[QUOTE=shule1;742832]AlittleSalt

Thanks.

Back when I was a kid and hamburgers were rare (to me), I loved hamburgers with ketchup so much that I made ketchup sandwiches, imagining there were hamburgers there. You know, the first few bites of a hamburger are like that anyway. People just thought I was weird and liked ketchup a lot, I guess. (I did like ketchup a lot, and I was kind of weird, but that's beside the point.) I probably enjoyed getting a rise out of my family members, too. I think I convinced my younger sibling to try it once. I actually kind of liked it.

I think I've heard of ketchup on spaghetti for the sauce before. The idea doesn't appeal to me, due to the vinegar and cloves, but I'll probably want to try it some day to see what I think. You never know. Some vinegar is fine, but enough to make ketchup is quite a bit, for me.

My grandma's spaghetti was always orange. I'm not sure why. It was a lot different than mine, but I liked it.[/QUOTE]

I can't do anything but guess at your grandma's spaghetti sauce being orange, but my Lasagna is orange. It's because I use both tomato sauce and alfredo sauce in it. The color spectrum says red + white = pink, but my lasagna says differently :lol:

Apparently many people use canned tomatoes for sauces. I use canned crushed tomatoes for cooking most dishes even when I have beautiful, red ripe tomatoes in my garden. Crushed is the only canned tomato I use. I don't use canned tomato sauce or canned tomato puree or diced tomatoes. I've never understood why, but the crushed tomatoes always seem to retain more of the intense tomato flavor than other canned tomatoes.


I often run into the problem of locating 15 ounce cans of crushed tomatoes. Most grocery stores keep different can sizes of tomatoes, but only keep larger cans of crushed tomatoes. I must often choose two tomato dishes to cook at the same time because I don't want to waste the extra canned tomatoes. After a can is opened, I don't like to refrigerate unused portions. I do sometimes use a hand blender and blend the extra tomatoes into a thin sauce which I spread onto a cookie sheet and oven dry at low temp into tomato bark. I freeze the bark and use pieces of it when I want to give a small dish a little tomato flavor.

The best trick I learned which works equally well with canned tomatoes as it does with the tomato sauce I jar each fall is to put the sauce (I just press the tomatoes into juice and reduce it on the stove before jarring) or the canned tomatoes in a pot with one mediium diced tomato and a quarter cup of butter then let it simmer for 45 minutes. That is the key. While I am doing that I chop and cook my other ingredients (whatever is in the fridge or garden) on the stove in a frypan with olive oil. When I have waited the 45 minutes I add it to the sauce. Normally I don't add ground beef because my son is a vegetarian (has been since he was 4 and is now 29) so I just got out of the habit. Still tastes great on spaghetti. With the spaghetti I add olive oil and pesto to the noodles before serving. Nothing too fancy but it tastes great.
Pete :)

It isn't so much having a recipe, but "how" you make a sauce...;)


[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-vc-jvRDP8[/url]

After years of making sauce on the stovetop I read a recipe for oven roasted a couple of years ago.I’m not sure where I read it but will post the recipe once I find it. The flavor of oven roasted tomatoes turned into sauce using a mill is incredibly intense and outstanding. It may take a long time but is worth the effort for the flavor and consistency. It’s the only method I use now.
Edited addition:This is not the one I was looking for but covers the basics and I also use the Oxo Food Mill. Some good tips here about adding herbs. I don’t peel or seed either since the mill removes them. If you have not oven roasted then try it once. I think you will be amazed at the difference in flavor from stove top methods. I also only use my own home grown tomatoes. Hope this link works:
[url]http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=11841&highlight=Oven+roasted+tomato+sauce[/url]

Good one, Tormato. That was too funny!
Pete :)

:)

@Gardadore

That reminds me of how I learned that baking rice in a convection toaster oven can allow you to get really great texture and flavor in the rice. On the stovetop, I had trouble replicating fried rice of the sort you'd find at a Chinese restaurant, but baked like that in my toaster oven, it was really easy (and it was only one step; you add the seasonings and water at the same time; no need to fry afterward). It doesn't work as well if there's no fan in the oven.