Beloved Fresh Garden Tomato Marinara

Best Sauce EVER.


Start with the loveliest bunch of ripe garden tomatoes you can find. :) Can use canned, but in fall--why?

Nothing, NOTHING better than a vine-ripened garden tomato.

Anyway... I like to make a big old pot of the stuff. Because it rules. And it freezes well. And did I say that it makes my mouth into a party?

Anyhoo. Start with those gorgeous tomatoes. I used 24 large ripe tomatoes.

Boil some water. I filled my 8 quart stock pot 2/3 full, and that was just perfect to boil the skins off all the tomatoes at once, and then I can use the same stock pot to make the sauce after.



When the water is boiling, add tomatoes, and let sit in the boiling water for about 1 minute. If you go a little longer you're okay. If you go much longer, the soup will flow right out of the tomato skins.

Then dump the tomatoes into a sink full of ice water. This will help the skins slide off easily.



Before slipping the skins, you want to start your 2 medium onions and 1/2 C olive oil start cooking in the stock pot over medium heat.

Then slip off the tomato skins. If they're ripe, this should be easy as pie.

Then core them and chop them into quarters or eighths, depending on the size of the tomato.

When that's done, dump them into the pot with the onions, and turn up the heat to high.



Add 3 bay leaves and 3 T minced garlic... this is the equal of 18 cloves. I know, I know... CRAZY. But wonderful. Trust me.

Let this come to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes before adding 1 T basil, 1 T oregano, 1 T Italian seasoning, 1 T salt, 1/2 T black pepper, 2-5 T sugar -- This is totally depending on your taste, and I can't decide for you.

Then simmer until the amount of liquid in your pot is reduced by half, and add at the end 2 T balsamic vinegar. You may have to add more sugar at this point if your sauce is too acidic.



I go sparing with this sauce on my noodles. It is SERIOUSLY flavorful, so I don't lay it on too thick.

Eat this baby over whole wheat pasta, and try it with the quinoa meatballs. I promise you won't be sorry!



Enjoy!

Quinoa Meatballs

I could do a whole post about how much I love quinoa -- pronounced (keen-wah), and I'm sure someday I will.

It's versatile. It's a wonderful texture - if you don't overcook it, or give it too much moisture. It's packed with fiber and protein, and is a wonderful supplement to a vegetarian diet. I'm not a vegetarian, but getting closer every day. I try to cook with whole grains, lots of veggies, and reduced meat. Also, when cooked in my magnificent pressure cooker, it is perfect every time.



These meatballs made me so happy. I can't wait to try some other variations.

Okey Dokey.

Here goes. Simple and delicious.

I mixed the spices first, adding the ground beef and quinoa last. I used the super-hyper-mega-lean ground beef, but I'm sure you could use just extra-lean. This is just what happened to be in my freezer, since we bought an eighth of a grass-fed cow earlier this year. Wow... best meat we've ever eaten, and it came out to about $3.50 a pound.

But I digress. Here it really goes.

Quinoa Meatballs.

3 T olive oil
1 finely chopped onion
1 lb extra lean ground beef / or turkey
2.5 C cooked quinoa
1/2 C parmesan cheese
2 eggs
2 T parsley
1 tsp salt or beef bouillon
1 tsp black pepper
1.5 T Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp Italian seasoning

Now here's the tough part. Get ready.

It's really really hard.

Mix the stuff together.

Make meatballs, somewhere between a ping-pong ball and a golf ball in size, and lay them out on a cookie sheet. I placed them on my silicone baking mats. No stick. No mess. Spray the tops with cooking spray, bake at 350 for 30 minutes, and voila!

Beautiful marvelous meatballs. I ate them over whole wheat pasta with homemade fresh tomato marinara. It was a meal for the gods. DELICIOUS. These would also make wonderful sweet and sour meatballs, meatball subs, you name it.



Tomorrow, I'll blog the marinara when I make more, because I am in absolute love with it.

Pigs In A Blanket - The Healthier Version

How healthy can they be? They're pigs in a blanket. Hot dogs are an ingredient.

When made with 100% fresh ground whole wheat dough, they're as healthy as I can make them, and delicious. My kids can't get enough of them.

And wait for the picture at the end of the fun Halloween twist. I got the idea from ourbestbites.com. They have the BEST selection of fun Halloween treats to make. You could host the best kid-friendly Halloween party EVER.

