I am a lot of things, but probably most importantly, I’m Italian. So naturally, when I endeavored upon this blog and I had to think of a direction for my first week of cooking, I came up with pasta and sauce!
This week, I’m cooking up my Italian grandmother’s special meat sauce to go with the pastas I make later on in the week.
Last night I cooked for family friends. They milled in and out of the kitchen. Finally, one of them commented on how much work cooking from scratch can be. “But, our mothers and grandmothers were truly loved for their food,” she added.
Roma Sauce Maker
I’ve never minded spending all day in the kitchen, in fact it’s one of my favorite ways to spend a day. And so, when I geared up to make my grandmother’s pasta sauce from scratch, I cleared my schedule for the day. Little did I know, it wasn’t necessary. My secret weapon to doing sauce the right way in about a half hour? The Roma by Weston Sauce Maker and Food Strainer.
Steaming Whole Tomatoes
“My mother had something like that when I was kid,” one of my observers said. “What is it?” I have to be honest. I felt pretty savvy knowing that I was using a tool similar to one his German immigrant mother used back in the day.
So I put my hair up and got to work. I threw some tomatoes in a pot and steamed them with basil water for homemade basil-infused whole tomatoes.
Using the Roma Sauce Maker
I pulled out the Tomato Screen and pureed the rest of my tomatoes. Half were reduced to paste and the other half were my puree.
In the meantime, my meats were browning in olive oil on the stove. I chopped up an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic. Half went in my pan with the meats and half went into my tomato sauce. I chopped up my parsley and the rest of my basil and threw them in the tomato sauce along with the nicely browned meats. With the lid on the sauce, all that was left to do was to wait. My mother always says if you don’t have time to let the sauce simmer for four hours, don’t bother making sauce. And so I put it on for six.
When it was all finished, my guests couldn’t get enough. “I’ll never go back to Prego again!” a guest remarked. And I’ll never go back to canned ingredients in my sauce again. There was a certain freshness to my sauce... a pure “tomatoey” taste.
We, of course, ate the sauce for dinner last night, but I saved about half of it for my pasta making later this week. It was tough though, I had to hide the sauce! Usually I’m not privy to starving my guests, but I had no idea they would come back for thirds!
To ensure that the sauce tasted as good, and probably even better on Wednesday and Friday, I sealed the sauce with the Weston Pro 2300 Vacuum Sealer. We’ll see how it tastes later on.
There’s one more secret to this recipe that I haven’t mentioned yet. Yesterday morning before I started cooking, I traveled to my local vegetable stand. There’s something to be said for tomatoes that were picked from the garden next to where you buy them. And garlic, and onions, and herbs. And quite honestly, buying locally gives me a piece of mind that just makes my food taste that much better. It’s eco-friendly, healthier, and you’re handing your hard earned money to your hard-working neighbor. To find locally grown foods near you, I recommend visiting localharvest.org. And, if you happen to be lucky enough to have a nice garden to grow your own ingredients, then I truly salute you.
Go forth and get sauced!
Get Sauced with the Roma by Weston Food Strainer & Sauce Maker
I am a lot of things, but probably most importantly, I’m Italian. So naturally, when I endeavored upon this blog and I had to think of a direction for my first week of cooking, I came up with pasta and sauce!
This week, I’m cooking up my Italian grandmother’s special meat sauce to go with the pastas I make later on in the week.
Last night I cooked for family friends. They milled in and out of the kitchen. Finally, one of them commented on how much work cooking from scratch can be. “But, our mothers and grandmothers were truly loved for their food,” she added.
Roma Sauce Maker
I’ve never minded spending all day in the kitchen, in fact it’s one of my favorite ways to spend a day. And so, when I geared up to make my grandmother’s pasta sauce from scratch, I cleared my schedule for the day. Little did I know, it wasn’t necessary. My secret weapon to doing sauce the right way in about a half hour? The Roma by Weston Sauce Maker and Food Strainer.
Steaming Whole Tomatoes
“My mother had something like that when I was kid,” one of my observers said. “What is it?” I have to be honest. I felt pretty savvy knowing that I was using a tool similar to one his German immigrant mother used back in the day.
So I put my hair up and got to work. I threw some tomatoes in a pot and steamed them with basil water for homemade basil-infused whole tomatoes.
Using the Roma Sauce Maker
I pulled out the Tomato Screen and pureed the rest of my tomatoes. Half were reduced to paste and the other half were my puree.
In the meantime, my meats were browning in olive oil on the stove. I chopped up an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic. Half went in my pan with the meats and half went into my tomato sauce. I chopped up my parsley and the rest of my basil and threw them in the tomato sauce along with the nicely browned meats. With the lid on the sauce, all that was left to do was to wait. My mother always says if you don’t have time to let the sauce simmer for four hours, don’t bother making sauce. And so I put it on for six.
When it was all finished, my guests couldn’t get enough. “I’ll never go back to Prego again!” a guest remarked. And I’ll never go back to canned ingredients in my sauce again. There was a certain freshness to my sauce... a pure “tomatoey” taste.
We, of course, ate the sauce for dinner last night, but I saved about half of it for my pasta making later this week. It was tough though, I had to hide the sauce! Usually I’m not privy to starving my guests, but I had no idea they would come back for thirds!
To ensure that the sauce tasted as good, and probably even better on Wednesday and Friday, I sealed the sauce with the Weston Pro 2300 Vacuum Sealer. We’ll see how it tastes later on.
There’s one more secret to this recipe that I haven’t mentioned yet. Yesterday morning before I started cooking, I traveled to my local vegetable stand. There’s something to be said for tomatoes that were picked from the garden next to where you buy them. And garlic, and onions, and herbs. And quite honestly, buying locally gives me a piece of mind that just makes my food taste that much better. It’s eco-friendly, healthier, and you’re handing your hard earned money to your hard-working neighbor. To find locally grown foods near you, I recommend visiting localharvest.org. And, if you happen to be lucky enough to have a nice garden to grow your own ingredients, then I truly salute you.
When it was all finished, my guests couldn’t get enough. “I’ll never go back to Prego again!” a guest remarked. And I’ll never go back to canned ingredients in my sauce again. There was a certain freshness to my sauce... a pure “tomatoey” taste.
