Roasted Tomato Sauce

I found an amazing recipe recently in an old copy of Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion, before they stopped publishing it. I was enjoying a huge harvest of vegetables from the farmer's market and realized that there was no way we were going to eat our way through that pile of veggies before they would be ready for the compost pile.

The recipe is from the guys at Stonewall Kitchen, makers of fancy food in beautiful glass jars with lovely labels. It appealed to me because of the ease of the process. Got a pile of tomatoes and things? Get cookin'!

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Roasted Tomato Sauce

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Toss with past, serve with chicken or fish, or use with any recipe that calls for tomato sauce. Can be refrigerated for up to five days or frozen up to 10 months.

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Makes about 10 cups of tomato sauce.

15 cloves of garlic

8 lbs of ripe tomatoes, any variety

10 medium onions, quartered

1 cup fresh herbs, chopped (rosemary, Italian flat parsley, basil, thume, oregano, and/or chives will all work)

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 tsp salt

Fresh ground black pepper

3 to 4 Tbsp sugar, optional

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1. Prehead oven to 450 degrees. Peel and chop 5 cloves of garlic. Leave the remaining cloves whole. In a large roasting pan, gently toss together the tomatoes, whole and chopped garlic, onions, herbs, oil, salt, and pepper.

2. Roast for 25 minutes. Gently stir. Roast for another 25 minutes. Stir again. Roast another 45 minutes or until tomatoes are softened and broken down into a sauce with a golden brown crust on top.

3. Remove from oven and taste for seasoning. If slightly bitter, add sugar and stir. Pour sauce into clean, sterile jars or freezer bags and refrigerate, can or freeze. If you prefer a smoother sauce, blend in a blender until smooth.

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I didn't really measure or weigh the ingredients, just an approximation of the recipe. I even added a few red and yellow peppers. Wow... was it fun, easy and tasty! I put it in quart bags in the freezer, ready for something yummy this winter.

Dinner Al Fresco

We had friends over recently and I shared a few prizes from my beet stash. The weather was warm, mostly bug-free and the kids were happy to allow us a bit more than usual of adult-only time on the back patio. Mmmm, savoring one of the last nights of summer in Minnesota with friends.

The menu:

• Spinach salad with beets, pecans, goat cheese, red onions and Cafe Brenda's maple mustard vinagarette.
• A fresh baked boule from Artisan Bread in Five
• Herb-Rubbed Flank Steak with Peperonata from Bon Appetit (Aug. 2007) (Try it! Here's what they say-- Why you'll make it: Because it's special enough for company but easy enough to pull off any night of the week.)
• Mashed Yukon gold and sweet potatoes
• Flan
  
  

A Fun Book Surprise!

A padded envelope arrived unannounced in my mailbox the other day. Postmark? Virginia. Hmmmm. The book is called "My Mama Made That," a book of yummy favorites from the women in Virginia. It was published by The Junior League of Hampton Roads and had been reviewed recently in the paper where my friend Julie lives. She hopped quickly over to the bookstore and picked up two copies, one for herself and the other for me, just 'cause it reminded her of me. What a special treat!

The book goes above and beyond all other local-type cookbooks I've ever seen. They arranged for a photographer to shoot amazing photographs of delicious southern fare as well as a beautiful collection of aprons. The photography is by Lee Walker Shepherd who is both a photgrapher and stylist. Check out her stuff here. From the credits in the book, it looks like local friends chipped in to provide the props like a restored 1946 Chevy pickup.

And then there's the food....

A book featuring red velvet cake-- of course I love it!I think this might become a summer favorite around our house: Balsamic Chicken with Fresh Summer Relish on page 152.
It couldn't be from an ocean side area without a fun cocktail called Ocean Blue Margarita. Can you say, "Official Summer Beverage" anyone?

I love the rick rack trim. I also love the Coastal crab cakes recipe. I think someday when I actually get to the coast, not just a lake here in land-locked Minnesota, I'm going to make this. In the meantime, I'm enjoying my new nightstand favorite nightly. Sweet and savory dreams, to you all.

A Little Bread... another style

In addition to the Artisan, 5 minutes a day variety of bread, I've also been busy baking focaccia bread. This recipe came from some pages I ripped out of a Cook's magazine in 1997 and have slugged around with me from apartment to apartment to house. They were finally placed in a plastic sleeve last winter and filed away in my white binder for recipes. It was a task I thought would never be completed.

The texture of this focaccia bread is better than any I had ever baked, most likely because the dough has potatoes--riced potatoes to be exact-- and they keep the dough very moist. Topped with some olive oil and rosemary from our garden, this is a delight to share with friends along with a nice glass of red wine.

Artisan Bread in my Kitchen!?!

