Zucchini Marinara

If you are anything like me you've got more zucchini than you know what to do with right about now. 

Last year I came up with all sorts of ways to use it up. My freezers were stuffed, and we ate out of our garden all winter long. 

This year, I've been making sauces and soups to fill the freezer once again, the most recent being this amazing Zucchini Marinara I made over the weekend. 

I started with a trip to the garden, where some of the onions and shallots were ready to be picked. You see those tiny red onions? They were on the right side of the garden, that gets less sun and holds water. The white onions were on the left side, the dryer sunnier side. 

Lesson learned for next year.

Anyway, I had two good sized carrots ready to pick as well, they sure were beauties.

I brought out the food processor to do the majority of the work for me. I wanted all the veggies to be fine, to blend together in the sauce. 

This is a great way to sneak extra veggies into your family's diet!  Shhhh....don't tell them!

Anyway, I used a bunch of small onions in here, and a few shallots. I'd say the equivalent of 3 large onions and 3 shallots. 

While I was getting the onions ready, I had my favorite pot aka my best friend heating on low/med with a drizzle of olive oil. 

The onions went into the pot first, followed a few minutes later by the carrots. 

When the onions and carrots were soft, I added about 6 large cloves of garlic, also minced. I made a hole in the center of the veggies, dropped in a pat of butter, and sauteed the garlic until golden and fragrant. 

Next came the zucchini. This was two smaller zucchinis....although our smaller zucchinis are way larger than anything you'll ever find in the supermarket, that's for sure!

I sauteed all the veggies together for a few minutes, then seasoned them with thyme, oregano, and freshly ground sea salt and black pepper. 

At the last minute I decided to chop up a jar of roasted red peppers into the sauce as well for extra flavor. 

And extra veggies. 

Shhhh.....it's our little secret. 

Next came two cans of Tuttaroso canned crushed tomatoes with basil and one large can of tomato sauce. 

Once it started to boil, I lowered the heat to low and put the lid on. 

I stirred the sauce every now and again, and let it simmer for just about an hour. Our chef at work says you shouldn't simmer marinara any longer than an hour, or the tomatoes get bitter. 

His marinara is amazing so I follow his guidelines. 

Can I tell you how amazing my house smelled at this point? I had the chimney cleaners coming that day to do the yearly cleaning, and I think I saw the younger guy actually drool. He came into the kitchen to find out what I was cooking, and said it smelled absolutely amazing. 

He was right!

This was the finished marinara - see the way all the veggies kind of blend together? That's exactly what I wanted. I didn't want big chunks of anything, just a smooth, veggie heavy sauce. 

I got 5 containers out of that recipe, which went right into the freezer. 

I will enjoy that sauce so much in the cold winter months, over a steaming bowl of pasta with some hot crusty bread, while the snow flies outside. 

And I'll remember that it all started with a teeny tiny little seed in my utility room, back in March. 

While I was at it, I made a HUGE pot of soup using up another 3 zucchinis. I didn't document this one, as it just kept growing as I tasted and added to it, and tasted and added some more. 

Eventually I decided this was a Tex-Mex Veggie Soup.  It had a kick to it! I will serve this topped with some shredded cheese, scallions, and a dollop of light sour cream. Yum!

My freezer is already  pretty full and we have a ton more zucchini coming out of the garden!

Good thing my younger daughter is going up to visit my older daughter in her new place soon - I will be sending up some food with her for sure!

Meanwhile, I have my eye on another zucchini recipe that I'm going to try this weekend - my blogging friend AnnMarie over at Musings of a Vintage Junkie posted this recipe for chocolate zucchini cake  that I was seriously drooling over yesterday! 

My sweetie will love that, he's such a huge chocolate fan. Hopefully that will help take his mind off his back, which he's been having major issues with for the last couple of weeks. We're off to the spine specialist in the morning to see if they can finally do something to help. He's in so much pain, my poor sweetie, and just found out yesterday from the MRI he had Friday that it's a herniated disc. Yikes. 

Wish us luck tomorrow. I have a feeling we'll need it.