Fresh Harvest Vegetable Marinara Sauce

Having a vegetable garden is fun and rewarding. The challenge is to use up the produce as it fills up the kitchen. So I decided to be creative and see how many of the vegetables from our garden I could use up in one recipe. I combined our garden veggies with a few things added from our local farmer’s market and cooked up a batch of vegetarian pasta sauce. We had it for dinner tonight over quinoa spaghetti noodles and it was delicious. I cooked up some conventional spaghetti as well, so my husband and brother had a choice. They both loved it all.

Ingredients

2 Tbs olive oil
2 onions
5 cloves garlic
6 carrots
2 zucchini
5 stalks celery
2 bay leaves
1/4 cup fresh basil
1 cup fresh parsley
3 branches kale
1/4 cup green pepper
10 shitake mushrooms
10 cups chopped fresh tomatoes
2 tsp sea salt
1 Tbs sugar
2 (28 oz) cans organic crushed tomatoes

I washed all the vegetables and starting with the onions, I cut them each into chunks and used my Cuisinart to finely chop each vegetable one type at a time.  I put a large pot on medium heat and added 2-3 tablespoons olive oil. Add the onions, garlic, celery, carrots and zucchini and saute until vegetables are soft, 5-10 minutes. Stir regularly so vegetables do not stick. Chop the basil, parsley and kale and add to the large pot and stir another 5 minutes. Add 2 cans of organic crushed tomatoes and the chopped green pepper, shitake mushrooms, fresh tomatoes all of which you have run through the cuisinart. Add the salt, sugar and bay leaves and stir for another 5-10 minutes. Transfer the entire contents of the large pot into a 5 quart crockpot and cook on low for 6-8 hours. You can freeze this sauce or use it over pasta, or as your pizza sauce. It is full of anti-inflammation foods so you get this added benefit as well.

What creative recipes have you tried, to make the best use of your garden vegetables?