Tomorrow I leave for Maine - part vacation and part serving someone else- I am looking forward to the time away. Not so much with a hurricane and the forecast but I am sure that we will have some beautiful days somewhere along the way. But first I have to clean out my frig and prepare a few meals for the menfolk who are staying behind.
Enter lots of veggies...between my own garden and my CSA share and my family dwindling in size I have a bunch of misc veggies that need something done to them. A few weeks ago I made a lasagna from a recipe that was submitted for the CSA newsletter and I tucked away the idea that this sauce could really be used for lots of things. So this morning I pulled everything out and began to reconstruct the recipe based on what I had available
Part one - You really want to do the prep ahead of time, there is nothing worse than something burning in the pan while you chop the next ingredient. The only exception to this was I saved my eggplant to chop at the last minute because it browns so quickly.
So: peel tomatoes and chop veggies. I used a leek and a red onion, garlic, peppers, yellow squash, zucchini, eggplant, okra, chopped tomatoes, fresh herbs and fish pepper.
Cook in a skillet w olive oil in the above order. When the onions and peppers are soft, add the squash, when the squash is soft, add the eggplant, etc. adding oil as needed. Then once you have everything softened add the chopped tomatoes and herbs. Then I added a can of diced tomatoes and a can of tomato sauce. Cook everything until desired consistency, add salt and pepper to taste and you have a delicious multi-purpose sauce.
Excellent in lasagna, yummy on pasta or my favorite - scooped over focaccia bread. Just for fun lets call it upside down pizza. I took one focaccia bread, topped it with grated cheese and some chunks of Brie, then put a scoop of sauce on top. The juices soak into the bread making a cross between a panzanella experience or a soup with croutons. I love it - hope you will too.
As for amounts - you can really use whatever. The first time I made it I had one of each vegetable, and 1 can of each kind of tomato. Made just enough for a 9x13 lasagna. The second time I made it I doubled the ingredients and had enough for pasta with dinner plus put a qt in the freezer. Today when I made it I used about 6 of everything, used three cans of each kind of tomatoes, two pans and will can all of it for later use. Just finishing the canning process - made 6 qts of sauce.
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