Turning Your Sauce into Dinner!

You've made all that sauce, now what are you going to do with it?

You have toiled for hours in your kitchen making SO MUCH tomato sauce, now you need to turn it into dinner!  You could just grab a spoon and eat the sauce straight from the jar or make an antipasta plate of sliced veggies and crusty bread and use the tomato sauce for dipping.  Or, you can step things up a notch with just a little effort.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO MAKE SPAGHETTI SQUASH WITH TOMATO & MEAT SAUCE:

1 lb. ground beef

1 spaghetti squash

2 cups mushrooms, sliced

1 clove garlic, minced

2 tbsp. butter

1 tbsp. fresh oregano, chopped

1 pint roasted tomato sauce

2 tbsp. milk

2 tbsp. red wine

Fresh mozzarella

Basil

Spaghetti Squash with Homemade Tomato & Meat Sauce

Here, I’ve made a simple meat sauce by browning 1 pound of ground beef and 2 cups of sliced mushrooms in a skillet with 1 minced garlic clove, 2 tablespoons of butter and 1 tablespoon of chopped fresh oregano.  I cooked all that down until the meat was browned and then poured in 1 pint of my roasted tomato sauce.  I finished the sauce off with 2 tablespoons each of milk and red wine and let the sauce cook on medium low heat for 5 minutes. 

The meat sauce can go on any pasta — spaghetti, fettuccine, gnocchi — or pasta substitute, which is what I opted for.  Richard and I have been sticking pretty strictly to a low carb keto-style diet lately and are super happy substituting things like zucchini noodles and spaghetti squash for basic pasta.  For this dish, I cut my spaghetti squash in half length wise and cleaned out the seeds (I always save the seeds to roast for snacking), drizzled on a little olive oil and roasted the squash skin down for 30 to 40 mins (cook until the squash flesh is fork tender).  Take the squash out of one half and let it cool for a few minutes before you shred the flesh — you simple take a fork and pull the flesh away from the squash outer skin.  It will pull out and look just like short pieces of spaghetti. 

After the squash is shredded, you can add it to any sauce.  So, I dropped mine in my meat sauce and stirred it in.  I served it immediately with a garnish of fresh mozzarella and basil.  And, as added bonus, I had enough leftovers to use for dinner 2 nights later in a baked spaghetti dish topped with more fresh mozzarella!  I just layered the spaghetti squash and meat sauce in a roasting dish, covered it with fresh mozzarella slices and roasted it for 20 minutes at 350 degrees, with 2 minutes on broil at the end to brown the cheese!

One pint of tomato sauce equaled delicious healthy dinner for 2 nights!

So delicious you can't even tell it's leftovers!