quick spicy spaghetti sauce

Pasta is one of my favorite foods. It’s comfort and delicious and can be prepared so very many ways. If I don’t have pasta often enough, a craving with start and grow bigger as each day goes on. I’ve learned it’s not smart to ignore such a craving.

The other day, after a week of being sick, which means I didn’t cook at all, but rather survived on tea and crackers, the craving grew to a beast after reading this food blog (possibly I should say “watching” since it’s in video form). I knew my cold was on its way out when I found myself drooling over the homemade pasta and arrabiata sauce.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the resources to make homemade pasta (no idea which box in the basement holds my pasta maker), nor did I have any fresh tomatoes in the house. I had no energy and was also short on time, but very hungry. And this hunger was for pasta. For pasta with arrabiata sauce, to be precise. So I tossed this recipe together. It’s similar to the recipe linked above, but a cheater version. It satisfied my pasta craving, and it was very good!

Note: For my slow cooker pasta sauce recipe, click here.

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Quick Spicy Spaghetti Sauce

olive oil

6 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

1 large onion, quartered and sliced

salt

pepper

2 generous shakes cayenne pepper

1 28-ounce can coarse ground tomatoes

dried spaghetti

shredded Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

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Put on a large pot of salted water to boil for the spaghetti. Cook spaghetti as directed on its package.

In a deep sauce pan, cover the bottom with a decent layer of olive oil.

Add the garlic and onion and cook over medium heat. Stir often.

After a couple minutes, reduce heat and cover. Stir occasionally.

When the onions have become tender, about 5 minutes or so, add salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, and the canned tomatoes. Stir.

Put the cover back on and cook over low heat until the spaghetti is done.

Serve sauce over the cooked spaghetti (toss gently) and top with shredded Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.

scalloped potatoes with ham

From my previous post you know that I use the ham bone from my Easter ham to make bean soup.  Now this recipe will show you what I do with all the leftover ham.

This dish is pure comfort food for me. It’s one of my most favorite meals from childhood. Problem is that for years, each time I made it, I would do it differently (that’s because I’d call my mom the day after Easter each and every year and she would give me suggestions on how to make this dish, but I never wrote it down and would alter her recipe in the attempt to make it better or easier or quicker or whatever, and therefore it didn’t always turn out well nor exactly how I remembered it). So after years of making scalloped potatoes in various ways, I’ve finally found the way to make it that reminds me of my mom’s delicious after-Easter scalloped potatoes with ham, and I’ve written it down and now I only call my mom the day after Easter to ask how her Easter was, instead of bothering her for the recipe.

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Scalloped Potatoes With Ham

Heat oven to 350F.

Butter a deep casserole dish.

Clean and slice 6-8 potatoes. I use medium size white potatoes.

Cut leftover ham into small cubes.

In a saucepan over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons butter and whisk in 2 tablespoons flour.

When a nice paste is formed (takes about 1-2 minutes) lower heat and whisk in 2 cups whole milk.

Season with salt and a generous amount of black pepper. Add a small shake of nutmeg.

Allow to heat through over low heat, stirring often.

In the buttered casserole dish, layer half the potato slices, then cover with all the ham.

Distribute about 1 cup shredded cheese over the potatoes and ham. (I use a combination of Monterey Jack and cheddar.)

Layer the remaining potatoes on top.

Pour heated white sauce over all.

Add 1 more cup of the cheese.

If the white sauce doesn’t cover all the potatoes, add extra milk to the casserole dish until the potatoes are completely covered. You may find you’ll need to add a cup or two of extra milk. (*Note: I could have added the extra milk before adding the cheese.)

Crush Ritz crackers on top. (No picture for this step … oops.)

Place casserole dish on a large baking sheet (to catch any liquid that bubbles over the edge of the casserole dish) and bake uncovered for about an hour. Depending on how deep your casserole dish is, you may need to bake for a bit longer than 1 hour. When a fork can go through the potatoes without much resistance it’s ready for the next step.

Raise oven temperature to 375F and bake for an additional 15 – 30 minutes, until it is bubbly and the top is golden brown.

This is the hardest part: Allow to sit for about 10 minutes before serving.

Leftovers are terrific (if you manage to have any leftovers).

*Note: There isn’t a picture of a serving of this, because I am very impatient and couldn’t bother with taking photos before diving in. Sorry!

 

*Edited on 4/23/13 to increase baking time and to note the use of the baking sheet under the casserole dish.

ham & bean soup

This is version #2 of my bean soup. Ingredients are pretty much the same, but the process is a bit different, because I was making this soup on a busy day and didn’t have my recipe available.

