Homemade Pizza Sauce

Fresh tomatoes cooking 

 The finished product

Hello blogging world, it has been almost 2 months since my last post. I have been cooking a couple times a week and gotten extremely behind so sorry about that, I hope you missed me:). Anyway, I am back to tell you about another culinary success. A few weeks ago I got a bag full of fresh tomatoes from a lady at work and I needed a use for them all before they went bad. I decided to try and make a pizza sauce and found a great recipe on a fellow cooking blog: Try it out, this was delicious.

Some nice extra-virgin olive oil
Fresh garlic, coarsely chopped with some nice salt and allowed to sit 10 minutes if possible, so the beneficial compounds have time to mix with the air and become more available
Plenty of vine-ripened, garden fresh tomatoes (preferably heirloom & organically grown), cut into chunks
Fresh basil (at least twice as much as you think seems like the right amount—I measure fresh basil by the handful)
Fresh oregano (more than you're about to put in)

Heat the olive oil in a heavy saucepan over medium heat, then add the garlic and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Do not allow the garlic to brown.

Add the tomatoes, basil, and oregano and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid cooks out. Cooking time will depend on the juiciness of the tomatoes.

When there is still some liquid left in the pan, carefully purée the sauce using a blender, immersion hand blender, or food processor.

http://inmykitchengarden.blogspot.com/2006/09/another-less-fuss-more-flavor.html 

Butternut Squash Soup & Mosaic Cake

 Homemade Chilled Butternut Squash Soup

Homemade Mosaic Cake

Tonight we had our friend Brad over for dinner. I made a 4 course meal but only wanted to highlight the first and last courses. The full menu included chilled butternut squash soup, blueberry balsamic salad, Orange BBQ Chicken and for dessert the Mosaic cake. Here is the recipe for the soup, it was pretty easy and very tasty I found it on foodnetwork.com. I chilled it because at the time our apartment was 80 degrees and I did not feel like eating anything hot. I did not have any nutmeg, so I substituted it with cinnamon and ginger.

Ingredients

• 1 (2 to 3 pound) butternut squash, peeled and seeded
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 6 cups chicken stock
• Nutmeg
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Cut squash into 1-inch chunks. In large pot melt butter. Add onion and cook until translucent, about 8 minutes. Add squash and stock. Bring to a simmer and cook until squash is tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove squash chunks with slotted spoon and place in a blender and puree. Return blended squash to pot. Stir and season with nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Serve.

The Mosaic Cake is an interesting story. About a week ago I made some homemade biscuits. I did not have any buttermilk so I had to improvise. I remembered my mother telling me that you can make buttermilk with white vinegar and milk. However, I thought you needed equal parts vinegar and milk. That was not the case. to make buttermilk you need 1 TBSP Vinegar and the rest milk (whatever quantity it calls for.) Needless to say, the biscuits were disgusting. So I googled "how to repurpose leftover biscuits" and found this recipe. I never like doing exactly what the recipe says, so I added some honey, cinnamon and chocolate chips. The recipe is from a European blog, so the measurements need to be tweaked.

Mosaic Cake

500 gr. of biscuits of any kind, can be a mix of different varieties. 

125 gr. of butter

225 ml. of milk (1 glass) 

60 gr. of cocoa powder (4 tablespoons)

100 gr. of sugar (4 tablespoons)

A handful of chestnuts or hazelnuts (optional)

Grated coconuts for decoration ( optional )

Step by step guide to this delicacy:• Make the biscuits into little pieces and put in a big deep bowl. • In a small pan melt the butter.• Mix the cocoa powder and sugar in.Stir till the sugar has fully melted. • Add the milk and stir enough times to make sure that all ingredients have mixed in. • Add the sauce onto the biscuit pieces. • Add the broken chestnuts or hazelnuts in if you like.• Make a dough by stirring with a spoon or with your hands gently.• After that keep the dough in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes so that it hardens a bit and becomes ready to be shaped.• Take the dough out of the refrigerator, put it on a flat and preferably thin & long plate like a rectangle or oval. • Shape it with your hands as you like. You can roll it and make it like a long cylinder or you can shape it as a pyramid like my mother did, by making its two sides flat.• Sprinkle some grounded coconut over it like snow flakes if you want.• Put the mosaic cake in the freezer and wait for a few hours. • After that slice it and serve it. 

