Pasta Sauce!

I saw a recipe on Food Network the other day and I had to try it. I have been looking for a good pasta sauce recipe for a while. I highly recommend this one with a few of my adjustments.

I began by roasting my eggplant and garlic. I left out the peppers, because we are not big fans of peppers. To roast the eggplant, you slice them in half and brush the cut side with EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) and salt and pepper. Place cut side down on pan. To roast the garlic, you cut the top of the garlic and put EVOO and rosemary on it. Wrap it in foil and place on pan with the eggplant. Cook at 475 for 40 minutes.



While that was cooking, I opened up 2 large cans of crushed tomatoes. The recipe calls for 1, but I wanted to make more sauce. I put those tomatoes in the blender and pureed them because we like a smooth sauce. I then put them in a pan on the the stove along with 2 cups of chicken stock. After the eggplant and garlic had cooled, I scooped out the eggplant and placed it in the blender with the garlic. I pureed them also and added them to the tomatoes.

Next I added the spices and let simmer. I also added 4 tablespoons of sugar.

My plan is to strain this sauce because we like it really smooth, and once it is cool put in 2 containers and store it for later. We will use it with spaghetti, lasagna, or maybe even as a pizza sauce. The total cost for this recipe was less than $4 because I had gotten the canned tomatoes on an awesome deal earlier in the year. You cant buy 2 cans of a good sauce for that! Plus, I know what is in this sauce. I controlled the ingredients.

Oh yeah, it even tastes good!

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

It is a lazy Sunday afternoon at our house. We came home from church, ate some sandwiches, and everyone has been doing their own thing. Hubby fell asleep on the couch while watching the Reds play, Todd is playing on the computer, and the girls are doing what they always do and making a mess of their room. I was surfing the internet looking at recipes and blogs and ran across this blog post and was intrigued. The kids have been taking their lunch quite a bit this year so far and I am sick of sending the same old things already. Several things caught my eye in this post, but one thing inparticular did because I could make them right now ~ muffins!! The kids have been asking for me to make muffins for a while, so why not make them now! In years past, I would have said, "Oh no, I can't make muffins, I don't have muffin mix". Now, I would never dream of buying a muffin mix unless they were on sale and I could get it free with a coupon. It just isn't cost effective. I have everything in my house to make homemade muffins already, why go buy a mix? I googled muffin recipes and I decided on two. The first one is from Food Network and I have to admit they turned out awesome! It is Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins. Then I looked around and noticed I had some bananas, so I decided on a banana muffin recipe. It was good, but not as good as the chocolate ones. I now have 22 muffins for my kids to eat for breakfast or to take in their lunch this week. Yummy!!! Now I am off to take a nap too!!