Italian meat sauce

Ingredients

• 1lb hot/spicy Italian sausage
• 1lb ground turkey or ground beef
• 1 large white onion
• 6 cloves garlic
• ... or substitute about 2 tsp Christopher Ranch crushed garlic in a jar
• 1 bunch basil
• 1 bunch Italian parsley
• 1 28oz can crushed tomatoes
• 2 14oz cans Italian style stewed tomatoes
• ... the tomatoes are where you might experiement with consistency and fresh v. canned
• 1 small can tomato paste
• 1 cup decent red wine, Cabernet or whatever suits you
• 1 cup water
• Salt and pepper

Instructions

Prep

• Chop white onion until fine
• ... if you like chunkier onion, dice it
• Chop basil and parsley until fine
• ... cheat: there is basil in a squeeze tube at Save Mart in the produce area; it's not bad
• ... enough to make about 1/4 to 1/2 cup after chop, experiment with this
• Press garlic
• Pulse stewed tomatoes with juices in a blender or food processor about 3 or 4 times to make a thick consistency; don't overdo it

Cooking

• Heat a large pot hot and add enough olive oil to coat the bottom well
• When hot enough (for an onion to sizzle), add onion and garlic
• Stir for about 2 minutes until onion is soft and opaque
• Add meat
• Stir and break up meat until browned - about 10 to 15 minutes
• Add tomato paste and mix in
• Add canned tomatoes and stir
• Lower heat if bubbling a lot
• Add wine and water
• Stir and watch for about 30-40 minutes
• Cover, lower heat and continue cooking for about 30 minutes
• Add about 1-2 tsp salt and pepper, stir, adjust for taste

Cook a sturdy pasta: spaghetti, rigatoni, rotelli and serve.

Sauce freezes and reheats well. About 1/2 can tomato sauce and some garlic powder can help if the thawed sauce is too thick.