Mama Mia

Sometimes I like to think of myself as an honorary Italian. In my daydreams, a court of little, old Italian grandmothers knight me with a big wooden spoon and tell me how perfect and delicious my homemade meatballs are.

That’s not weird, right?

Anyway, I mentioned a homemade red sauce in a previous post, so here we go! I made this sauce for a party recently and froze bags of it afterwards. I usually freeze 2 cups per bag, which is about 2 meals worth of sauce. One bag was used with pizza and pork parmesan sandwiches (the second recipe in this post). I like the ziplock bag freezing method because to thaw it I just sit the bag in a bowl of warm water.  

Just don't put your bags in the freezer on a wire rack, or the bag might freeze around the shape of the rack. Like this.

Here are the estimated proportions, but overall, it’s taste as you go (i.e. whip out the garlic powder if you need to).

Homemade Red Sauce

Ingredients:  

42 oz. (one big can + one little can) canned tomatoes, diced or crushed (see note below)

5 heads of garlic, roasted (follow the instructions at the start of this recipe)

1 medium onion, diced

1 carrot, diced

¼ to ½ cup EVOO (tip: use the EVOO left from the roasted garlic method above)

Herbs and spices

Salt and pepper

Tomato Note: Diced tomatoes are chunkier and will make your sauce look like chili. However, if you have an immersion blender, it doesn’t matter. I take an immersion blender through my sauce to make it smooth and to be sure the olive oil blends well. If you’re not going to blend your sauce, I’d use crushed tomatoes.

1. Start with plenty of olive oil in your pot on med-high heat. Add onions and cook until translucent (about 10 minutes). Use whatever you have; I usually have diced onion remnants in my freezer—red, white, yellow onion, or a combination, I’m not picky.

2. If you choose to use minced or chopped garlic, you should add that now. I love roasted garlic, so I’m adding that later. Also you won’t need as much garlic if you’re NOT roasting it. If you are roasting it, load up.

3. Next add diced carrots (which apparently add a slight sweetness). You don’t need much. This is another food remnant easily found in my freezer.

4. Then add your tomatoes and simmer the heck out of everything.

Now is when I add roasted garlic. I run the roasted garlic through a food processor to make it pasty before adding it to the sauce. My favorite new way to roast garlic is at the beginning of this recipe. You don’t have to squeeze the garlic out of its skin at the end, and you end up with infused olive oil you can reuse.

 

Before . . . 

After . . . golden-brown roasted garlic.

You’ll also want to add things like crushed red pepper flakes, a little grated Parmesan cheese (no shame in the green bottle), salt, pepper, basil, oregano, and thyme. You might even try adding a little sugar to balance to acidity in the tomatoes.

Now for the sandwiches! 

Pork Parmesan Sandwiches

Ingredients

pork (or chicken or whatever)

loaf of Italian bread

ricotta cheese

zucchini

homemade red sauce

EVOO

egg

flour

bread crumbs

herbs and spices

salt and pepper

1. Start with a pan over med-high heat with a thin layer of EVOO in it. Tenderize (i.e. pound and hammer) the meat so that it’s fairly thin, and season with salt and pepper. Make yourself a little assembly line of bowls in which you dredge the meat in flour, dip in egg wash, and roll in breadcrumbs (which you can dress up with the same grated parm, herbs, and spices you threw in your sauce). The meat will cook quickly, a few minutes on each side.

2. Grill or roast some zucchini. You know how to do this. Toss in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roast at 450° for about 8-10 minutes. 

3. Heat up your homemade red sauce.

4. Get out some ricotta cheese. Yeah, mine’s homemade. Not sure how worth it that was, but it was yummy.

That one time I made ricotta cheese. . . 

5. Slice a loaf of Italian bread so that you can make two sandwiches. Tip: tear out some of the middle of the loaf to make room for fillings. No creative use for the bread scraps here, just gave them to my spoiled dogs.

You can't see it, but the dogs' tails are wagging.

 6. Build your sandwich, and heat in the oven a few minutes so it all melts together. 

Time to eat.

Enjoy!

-Madison

Kara's Birthday

So, my husband Dane and I have this friend named Jack. When Jack told us that he had finally started dating this great girl, we were excited. When Jack told us that this girl had just so happened to have moved to Russia, we were skeptical of her existence. (Think, “Darn, I wish you could meet her, but she’s in Russia. Take my word for it; she’s real.”)