Moral of the story: Never trash you failures. Turn them into something new, delicious and creative. Until next time, keep eating :) 

Ham & Cheese Waffles

Artsy Photo of the ham & cheese waffles, courtesy of my husband Shane

 The first waffle, an absolute failure. See below for details

This recipe came from one of my moms' cooking catalogues. It is a perfect blend of sweet and savory, and hearty enough to have as breakfast for dinner. I started off by using my favorite waffle recipe from the Better Homes & Garden cook book and once that was done I cooked up some applewood smoked bacon. I cooked the bacon until it was partially crispy and then chopped it up. Then I shredded some extra sharp Tillamook cheddar. The recipe said to add the batter to the greased, preheated waffle iron and sprinkle the cheese and bacon on top. This ended up being the biggest mistake. The waffle stuck to both sides of the iron and we had to spend about 10 minutes detaching it. The bottom picture is the result of this. After that fiasco, we decided to stir the ham and cheese into the batter and it worked much better that way. Once they were done we served them with warm maple syrup and they were fantastic.

Homemade Chicken & Molé

  My cousin David and his girlfriend Angie came over for dinner

Chicken enchiladas with molé sauce, black bean and corn mix, mexican rice, homemade guacamole and chips & peach salsa from the store

 preparation of the enchiladas the day before

My cousin and his girlfriend were in town from Michigan so we invited them over for dinner and games. I chose to make chicken and molé because it is my favorite meal at Mexican restaurants. It is a warm creamy chocolate and chili sauce. It has a bit of a kick to it, but is not too spicy. I found the sauce at Winco in a little glass container. All you have to do is follow the directions on the back and combine it with water. Make sure you add enough water because I did not add enough at first and it was way too thick and spicy. I did not have all the ingredients I needed for the guacamole so I just made a simplified version using avocados, onions, salt, pepper and a little lemon juice. We had a great time eating together and then playing a few fun games. I am definitely looking forward to the next time we entertain :)

Pork Roast

Pork roast marinated in white wine and garlic, topped with salt, pepper, garlic and fresh rosemary. Sides include roasted carrots and potatoes.

My parents are wonderful. When I went over to the house on Saturday they loaded me up with groceries from their own refrigerator, including part of a roast that my mom was preparing for a dinner party.  From a thawed state, this roast took about 45 minutes to cook. I baked it in my 12" cast iron skillet alongside the carrots and potatoes which I drizzled with olive oil and italian seasoning. The pork was a little more rare than I prefer, but still scrumptious. We ate out on our deck because having the oven on for so long made our apartment disgustingly hot and we do not have air conditioning. So note to self, stick to making roasts in the winter when you need the extra heat. 

Berry Good French Toast

French Toast is Shane's all time favorite breakfast meal

French toast topped with blueberries, blackberries and powdered sugar, accompanied by applesauce and fresh cantaloupe 

As you can see in the picture above, my husband loves to eat french toast. I used left over bread from the wedding that we put in the freezer. It had been frozen twice so my mom suggested using it for this meal because it had gotten a little stale. This bread worked perfectly. I was able to reconstitute it with eggs, milk and cinnamon. We did not have any syrup so I combined the last bit of our blackberry jam with strawberry jam and warmed it up to make it more like syrup. Shane suggested the title of this blog purely from how many berries we used. It was delicious and I will be making it again and again, just for Shane ;-)

Ham and Cheese Omelette

Ham, cheddar cheese, onion and spinach omelette with fresh berries and toast

Omelette's are really simple. Start by deciding what you want in it. Shane and I decided on these because that is what we had in our fridge. I am all about using every thing we have before going back to the store. Shane helped a lot with this meal, I chopped up all the ingredients and he whisked the eggs with some salt an pepper. Shane poured the egg in the pan and after it cooked on on side, then he flipped it over to cook the other side and that is when I added the innards. We have come to discover that we make a great team in the kitchen. This omelette was scrumptious. 

