Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

 

Happy Birthday Baby!!!!

Home Made Pasta Sauce

I started this post about a week ago, but then I got sick (again) and never got around to finishing it, so here we go!

Pasta Sauce:

I have made my own pasta sauce for a few years now, and have always frozen it in bags. Now that Alex and I are in our apartment, we no longer have the giant extra freezer in the garage that we had at my parents house. For that reason, I have not made pasta sauce in the year+ that we have lived here. That hasn't really bothered me, but Alex really likes my pasta sauce. Personally I am perfectly fine with jarred sauce (of any brand) but it makes him happy and hey rule #32 - Enjoy the little things. So when we saw 20lbs of organic tomatoes for $8 at our local produce stand, I knew that it was time to give in.

First you will need: approx 20lbs of tomatoes (we picked ours from the "almost too smushy to sell" pile and were just told to fill the box. We are friends with the family who runs the produce stand and didn't want to risk taking too many, so I think we got under 20lbs. I'm glad we did though, because my pot was filled to capacity). This picture is also taken after one or two batches had been shocked and peeled. We had a combination of different heirloom tomatoes, beef steak, purple cherokees, and romas.

You will also need:

 * Red, yellow, and orange bell peppers (I have more yellow than orange and red because they were cheapest). The number of peppers is completely dependent on your flavor preferences. I like the taste of sweet bell peppers with tomatoes, if you don't like them feel free to omit.

* Shallots (or onion). I think we used half of the shallots in the picture. I prefer cooking with shallots because they don't bother my eyes as much.

* Garlic, lots of garlic. I gladly would have used all of the garlic in the picture, but Alex vetoed. I think we used  two good sized bulbs and then put the rest in the cupboard for storage.

**Not pictured: Two (or more) carrots grated into fine shreds.

In prior batches I have used broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini,  basil, and hot red peppers (the dried ones that come in pizza). I personally love spicy sauce, but this time decided to make a well rounded one that can be altered to fit the dish we're making later.

Alright so now it's time to get on to the real work. First you have to wash all of the produce. (I had read some one's post about washing veggies earlier that day and decided that it made perfect sense to wash produce in soap).

After the produce is all clean you need to start skinning the tomatoes. In the past I have left the skins on, but it does lead to weird filmy bits once it's all done. The best way that I have found to skin tomatoes is to slice an X in the bottom of the tomato, dunk them in hot water for a few minutes, then pour them out in a colander and run cold water over them. It is kind of the same principle as shocking hard boiled eggs in cold water. When the tomato cools it shrinks away from the skin.

If you are lucking enough to have a helper, they can begin by cutting the shallots, garlic, and peppers up for you.

(I also feel like I need to add that he took most of the pictures for the blog from here on out. I was up to my elbows in skinning tomatoes. I have corrupted him. Mwahahaha.)

If you are anything like us you will have forgotten that there is a perfectly good food processor in the cabinet. Now is a good time to get it out and make quick work of those veggies and spare your eyes in the process (I was very lucky. I was on week two of a head cold and couldn't smell a THING. This helped a lot with shallot fumes, I never had to leave the kitchen).

Now while he was cutting veggies you finished peeling the tomatoes and cut them into small pieces right?

Well now they go on the stove on medium

Back to your helper. Now that the shallots, garlic, and peppers are all diced up all you have to do is saute them in some olive oil ( I sauteed all of the peppers and half of the shallot/garlic mix. A quarter of the mix went straight in the pot raw, and a quarter went in right before I canned the sauce to keep the shallot/garlic taste fresh) and then toss everything in the pot.

All that's left is to let it simmer for as long as you do or do not want. If you do not simmer it very long it will be a little watery (this can be avoided but squeezing the seeds/juice from the tomatoes prior to putting them in the pot, but I think they have a lot of flavor) and will taste like each of the individual ingredients. It is kind of like Italian salsa. The longer you simmer it the more the ingredients break down and the flavors meld together. Ours actually burnt a little bit, but it worked out really well in the end. The sauce took on a nice smokey flavor that I'm going to try to recreate (without having to spend an hour cleaning the pots). For us this sauce yielded 2 nights of dinners, 1 day of lunches, and 6 large jars of sauce. Because the sauce is very concentrated in flavor I will actually water it down when I cook with it (so all in all it would have yielded 12 jars of sauce) but by keeping it concentrated it takes up less room in my pantry.

