Slow Roasted Tomato Sauce

I always love a good pasta sauce and this sauce blew my expectations out of the water. It was so delicious there might not have been any left. If you have the time to try this out, it is worth the time investment!

Slow Roasted Tomato Sauce and Pasta

Ingredients:
3 lb Roma Tomatoes - cored and halved lengthwise
EVOO
Salt & Pepper
Minced garlic
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
12 oz uncooked whole wheat pasta
1 small herb pack of fresh basil

Method:
Preheat oven to 225

Place tomatoes on a jelly roll pan lined with aluminum foil. Drizzle evo on top of tomatoes and sprinkle on salt and pepper. Mix your tomatoes around to make sure they all get olive oily.

Bake for 4 hours.

When tomatoes are done baking, heat a large skillet over low heat. Add 2 tsp olive oil and garlic. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. After 10 minutes add tomatoes and red peppers to the garlic.

Cook pasta in boiling water until almost al dente (about 8 minutes).

Drain pasta, reserving 3/4 c. cooking liquid. Increase heat to medium high under tomato mixture and stir in reserve cooking liquid. Bring tomato mixture to a boil.

Cook for 3 minutes. While this is cooking, tear basil into pieces and add to tomato mixture.

Serve sauce over pasta and add parmesan cheese to taste.

Enjoy!!!

Amazing!

Bonus thought: This recipe only has 389 calories per serving, so really enjoy it!

Chili Pie - Delicious comfort food made easy!

I ran across an amazing Real Simple recipe slideshow a few weeks ago. The title of said slide show was "Don't Make It, Fake It!" Needless to say, there were 40ish interesting recipes that included far too many canned and premade goods. I was about to leave the slide show behind when I ran across a recipe for chili pie. The title just sounded delicious and wonderful. Since then, we've made it twice and it is as delicious and wonderful as it sounds.

Chili Pie

Ingredients:
1 lb Italian sausage (sweet or hot) with casings removed
2 tsp Chili powder
1 15 oz Can of kidney beans, drained
1 14.5 oz Can of diced tomatoes (I prefer the fire roasted ones)
3/4 c jarred salsa
1 8.5 oz packet of cornbread mix
1 egg
1/3 c of milk
1 c  Shredded cheddar cheese

Method:
Heat oven to 400 degrees.

In a large skillet, over medium heat cook sausage, crumbling it with a spoon, until no pink remains.

Add chili powder and cook for 1 min. Spoon off and discard any fat.

Add beans, tomatoes, and salsa and simmer for three minutes.

Meanwhile, in a bowl combine cornbread mix, egg, and milk. Then add cheddar cheese.

Transfer chili to an 8 x 8 oven safe baking dish.

Carefully spoon cornbread mix over the top, until the chili is covered.

Bake until cornbread topping is golden (15-20 minutes).

Let cool for 5 minutes before serving and ENJOY!!!!!

YUM!!!!

Italian Herb Bread

To all my facebook friends who wanted this recipe, here it is. For those of you not on facebook, this is a delicious bread recipe. After being in my border town for so long, I get these cravings for my favorite restaurant food. Unfortunately, most of these restaurants are three and a half hours away. So, occasionally I find a recipe that satisfies one of those cravings. By chance, I have found another one of those recipes. One of my favorite restaurant items is the starter bread at Carrabba's Italian Grill. So good. I was trying a new bread machine recipe out and it tasted exactly the same. So, for those of you Carrabba's junkies, try this out.

Italian Herb Bread

Ingredients:
1 c. + 3 tbsp warm water
3/4 tsp olive oil
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
4 tsp dry milk
4 tsp (or however much you want to use) italian seasoning
3 c. bread flour
1 tbsp bread machine yeast

Method:
Set your bread machine on the Super Rapid Cycle and enjoy!!!
If you don't want to cook your bread in the bread machine, feel free to take it out after the last knead cycle and let it rise in a greased bread pan while your oven heats up to 350 degrees.
Bake for 45 minutes or until the interior of the bread registers 190 degrees on a thermometer. The bread should be light in color.

Maybe if I like it so much, it should be a drink, not a dip...