Have you seen this book yet? The authors Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois are good Minnesota folk and have gotten a bit of publicity around the Twin Cities. I had read about them when the book was first released, considered buying the book, but then found a copy of the original recipe in a magazine somewhere, figuring I could make do with that. (Here's a YouTube clip of the authors.) That magazine clipping sat in a pile in my kitchen collecting dust and we continued to buy The New French Bakery's take-n-bake loaves for $3.00 or $4.00 every week.

Two weeks ago my mom left for her two week water color class in France and I asked to borrow the book, figuring that now that I'm making cheese regularly, I ought to have some better options for bread on which to eat it. After paging through the book a little bit every night before I crashed into bed, I decided it was time to stop the take-n-bake mania. Time to get out the bucket. The bucket of dough, that is.
The premise behind this book is that with a few good pieces of equipment and a bucket with a lid, any of us can create artisan bread in our homes. No, not just the stay-at-home crafty types, but everyone, even those who work full time jobs. If you have five minutes a day, plus about 40 minutes to let the bread rise when you get home from work (while you read the mail, talk to your kids, walk the dog...), then you can do it.
You start with warm water and yeast, adding kosher salt and unbleached flour and mixing it well, until it becomes a wet mess. My Kitchen Aid mixer's dough hook was in mixing heaven. My hands stayed clean and my counter didn't have to be scraped of excess flour from needless kneading. From there, you let the dough rise in the bucket a few hours, then sneak it away into a corner of your fridge until you feel the urge to pull out the take-n-bake gourmet bread that you paid too much for. Oh yes, pull out the bucket from the fridge, chop off a hunk the size of a grapefruit, make it into a ball, and voila, you're almost done! It rises on a pile of cornmeal to prevent sticking but 40 minutes later, you place the ball into a pre-heated oven with a pizza stone at 400 degrees, and 30 minutes later, you're ready to kiss the authors.

The secret lies in the wet dough, the hot stone and oven in addition to the hot water you place in the oven, creating a steam bath of sorts. These are the secrets that pastry chefs and bakers around the world have been keeping from the home bakers. The curtain has been yanked. We can do it!

And I did. Two nights in a row. I've baked three loaves and each one was amazing! Here's proof:

They say that you're supposed to let it cool 'til you slice into it, to preserve the "crumb" and the delicate custard-like texture of your artisan masterpiece, but who can resist? I wanted to do cartwheels down the street and shout to my neighbors... "The bread is here, bring your butter!" I didn't, of course. Instead, we happily dunked it into Ron's Crab and Corn bisque with his parents. A toast to bread, indeed!

Summer Cooking:: part 2

Another summer salad, compliments of a perfect issue of Bon Appetit last summer. This one is called Farmer's Market Salad with Spiced Goat Cheese Rounds. I made it the first time last summer when my mom, sister and I took our kids to my parents' cabin for "Grandma Camp." Just moms and kids and lots of fun. After the kiddies went to bed, we heated things up in the kitchen. Well, my salad wasn't exactly heating up the kitchen, as the cooked ingredients can be prepared ahead of time and tossed at the last minute. A perfect salad to use the fresh ingredients coming in from the market or your garden. Don't have a few of these things? Just improvise. I added a little bit of crumbled bacon instead of olives and tomato wedges instead of cherry tomatoes. The greens were from our garden. Of course, we found a few blades of grass, but that adds to the experience, right?

We fed the kids first, then set up our little dinner-for-two in the yard while the kids rode their bikes up and down the driveway and sidewalk. Louise mostly tried to eat dirt, but rode her bike a little. Check out the HUGE blackberry bush behind me. It has been the most prolific plant in our yard, all thanks to a little bird or squirrel who planted the original seed. Thank you, who ever you were! Carl and Gus thank you for their purple fingers and happy bellies every night.

Mmm... yummy new-to-me goat cheese. Ever tried Ile-de-France goat? Tangy and soft, just the slightest bit dry to please your palate. It held up quite well with my recipe when I sliced it and rolled it in spices. I love that it comes in a large portion, not just the stingy small rolls I most often find at the grocery store. When I buy goat cheese, I want it to be around for a little while so I can use it in a few recipes, or sneak into it when no one is looking. Although I tend to look for local cheeses, I would definitely recommend Ile de France for cooking. Notice the thyme flowers? I dig the way they look on a plate, so I added them to our salads for a garnish.

Summer cooking:: part 1

I love summer food. The ingredients coming out of my yard and local farmer's markets are so inspiring. We had some mushrooms leftover from another recipe and I decided to figure out how to do a mushroom risotto.

