Hearty Italian Red Sauce

This sauce combines flavorful Italian sausage, beef, green peppers and onion and garlic to create a wonderful sauce you can enjoy with spaghetti. I adapted this recipe from the Traditional Easter Lasagna recipe to make a red sauce. It was so good on its own I felt I was doing it a disservice by not working on it.

Traditional Easter Lasagna

This is gonna be a long one so be prepared, get ready, and hunker down for the long haul. But hopefully it will be worth the effort.

2 tbsp olive oil
1 lb Italian sausage
1 lb ground beef
1 cup chopped onion
1 bell pepper
4 cloves garlic minced
16 oz can tomato sauce
28 oz cans crushed tomatoes
12 oz can tomato paste
1 tbsp basil
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp Italian Seasoning
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
12 lasagna noodles
1 egg
15 oz Ricotta cheese
1 pinch ground nutmeg
16 oz shredded mozzarella
3/4 cup Parmesan cheese

Brown ground beef and Italian sausage with onion, bell pepper, garlic and olive oil. Drain and switch to crockpot. Add tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, basil, parsley, brown sugar, salt, Italian seasoning, black pepper, and 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese. Cook on low for 6 hours.

Place lasagna noodles in a deep bowl and cover with very hot tap water. Let sit for about half an hour.

Beat egg in a bowl and stir in Ricotta cheese, 2 tbsps parsley, salt and nutmeg.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cover bottom of 9x13 baking dish with one cup of sauce mixture followed by 4 lasagna noodles, 1/3 of Ricotta cheese mixture, 1/3 of shredded mozzarella, and 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. Repeat layers twice more ending with mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Cover dish with aluminum foil and bake for 50 minutes or until lasagna noodles are tender and casserole is bubbling. Remove foil and bake another 15-20 minutes until cheese coating is lightly browned.

Spring Brownies

In honor of the first day of spring, I made brownies. Not really. I mean, I did make brownies but for no particular reason other than I saw this recipe and I've been meaning to make them for awhile and so today I finally did. I got this from Allrecipes but they are oh so delicious. I would definitely recommend you make these.

1/2 cup of white sugar
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp water
1-1/2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt



Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease an 8x8 baking pan. In a medium saucepan combine sugar, butter, and water. Cook over medium heat until boiling. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate chips until melted and smooth. Mix in eggs and vanilla extract. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl. Stir into chocolate mixture. Spread evenly into prepared pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

The Lost Art of Canning

Canning. You don't here about it much anymore. It's still there and it will never go away, but with all the advances in modern food storage technologies, home canning as well as gardening is just not something most people do anymore. Its one of those skills that seems to have gone by the wayside, like quilting and sewing, making beer and wine and cheese and bread, things that are very simple by nature, but are becoming less common as the years go by. Of course there are people that still do these things but in our current fast-paced, iPhone 33geez society, most everybody buys their pickles at Walmart these days and why wouldn't you.

To give a little back story on this, and to go ahead and say, this curiosity in canning is not something that happened yesterday. This is something that's been growing, progressing, maturing for a few years now. I started making this salsa that was really good and the recipe made so much that a lot of it ended up getting thrown out because I am alone, but I am not lonely. Maybe just a little. Anyway, naturally I started to think about canning. I mean you can buy salsa at the grocery store, that hideous picante stuff. The stuff that people at super bowl parties gobble up by the gallon. I think they even sell it in gallons and probably five gallon buckets. But this salsa is different. I think I got the recipe from one of those celebrity chefs. This salsa is not meant to be sold in gallons to be mass-consumed. It's better than that, and I wanted to selfishly keep some for myself to have later if I wanted. So obviously this is the point in my life where I learn to preserve the delicious foods I make so I can have them forever. And by forever I mean a couple of weeks to a few months.

As I begin to enter my world of canning, of course, I want to start with simplest, easiest method and the easiest foods to can. This is the water bath method and the easiest foods to can are those with a high acid content such as salsa. So this weekend this is what's happening. We'll be making and canning delicious salsa and with any luck the results will be fabulous.

Whole Roasted Chicken

 4 to 6 lb whole chicken
1 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp cloves
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp allspice
1/8 tsp cinnamon
5 cloves garlic
2 apples
2 potatoes
1 sweet onion
1 cup of white wine

In a bowl mix salt, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon and rub mixture on chicken.
Cover chicken and place in fridge for 24 hours.
Preheat oven to 500 degrees.
Stuff chicken cavity with mix of potatoes, garlic, and onion.
Place chicken breast side down in roasting pan.
Add apple slices, potato, onion, and white wine.
Roast in preheated oven for 15 minutes.
Reduce heat to 450 and roast for another 15 minutes.
Baste chicken with pan drippings and reduce heat to 425.
Continue roasting for another 30 minutes or internal temperature of 180 degrees.

Sometimes I like to add pears and a few other things to the mix.
This pairs well with pan-roasted asparagus and Pinot Grigio.

I'm actually going to make this recipe in a couple of weeks and adapt it for the crock pot and eliminate some of the extras. I think we're going to serve it with the asparagus and maybe a nice sweet relish type salsa and some rice.

Sensational Barbecue

5-10 lb Boston butt
1 cup soy sauce
1 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp ginger
1 tbsp salt
1/2 tbsp black pepper

Combine soy sauce, brown sugar, salt, pepper and ginger into crock pot and stir well. Roll the roast in mixture to evenly coat. Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours turning occasionally.

This stands up well by itself, but I like to put it on a bun with some barbecue sauce and sweet pickles. You can't go wrong.

Four Pepper Chili

1 lb of ground beef
3 16 oz cans of kidney beans, rinsed and drained
3 14.5 oz cans of petite diced tomatoes
2 8 oz can of tomato sauce
2 yellow or sweet onions chopped
1 green bell pepper
1 cup jalapeno peppers seeded and chopped
2 habanero peppers seeded and chopped
1/4 cup banana peppers seeded and chopped
2 cloves of garlic minced
4 tbsp chili powder
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper

In a large skillet over medium-high heat season ground beef with salt and pepper and cook and drain. Combine all ingredients in crock pot and cook on low for 8 to 10 hours.

Garnish with shredded cheese and sour cream.

Beautiful Salsa

6 Roma tomatoes chopped
1 tbsp of minced garlic
1 cup jalapenos, seeded and chopped
1 medium yellow onion chopped
1 red bell pepper chopped
1/2 red onion chopped
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup lime juice
1/2 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 cup cilantro

In a bowl, combine all ingredients.
Place in fridge for up to 12 hours
for flavor infusion.

Notes: You can use a blender to chop the ingredients but I like to do it by hand. It ends up looking much prettier.