Pizza/Pasta Sauce

I've gotta have a record of how I made sauce this year; otherwise, come next September I'm bound to go searching through my recipe binder NOT being able to find the chicken scratch I wrote down and NOT remembering what I want to do differently or the same.

Whether or not it was written down, I'm not sure I'll be able to replicate the eagerness of my little helper.  Why is it that once kids master the skills for washing dishes/helping can/pulling weeds/______________(fill in this blank with any other mundane household chore you are looking forward to your kids doing) they no longer have the desire to help do these things? 

So, we made sauce (Atticus keeps calling it "salsa") this year.  Early September.  I had mostly paste tomatoes to work with which was great!  And here's what we did:

20 lb. paste tomatoes, washed and quartered

2 medium onions, quartered

6 cloves garlic, smashed

4 green peppers, seeded and cut in large chunks

Simmer tomatoes, onions, garlic, and peppers together in large saucepans until vegetables are soft (about 1/2 hour).  I also broiled the onions and garlic in a little oil first, but don't know as I'd got to the trouble again.  Strain this mixture and run though food mill.  By first straining it, I removed 3 quarts of juice and made my base thicker.  

My eager helper loved to watch the curls of tomato, onion, and pepper peels come out the end of the food mill.  He noted that it looked like "poop!".  Yep, it really does.

Once the tomato mixture is all through the food mill (and, like the thrifty person you are, you've also run the "poops" through another time or two to get it ALL out), add the following:

1/2 cup sugar

3 TBSP salt

3 TBSP Italian seasoning

2 bay leaves

Simmer this on the stove until it thickens.  I simmered it about 90 minutes before removing the bay leaves and deciding to add:

1/4 cup cornstarch dissolved in 1/4 cup water

Stir sauce while adding cornstarch to avoid lumps (I picked some out while ladling the sauce into jars).  

At this point I really loved the flavor of the sauce and thought it had a good consistency.  Then I had to go ahead and add some sauteed peppers, onions, and garlic to make it chunky.  Not sure I would do this again, but I haven't used it yet on pizza, so I'll give myself some time (maybe about a year?) to think about that.

I used:

2 onions, diced

6-7 peppers, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

little bit of olive oil

Then I stirred in:

______ cup chopped fresh basil

Yes, that is what I wrote down.  Maybe about a cup?  I simmered the sauce another 10-15 minutes before ladling it into clean pint jars and processing it in a boiling water bath.  I added 1/4 tsp of lemon juice into each jar too since I was paranoid about it not being acidic enough with the addition of all those extra veggies.  This yielded exactly 9 pints which should make 18 pizzas!

Any advice, tips, or killer recipes to share?  I'm still a novice at this and by no means have I settled on this as my recipe yet.

Happy canning!

Fresh Peach Pie

I spent a little time earlier in August worrying about whether I would be able to get peaches this year, so when I had a chance to get some (without waking at an ungodly hour, driving 30 minutes to get in line at the orchard and wait half the day--with two little kids, yeah right!) I bought a LOT!  We ended up canning and freezing about 52 quarts of peaches after we'd eaten some fresh and made a cobbler and a few pies.

Aren't they pretty . . . ?

My sister-in-law introduced me to this pie recipe the week before I got my peaches, and I loved it!  It uses fresh peach slices held together with a gelatin/cornstarch/water mixture and chilled rather than cooked.  I used a mix-in-the-pan pie crust (like this one) to keep things simple.  The crust is a bit crumblier than rolled pastry, but it is rich and delicious and goes nice with the fresh fruit.

The recipe I used for the filling (and the crust too) was from my trusty Esther Shank "Mennonite Country-Style Recipes" cookbook (simply referred to as "Esther Shank" by myself and others) and was quite similar to the one you'll find here.  I used only a 1/2 cup of sugar and omitted the corn syrup since I don't tend to keep that on hand.  I loved this pie and only wish I still had fresh peaches on hand to make some more.  My post-partum waistline can probably do without, though.  =) 

Thai Squash

I came across this recipe for Thai squash some time ago and have enjoyed making it a lot recently.  It's fast, flavorful, and simple to put together once your squash or pumpkin is prepared.  I've been using butternut squash (clearing out the last of last year's crop!).

Here's the how-to:

Peel, seed, and slice two cups-worth of squash (we will understand from here on out that "squash" means "squash or pumpkin") into roughly domino-sized pieces.  See, I always want to make a bit more . . .

locate 30 peppercorns (trust me!) and 2 cloves of garlic

crush them!

Heat up one tablespoon of oil in a wok or skillet and add the garlic/peppercorn mixture.  Cook until the garlic begins to brown.  Add squash and one cup of water.  Stir and cook until squash is just soft (5-10 minutes).  When there is still a little water left add 2 tablespoons of fish sauce (trust me!) and one teaspoon of sugar.  Let sit a few minutes until ready to eat.  Serve with rice or on its own as a side dish.  We've eaten it a few times alongside sticky rice and laab.

