Spaghetti with marinara sauce is my favorite food.  However, tomato sauce and spices can be irritating to a stomach that’s been having that burning “acid” feeling or a tongue with inflamed taste buds at the very back.  I have been having both problems lately…but I really wanted to make a new batch of spaghetti sauce…so I tried to make a mellow one, and I used a trick I read online to reduce the acid, and it really seemed to work!  This sauce is tasty but didn’t burn my mouth or stomach at all, even though I ate a big portion and then licked the pot! 🙂

This recipe must be higher in sodium than most of my homemade sauces because it contains seaweed and baking soda as well as salt.  If you are on a low-sodium diet, leave out the salt and then add salt to your portion if you think it’s necessary–you’ll probably use less that way.

Other factors influencing this batch of sauce were that we happened to have run out of oregano, somehow, without anyone putting in on a shopping list, and that we were so low on fresh garlic that I knew it wouldn’t be enough for a whole pot of sauce and decided to use granulated garlic instead.  Spaghetti sauce is very flexible about this sort of thing.

Here are the instructions/ingredients/method for approximately reproducing this batch of sauce:

• Place a deep pot over medium-high heat.  Add 3 Tbsp. olive oil.  Use a large spoon to spread it around to cover bottom of pot.
• Add 2 cups diced onion that was frozen and thawed.  Pour in all the onion juice from the bag, too.  Mix thoroughly with the oil.  Let it bubble and steam so that a lot of the water evaporates.
• Meanwhile, remove the toughest parts of the stems from 4 large, very curly leaves of kale (or more, smaller leaves).  Firmly grip the leaves in a handful and use a large, serrated knife to cut thin shreds.  Stir them with your fingers, set aside the really long strips, and shred them again in the opposite direction to make small bits.
• Add kale, 2 Tbsp. dried basil, 1 Tbsp. dried parsley, and 1 Tbsp. dried dulse seaweed to the pot.  Dulse is supposed to be a good source of protein, potassium, and B vitamins.  I bought some when it was on sale in the food co-op bulk section a long time ago and have tried it in various recipes.  I used enough here that I can taste it as an individual flavor, but it’s really good; I think this is my favorite thing I’ve ever made with dulse.
• Open 106-oz. can of tomato puree (get these large cans at GFS or Costco).  Stir vegetables, push them over to one side of the pot, add the puree, scoop the vegetables onto the top of it, and stir.  (This method makes it a little easier to mix than if you dump the heavy puree on top of the vegetables.)  Rinse the can with about 1 1/2 cups water, and pour this into the pot.
• Stir in 1 tsp. sea salt, 1/2 tsp. black pepper, 1 Tbsp. granulated garlic, 1/2 tsp. baking soda, and 1/2 tsp. thickly crystallized honey.  (That’s just the kind of honey that caught my eye as needing to be used up.  If using liquid honey, you might want a bit more.)
• Turn up heat until sauce starts bubbling, then turn it down just to the point where it is bubbling a little but not so much that it’s difficult to stir safely. Keep a lid on it when not stirring, to reduce splatters onto nearby surfaces.
• Simmer for about 40 minutes, as convenient.

After using some sauce in a meal, store leftover sauce in glass jars in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks or in plastic containers in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Check out my index of spaghetti sauce recipes for other variations.

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