Tomato Basil Sauce With Meat Ingredients: Onion (preferably sweet yellow) Meat (sausage, ground or cubed meats) Vodka (non-flavored) Fresh pimento or sweet bell pepper (red, yellow, orange) Garlic Fresh oregano, thyme, and rosemary Red wine Salt & pepper Sugar (optional) Tomato basil sauce (your favorite) Prep: Slice the onion in half, then slice into thin pieces. Pull or cut the stem from the peppers and remove the seeds, cube or dice. For fresh garlic, slice or dice the cloves as desired. Remove the leaves from the stems of the oregano, thyme, and rosemary. Chop herbs or leave whole, but discard the stems. Let’s cook: Sauté onion on medium low until limp and transparent. Stir frequently (do not burn). Brown desired meat (I used Jimmy Dean reduced fat sausage and diced Capocolla ham which can be chopped into desired size while frozen). Bring to medium high heat after meat has browned. Pour ½ cup of vodka (more or less) into the cooked meat and onions and let that simmer for 3-5 minutes. Add peppers and herbs to mixture and return heat to medium low. Pour approximately 1 cup of red wine into cooked ingredients and simmer about 10-15 minutes. Using a pepper grinder, add approximately ¼ - ½ tsp, then ¼ tsp of salt. (Sugar is optional, but if you have added a sliced warmer chili as I did with the other peppers, you may want to add about 1 tbsp to reduce the heat level created by the chili). Add tomato basil sauce to the mixture, put a lid on the pan, and simmer on low for 30-60 minutes. Stir every 10 minutes or so. (Note: I rinse my jars of sauce with wine or in this case about 1 tbsp of vodka to rinse and add those last bits of goodness to the mixture before putting the lid on. Remember to recycle the jar!) Serve over noodles of your choice. Wine: 2007 Legado Munoz (~ over ‘n’) Granacha, Toledo, Spain Also with this dish, most Spanish (Tempranilo works well) wines will work, or try a Chianti.