Feeling Saucy!

Most of you know that I have been an Italian in training for almost 7 years now...wow time flies!  Josh's Dad is an Italian immigrant and brought with him some amazing recipes.  I have spent many years trying to perfect his pizza and I'm getting very close (or Josh just likes to humor me).  I have made his sauce twice before with little success getting it to taste just right.   

We have a huge garden going this year and had a large picking of tomatoes so I knew it was sauce time.  I decided not to try to replicate Gaetano's sauce and instead take my own path.  I found a recipe online and decided to make my own tweaks to it.  The first hurdle was seeding and dicing the tomatoes, all 42 of them.  You probably wouldn't have to seed them but I hate tomato seeds!

Fresh basil from the garden along with our tomatoes!

Seed, seed, seed all day long...

The final product, worth every second!

Time for chopping onions...1/2 an onion in and I was dying so I had to equip myself with an onion gas mask!

  Now for the big show!  I coated the bottom of my deep soup pot with EVOO and sauteed my onions until they were translucent then added my garlic.

Next add in about a cup to cup and a half of red wine.  This wine was left from a gift we got from Chris and Kelly.  I added most of what was left of the bottle, probably a little more than a cup and a half, but you can't have too much of a good thing :)  I saved the last few swigs for the chef! (insert Julia Childs voice here)

Simmer the wine till reduced by about half and then dump in all the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 2 hours.

I had some extra help in the kitchen from my assistant.  Sorry she is naked but we are potty training so it goes with the territory.  At least I made her sit on a kitchen towel!  LOL!!

After two hours of glorious smells and a few taste tests from me it was done, I'm pretty happy thought I think it is a little sweet.  I whizzed it with my immersion blender a few times to smooth it out a little.  I may reduce the brown sugar to 3 tablespoons next time.  It made me enough for 3 large servings, two of which I froze in ziploc bags. 

Sweet Tomato and Basil Sauce


Ingredients (add in this order):
1/4 Cup Olive Oil
1/4 Cup Minced Garlic
2 Large Onions, Minced
1 Cup Red Wine
3 Tablespoons Italian Seasoning
4 Tablespoons of brown sugar
5 Lbs of tomatoes seeded and diced (or three cans diced tomatoes and 3 cans tomato sauce)
1 Cup Chopped Fresh Basil

Enjoy!!!

The Best Zucchini Bread Ever!

I'm channeling my cousin Amanda Metternich today and her blog Whistle While you Whisk.  Since she is spending her summer scooping Elephant poo rather than cooking/baking I had to post this in her honor : )

I was given some zucchini from Larry Kraft's garden and wanted to make some bread with them.  I did some searching on allrecipes.com and found this recipe.  After reading some of the reviews I decided to make a few tweaks to the recipe.  I substituted the white sugar for brown and cut it down to 1 cup and added 1/2 cup of honey.  I also added an additional cup of zucchini.

My Mama taught me to sift my ingredients onto a paper plate (who wants to wash another bowl!)

When you combine the ingredients it resembles cookie batter but once the zucchini is added it thins out a bit from the moisture

This produced the most moist and sweet bread I have had in a while...yummy!

Here is my updated recipe.  Enjoy!!  I baked mine for 50 mins and it was perfect!!   

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups grated zucchini
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (I didn't add these)

Directions

1. Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
3. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.
4. Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.