Veggie Bolognese

In my never-ending quest to find ways to eat more vegetables, I was inspired by a recent recipe posted on Weelicious for Veggie Bolognese Sauce.  What a great idea, making a chunky tomato sauce which includes multiple vegetables!  But rather than follow this recipe, I decided to adapt my recipe for basic Meat Sauce and just replace the meat portion with tons of veggies.  Carrots are a natural addition to a tomato sauce (and are already in my meat sauce anyway), and then while I was grocery shopping this weekend I saw some great looking organic zucchini and yellow squash as well.  The resulting sauce was absolutely delicious - flavorful, sweet, and a little crunchy.  I loved the combination of flavors, but feel free to make your own combination of veggies.

My first application was in Baked Ziti, since hubby has been asking me to make a veggie version for a while, and I highly recommend giving this a try (just throw in the entire recipe below as the sauce portion in the ziti recipe).  Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the sauce before mixing it into the ziti, but hopefully you get the idea!

Veggie Bolognese Sauce

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium onion

2 cups (approx 8 oz) carrots

1 medium zucchini
1 medium yellow squash

1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes

1 6-ounce can tomato paste

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon salt

Heat the olive oil in a large, deep skillet.  Chop the onion, carrots, and squash by hand or in the food processor.  Add the veggies to the pan and cook for 5-10 minutes over medium-low heat, until onions are translucent and other veggies begin to soften.  Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, thyme, and salt.  Simmer uncovered over medium-low heat for 20 minutes, until veggies are soft to your liking and sauce has thickened.  Serve over your favorite whole wheat pasta.

Makes enough for 1 lb of pasta