I have a standard recipe from Moosewood Low-Fat Favorites that I can make in my sleep with my eyes closed (well, not really...) but I had never tried it with mushrooms. I couldn't figure out how to incorporate the mushrooms in the steps with sauteing the onions, then adding the rice to the oil, then adding the wine, then the broth... how was I supposed to get those mushrooms to release their delicious flavors? I frantically called a few of my foodie friends who would have known the scoop... but no one answered! I punted, and just sauteed them in a separate pan til they were soft and dreamy, then deglazed the pan with a little of the broth for the risotto, resulting in a dark, rich mushroomy liquid that I added to the risotto a few minutes before it was done. The results? A big thumbs up from Ron. And Louise. The boys? Not so much. A shave of fresh romano to the top, and voila... a delicious, beautiful summer dinner.

The salad is one from a Bon Appetit magazine a while back, with grape seed oil and white balsamic vinegar in the dressing, along with a shallot and some spices. Light and perfect. Added a few broken up pieces of bacon and almonds sauteed in the bacon grease (because I didn't have the pancetta it called for on hand)... a complex flavored salad. The other side dish has sugar snap peas, green beans and mushrooms along with basil and mint from the garden. What a flavor! Another dish from Moosewood Low Fat.

Rhubarb, pt. 2

With this much rhubarb, of course I had to bake a pie.


I found a recipe in the Star Tribune last summer for a rhubarb custard pie. The author was a purist of sorts, didn't like to mess around with strawberries or other potential invaders.


I happen to like rhubarb with most anything, but as I had nothing else to mix it with, I followed her recipe but used these lovely brown eggs from a local farmer near the cabin.

A little rhubarb

The rhubarb is ready to go! My rhubarb plants that were hand-me-downs from two different friends have finally reached their full potential. The boys and I harvested a good share of the rhubarb last week in preparation for rhubarb two ways.
The bountiful harvest, waiting to be cleaned and readied for work.

The recipe is from Dianne French, my dear friend Stephanie's mother. When Stef and I lived together, we ate this jam daily. At every meal. Our favorite way was to take a piece of bread (not toast) and spread it with Old Home Fat Free Vanilla yogurt, then slather on a thick coating of this lovely jam. Very sweet, but very, very yummy!


I had been wanting to make it since I first received the recipe from Dianne, maybe, oh my, 11 years ago. Unfortunately, I started the process at about 11 pm one night, too late at night to call Dianne to ask questions about the recipe. Is it a large box or small box of jello? (small) Should I pay attention to the instructions on jelly/jam websites that say not to double the recipe? (yes, but I went ahead and doubled it anyway.) When I put it in the canner, is it really ok to only boil for 5 minutes? (Yes, but she only freezes hers. Hmmm... that would take A LOT less time.)

I went to bed a happy jam maker at 1 am with only a small blood blister on one finger and 12 jars of red goodness to show for my dedication.

You have to let the chopped rhubarb sit overnight mixed with the sugar. It helps the rhubarb juices to release.

Cherry pie filling, jello, rhubarb and sugar. What's not to like? I wanted some vanilla ice cream to pour it over.

Lemon Cake

My mother-in-law loves lemon cake. Five years ago for her 60th birthday, I made a fancy lemon cake from Bon Appetit that took two days to make, including making the lemon curd from scratch. She talks about it often and it makes me realize how much doing special things for people really matters. People like to be remembered, especially with food.


This year I wanted to try another recipe, perhaps for something easier. I found a lovely recipe in Country Living magazine, maybe in the April issue. In the magazine there were several different versions of the frosting, including this one featured on the website in yellow. I can't seem to find a picture of the one I copied... but maybe I could scan the photo from the magazine itself?!? The recipe is found at the same link.


It was supposed to be a four layer cake. I stayed up 'til 1 am working on it, making sure that both of the two layer pans were perfectly baked. I went to bed totally exhausted but satisfied, knowing that I had finished the tricky part and would enjoy the decorating during nap time the following day. Friday morning we drove Carl to school. Before we left, I made sure that the cakes were covered up with a towel and far from the edge of the counter. While we were gone, the counter surfer, aka Molly, was engaged in a little surf's up activity. She nabbed one of the layer pans off the counter and ate the pan clean. Hmmmm. Maybe I should know better by now? This isn't her 1st time attacking a special cake in our house. Fortunately, the recipe shows that the cake is just lovely as two layers, so I went for it. Here it is in process. Mmmm.

Inspiring Appetizers

Have you ever wondered what-in-the-world you could bring to a party that would be a bit more inspiring than chips and salsa? I wanted to make some bread sticks from scratch so I turned to Martha Stewart's appetizer book that my Mom passed on to me during her great cook book reduction scheme.

These are made with frozen puff pastry, halved, spread with melted butter, parmesan, poppy seeds and a little egg for shine. Loved them!
These are bread stick straws... meant to be made in many colors. I made yellow ones (colored with carrot juice) and red ones (with tomato paste). Labor intensive, but wonderful!

The final result was for my mother-in-law's 65th birthday: fabulous!