Thursday, April 9, 2009

Spaghetti with Tomato & Olive Sauce

We need a quick meal on Wednesday nights because Matt has a Twin Cities Makers meeting in the evening. This week we decided to use some of the meatballs we had frozen for spaghetti & meatballs.
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Matt suggested he make a sauce rather than just buy something in a jar. He wanted to add a little extra flavor to the sauce so he picked up some Kalamata olives at the deli. I suggested we add some of the capers we've had sitting unopen in the pantry to up that briney flavor. I wish we could have used fresh tomatoes but it way too early here in MN so we used the best canned ones we know, Muir Glen fire roasted. This sauce had a really wonderful flavor & was a nice switch from a plain tomato sauce.

We used meatballs in this dish because we had them on hand. We browned them & then let them cook in the sauce as it was simmering. The sauce does not need the meatballs at all though.

Tomato & Olive Sauce

1 T olive oil
12 Kalamata olives, pitted & rough chopped
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 t dried oregano
1 T red wine vinegar
1 14-oz can crushed fire roasted tomatoes
1 T capers
1 t sugar

Heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the olives, onions & garlic. Sauté until the onion is translucent. Stir in red wine vinegar & oregano. Add the tomatoes, capers & sugar. Stir. Cover & simmer for 30 minutes.

2 servings

11 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Kat,
    Throw in some anchovies (which disolve) and you have a puttanesca......Matt wouldn't even notice!

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  3. I love the simplicity of this recipe, and I know that I like it already because of the capers.
    Cheers,
    elra

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  4. I never buy bottled sauces anymore, its so much cheaper and you can make so many variations!

    Great idea for freezing the meatballs so you can whip those out on a fast night!

    It looks amazing!!

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  5. I love the little salty bite that olives and capers add to a tomato sauce - and I can imagine how good it was with the meatballs.

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  6. I can always use a new pasta sauce recipe! How amazing are fire roasted tomatoes?

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  7. I've been using a lot of fire roasted tomatoes lately. Yum!

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  8. This sauce sounds great! I love olives. I've just recently started making my own sauce and I doubt I'll ever go back to the jar. So glad to have this variation. Yum!

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  9. This looks delicious. Perfect week night sauce.

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  10. Yeah, like Stace said...this is almost a Puttanesca...costs less too! lol

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  11. why is it that olives make everything awesome? or is that just me?

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