Spaghetti Sauce

I love spaghetti, but jarred sauce is expensive and not nearly as good as homemade sauce. Here is a sauce that is very good that doesn't need to cook all day long. It takes as long as the noodles take to cook.


Kelsie's Awesome Spaghetti Sauce:

1 large can crushed tomatoes in puree
1 small can tomato sauce
1/2 large onion, diced
4-6 cloves garlic, minced
Basil (fresh is best, dried works fine)
Oregano
Dried parsley
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Parmesan cheese
1lb spaghetti noodles

Also good with mushrooms, or ground beef if you want to add them. Add anything you like, but I leave mine as a simple tomato and basil sauce.

Pour a little olive oil into a large sauce pan or a tall sided frying pan. Add diced onion and minced garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Saute until onion is tender. Add a palm full of parsley, a palm full of dried basil and a few pinches of oregano. Oregano is pretty strong, don't add too much. If you are using fresh basil, add a handful of fresh leaves now and save a handful for the very end. Once the herbs are added and mixed in dump in tomatoes and tomato sauce. Mix well. Simmer covered (so it doesn't pop all over your stove) until noodles are finished. Taste. If it is missing any salt, pepper or any other seasonings add them. If you are using fresh basil, throw the second handful in right before you add to the noodles.

Once the noodles are finished cooking, drain and put back into pot. Pour sauce over noodles and toss to coat. Put some freshly grated parmesan cheese on top and toss again.

Enjoy!

Grilled steak with a caramelized onion and gorgonzola cheese sauce

Here is yet another steak recipe. I am still looking for the "perfect" one for my steak loving husband. I had made this one night for him and then learned that he was stuck at work until 11pm so I took it to him so he could eat something. Because he was starving, tired and still at work, he just ate it as fast as he could and went back to work. He said it was good, but I'm guessing he couldn't really taste a whole lot. I will definitely try it again. The sauce was totally delicious!




Grilled Steak with a caramelized onion and gorgonzola cheese sauce
(Sauce recipe is by the Pioneer Woman)

2 steaks
Butter, room temperature
Outback rub (see recipe below)
Sauce:
4 Tbsp butter
1 large yellow onion, sliced thin
3/4-1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup crumbled gorgonzola cheese

1. Butter each side of each steak and season with outback rub. Rub the seasoning in and grill until desired doneness. (My husband likes medium or medium-rare)
2. Saute onion in 4 Tbsp butter over high heat until dark and caramelized. Reduce heat to simmer and pour in heavy cream. Cook for 3-4 minutes, or until reduced by half. Stir in cheese until melted. Pour over steak and serve!


Outback Rub:
(Recipe found on becomingbetty.blogspot.com)

4 Tbsp kosher salt
2 Tbsp paprika
1 Tbsp coarse, black pepper
1 1/2 tsp onion powder
1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp turmeric

Mix together and rub on meat before grilling or baking. Store in airtight container.

Pizza Sauce

I don't make homemade pizza very often, but when I do, I never know what sauce to use. Jared sauce is just not very good, spaghetti sauce ... well, tastes like spaghetti. :) This sauce was simple, but very good. I will definitely be making this again.



Simple Pizza Sauce
(Recipe from cooksillustrated.com)

2 cans (14oz) crushed tomatoes in puree
2 Tbsp olive oil
2-4 cloves of garlic, minced
Salt and pepper

Heat olive oil in pan. Add garlic and cook until it starts to simmer (only like 30 seconds). Add in tomatoes and simmer for about 15 minutes or until the sauce is thick enough to lump up on a spoon. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Roasted Chicken with a Sage-Vermouth Sauce

Usually when I post meat dishes, I have no idea how they taste. I just go by smell and what they look like and others opinions on them when they eat them. Not this dish. This is the chicken that I had a small bite of to taste it at school. It was the first bite of chicken I have had in 8 years. It really was a good piece of chicken and I was so excited about it that I came home and made it for dinner that same night. It's not a hard dish to make either. I used to be really intimidated by sauces on meats because I had no idea how to make one that tasted good. After making this sauce, I know it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I'm excited to start learning more new sauces so I can try out some different ones.



