Makin' Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

I remember a time... when I thought spaghetti sauce came from a bottle, and that the way to do make spaghetti was to boil some noodles, cook some hamburger, add the sauce and when it was done, voila' that was it.

Simple, yes, but what about all of the exciting possibilities of making your own sauce?

Well, that was the question that I had a few years ago as I explored ways to simplify my pantry, and become more self reliant.

So today as I was pulling together a simple spaghetti sauce for lunch, I thought of the little journey that I went on to get to that point.

When I decided that I wanted to learn, I looked at the recipe in my Betty Crocker cook book and thought, "Oi' that's complicated!" So I put off trying it for a while, until I overheard a sister in a relief society meeting, describe how her mom had taught her to make spaghetti sauce.

My ears perked up and I caught up to her after the meeting to ask if she would teach me.

We made a plan, she would get things prepped for dinner at her house and I would come over, help and eat dinner with them.

So I went over to her house, she had a bunch of vegetables grated up, and diced, ready to use for the sauce. She threw them all into the pan of warm olive oil and let them caramelize, and a glorious scent filled the house!! My mouth was watering.

Then she added a couple of cans of tomatoes (and explained that she didn't salt her sauce until the end, especially when using canned tomatoes, because they are often preserved with salt). She let that simmer, added a bunch of spices, a touch of brown sugar, and threw together a quick basil pesto sauce as well!!

I helped where I could, mostly keeping the kidlets from running amok, and we ate together with her husband when he got home from work.

This was one of the most delicious spaghetti dishes that I have ever eaten. Tanya and I became good friends afterwards and often went on walks together, until she moved up to Salt Lake City and I lost track of her. :(

But this is not the end of the delicious spaghetti tale. No, not at all...

I had it in mind, that I wanted to be able to make my own pasta as well!! ;D

I know, I am a bit fanatical *grin*

So I got a pasta attachment for my wheat grass juicer (;D;P) and mixed me up a batch of home made spaghetti. This delicious delicacy came out of the machine (with constant care and flouring to avoid the noodles sticking together) and right into the boiling water!! It was quite an operation, the whole family got into it.

That, combined with my own homemade pasta sauce (using fresh tomatoes) made my spaghetti dinner that night, the most delicious meal that I had ever eaten!!

Too bad I cannot eat those gluten filled wheat noodles now. :( A challenge perhaps, to find a good recipe for home made GF noodles... yes siree, I like a challenge. ;p

Here is the recipe for my Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

Perhaps I will share with you the time that I decided to learn how to make homemade tamale's (an even more entertaining tale). ;p

Roxie's Loot and GF Strawberry Pancakes

Today, I stumbled upon a fantastic Gluten Free pancake recipe!! It's a fluke that sometimes happens when I am throwing stuff together to cook.

I've actually been searching for a GF pancake recipe (I have one listed for GF Pumpkin Pancakes) so today Sione wanted me to make pancakes and I usually throw them together, not even looking at the recipe.

I got everything in the bowl, except the pumpkin. Then mixed it up, it was runny... so I thought "what if I threw in some apple fiber?" So I threw in a couple tablespoons of that. Then I thought "what about some ground chia seed?" (So nutritious) so I threw about a half cup in the Vita-Mix, ground them up, and threw them into the bowl. (Love my Vita-Mix, took a bit of convincing Sam to get it though).

The mixture had started bubbling up from the baking powder. I mixed that all together and poured a runny bit on the pan, as I ran to grab some pumpkin (which is so nutritious that I hate to leave it out) then I grabed a bit more rice flour and another tsp. of baking powder (reasoning that the other had started to go flat) and a tbsp. of succanat (raw brown sugar, which I usually put in pumpkin pancakes).

Then I got out the mixer again and mixed it all up... taking off the first experimental pancake (a pancake without pumpkin, which Angie hates... thus the search for a better pancake recipe).

My little messed up pancake, turned out to be very, very yummy!! So now Angie can have homemade pancakes again!! and highly nutritious ones at that. :D

Plus the other pancakes turned out great as well... so I did a few chocolate chip and then threw some cut up strawberries in another batch (could I help myself?)

Everything was super yummy today. :D

Here's a picture of GF Strawberry Pancakes (I will post the recipe on my other blog)



And here's a few pictures of Roxie with her "loot" from the doctors.

