Tomato Sauce

This was a little time involved, but I wasn't doing anything with my afternoon, so it seemed a good time to make a lot of tomato sauce. In the end I had a very full 4-qt pot of sauce, but no dinner plans. It was a make-it-up-as-I-go meal.

Started with 4 onions, roughly chopped:

Cooked them slowly in a little olive oil, until they had softened and caramelized.  Then, added a head of chopped garlic:

After the garlic in went 4 carrots, shredded with my cheese grater:

One minor accident: my knuckle got a little too friendly with the grater. No worries though, Buzz Lightyear and Woody to the rescue!

Once the carrots had cooked through and gotten soft I added one GIANT can of crushed tomatoes. This filled the stockpot to the brim.

Before I started on the sauce, I thought I would make spaghetti for dinner, since it would be easy to turn a portion of the sauce into spaghetti sauce. With the sauce simmering on the stove I realized that I had no spaghetti noodles.

I did have a box of elbow noodles though. So I cooked a pound of ground turkey, added basil and oregano, and a zucchini. Cooked the box of noodles, then mixed it all together adding enough sauce to give everything a good coating. Put that into casserole dishes, put shredded mozzarella on top, and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Makes good food, and a ton of it:

A 3-qt casserole dish,

and two small single-serving casserole dishes. We ate this for 3 meals. Next time I will consider only using half the box of noodles, the entire box is way too much for just two of us.  But it will be good to keep in mind if I ever need a quick, easy meal for company!