayenne, Jalapeno, Portugal, Cherry Bomb; minced (with gloves on!)
6 Tbsp Olive Oil
18 Fresh Tomatoes of various kinds (red Roma, yellow Roma, Cherokee, Heirloom, Beefsteak), skinned and chopped or diced into 1/4 - 1 inch pieces
2 6 oz. cans of Tomato Paste
1/4 cup Marsala wine
6 Tbsp Dried Basil (this is a little difficult to judge because hubby was crushing by hand, but he's confident of this amount)
3/4 cup Knorr chicken stock (Completely dissolve 1 cube in 1 cup of water; add 3/4 of the cup of stock to the sauce. This step is, of course, optional for vegetarians.)
1/2 - 1 tsp Sugar (to taste)
1/4 - 1/2 tsp Salt (optional, to taste)
4 Bay Leaves, whole
1 cup Water (optional, if the sauce is too thick)

Skin the tomatoes ahead of time - you can blanch them in boiling water until the skins start to peel, which only takes about a minute. We let them cool off a bit, so we don't have to peel and chop hot tomatoes.

Preheat your large (10 quart) saucepan, no oil. Once the pan is hot, add the olive oil and stir to coat the bottom. Sauté garlic, onions, and all peppers in the olive oil. (For a milder Fra Diavolo, add the hot peppers a few minutes after you start the sauté process.) When the onions start to become transparent, add the tomatoes, wine and basil. Let this mixture boil until the tomatoes start to become less chunky and more mushy - until they start making a lot more liquid. Add 1 can of tomato paste, and stir until completely blended. Then add teaspoonfuls from the other can as needed. Let this all cook together about another 15-20 minutes - long enough to cook up your pasta of choice.

Obviously, this is a garden sauce - what's in it depends on what's ripe. You can always go to a farm market (in season) and pick out different things, but when it comes down to it, it's all tomatoes and peppers, so you can get creative or not! And the different colors are cool to use in salsa, but in sauce they all tend to become uniformly sauce colored. :o)

So have fun, and remember to warn your friends and family that this is a spicy one!