Vegan Marinara Sauce
'sup /food/
This is a recipe for a vegan marinara type sauce, and it's one that starts from first principles--with fresh vegetables only, nothing canned. The carnivores among you may wish to note that while this is indeed a vegan dish, it goes well with hot Italian sausage, or meatballs, or whatever else you may wish to add. And this is a pretty big batch, suitable for a big family dinner for several very hungry people.
five pounds (2.2kg) "Roma" or "plum" type tomatoes, peeled, seeded, cored, and minced finely (this will be about 40 such tomatoes, depending on size)
one carrot, peeled and minced finely
one stalk celery, peeled and minced finely
one large yellow cooking onion, peeled and minced finely
four dozen cloves minced garlic, or half a cup of drained bulk packed chopped garlic
one red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and minced finely
one green bell pepper cored, seeded, and minced finely
one half pound (220g) white button mushrooms, thinly sliced
two tablespoons olive oil
two heaping tablespoons salt, or to taste
two heaping tablespoons sugar, or to taste
two heaping tablespoons garden seasoning spice blend (seems to be mostly black pepper, dehydrated onion flakes, and paprika) or to taste
two heaping tablespoons Italian seasoning spice blend (seems to be mostly oregano, basil, dehydrated onion flakes, and garlic powder) or to taste
one heaping tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes, or to taste
Here's a tip for peeling plum-type tomatoes. They are much easier to peel if you use a sharp knife to cut a deep "X" in the end opposite the stem, and stick a fork in there. Use the fork to dip the tomato in a pot of boiling water for about 45 seconds, then drop it into a container of ice and water to stop it cooking. Let it cool off for a short while. Then the peel slips off relatively easily. The big job here is cutting
Anyway, you're going to want to heat up the olive oil in a big pan and use it to saute the mushrooms and the onions until the mushrooms are a bit browned and the onions are turning translucent and beginning to brown just a little bit.
While the onions are browning, mix the chopped tomatoes with the chopped bell peppers, chopped carrot, and chopped celery, and add the salt, sugar, garlic, and all spices to the mixture. Stir this up and let it stand a bit while you're working with the mushrooms and onions.
Add the onion/mushroom sautee mixture to the tomato mixture and stir thoroughly.
Now you'll want to bring the sauce up to a low simmer. An old restaurant cook's tip here is to put the sauce mixture into baking pans and put it into an oven set at 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). This is warm enough to bring the mixture to a low simmer and keep it there, but not hot enough to scorch the tomatoes. You'll want to pull the sauce out of the oven every hour or so to stir it, then put it back in.
This sauce should simmer slowly at least three hours, and cooking it in this manner all afternoon is not a bad idea.
Serve with your favorite pasta and perhaps some garlic bread, and maybe a nice dry red wine.
Vegan food............ lol
tl;dr, it's cool to have variety and looks like a nice recipe, but just... to long :&