The Meat Sauce Made with Sauteed Mirepoix Meat & Tomato Mixture and Gnocchi

Some of you, my early readers may remember that I posted an article about Sautéed Mirepoix and Meat Mixture back in April 09.  This is my workhorse during colder months.

As I get better, and get my appetite and cooking bug back, the first thing I thought was that “I need to start making some sautéed mirepoix and meat mixture”, because it allow me to create so many variety of dishes in a snap!  I knew that I had a busy week ahead, this was my No. 1 priority.

Since the celery I had was limited (1/2 of a heart), I decided to make only sautéed Mirepoix, Meat and Tomato version.  This for me is the most versatile, and those dishes I had a cravings for all had tomatoes in it, I knew what I needed to do.

Had I had more celery, I would have made double or more batches, and kept about 1/4 as sautéed mirepoix, 1/4 as sautéed mirepoix meat mixture, and 1/2 as sautéed mirepoix meat tomato mixture.  Well, next time.

Anyway, after I made the mixture all I had to do was boil some gnocchi we had, and some nice salad, and voila, we have dinner!  And tomorrow we’d have stuffed cabbage, and then later in the week lasagna, then aushak, my favorite Afghan ravioli thing…  (OK, my version of aushak may be a bit different from authentic version, especially because my husband doesn’t eat red meat, and it’s a short-cut version.  None the less, it’s tasty, healthy and people love it!) Oh, maybe I’ll do shepherds pie…  I haven’t had one for a while…  All with virtually no effort nor time…

Ah, life is good when you cook Kitchen Wizard style…  It’s so easy and fast to create many varieties and so much fun! No wonder my husband had so much fun while I was sick.

And best of all, having a good appetite back is a godsend ! (Next to getting my health back!)

Sautéed Mirepoix, Meat and Tomato Mixture

Ingredients:

• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Onion, chopped small: 2 large
• Carrots, chopped small: about half to equal amount of onion
• Celery, chopped small – about half to equal amount of onion (about the same with carrots)
• Uncooked Sausage: 1 – 1 1/4 lbs
• Can of tomatoes, chopped
• Salt and Pepper

Directions:

1. Make sautéed mirepoix by sautéing 2:1:1 ratio of chopped onions, carrots, celery in Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
2. Add uncooked sausage and brown.
3. Add a can of tomatoes and season with salt and pepper.  Optional: Add tomato paste and anchovy paste (Additional flavor enhancers.)
4. If this will mainly become Italian dishes, add Italian spices (basil, oregano, etc. fresh preferred), chili peppers, red wine, milk/cream or broth.

Note: If you want to make a large batch of this, and use half for Italian dishes (lasagna, Bolognese, etc.) and half for chili, after adding tomatoes, cook for a while, then split and save in the fridge. Then the one for Italian dishes add Italian spices, red wine and cream/milk.  I personally use this version for other dishes like shepherds pie and the sauce for aushak, the Afghan ravioli. Add Mexican spices and beans into the one saved for chili.

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Tagged as: Afghan, aushak, bolognese, cabbage, carrots, celery, meat sauce, mirepoix, onion, pasta, rasagna, ravioli, rice, sausage, shepherd's pie, spaghetti, stuff, tomato paste