I’m unable to compost due to the fact that I live on the 9^th floor of an apartment building. This means we throw a lot of our vegetable scraps out. In an attempt to limit our wastage, my housemates and I have begun making large batches of vegetable sauce. 

This stuff is so versatile! We’ve eaten it as soup, used it on pizza bases, made it into sausage rolls  and combined it with mince and made Bolognese (the Bolognese, with rigatoni pasta is probably my favourite).  

One night my sister was over for dinner and we were eating Bolognese. She said to me ‘what makes this so good?’. 

‘The sauce,’ I said. ‘I made it.’ 

With her mouth full she exclaims ‘You need to put this on your blog!’. 

What I love about this recipe is it’s ‘eco-friendly’ and is such an easy way to pack more vegetables into your diet. 

I’ll admit, I don’t have a ‘real’ recipe for this, because the whole point is that you’re using up what’s in your fridge, but I’ll break the basics down for you. 

Step 1: Get out the biggest pot you have. 

Step 2: Clear out the contents of your fridge, then slice, dice and chop anything you think can go in it.  Fill the pot about 5cms from the top. 

I save my broccoli and cauliflower stalks and use anything from bok choi to pumpkin. My most recent batch (which is when the photos were taken) had the following goodness in it: 

• Spinach 
• Kale
• Tomatoes 
• Brocoli 
• Cauliflower 
• Capsicum 
• Pumpkin 
• Carrots 
• Onion

Step 3: Add 2 vegetable stock cubes to a glass and add boiling water. Stir to combine and then add to vegetables. Add additional boiling water until it covers about half of the vegetables (I used about 2L for a 4l pot). 

Step 4: Add the following to the pot: 

• 1tsp of salt 
• 1 tsp of pepper
• 1tbsp oregano
• 1 tbsp basil 
• 4 cloves of whole garlic 

Step 5: Bring the pot to a gentle boil and allow to boil for an hour, stirring occasionally. You may need to continue adding liquid.

Step 6: Once vegetables are very soft, turn off and allow to sit for 2 hours to cool. 

Step 7: Transfer vegetables to a food processor or use a stick blender to break down vegetables and form a liquid consistency. If it is too thick for your liking, simply add more water.

I like to leave mine a little chunky because then it doesn’t matter how I use it. 

Tips: 

To turn your vegetable sauce to Bolognese, cook 250 grams of beef mince (spoil yourself and get the good quality stuff from your local butcher – it’s worth it!) and then add 500 ml of tomato sauce. 

My recommendation is to enjoy it with Rigatoni or Tagliatelle. 

Psstt! I would love to see pictures of your trying my recipes. Tag me using the handle @the.urban.farmhouse