Nomato Pasta Sauce (Beets!)
This week’s episode is all about nightshades. Nightshades are a botanical family of food, spices, and flowers. Some examples of foods are tomatoes, eggplant, bell peppers (hot and sweet), paprika, cayenne, potatoes, and tomatillos. Some people avoid them because of the theory that compounds in them cause inflammation, particularly in people with autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis (MS), gout, or IBS.
This week’s recipe is a nomato (no tomato) sauce to use on pasta or pizza in place of tomato sauce. It really does taste and smell like marinara.
Nomato Sauce
Loosely based on a recipe from Allrecipes.com
Ingredients:
4 small beets, scrubbed and chopped
1 1/2 cups chopped carrots
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
Directions:
Heat a steamer basket over boiling water; add beets and cook for 10 minutes. Add carrots to beets and steam until tender, about 10 minutes more.
Heat olive oil in a skillet and cook onion until tender, 5 to 20 minutes. Stir garlic into onions.
Place beets and carrots in blender along with steaming water; blend until desired consistency is reached, adding more water if needed.
Pour beet purée into onions and stir. Add bay leaf, Italian seasoning, vinegar, and nutritional yeast. Cover and simmer, at least 30 minutes and up to 2 hours.