Food Dump!

This is a ridiculously simple pasta sauce which kids love. It manages to sneak in some veggies as well without them noticing. This keeps happily in the fridge for a few days as well so it’s dead handy to whip up a big batch for a weekend lunch and use the rest for a dinner during the week (try it with Chorizo, basil and mozzarella).

Ingredients

• 2 Cloves of Garlic
• 1 small Red Onion
• 1 Red Pepper
• 1/2 a Courgette (or all of a small one)
• 2 Tins of Tomatoes
• 1-2 teaspoons Balsamic Vinegar (or failing that 1 teaspoon dijon mustard)
• 1 teaspoon Oregano
• 2 Bay Leaves, or 1 teaspoon of brown sugar
• Olive Oil

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.
2. Crush the garlic and in a heavy bottomed saucepan cook under a low heat with the lid of for 5 mins until softened.
3. Add the tomatoes, vinegar / mustard, oregano and bay leaves or sugar and stir.
4. Bring to a gentle simmer and simmer with the lid on while you prep the veg.
5. Chop and deseed the pepper and chop into large chunks.
6. Chop the Red onion and Courgette into large chunks too
7. In an oven tray mix the pepper, courgette and red onion with some olive oil and season with salt and pepper
8. Bung in the oven and roast for 20 minutes, stirring it once after 10 minutes.
9. Once cooked and starting to colour remove from the oven.
10. Pour the tomato sauce into a food processor or jug / container suitable for hand blending.
11. Add the veggies and blend with the processor / hand blender until smooth (I always use my hand blender, much easier).

Once you have the sauce made you can add it to pasta or reheat it and add chorizo or fried meatballs and cheese. Simple and never fails to get eaten. For a chunky grown up sauce you can simply blend just the tomato and then add the roasted veggies to it instead.