Whole Wheat Hot Dog Bun Dough Recipe:

One batch of dough and two packages of 8 hot dogs yields two trays like the one shown. 48 total pigs. :)

1 C milk (I use powdered, just add 3 T the powdered milk to the dry ingreds, and warm an extra C of water with the butter)

1/2 C water

1/4 C butter

4.5 C ww flour (Add last cup and half gradually, you don't want it too dry.)

2.5 tsp yeast

2 T sugar

1.5 tsp salt

1 egg

Warm your milk, water, and butter until butter is just melted.

Mix the dry ingredients together, (including powdered milk if you, like me are trying to save money and ALWAYS use powdered milk for baking)

Then pour the liquid mixture in while you mix the dry ingredients in your mixer, adding the egg at the end. Add the last 1.5 C of flour gradually. Knead dough. In your mixer if you have one.

It should look about like this.

and let rise for about 30 minutes.

While dough is rising cut the hot dogs length-wise into halves, and then in halves the other direction.

Roll dough out thin and cut with a pizza cutter into long thin strips.

Wrap the strips around the hot dogs. If it's Halloween, follow the picture below for special instructions. Leave a face space for your "mummies" to peek out of.

Lay out on a jelly roll pan on a silicone baking mat (if possible) If you don't have a silicone baking mat, just try one. Your life will never be the same again. No part of your pigs in a blanket or anything else will stick to the pan. Ever again. Aaaaaah... I love these mats!.

But where was I? Bake at 400 for 15 mins. Or more. Until done, all goldeny brown and such.

Before serving add the final touch -- two dots of mustard. if it's Halloween, of course. Love those glowing eyes.

Muahahaha!

What? You think my mummies look like possessed swaddled infants?

Shut it. I dare you to try and do better.

Whole Wheat Pancakes / Pancake Mix

My kids adore hearty, fluffy whole wheat pancakes. Offer them Krusteaz, and they wrinkle their noses and play with the pancakes. "What are these things?" they seem to say. "Where's the real food?"



I love to make my homemade pancakes for them because it's fun to watch breakfast consumed with such joy. That said, if you make the whole recipe every time , your toddler may abandon all hope of ever being fed again, and wind up eating two bowls of cold cereal before the pancake ever appears on the scene. See yesterday for example.

So I like to make a big canister full of the mix. Mine that I made yesterday was 9 times the real recipe. I just start with a container that I want to use to store the mix, and measure the flour in by two cup increments until I know how many I am going to do. Then I increase the mix accordingly.


So here's the recipe. This amount makes about 6 pancakes if you use 1/2 C batter per pancake. Which I do. Who doesn't love a humongous pancake? This recipe fed my husband and I and our two little girls yesterday for breakfast.

Pancake Mix:
2 C whole wheat flour
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 T sugar
4 T powdered milk

This is it. Just put in the ingredients in these proportions and mix well. (Helpful hint: 4 T =1/4 C. Saves my sanity, since measuring out 9 T of baking powder and sugar is not how I want to spend my Sunday morning.)

These are all ingredients that I store separately in my cupboards, so I just let this mix sit in my cupboard in the canister. When I'm ready to make the pancakes, I just measure out two C of the mix, add 1 egg and between 1 1/4 and 1 1/2 C water.


Then I mix the whole thing and fry on a medium hot griddle.


I like to do about 1/2 C batter per pancake, but a 1/3 C might be a more reasonable size.


I use the 1 1/2 C water because I like thinner pancakes. But of course you run the risk of doing this:
which is LAME. :)

I have one more pet peeve with pancakes, and that is I hate trying to butter them after they've cooled. I don't want to see the butter on my pancake. I want the butter lovely and melted and invisible. I solve this and also the problem of pulverizing a pancake with insufficiently softened butter by melting the butter and brushing it on the tops of the pancakes while the underside cooks with a pastry brush. Perfect every time.



I like to serve mine with home-canned applesauce, fruit syrup, or fresh fruit.


Enjoy!

How We Roll on Halloween Night

This was dinner. Jack-O-Lantern pizza.



Yes. It was a Tombstone.

But I cut the pepperoni into triangles.

Which makes me creative...

Right?

Amazing Fish Sauce

Dinner last night was sublime. Sub. Lime. As in there was lime in the sauce on top of it. Er...Yuk yuk.