This was a really simple dish. The actual "work" time took less time than it took me to get all the silly pictures in order in this post, and the simmering time is completely up to you. Added bonus: your kitchen smells AMAZING.

Sorry, no burn pictures this time =D



Wordless Wednesday

Home made applesauce

So I thought that I would share my endeavor into home made applesauce with everyone, INCLUDING my mistakes :)

Step 1:  Get a good group of people together, add people along the road as necessary to insure that the car is full to capacity

Step 2: Drive 3 hours to buy apples, make sure that it is raining cats and dogs, and cold, it definitely has to be cold

Step 3: Go wine tasting

Step 4: More wine tasting

Step 5: Even more wine tasting

Step 6: Buy lunch, be too drunk to find cash in husbands wallet and pay with debit card.

Step 7: Find cash and buy apple doughnuts (Note that this will be the last time $60 in that wallet will be seen as an unnumbered step does include losing the cash)
Step 7: Drive around looking for apple place that is still open in the rain

Step 8: Buy 20 lbs of apples! YAY!!!!

Step 9: Be too busy to process apples for a month
Step 10: Go "Oh crap the apples!!!" and gather up all your stuff to process them

Step 11: Realize you are out of small canning jars and go to the hardware store

Step 12: Groan because you know the jars are half the price at the commissary, but they are closed that day

Step 13: Peel 20 lbs of apples (note: This step takes a LONG time, at some point you will realize that the cheapy Ikea peeler is the best one in the house.)

Step 13.5: in the middle of step 13, realize that you are supposed to leave the skins on for apple sauce, convince yourself that you wanted to make apple sauce AND apple jelly, and that the skinless apples are for the jelly

Step 14: Split the apples into three pots because the large pot is being used to make soup  (woops! But the soup was really really good)

Step 15: be unable to find a recipe that tells you how long the apples should cook, and burn the ones in one of the pots, scoop out the good apples and put them into another pot

Step 16: have pot of burned/boiled/caramelized apples fall off the stove, land on one food, and dump all of the apples on the other food

Step 17: Scream, swear, and limp into the bathroom. Put your foot in the tub and keep it there for twenty minutes. Crying is optional, swearing is mandatory.

Step 18: Realize that since the apples didn't boil right, there is no apples juice, and therefor cannot make apple jelly, decide to just make apple sauce.

Step 19: Put all apples through handy dandy meat grinder attachment for the kitchen aid mixer (extra points if the mixer is vintage,more if you got it cheap (or free), a billion points if it has a hand painted EGA on it)

Step 20: While apples are getting smushed up, put foot back in tub of cold water for 20 minutes

Step 21: Put canning pot on the stove, boil water, and sterilize cans

Step 22: Put apples back in a pot with cinnamon and nutmeg to taste

Step 23: Ladle hot apple mix into sterilized jars, be paranoid that you will burn yourself again
Step 24: Burn your hand while putting a ring on the jar

Step 25: Boil jars for 10 minutes, take out, let cool

Step 26: Label the jars

Step 27: Go to the store and see the large jar of apple sauce on sale for 89 cents. Do the math and realize that each of the small jars you made comes out to about $2 a piece, try to console yourself by saying yours is better since it has no preservatives, or chemicals.

Step 28: Laugh as you write a blog post knowing that you still would have done it anyways (though maybe skipping the burnt foot part, that still hurts)

I love the Commissary

It is amazing, it is splediferous. I wish it was a little closer, but Alex and I generally use a trip to the commissary as a "date" day and have fun with the drive. (ok it's really only 30 minutes away, but still not close enough to just run to whenever we are out of milk).

We hadn't gone to the commissary in well over two months, possibly since before the wedding. First we didn't need anything, then we couldn't afford the inevitably large bill whenever we go (it is very hard to pass things up for as cheap as they are), we were busy with the wedding, and finally we just didn't have any time when we were both free to go.

Today we gathered up our list, re-organized the coupons, and took off for Mountain View. We knew that our list was just a "guideline" since I was also doing all of my holiday baking shopping. What I didn't plan for was losing the list somewhere in the first 10 minutes of being in the store. Oh well, all in all the only list items that I think we forgot were brown sugar and canning jars, so all in all not too bad.