The Joy of Cooking Well

So, as you all may know, I am a foodie. IE someone who enjoy's cooking and eating good food. What was interesting and unique for me about the past year was reducing the amount of ingredients that I allowed myself to be able to use which forced me into trying new and creative ways of combining different foods. What's great is that it becomes easier to know which ingredients to throw together the more experience that you have. I love to learn different styles of cooking, it would be even better if I had someone there who loved to cook as well, but I get by on my own most of the time. I was so sad when my foodie friend Tanya moved away. She and I had really similar backgrounds and had the same types of interests. We would get together and experiment and although not all of the things we cooked turned out well, every time we got together we had fun and so did our kids. She taught me the basics of making a good spaghetti sauce, including lots of veggies. We figured out the basics of Swedish Meatballs together (It took a while to get this one), we even planned on making Tamales together. She moved away before we could get to the Tamales but I figured it out on my own. As I posted before on the subject a poor unsuspecting mexican friend of my son's tasted the result of using olive oil for the masa dough, blech. But I did figure it out and now the tamales taste great whenever I decide to make them. It would be fun to figure out some vegetarian versions though I have a couple of recipe's that I want to try but I haven't gotten to them yet. I will probably use a blander type of fat for the masa, like palm vegetable shortening when I do these. If you are wondering why I am posting this so early in the morning (if you notice anyway), it is because for the past two nights my daughter has been getting to bed on time. So for the past two morning she has been rewarding me by getting up at 4 a.m. She has been off schedule because of the holiday's and it has been driving me crazy. Now I have to suffer!! Well I am going to try to get her to give me a break and go back to sleep, cross your fingers for me.

~Strawberry Girl

Healthy "Carmel" Popcorn Recipe and a Request

Today I made up a recipe for healthy "carmel" popcorn, the link is on this site to "The Frugal Gluten Free Gourmet," delicious.

The request is for creative parents out there to help me think of way's to avoid a sugar overload this year on Halloween (I know tall order, but I had to ask). If you have any idea's please post them, all comments are appreciated.

~Strawberry Girl

Failed Cooking Experiments. . .

OK I confess, I experiment a lot, but that is a good thing. Right now I think that I make the best darn chicken soup out there (or at least in my world). It is a basic recipe that can be moulded one way or another. Sometimes it is a basic chicken and veggies, or chicken and rice, my current favorite is a play on yummy muligatawny soup (with curry and coconut milk). I have made different types of gluten free breads with varying success, in those cases I found that I wasn't feeling very healthy eating them, so I have been holding back on those until I can increase my reprotire of knowledge on which recipes work and look good. Last week I made a fairly decent Oatmeal and Millet based bread, I think I will work with that a bit more.

Now for the experiment that is the most amusing to me and which prompted me to write it down. I got into a mexican cooking kick, most likely because I love the food (Yum). So I found numerous recipe's to start experimenting with. I got fairly good at Pico di galo. I made homemade corn tortillas. Then I decided to take on what is what I consider to be one of the biggest projects, homemade Tamales. It took me a while to prepare myself to try this out. I bought the necessary equipment (a stainless steel steamer pot) and bought Masa, and chile's and of course a big hunk of meat. Then there was the difficulty of which type of fat to use in the preparation of the Masa, of course Lard is the best to use for this, but I had been adverse to buying and using Lard in the past considering it to be very fattening and bad for your arteries. After some research I found some vegetarian recipes that used olive oil. Being that I am or was very ignorant on what would happen, I thought that it would make a good substitute. So I got making my Tamales and the meat turned out really well, juicy and flavorful. I wasn't really thinking about how the Masa dough would turn out. So I made a whole bunch of them. Unfortunantly for me, my sons little friend came over. His grandma is very good at making Tamales and he smelled the Masa cooking. So he was hanging around and although I was uneasy serving an untested recipe I told him he could try them, but I warned him that they were not the same. Boy oh boy they definantly were not. The olive oil gave them a nice delicate bitter taste, not at all yummy. But he was a polite kid, he ate his Tamale and didn't complain. I gave everyone some yummy cookies to make up for it. But I am sure that he won't want to try my Tamales again. I did some more research and found some Pricy Organic Lard from an Amish farm. This makes acceptable, although I know they are not authentic, Tamales. My daughter is totally hooked. I have found that the best Tamales that I have turned out took just a bit of common sense, some carmelized onions and spices added to the meat. Enough Lard and flavorful stock to the dough. Boy those type of Tamales are good.

As to other cooking experiments. I have found that cooking with whole, real foods usually turns out good food (and simple is usually better). I am frustrated though that even when I cook an excellent meal, no one really appreciates it. So I have hit a bit of a block on my cooking, but I am still trying, because I love to experiment. When I do find something that works, it is so gratifying. Anyway, maybe I will make a little food blog. Because I am into that type of thing, and I will attach it as a link to this blog.

~Strawberry Girl