annual vat of sauce...

I do this every fall. Normally I would pull out the 12 qt stock pot or larger (I think we have a 30 qt that I've used before...), and basically simmer crushed tomatoes w/ a few pounds of italian sausage and meatballs for the better part of a weekend afternoon. It's always been a good meal for cool weather, and then provides a few quarts of homemade sauce to freeze for later. This year, in order to manage it as a weeknight meal for a crowd, I tried out the sauce in the crockpots instead. Overall, except for a little overflowing sauce in one of my pots (or more accurately OUT one of my pots) it went pretty well. I was worried about whether or not the sauce would thicken properly since usually I rely on evaporation out of the stock pot for that so I added tomato paste. One step I wanted to try that I completely forgot about though was to add the tomato paste to the pan I used to brown the sausage. America's test kitchen use this technique to deepen the tomato flavor. They use the tomato paste to deglaze the pan after browning the meet and veggies, and "toast" the paste till it starts caramelizing. Oh well, that's what happens when prepping this late at night to be ready to cook the next morning. I used sweet italian sausage since we're heat wimps but sweet, hot or a combo would be fine. For convenience this time, I also used store-bought frozen meatballs but I usually make my own in huge batches to freeze as well.

This recipe needed 2 crocks for the volume. I used a 6 qt and a 3.5 qt.
3 lbs of italian sausage
3 lbs of meatballs (thawed if frozen)
6 28 oz cans of crushed tomatoes
1 6oz can tomato paste
1 onion
1 head of garlic, peeled
handful each of dried parsley, basil, oregano
2 bay leaves
1-2 tbsp of sugar and/or salt (optional)
2 slow cooker bags

Brown the sausage before adding to the crock pot. Divide between 2 bags.
Add the meatballs, onion, garlic, and herbs. At this point, if you are prepping in advance, tie off the bags and refrigerate until ready to cook.
Divide the tomato paste and crushed tomatoes between the 2 bags.
Cook on low for 8-10 hrs stirring occasionally.

Notes: I left the onion whole to fish out later since hubby doesn't like having onion chunks, but you can chop it if you prefer. Same with the garlic cloves. The salt and sugar really depend on the tomatoes you use. I like a slightly sweeter sauce so I'll add the sugar to balance out stronger acidity. Most of the canned tomatoes I get are already salty enough so I rarely need more. And if you like your sauce w/ a kick, crushed red pepper and hot italian sausage would be a welcome addition.

Just a few thoughts on slow cooker bags - they are usually about $2 for a package and for the time saved in cleaning for us are worth every cent! I think they are the same material as the oven bags used for roasting turkeys so if you have a larger crock, you can probably do the same w/ an oven bag. We find them really convenient because I can pack the ingredients into the bag the night before, leave the crock set up on the counter, not have lots of fridge space occupied by an entire crock, and in the morning just drop the bag into the cooker. And nothing crusts to the crock so clean up is nice and easy - a quick soap and rinse by hand or dropping it into the dishwasher, no scrubbing needed.

Caught in the rain without an umbrella

Considering it was warm and sunny when I left to go to the lab this morning, it was rather disappointingly cold and rainy when I got out, especially considering I had a decent walk to the nearest campus bus stop and no umbrella. It was comforting though to know while soggy and shivering in the car that I had a big pot of soup waiting for me when I got home. It was quite good w/ a loaf of crusty bread on the side. Good thing too since we now have like 6 quarts of soup leftover. I hope it freezes well...

The original recipe from Wegmans uses a convenient bag of cleaned pre-cut veggies. The prep took longer for me as I found myself chopping vegetables this morning since I didn't have the convenient bag, and I did have a pile of veggies to try to use up. It needs a minimum of a 6 qt slow cooker. Ours was filled to the brim.

Beef Minestrone
2 lbs of beef chuck cut into 1" pieces
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion diced
2 ribs of celery diced
3 carrots peeled and diced
1 bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 leek chopped
1 zucchini diced
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes, drained
1 15 oz can kidney beans, drained
1 8 oz can garbanzo beans, drained
1 qt beef broth
1/2 cup dried ditalini pasta

In a large preheated pan, brown the in olive oil and set aside. Add veggies to the pan and sweat until softened and lightly browned, deglazing the bottom of the pan.

Add to the crock pot the meat, vegetables, beans, tomatoes, and broth. Cook on low for 8 hrs. Add the pasta and cook on low for another 45 minutes.

Old-fashioned sunday dinner minus dairy

Pot roast
2 lb of beef chuck roast
1 can condensed cream of mushroom
1/4 brown gravy mix (powder)
1 onion, sliced
Season the roast w/ salt and brown the roast on all sides. Mix the gravy mix and soup together. Put the onions and the roast into crock pot, and pour soup mix on top. Cook on low for 6 hours.

The sodium content of this roast is probably astronomical but it's fork tender, easy, and yummy!

Mashed potatoes
3 large yukon gold potatoes
3 russet potatoes
Rice milk
Margarine/spread

Peel the potatoes and dice in 1" chunks. Boil and simmer until soft. Drain. Add enough rice milk while mashing to desired consistency. Season w/ spread, salt and pepper.

This one was a bit of a challenge in trying to figure out the best combo of ingredients to achieve a creamy buttery mashed potato w/ neither cream nor butter. Rice milk was chosen as the dairy substitute since it was assumed to have a neutral flavor. As it turns out, it's slightly sweet, almost nutty in flavor but that was still a better choice than vanilla soy which is the only other milk sub I have in the house. Using the mix of potatoes was a good call since the yukon golds have a buttery texture in contrast to the fluffy but starchy russets. I think the lack of creamy dairy would have been more noticible in a russet-only mash.

And for the vegetables, baby got to try pureed real (frozen) peas tonight as opposed to the jarred babyfood variety. They were a rather bright green as opposed to the army green of gerber. He seemed to approve although in general he's getting a little upset w/ being spoonfed purees. I think I'm going to try a bit more baby-led foray into solids w/ some puree and choke-hazard-free finger food to see if he prefers that.

And as a final review from tonight's dinner, tofutti in a root beer float is vile. It doesn't actually blend w/ the root beer as it melts so you have a nasty foam of artificial vanilla flavor sitting atop the soda.