A Sunday of Preparation: Wine & Pasta Sauce

Sundays in our house are often a day of rest and preparation. This Sunday was no different. We had a bunch of tomatoes from the CSA that we needed to use so we decided on making some roasted vegetable pasta sauce. It?s really easy, but takes a while so its perfectly suited to Sundays. I roasted the tomatoes along with an onion, a bell pepper and 10 cloves of garlic. After everything was chopped quickly in the food processor and simmered for a few hours with fresh basil, rosemary, oregano, cayenne, thyme and salt & pepper. This ended up being the base for a quick spinach, mushroom and chick pea pasta dish we had for dinner tonight. Keep reading for more pictures.

Along with our pasta sauce making Sunday we also started our annual wine making. This year we are making an Australian Shiraz. This will be the 4th year we?ve made wine. We give it out to close friends and family as holiday gifts. In about a month and a half if all goes well we?ll be bottling it.

Above, that?s 6 gallons of wine pre-fermentation. Below is the juice with plain and toasted oak being stirred under the surface.

I?m sure I?ll be writing more about the wine in the future as there?s a lot more that needs to be done with it. Until then, we?ll be drinking wine from our liquor store down the street. What are some of your favorite wines?