Christmas Treats-Pasta and Sauce

This year we decided to make a bunch of homemade treats. The next few posts will be about some of the things we made to give away. The first one pictured below is pasta sauce and pasta. Once again my love of canning really worked out well. While I worked on the sauce Tim once again perfected the art of rolling and cutting the pasta. I still have no idea why I can't for the life of me roll and cut the pasta. Oh well, I think everything turned out great.

Quick Marinara Sauce-From Giada's Family Dinners

-2 ( 28 oz) cans of whole tomatoes in juice

-1 bunch of fresh basil (I substituted some of the basil from our garden that I blended with olive oil and froze)

-1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

-2 small onions, chopped

-4 garlic cloves, chopped

-1 ts dried oregano

-1 ts sugar

-salt and pepper

In a blender, puree the tomatoes with their juice and the basil until almost smooth. Set aside.
Heat oil in a large heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and saute until very tender. Stir in the tomato puree, oregano, and sugar. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Season with salt and pepper.

Then can. As you can see it made about to pint jars.

Fresh Pasta
-8 oz all purpose flour (about 2 cups)
-1tsp salt
-2 large egg yolks
-5 large egg yolks
-1 T olive oil

Combine flour and salt in bowl. Make a mound with an impression in the middle. Put eggs, yolks and olive oil in the middle of the impression. Break each yolk by poking it with a finger, then in a circular motion begin to incorporate flour from the side of the mound. Continue until all the flour is incorporated. Turn out onto tabletop and knead by hand until dough is smooth and elastic.

The dough can now be rolled through a pasta machine, or wrapped in plastic and placed in the refrigerator to rest for 30 minutes or so. Proceed according to what sort of pasta you would like.

We looked all over the Internet to find drying times and how long the pasta would keep. We ended up coming across a site that said to dry the noodles for up to an hour, wrap tightly in plastic and the noodles can be kept in the fridge for 2-3 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

The finished product. Cheers!

I Heart Canning!

I'm so glad I decided to start canning last year. It's been such an efficient way to store goodies and great gift for friends. Some friends have even started asking for the jam I make. Our dear friends Josh and Dave were more than willing to give us plums from their overwhelmed tree, so I decided to freeze half and make jam with the other half. I usually use the recipes from the pectin packets. They seem to jive really well with my cooking style. I also have the Blue Ball Book of canning. I'm going to try a plum chutney from there soon. Ohhh and applesauce I love the fall.

Sugar, pectin and fruit boiling.

Taking out the hot jars.

Filing the jars.

It smelled soooo good.

Twist on the top and it's off to the water bath for about 10 minutes.

Veggie Chili

Last night I decided to can some veggie chili for our trip to Yellowstone. I'm trying to get as much pre-cooking done before we leave. And since I'm not real keen on the thought of 1) meat sitting in the cooler to for days and 2) bears eating my food I've decided to can our meals making most of them veggie friendly.

I was talking to my mother the other day and laughing because the tomatoes you see above are heirlooms that I got a Mother Earth Gardens http://www.motherearthgarden.com/. I forgot what kind of tomatoes they were and kept waiting for them to get red. Whoops! Anyways, I decided to add a few to our chili last night. Aren't they beautiful???

Veggie Chili
2 cans chili beans or kidney bean
2 cans of diced tomatoes
1 zucchini
1 yellow onion
3-4 carrots

2 chipotles in adobo sauce

about 2 TBL of oil
4 cloves of garlic
2 peppers of your choice
chili powder
cumin
2-3 bay leaves
lemon juice

salt and pepper

• Saute onions, garlic and spices with oil till onions are translucent
• Add carrots, zucchini and peppers (including chipotles)
• Once everything has cooked down a little add beans (with juice) and tomatoes (with juice)
• Add lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste
• Serve with cornbread

Here is the finished product. Not too bad for 2 hours of work. I really love canning and have noticed how practical it is especially in a two person household. I don't have a pressure cooker so I can't do meat yet, but soups are on the idea list. I also think I might try some chutneys when we get back.

Summer Nights

6-27-07 Peas and Beans

6-27-07 The Deck 6-27-07 Heirlooms, Peppers, Herbs and Nasturtiums

Last night I canned 8 jars of strawberry jam in the most stifling heat ever. Tim was making bars for Heather's 26th birthday and I was canning. The heat in our kitchen was amazing (not just because of our natural beauty). The jam turned out great--I had some on a piece of toast today. We met up with our friends MW and RW at Britts to watch MW in his lawn bowling league. The sunset was perfectly amazing bright raspberry pink and purple. I reminded me of cotton candy. I don't think I've ever been to the roof at Britts before. We drank these great cocktails called bootleggers: lemonade, mint, tonic and your choice of spike. They were so refreshing...MW and I decided we would try to recreate them this weekend. We'll see how that goes. MW and RW just got back from a trip to Italy. Talking to them it reminded me that I want to do more traveling...Yellow Stone here we come.

Other than that life is pretty calm. I watered the garden this morning because it was nice and cool out--thank goodness. Tonight we have kickball. MH is coming over for dinner. I'm going to take some pics of kickball tonight to show you all how amazingly sporty I am.

Tootles