Pan-Roasted Chicken with a Sage-Vermouth Sauce

Ingredients:

Chicken:
4 chicken breasts (I used boneless skinless which cook much faster. The recipe calls for bone in with skin and then you cut the bone out yourself. If you don't want to bother with that, just get boneless skinless)
1 cup kosher salt (or 1/2 cup table salt)
Ground pepper
1 teaspoon vegetable oil

Sauce:
1 large shallot, minced (I didn't have shallots at home and used half a small yellow onion)
3/4 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup dry vermouth (not expensive at all and it cooks out by the time the sauce is finished)
4 fresh sage leaves, torn in half and smashed enough to bruise the leaves (this brings out more flavor)
4 fresh sage leaves, cut into a chiffonade (stack leaves one top of each other and roll them up tight. Start and one end and just cut chop them up. Once the leaves unroll it will make it like little sage confetti)
2 Tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 3 pieces

Dissolve salt into 2 quarts cold tap water in a large container or bowl. Put the chicken in and let it brine and refrigerate for about 30 minutes. Rinse chicken under running water and pat dry with paper towels. Season both sides of chicken with pepper.

Put oven rack to the lowest position and preheat oven to 450.

Heat oil in an oven safe skillet over medium-high heat until the oil begins to smoke. Swirl to coat pan with oil. Brown chicken skin side down until deep golden (about 5 minutes...keep an eye on it) turn chicken and brown until golden on second side (about 3 minutes). Turn chicken back over to skin side down and place skillet in oven. Roast until juices run clear when chicken is cut with paring knife (this will dry out the chicken so use a thermometer if you have one) or until thickest part of breast reads 145 on thermometer, about 15-18 minutes. (It will finish getting to temperature while it rests). Transfer chicken to a platter to rest. Cover with foil to keep it warm and continue cooking.

Put skillet back on the stove and add shallot. Cook over med-high heat stirring frequently until shallot is softened. Add chicken broth, vermouth and sage leaves. Increase heat to high and simmer rapidly, scraping bottom of skillet with wooden spoon to loosen browned bits, until slightly thickened and reduced down to about 3/4 cup. (About 5 minutes). Pour accumulated chicken juices from platter into skillet, reduce heat to medium and whisk in butter 1 piece at a time. Season to taste with salt and pepper (you probably won't need any salt) and discard sage leaves. Spoon over chicken and top with the sage chiffonade.

Homemade caramel sauce

Today I made a homemade caramel sauce to top my vanilla pudding cinnamon rolls instead of store bought sauce and it was really really good. I don't have a picture, but next time I make it I'll take one and post it.

This recipe is really easy to remember, it's all in ones.

Homemade caramel sauce

Ingredients:
1 pound butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup corn syrup
1 can sweetened condensed milk

Combine everything in a nonstick pan and stir constantly in small figure 8's on medium heat until it combines and reaches the color, taste and thickness you are going for. The longer you cook the caramel for and the darker the color gets, the harder your caramel is going to be. Because I wanted a sauce to drizzle over, I probably cooked mine for about 10 minutes or so.

Chicken, Pesto and Rosemary Potato Pizza

When Kacean lived in Portland, she worked at a pizza place. She made up a pizza while she worked there, and it became her favorite pizza. Since she moved home, she hasn't had it and has been craving it. Yesterday she came over and we made one with chicken and one without chicken for dinner. She was so excited. It really was a good pizza.

Kacean's Chicken, Pesto and Roasted Rosemary Potato Pizza

Ingredients:
Pesto sauce (store bought or homemade - I will post a recipe after the pizza recipe)
Shredded mozzarella cheese
2 chicken breasts, cooked, cubed (I seasoned mine with salt, pepper and mesquite seasoning)
Fresh spinach leaves
Fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 can artichoke hearts, chopped
Roasted rosemary potatoes
Pizza dough (store bought or homemade - I can post a recipe for dough as well)
Fresh grated parmesan cheese
Corn meal

Make or roll out store bought pizza dough.

(Kacean making her pizza dough)

Put cornmeal down on a pizza tray or a cookie sheet and lay dough on top of the corn meal. This will make it so it doesn't stick. Spread pesto over the dough. Add chicken.


Then add a thick layer of spinach.



Top with cheese, mushrooms and artichoke hearts.



Add the roasted potatoes and finally top with fresh Parmesan.



Bake at 450 until the cheese is melted and the dough is all the way cooked (probably 20-30 minutes)




Roasted Rosemary Potatoes

Ingredients:
Potatoes, diced
A few springs of fresh rosemary, leaves taken off the stem and roughly chopped
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Toss everything and roast in a 400 degree oven until the potatoes are tender.
Set aside for the pizza


Pesto Sauce

Ingredients:
A couple handfuls of fresh basil leaves
A couple cloves of garlic, minced
Fresh grated parmesan cheese
(Usually pine nuts, but I don't add them)
A lemon or lime
Olive oil
Salt and pepper


Put basil, garlic, lemon or lime juice (just squeeze the entire thing), salt and pepper and cheese into a food processor. Turn on and drizzle olive oil into mixture until it forms a thick sauce.