My bean soup history: My husband loves bean soup. I do not. My kids do not. And my mother gets sad if I toss out the ham bone after making a ham (which I do usually only once or twice a year)…. Seriously, just imagining all those bones being tossed in the garbage makes her cry. So to please my husband and my mother I started making bean soup a dozen or so years ago. Because I make it and can add ingredients I like, I’m beginning to enjoy it more than I have before (I still don’t love it, but I like it).

Originally my creation was titled Easter Bean Soup, because Easter was when I made ham, resulting in a ham bone, resulting in soup. But over the years I’ve made ham at other times throughout the year, making me change the name to simply Bean Soup. And then I realized not all bean soup has ham in it, and mine does, so I’m changing the name again to Ham & Bean Soup, to be as accurate as possible.

Got all that? Great. On to the recipe.

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Ham & Bean Soup

The day prior to making the soup, soak a few cups of beans in water, and discard all the shells and bits that don’t belong in soup. This time I used great  northern beans along with some green lentils, because I had both on hand.

The next morning, drain and rinse the beans. Set aside.

In a stock pot cover the ham bone with lots of cold water (usually a few inches above the bone is what I aim for). Also add any large pieces from the ham that are available (I always have soooo much ham remaining after making a baked ham for my family).

Cover, and cook over medium heat for at least 3 hours (longer is better).

Remove all the ham (including the bone) from the water. Cut off any edible ham pieces remaining on the bone. Cut all the ham into bite sized pieces and return those to the pot. Discard the bone.

Add the beans to the pot.

Chop an onion. Chop a few stalks of celery. Peel and chop as much garlic as you like. Peel and cube 2 sweet potatoes. Put all that into the pot.

Season with salt, pepper (be generous), and garlic powder.

Add a few shakes of dry mustard.

Stir and cover; heat on low for hours and hours and hours.

*Note: Usually I add shredded cabbage and peeled and sliced carrots, but this time I was too busy and/or didn’t have those available.

*Another note: This soup tastes even better the next day. And it freezes well.

*A final note: If you’re a local friend who likes bean soup, please come over! This makes tons of soup, and as I’ve said, only my husband is a bean soup fan, so I’d be happy to give you some!

bunny cake — 2013

Each Easter we make a bunny cake that the kids decorate.

Sometimes I use golden yellow cake, other times orange cake. This year I made the orange cake and my daughter made white frosting using the basic ingredients of softened butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk. She’s been baking long enough to know how to make this frosting without a recipe.

Here’s our bunny cake from this year, 2013. You can see some others we’ve made in past years in the original bunny cake post, here.

whole wheat dinner rolls

Happy Easter!

For our Easter meal today I cooked a ham and served it with orange mustard sauce, asparagus, sweet potatoes and sliced baked potatoes. Dessert will be a bunny cake.

I posted a slightly different version of these rolls last year. You can find that recipe here.  These are done the same, though the ingredients are slightly different. Delicious with the ham and veggies!

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Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

Put ingredients into the bread machine in the following order:

3/4 cup + 1 tablespoon warm water

1 1/2 tablespoons oil

2 tablespoons molasses

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons dry milk

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup unbleached all purpose flour

1 teaspoon active dry yeast

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Set the bread machine to the DOUGH cycle.

When complete, remove the dough onto a lightly floured surface.

Heat oven to 350F.

Cut the dough into 12 pieces.

Put a small amount of butter into each compartment of a 12-count muffin tin.

Place one piece of dough into each compartment.

Cover with a clean dish towel and place in a warm area for about 15 minutes. (The top of the oven was warm, so I put mine there.)

Remove the towel and bake at 350F for about 15-20 minutes.

winter (spring?) farmers’ market

chocolate cake with raspberries

Today is my husband’s birthday. Rather than go out to eat, he requested dinner at home, specifically barbecue bake followed by a chocolate raspberry cake for dessert.  The first time I made this cake for him was back when we were newly married. It was a huge hit back then (my friends were always excited when his birthday came around, because they would come over to help us eat the leftovers) and is still one of our favorites all these years later.

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The recipe I used today was my most recent favorite chocolate cake recipe, and I made it in two 9-inch round pans. Once they were baked and cooled, on one I poked holes into the cake using a fork, then placed a layer of frozen raspberries on top of it (the holes are so that the juice from the raspberries can seep into the cake and give it wonderful raspberry flavor).  After the cake and the berries sat for a little while, allowing the berries to get to room temperature, I covered the raspberries with a nice thick layer of rich chocolate fudge frosting and placed a few fresh raspberries on top. On the second cake I put only the frosting — no raspberries or fruit of any kind — since my youngest child is a chocolate purist.

In my husband’s opinion, nothing says “I love you” and “Happy birthday” like a home cooked meal and a rich chocolate dessert. Today he is a year older, and a very happy man.