Then she finally moved back from Russia, and we discovered, not only is she real, but also, she is awesome.

Go Sporting!

Thanks to Kara, I’ve had some new adventures in gardening.

 

Wait, when was the last time I watered my plants . . .

Kara is a much more impressive gardener than me, and you can see her blog here.

Dane and I missed Kara’s birthday party while we were on vacation, so we had a belated celebration. Who doesn't love a good party?

It was unanimous between the four of us: we should grill. We have to grill. We stuck to good ol’ fashioned burgers--both meat and veggie--but I wanted to try something a little crazy for our side: roasted beet and pear salad.

This recipe comes from Anne Burrell, whom I love, mostly because she talks to her food. The salad is essentially shredded pears and roasted beets tossed in a balsamic vinaigrette over greens—specifically arugula. However, I do not love arugula, so instead I used a spring mix. I also went without the marcona almonds that the recipe calls for because my grocery store isn’t posh enough to carry those. And because money.

I like big beets, and I cannot lie.

Roasting up the beets was easy peasy. The shredding was a little tedious, but I actually enjoyed the mess (which is weird for me).

Tip : Rub baking soda on your hands to get rid of the pink beet stain if you don't like the whole ax murderer look.

The salad was tangy and sweet and definitely not boring. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product (sorrynotsorry, we were having a party!), but food network didn’t forget, so you can go check out the source. 

Last, but certainly not least, Kara made dessert—lemon lavender cookies. I love it when Kara bakes cookies, because she adds in fresh herbs from her garden. Here is the base recipe for those--have fun with it! Add your own lavender or other herbs and flavors and go with or without frosting or glaze.

Enjoy! 

-Madison

Daily Bread : Herby Focaccia Bread and Pizza Dough

It's Sunday, and I’m baking bread. Remember when carbs were evil, and the Atkin’s diet was huge? Reign of Terror. I love carbs, oh so much. I don’t eat pasta seven days a week or anything, but if I were Maria in The Sound of Music, I would be singing about spaghetti, Lucky Charms, and blueberry muffins--not raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. So to prep for my week, I’m making herby focaccia bread and pizza dough which are about identical recipes, just slightly different preparations. 

Oh, and it's all easy (and cheap). 

Each recipe makes 2 batches of dough. You can freeze this dough for up to 2 weeks or keep it in the fridge for a few days.

Let's get started. I made both doughs at the same time because I like efficiency. Tip: if you don't have a warm place for the dough to rise, turn your oven to it's lowest setting (170° in my case) and crack it open.

Waiting for dough to rise.

Admission: my first focaccia bread turned into flatbread. This is probably for a few reasons: I pressed it too thin, cooked it too long, and used bread flour. You’ll get chewier bread using all-purpose flour—which I suppose might function better for focaccia bread—but I like a crunchy crust on my bread. For this reason, I highly recommend using bread flour for your pizza dough. Your call though! 

Here is my first focaccia, i.e. flatbread. About twice a week, Dane and I just eat a huge salad for dinner, sometimes with bread on the side—enter flatbread.

"I meant to do that."

Here is my second focaccia—less flat and more bread.

Size reference : if you don't want flatbread, the dough needs to be about hand - size in diameter. 

Finished product! 

Tip: I added my own assortment of dried herbs to the focaccia--it makes a difference. Pioneer Woman only uses rosemary in the dough; I sprinkle rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil, garlic powder, and salt—basically half of my spice rack—over the dough right before it bakes.

Fast-forward a few days: pizza night! Toppings of choice include homemade red sauce (post coming soon), Italian sausage, roasted bell peppers, and mozzarella cheese.

Keep in mind that when you start patting out your pizza dough, it will be difficult to stretch if it’s straight outta your fridge.  If it just continually shrinks back on you, give it a few minutes to rest. You’ll get there.

Ready for sauce!

Tip: brush the dough with olive oil to keep it from getting too soggy and don’t overload the pizza with toppings—which I always do. It’s okay, I’m getting better.

Nom, nom, nom.

Tip: check the the expiration date on your cheese. I may or may not have almost sprinkled green cheese on my pizza. :/ 

I use these baking instructions since the recipe above didn’t include any (what??? I know). For my ancient and ugly oven, 18 minutes at 450° does the job.

Ta-da!

Time for Netflix.

Enjoy!

-Madison