I’ve been meaning to post something else the past few days but I’ve been physically exhausted lately that my brain just feels too drained to do it. But….I thought while I wait for the muse to come, I’ll share with you how I did Homemade Spaghetti Sauce for lunch yesterday.
We’ve long replaced the local spaghetti sauce we used to buy from the supermarket with a bottled one (San Remo) in our attempt to go healthier on the food we serve our kids. It’s a lot more expensive than the locally packed brand but we thought health is always worth the extra pesos. At the back of my mind, I still wanted to go as natural as we can and I’ve been meaning to, but it’s been pretty hard to find good, plump tomatoes that aren’t too expensive around here.
Besides, the last seemingly plump tomatoes I got from the supermarket turned out to be dry and tasteless.
Until Jay came home with a few ones the other day and told me that he got them from a neighborhood store. He told me that a kilo only costs Php 30! I immediately asked him to get us some so I could make spaghetti for lunch and he thought it was a great idea since we still have spaghetti noodles and some ground beef left and our two little tornadoes are crazy about spaghetti.
Of course I watched a lot of YouTube videos to get this right, but I had to make do with what available ingredients I can find around here (and measure freely) to substitute for the actual ingredients in the tutorials I found, but we were pretty happy with the sauce we came up with.
Ingredients:
2 K plump and ripe tomatoes
1 K lean ground beef
Button Mushrooms (pieces and stems)
Chopped large white onion
2 cloves of crushed garlic
1/2 C of Olive oil
Salt & Pepper
Chopped Basil (Fresh is better, but I used McCormick’s dried basil)
Oregano (I used McCormick’s again for this one)
Instructions:
1. Wash the tomatoes and put them in a pot with water.
2. Bring to boil.
3. Using a slotted spoon, fish out all the tomatoes from the pot and place in iced water.
4. Once you can already handle the tomatoes, peel the skin and put the tomatoes in a blender, add olive oil and blend for 2 minutes.
Note: My favorite tutorial on this included the tomato skins. If you don’t have a blender, it’s okay, too, you can just boil the tomatoes until they are soft enough to crush.
5. In a pan, saute garlic and onions until garlic shows a hint of brown.
6. Add beef and mix until cooked.
7. Transfer into a small pot and pour in the blended tomatoes.
8. Add Basil, Oregano, Salt & Pepper to your liking.
9. Add the mushrooms.
10. Simmer.
11. Top on cooked spaghetti pasta. Serve!
The verdict? Well, my husband says it’s restaurant quality, and my little Spaghetti monsters loved it. So I think it’s time to say goodbye to San Remo for now and shift to a more affordable Spaghetti sauce — the homemade one.
I know my sauce doesn’t seem to be a lot, but that’s because I only used half of this recipe.
Now why are we going healthy? It didn’t use to bother people to get processed food all the time, but now that we’re starting to feel the effects of environmental changes (more than the economic progress they’re talking about, actually), I think we should pay more attention to the food that we eat too. I think that our lifestyle choices, no matter how small they may seem, can bring about changes.
It can get a little frustrating sometimes that healthier options are more costly than the processed ones, making the choice harder to make for a lot of families, but maybe someday, there’ll be a turnover and it will be the other way around. Who knows?
Wow! Another recipe worth trying. I did my market yesterday and my suki told me tomatoes daw are cheap ngayon. I should have hoard Na yesterday. I hope tomorrow they are still affordable. Again, thanks for the recipe. I will try this. Hooray for healthy cooking!
Wow! If that’s true, then that’s good news. Apparently, the supermarkets have not heard of it yet kasi mahal pa rin eh, haha. Sa local wet/dry market siguro mura. Maka hoard na rin!
It looks yummm! With our fast paced life, having the option to do traditional home cooking by using the finest and fresh ingredients is time consuming but it must be this way talaga eh, so we can get the maximum dose of healthy nutrients that our family needs..
It’s not really that time-consuming as it will only take about 30 minutes to make the tomato sauce. You can store it in jars for at least 2 weeks. But yeah, buying the ones in jars is the next best thing. Bukod sa mas authentic ang lasa, in my opinion, healthier pa. 🙂
I really love alternative versions especially if makakatipid ka talaga!
I think this is “doable” haha. =) This is actually better for me. True that going ‘healthy’ can take time and can be even more expensive, but it’s worth doing it anyway. =) Oh, if only I had a backyard of veggies!! =)
My kids love spaghetti too but they prefer italian style. Yes it is true that whole canned tomatoes are expensive and yet not tasty. So I used instant spaghetti sauce but they dont like it that much.
Thank for sharing such a wonderful idea. Ma effort nga lang pero for your kids you will do everything that will make them happy specially their tummy.
Seriously, it’s not that ma-effort. I thought so too at first, but really, it’s really not.
Love love love this post! I always have homemade pasta sauce in the freezer. It can last for months! You got a good deal on the tomatoes btw. 🙂
Wheee! Thanks Chef Len! 🙂 Oo nga, sana forever 30/kilo ang tomatoes.
Cooking food from scratch may actuaally be the best way to serve heathy food for your family. Will try this sometime.
Healthy options may be expensive, but it all pays off in the end. This is a wonderful menu, thanks for sharing.
Oh this is awesome sis, I think using fresh tomato it’s adding more delicious and yummy. My zd boy loves spaghetti also and I would love to try this.
Looks yum! We make our own tomato sauce, too! Well, most of the time. If we’re coming pasta for a party or a potluck, di na namin kaya haha
I haven’t gone that far in planning, haha, but we usually hold small parties anyway. Feeling ko kakayanin naman ng powers. 🙂
I grow so many tomatoes in the summer. I really need to try making my own sauce.
I love spaghetti and it’s one of my favorite food when I was pregnant. Actually I’m a fan of pasta dishes. I can’t wait to cook pasta too for my son.
Looks easy and yummy, my favorite kind of dinner 🙂
Hi there! Blog hopping and found your site. That spag sauce looks yummy! That’s coming from someone who can live eating pasta (and sandwiches) every day. Homemade is still the best! 🙂