If you don't have fish sauce in your pantry, you could try substituting soy sauce (I have not tried this) or just go buy the bottle of fish sauce and make more Asian food!  Besides using fish sauce in Thai and Vietnamese recipes I also add it to soups for a bit of saltiness and depth of flavor (like bouillon).

Pie Again

I posted what has become my favorite rhubarb pie recipe last summer when I first made it with rhubarb and blueberries.  This year I tried it with frozen--thawed--sliced strawberries, and it turned out fantastic again!  And pretty.

If you've got rhubarb, you really should try this simply delicious recipe!  And don't be afraid to use frozen rhubarb either--I dumped mine straight out of the freezer bag into the pie crust before it went in the oven and the texture was perfect.

Baby Month (and a recipe link)

So it's June 1st, and I didn't make any posts for the entire month of May.  I guess I was a little busy having a baby and all.  I actually did a lot of cooking in March and April to stock up the freezer with enough meals to hopefully not have to cook for a month after giving birth.  With eight days to go towards that goal and sandwich supplies on hand it looks like I just might squeak by . . .

But I do have a delicious link for you.  Back in the first week of May when I was waiting around for this baby to be born (due April 28), I started getting tricksy.  I tried pretty much every trick in the book to convince baby to be born including this eggplant parmigiana recipe.  Looks gross, tastes AWESOME, did not produce a baby within 48 hours.  But it was still yummy.  I made a 1/2 recipe which was a good thing, as this is RICH in cheese and we had enough for about three meals (two adults, one toddler).  It was labor-intensive (har, har) so I'm not sure I'd make it again unless I had some serious baby-sitting or it was a weekend.  But it was yummy.  Did I mention that already?

The only things I changed were to use cottage cheese instead of ricotta (we prefer the texture) and used basil pesto in the sauce since I had no access to fresh basil.  I also made my own breadcrumbs from some stale bread and Italian seasoning and used that parmesan/romano cheese blend in the shaker bottle *gasp!* instead of the fresh stuff.  But it was still yummy.

See, looks gross (I think I baked it a little too long . . .) 

So I'll end on a sweeter, prettier note.  Baby Girl.  Born 8 days after the eggplant parmigiana.  We love her a LOT!

Bitty Cinnamon Rolls

The last two times I made bread, I snagged a bit of the dough to make some sweet rolls.  The first attempt was a cream cheese/strawberry mess of a roll that was too gooey to even cut into individual pieces.  I ended up baking the whole log in a round with a slashed top.  It came out of the oven looking pretty good, but caved in as it cooled into a very moist mess.  Yum.  We ate most of it, and I learned that my bread dough would definitely make a good sweet roll base.  As long as I used a drier filling.

Next up, plain old cinnamon-sugar rolls.  I used about a fourth of my dough recipe to make a pie tin's worth of rolls, shaping the rest of the dough into three small round loaves.  One thing I've been doing lately that seems to result in a moister, sweeter dough is to dump my whole grains (oats, whole wheat flour, flax, etc.) in with all the wet ingredients and letting that sit for awhile--30 minutes to a few hours as I have time/need of.  I think this lets those grains soak up more liquid before adding enough white flour to make the dough hold its shape.  If I would add all the flours at the same time, I would end up with a dough that seems like the right consistency but would dry out some as the whole grains continued to soak up moisture.  Make sense?

Anyhow.  Itty bitty cinnamon rolls.  

I rolled my bit of dough out pretty thin, spread with butter, sugar, and cinnamon, and then sliced them about 3-4 inches across after they were rolled up.  These were tall, skinny, and just funny looking in my pan, so I squashed them down with my hand until they just touched each other at the edges.  

Let rise until double and bake for about 15 minutes at 350F.  I had some leftover icing from another project that I slathered over the top when they had cooled some.  So yummy when they were still a little warm.  And good the next two days too. 

Buttery Sauteed Cabbage

I made this cabbage (with spinach) to go along with my St. Patrick's Day meal of Irish stew and soda bread (see previous post).  I really liked how it turned out and thought it complemented the stew nicely.  Plus, it was a cinch to throw together.  And it was buttery.

Buttery Cabbage

1/2 head cabbage, thinly knife-shredded
few cups spinach, washed and roughly chopped (optional)
2 - 3 TBSP butter
generous pinch ground nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste

In a hot skillet, steam cabbage in a little water--covered--until tender (about 10 minutes).  Remove lid, add spices and butter and spinach if using.  Cover again and let sit a few minutes for butter to melt and spinach to wilt.  Stir, taste, and add additional salt and pepper if desired.  That's it!  Serve in a pretty bowl.

P.S.  My taste-tester (the adult one) really enjoyed this too!