BBQ Chicken

Pan seared chicken with homemade BBQ sauce, roasted rosemary potatoes and steamed broccoli 

This meal was really simple. I started by caramelizing some onions in the pan and once those started to brown I cooked the chicken with salt, pepper and butter. As the chicken was cooking I started boiling the potatoes and created my own version of a sweet but tangy BBQ sauce. Here's the recipe if you want to try it.

Brooke's BBQ Sauce

1 1/2 cups ketchup

1/2 cup Jack Daniel's horseradish mustard 

a few shakes of worcestershire sauce

1/2 cup brown sugar

Combine ingredients in a small bowl and whisk together. 

If you like you BBQ sauce sweeter, like I do, add a little more brown sugar. If you like it more tart add more mustard and worcestershire sauce.

When the chicken was done cooking I poured my sauce over top and let it cook together to warm the BBQ sauce. I left it there on low heat while I finished the rest of the meal. For the potatoes all I did was boil them and then place them on a cookie sheet with olive oil and rosemary and baked them for about 20 minutes. The broccoli I steamed in the microwave. All in all this meal only took about 30 minutes total. You should try it and let me know the results of you BBQ sauce. I would love to get more ideas from my readers. 

Blueberry Waffles

Blueberry waffles topped with a maple and blackberry syrup

 Waffle maker my mom gave us. Still works perfectly

Shane and I had the day off together so we decided to start it off by making waffles together with our "new" waffle maker. I used a recipe from a better homes and garden cookbook that I found at a thrift store for $2.00. We did not have enough maple syrup for both of us so I added blackberry jam to it, mixed and heated it in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Here's the recipe if you want to try it. I added my own touch by putting about 1 cup of fresh blueberries in the batter.

Better Homes and Garden Waffle Recipe

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour

1 TBSP baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 egg yolks

1 3/4 cups milk

1/2 cup cooking oil

2 egg whites

In a mixing bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl beat egg yolks slightly. Beat in milk and oil. Add egg yolk mixture to flour mixture all at once. Stir just till combined but still slightly lumpy.

 In a small bowl beat egg whites till stiff peaks form. gently fold beaten egg whites into flour and egg mixture, leaving a few fluffs of egg white. Do NOT over mix.

Pour about 1 cup of batter onto the preheated and greased waffle iron and bake accordingly. This recipe makes 3 to 4 waffles. 

Shepherds Pie in My New Kitchen

 Finished shepherds pie, made in my new cast iron dutch oven

 Always be sure to check inside the oven before you pre-heat. This used to be a spatula 

My parents and Shane sharing our first meal in our new apartment 

 On Father's day Shane and I invited our parents over to celebrate. Like you saw in the picture above, I melted a spatula. I try to be real and honest about my mistakes on this blog and this is one of the most foolish I have made so far. Shane had a leftover cookie cake and spatula in the oven, which he told me was there but I had obviously forgotten. Needless to say, we are one spatula short. Fortunately the shepherds pie turned out flavorful and delicious. I found the recipe in my new Dutch Oven Cookbook by Sharon Kramis and Julie Kramis Hearne. Let me know if anyone wants it. It is relatively labor intensive but worth the results!  Later that night Al, Tammy and Sindy joined us and we all looked at our wedding pictures together. It was a great night.

Married Life

We are married!!! This is just a quick post to showcase my new kitchen! Shane and I love our apartment, it is small but already feels like home. More to come soon :)

Humble Homemade Hamburgers & Chocolate Crisps

Hamburger on homemade bun with provolone, ketchup, sweet pineapple mustard, pickles and spinach. 

