The wonder of fresh herbs...

I absolutely love fresh herbs ~ they make so many dishes better. A few days ago, a neighbor gave me a lovely big bunch of basil, cilantro and parsley from her garden ~ a trio of scents so heavenly I felt like I had been transported to Italy. Since she had given me a really large bunch, I decided to use some of them to make a big pot of sauce to freeze for the fall since you can’t get super fresh herbs like that then. Well, you can get fresh herbs at the store here, but not out of the garden (unless you have room inside) ~ and fresh herbs from the store aren’t quite the same thing. So this sauce is a little sharing between the seasons, if you will.
To make my sauce, I browned some mild Italian sausage, then chopped and added the herbs and a few cloves of garlic and some salt and pepper. I also chopped and threw in a bunch of mushrooms.

I let that all cook together and then added some Shiraz Cabernet (which is great with pasta dishes) and cooked that off.

Once all that had cooked together wonderfully, I added a small can of tomato paste and a little more wine. Then I threw in two big cans of diced tomatoes, a couple small cans of sauce, a little oregano and another splash of wine.

I let it all simmer together and then enjoyed a couple of spoonfuls over some penne and a glass of wine. It was delicious.

I’m sure the wonderful flavor was mostly due to those fresh-from-the-garden herbs. They are just heavenly. I hope the sauce tastes nearly as good when it comes out of the freezer a few months from now.

Wishing all of you a lovely weekend, full of seasonal goodness...

I am linking to:
Creative Weekends at The Pink Home