By Carla Vigos
Laguna Woods Globe cooking columnist
When I was growing up Italian, Sunday was always a sauce day.
The smell of sauce permeating the house is a memory I will never lose. My mother would give us Italian bread and, while the sauce was cooking, we would spoon some of it over the bread with a little pepper because we couldn’t wait.
Sauce can be full of meat, or it can be a meatless marinara. Keep tasting your sauce while cooking. Does it need more salt or pepper, or maybe a little sugar? Make it the way you would like it to taste. Mangia!
For questions or comments, email cjvigos@yahoo.com.
Spaghetti sauce
INGREDIENTS
2 pounds Italian sausage, hot or mild
1 large onion, diced
8 garlic cloves, chopped
6 Roma tomatoes, chopped
16 ounces mushrooms, sliced
28 ounces crushed tomatoes
5 15-ounce cans tomato sauce
11/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon dried oregano
11/2 teaspoons dried basil
8 ounces red wine
Olive oil
Optional crushed red pepper
INSTRUCTIONS
Take sausage out of casings. In a large sauce pan, add 1 tablespoon olive oil, cook sausage until brown and crumble it while cooking. Take out of the pot and drain the fat.
To the pan add 2 more tablespoons of olive oil and sauté the onions, tomatoes and mushrooms with an optional dash of red pepper until soft. Add the garlic and cook for another minute.
Return the sausage to the pot and the rest of the ingredients and simmer on low partially covered 2 to 3 hours until thick and flavorful.
Adjust seasonings, if needed, by adding 1 to 2 teaspoons of sugar. It depends on the tomatoes.
The sauce can be used with any kind of pasta or ravioli. I always like to freeze a batch to have on hand.