Crispy chocolate chip ice cream sandwich

Apparently I am stressed out about the wedding and did not even realize it. Shane came over tonight so I wanted to make dinner for him. I decided on hamburgers, but did not want to just use regular bread, so I made homemade buns. I am not the most patient person when it comes to cooking. It is an unfortunate trait, but one that I have to come clean about. I did not wait long enough for the dough to rise, so the buns were very dense. I looked past that and pressed on towards the goal. When I moved on to the hamburger patties, I made them with egg, bread crumbs, milk and other spices. Our beef is incredibly lean, so they did not hold together well while I cooked them. Another unfortunate mishap. I was able to put the rest of the meal together with a smile and laugh off the mistakes. Shane was very gracious and ate what I gave him. After dinner I wanted to make some warm gooey chocolate chip cookies and some how I messed those up too! They ended up completely flat and crispy. At this point I fell apart and told my mom and Shane that I am a terrible cook and baker. Once I got past the self pity I realized that I probably messed up so many times because I am so distracted by thoughts of the wedding. I also realized that even when you make mistakes in cooking, you can almost always turn them into something else. And no one will no the difference, unless of course, you write it about it in a blog :) Until next time. 

Homemade Steak Fajitas

Cooking the steak and red and orange peppers with taco seasoning

the "innards"

Steak Fajitas with avocado, tomato, cheddar cheese and sour cream

My dad made dinner tonight. He made ribs and mashed potatoes since my mom wasn't home. I looked at the ribs and thought that it was the quintessential "man meal." I crave color, texture and taste in my meals, and most men are completely satisfied with meat and potatoes. So I looked in the fridge to see what I could do, using the steak he had already made. I found half an avocado, cheese, red and orange peppers, tortillas and sour cream. The perfect ingredients for a fajita. I chopped up the steak and put it in a sizzling hot pan with taco seasoning and the peppers. Occasionally I would splash some water on it so the flavors would combine nicely together. While the meat was cooking I chopped the avocado and tomato and grated the cheese. Once all of this was done I assembled them, topping them with sour cream. For the side dish I used the left over tomatoes and avocado topped with the rest of the cheese for a veggie salad. It was delicious. The only down side was that I only needed to make it for me so I didn't get to share it, and half the fun in cooking is making food for other people. I am really looking forward to being married so I can make food for Shane and at times entertain for our friends and have them over for dinner. So if you want to try anything from this blog, let me know. We would love to have you over. :)

French Toast w/ Nutella Syrup

Homemade Cinnamon French toast topped with nutella syrup

I have had a love for nutella ever since I spent time in Europe. It's a great excuse to have chocolate for breakfast. The french toast was made with Dave's Killer Bread, a wonderful hearty choice. The egg mixture included eggs, cinnamon and lactose free milk. We did not have any syrup and the nutella we did have left was a little dry. I reconstituted it with so Corn syrup and put it in the microwave for about a minute to give it a smoother texture. It was a simple and filling meal and I will definitely be making this syrup again:)

Baked Salmon with a Sun Dried Tomato Pesto Sauce

Baked salmon with a homemade pesto sauce, topped with sun dried tomatoes. Sides include quinoa with chopped vegetables and a salad

It has been a while since my last post. Mostly due to the insane amount of wedding planning we have successfully executed thus far. Anyway, This dish is an idea I got from a friend. I love pesto sauce and found a pretty simple recipe for it.

Pesto Recipe

2 cloves garlic

2 cups basil

1/4 TB pine nuts

3 TB parmesan

1/2 cup olive oil

dash of salt and pepper

(quantities can vary, depending on how many you are cooking for)

Combine all ingredients except the olive oil in a food processor. Once combined, slowly pour in the olive oil. Set aside.

Take the frozen salmon and lay them on a baking sheet. Cover them with the pesto sauce and top with chopped sun dried tomatoes. Place in the oven at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.

The side dish is quinoa with chopped carrots and okra and the salad is covered in a balsamic vinaigrette, let me know if anyone wants directions for the quinoa. It is a great alternative to rice and has a lot better nutritional value.