Deck Garden

In the spirit of fresh, local ingredients, I have my own burgeoning vegetable gardens. One on the back deck, one over at my uncle's house in the center of down.

I took pictures of the deck garden today and put them here.

The Ultimate Tomato Sauce

There are lots of ultimate tomato sauces. I make different varieties with the same core ingredients.

First, unless you're using fresh-grown tomatoes, ya gotta buy Muir Glen.

Today's sauce:
- 8oz sliced cremini mushrooms
- 8oz sliced shitake mushrooms
- a handful of chopped morel mushrooms
- 1 28oz can of Muir Glen Diced Fire Roasted tomatoes (the whole can)
- 1 28oz can of Muir Glen Crushed tomatoes with basil (the whole can)
- six chopped shallots
- 1 chopped Vidalia onion

Put a smidge o' extra virgin olive oil into your six quart saucier.
Pour in the shallots-n-onions.

I was forced to leave out garlic because my folks don't like it. Grr. So, I snuck it in via garlic powder. That came later.

Saute for a bit.

Pour in the mushrooms. Add a pat o' butter. Saute for a bit.

Add the tomatoes. Saute for a bit.

Let's see.

I went out to the deck garden and snipped off three marjoram twigs, two twigs of thyme and a handful of parsley. Put all of the leaves in and stirred them up. Added garlic powder. Added celtic sea salt and ground pepper. Added a small handful of sugar. Swirled a bit of balsamic vinegar in there just to be a showoff.

Cook and cook and cook on low heat to your heart's content. If you have a newer stove that cycles on and cycles off, cook on medium-low heat. My parents have an old-style stove that can boil water on low if you don't watch the thing.

Today I added meatballs to the sauce. I used ground sirloin, some tomato sauce, breadcrumbs, chopped vidalias, salt, pepper, italian seasonings and a mite o' ketchup. Baked the balls in the oven to get them crispy and then added them to the sauce.

It was so good it was unreal.