February | 2019 | mykitchenmythoughts

I have this book on my Kindle and find reading recipe books on my iPad more fitting than on the Kindle device. I was looking for sugar-free recipes for baking. This book is more about eating whole foods, eating the whole food, eating real food, and food that is good for the gut. There are many interesting recipes. I will be making the bone broth in my slow cooker soon. I found beef marrow bones at the grocery store.

This recipe is for a pasta/marinara sauce that uses no tomatoes. I was thinking of cooking ravioli the other night and Hubby says to go light on the tomato sauce. We are of the age that what we used to eat does not treat our bellies very well. Tomato sauce is one of those food items that we eat sparingly, even though tomatoes are good for you. So I think it would be a cool thing to give this recipe a try. So I did. The only variation from the book is that I used canned beets, not a fresh 14 ounce large beet from the produce section. I looked but the beets were small and canned beets were more economical. And my olive oil was not extra virgin, and I used dried oregano instead of fresh, and store-bought vegetable broth instead of home-made.

2 Tablespoons olive oil
4 shallots peeled and finely chopped
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 14-ounce cans of beets (not pickled), drained
2 celery stalks, coarsely grated
3 carrots, coarsely grated
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 cups vegetable stock
1/4 cup pitted kalamata olives (she states this is for the umami flavor)
2 Tablespoons lemon juice

Not wanting to coarsely grate and finely chop the various veggies, I put them all through the grater attachment of my food processor. This may not have been necessary for the canned beets but I did so anyway. If you don’t do that you will need to grate and chop the shallots, garlic, beets, celery, and carrots. Cook these in the olive oil for about ten minutes until the shallots are clear. Then add the sea salt, oregano, and the stock and bring to a boil. Then cook this at a simmer for 15 minutes until all the veg are tender. This I did not time seeing as how the canned beets are already cooked (aren’t they?) and I had thoroughly shredded the vegetables in the processor. So I left these on the stove for about ten minutes while I cleaned and dried the processor and other beet touched kitchen surfaces.

Now this gets transferred to the blender and the kalamata olives and lemon juice is added. I had thought of using an immersion blender but Hubby informed me that one attachment foot was broken and would shoot food upwards. We’re cooking with beets here people so that could be a big mess! So I got out my blender and poured the whole pot of red stuff into it. No one told me to let it cool a bit. So the lid wanted to fly off and the knob in the lid got sucked down tight into the lid. No real harm done. After the initial blending, I re-blended the sauce half at a time. This made just about 5-6 cups of sauce.

This does taste like a marinara sauce. I think using fresh oregano would have brightened up the flavor. I served a cup of this over the tortellini we had for supper. It appears a little pinkish but not overly much. I now have two pints in the freezer for future use.