This delightful fish sauce recipe is courtesy of my sister Kathryn. As are many of my recipes, let's face it. However, I'm pretty sure the version I cooked last night is with half the oil. I can't seem to leave anything alone.

But if you're going to alter this one, please don't try to thicken it with corn starch. I did that once. Totally gross. The fish sauce needs to be thin so it can flow into the cracks and crevices of the fish. In fact, I usually flake the fish before adding the sauce, so the sauce absorbs all over the fish.

Last night, I was cooking for us and another family, so the instructions below will serve 12.

First, lay your 12 thawed Tilapia filets out on your jelly roll pans. Preferably on silicone baking mats so you won't have to scrape them off the pan later. I baked mine at 400 degrees until they were done... Really wishing now I'd timed it. Probably between 20 and 30 minutes.


Meanwhile, I was working on the quinoa pilaf. I prefer to cook my quinoa in my pressure cooker because it comes out perfectly every time. Nice and firm and still with that "poppy" texture, and falls easily apart. Nothing worse than mushy quinoa.


I cooked 3 cups of dry quinoa in 4 1/2 C water and 1 T olive oil. I also added 3 tsp beef bouillon for flavoring. In my marvelous electric pressure cooker, I cooked it for 2 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of natural pressure release, and then quick pressure release. I removed the lid immediately after cooking to ensure that it didn't get overcooked or mushy.

While that was cooking, I combined the ingredients for the fish sauce in a saucepan and simmered for the required 10 minutes. You add the cilantro in at the very end, right before serving.



Amazing Fish Sauce:

1/4 C butter or olive oil. (I used olive oil last night, but usually use butter)
2 T grated fresh ginger
1/4 C soy sauce
1/4 C water
1 T minced garlic
1/4 C fresh lime juice
1/4 C sugar
2/3 C chopped fresh cilantro.

Combine ingredients in saucepan, and simmer for 10 minutes. Add cilantro right before serving.

One of the great joys of my life, incidentally, is to live in a place where large glorious bunches of fresh cilantro can be purchased for $.50 anytime I want.


Hint: DO NOT SUBSTITUTE dried spices for the garlic, ginger, cilantro, or limes if possible. It will not be the same, and I take no responsibility for your sadness over the lame flavor of this recipe. Once when I threatened to use dried ginger in this recipe, my sister Kathryn vowed she wouldn't give me the recipe at all if I did. She was right. Trust me, you need fresh.


That said: Frozen fresh ginger is a great way to ensure that you always have what you need on hand. It's a little harder to grate, but still tastes wonderful.


Once the sauce is going, Get moving with the vegetables for the pilaf.

You can do any size and type of vegetables you want, but I chose last night to use carrots, zucchini, and onions. I diced them all up super-fine in my kitchen plus 2000 food chopper. Amazing little contraption. Hand powered. Makes all my dreams come true, and enables me to finely dice all veggies with little to no fuss, and stealthily include piles and piles of fresh veggies in almost every recipe.



Last night I cooked up:

2 T olive oil
1.5 C diced carrots
1.5 C diced zucchini
1/2 diced large onion
1 T minced garlic (You'll sense a theme if you keep cooking with me. Minced garlic goes in almost everything.)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper



Just sautee in the oil until they start to soften. Then toss the whole mixture in with the quinoa.

When the fish is done, top it with about 1 T of the fish sauce, and also drizzle a little of the sauce over the pilaf. It tastes heavenly.


Bon Appetit!

Green Drink Smoothie

This recipe is one of my favorites, a green drink smoothie I make to pump my kids and myself full of vegetables. They’ll eagerly drink three handfuls of spinach when it’s pureed into this mixture but ask them to eat four leaves by themselves and they’ll act like their life is over.

Green Drink

2 heaping handfuls of fruit of your choosing
About one pound of fresh spinach
2 Cups fruit juice
1 Cup water

Throw your fruit in a blender. Stuff in as much spinach as you can. Pour your liquid over top. Blend until creamy and green.

I like to use at least one frozen fruit, my favorite being one banana and a huge handful of strawberries. For fruit juice, I just use whatever I have available. For this recipe I used frozen strawberries, a banana, a bag of spinach and Dole pineapple/peach/mango juice.

Does your two-year-old ever hang from the fridge and scream, "HELP ME DO THIS GREEN DRINK!" while begging for a cup of pureed spinach? Mine does. Delish!