Have you ever enjoyed a dip so much that you purposely take a larger portion of dip than dipping material?  You do this not hoping to waste dip, but hoping to pile all that extra dip on your last chip/bread piece/vegetable so you can mainly just taste the dip and not the dipping material. Maybe you think that your glorious dip should be spooned into your mouth or perhaps sipped through a straw. I think that we all occasionally think that about some dip like food.

For me, this could be French Onion Dip or Salsa. Especially salsa. I am that girl that dips chips shards to have an excuse to eat salsa. I have gotten desperate and dipped triscuits and ritz crackers in salsa. I especially enjoy salsa verde, known to gringos like me as green salsa. It is delicious. The best kind has a hint of salt, spice from jalepenos, and the delicious taste of roasted tomatillos. So, last fall I discovered a delicious stew recipe that allows me to imagine that I can indeed spoon salsa verde into my mouth. Since the recipe is not mine, I will link you to the Simply Recipes blog site and their Tomatillo Chicken Stew.

My Personnel Recommendations for Changes to the Recipe:
If you don't have time or don't feel like roasting your own tomatillos, I would recommend the El Pinto Salsa Verde or El Pinto Mild Green Chile Taco Sauce. Both are excellent, I would stick to the mild selection because it is the soup base and too spicy of salsa can make this stew unpleasant. It's pretty thick and I would also recommend serving it over couscous instead of rice.

Delicious Salsa!

Salsa I have an excuse to spoon into my mouth sans chips!!!

Pizza is Delicious!

Despite my promise to try to blog more frequently, it appears I have fallen off the wagon again! Sorry about that, but don't worry, I am back. I have lots of pictures and recipes to post.

Just to let everyone know what's been going on since my last blog, I'll give you a brief update. I've had several base social events to attend and plan, so those livened up my schedule a little bit. I've been running like a fiend and keeping up on my running plan! I hadn't really weighed myself since I started, so when I was at the doctor's office and they asked if I wanted to be weighed, I jumped at the chance. To my infinite surprise, I have actually lost 12 lb since I started my running plan! I am feeling great about this since I have not been the best at patrolling my eating habits lately. So, here's to a great new running habit that will help allow me to indulge myself with the occasional brownie! My running buddy, Mack is doing great. He completed a straight two mile run with me and my person running buddy on Friday, so if we can keep up the running, he will be ready to 5k with me. Our current goal is the 5k Turkey Trot in Uvalde the weekend after Thanksgiving.

My meal planning and budgeting has also been going great! It's helping us get back on track financially and it's kept a lot of extra food out of house so I don't eat too much! It is fantastic. I don't want to take up anymore of your Sunday morning with my rambling, so I'm going to post today's recipe and come back tomorrow or whenever I have something else interesting to say.

The BEST Homemade Pizza Ever
I should preface this recipe with the fact that I use a bread machine to make my pizza dough, so if you have a bread machine also, you should plan to start the crust 1.5 hours (or however long your dough cycle is) before you would like to bake your pizza.

Cornmeal Pizza Dough


Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. water
1/4 c. olive oil
2 c. all purpose flour
2 c. cornmeal
1 tsp salt.
3 tbsp Italian seasoning
2 1/2 tsp bread machine yeast

Place all ingredients in the pan according to order in the manufacturer's instructions. Program your bread machine for the dough cycle. Press start.

Let it do all the work for you and think of the glorious homemade crust you'll soon be using

Pizza
Put your baking stone in the oven and preheat the over to 400 degrees. Do this about 30 minute before your bread machine cycle will be over.

When the bread machine is done, pull the hot baking stone out of the oven and place it on a heat proof surface. I use several several trivets on my counter. Sprinkle extra cornmeal all over the baking stone. Take your ball of dough and roll it out on the baking stone. Be careful so you don't burn yourself.

Now, top your pizza with your toppings of choice.

The pizza pictured here has:

Muir Glen Organic Tomato Basil Pasta Sauce
Kraft Italian 6 cheese blend
Fresh pepperoni from the deli, not the kind in the package
canned artichoke hearts
canned presliced black olives

After adding all your delicious toppings, put it in the over for about 20 minutes or until the crust is golden and done and the cheese is melted.

Take out, let cool for a couple minutes and enjoy!

Soo delicious!

Nothing like a red wine to go with your pizza!