So here is our bags of groceries (and I'd like to pat myself on the back for FINALLY remembering to bring all of the reusable bags with us)

everything unpacked:

(sorry for the quality,my phone doesn't take the best pictures)

So in those bags are:
(2) Kix
Saltine Crackers
Egg Noodles
(2) Newman's Own Marinara sauce
Oatmeal
Nilla Wafers
Penne Pasta
Mini rigatoni pasta
(2) Cans condensed milk
(3) cans evaporated milk
16 oz. walnuts
16oz. pecans
(3) cans Bush's baked beans
(10) Macaroni and Cheese
bread crumbs
Filipino noodles
Pumpkin pop tarts (nom nom splurge for me, I love all things pumpkin)
Apple Cheerios
(2) Cans green enchilada sauce
Red enchilada sauce
(3) Bags marshmallows
Boysenberry Syrup
Canola oil
White chocolate chips
Mint and Dark chocolate chips
(3) Cans cranberry sauce
Pumpkin pudding mix
(6) "Green" light bulbs
(2) Boxes freezer bags
Foil
Toilet cleaner
2000 flushes
Dishwasher tabs (our dishwasher SUCKS so we are constantly trying to find the best cleaner to use in it)
Laundry soap
Matches
(2) Green scrubbies
(2) Scrubby sponges
(2) Cans cat food
Press N' Seal
Hawaiian rolls
(2) Cans crescent rolls
Margarine
Monterey Jack Cheese
(6) Yogurts
(2) Butter
Tampons
Shampoo
Conditioner
Flintstone Vitamins (they taste good, don't judge)
Axe shower gel
Acorn Squash
Pomegranate
Apples
Butternut Squash
I had 18 coupons that added up to a savings of $12.77, which brought our grand total to $162.01
Now I was curious how much of a savings that really was (and I was bored and had nothing better to do) so I went on the Safeway website and plugged the same items into their shopper. One thing to note is that at the commissary most of the items I purchased are actually name brand. I'm not usually brand particular (except soda, and mac and cheese) but they do not carry many "off" brands at the commissary. Since I am not brand particular when I was on the Safeway website I just picked the cheapest of whatever the item was for the same size/count/ etc.
So my Safeway total would have been.... $274.47! That is INCLUDING the Safeway club card AND all of my coupons (some of which were commissary specific).
Granted these groceries will have to be supplemented with milk, eggs, veggies, and home made bread, but otherwise we honest to goodness probably have enough to get us into 2011. :)

Thrift Store WIN!

So today I was getting gas and I get a text from my sister in law "hey I found a Kitchenaid standmixer at Thrift Town for $25, you interested?"
Was I interested?Hells yah!!

So I drove down and met her there (she was keeping an eye on it for me). It immediately went into my cart. While we were wandering the store multiple people kept asking about the mixer in my cart, and then a ncie older lady gave me a $5 off coupon. Score! I didn't know they even did coupons at the thrift store. All in all it cost me $22 after tax. On the way home I stopped at Home Depot and got some paint for metal for $13 so all in all we are at $35 (the new versions of this mixer run about $380)

So here are the before pictures

see that faint dinge, that is actually greasy grossness
don't you want to use that to make your cinnamon rolls? Ewww
So then I scrubbed. And scrubbed. And scrubbed. Then got out a green scrubby and scrubbed some more. Then got a toothbrush and scrubbed some more. And then I bleached.

I really wanted this in another color, so here is where the paint comes in
man that picture makes it look BLUE
I was looking at it and it just didn't seem to fit our house. Then I had a GREAT idea. Our house is a combination of my girly-ness and Alex's Marine-ness. Sure I made it blue, but it just didn't fit in. So I got some black paint and TADA

I am now the proud owner of a custom Marine Corps Kitchen Aid Mixer :)

Enzoani Gorgeous With Curves Bridal Show

So about a month ago my soon to be sister in law was picking up her wedding dress at Trudy's in Campbell, while we were waiting for her dress she was approached by the owner of the salon. One of the dress designers, Enzoani, was having a trunk show for their new plus sized line and she wanted to know if Kelsey was interested. She was flattered, surprised, and accepted. I was standing next to her and laughingly said, "Man that's what I get for buying one of your sample dresses at a Bridal show" Trudy laughed and said they'd love to have me too. YAY for mooching opportunities!! Flash ahead to yesterday, we went down to the salon and were looking at the dresses, they were size 22 and 24. I'm a curvy girl, but not 24. But man add some clips and that dress looked AMAZING. Kelsey got one dress that was a 14 and one that was a 22. (Turns out there were size 16, 18, and 20s in the show as well, but they were assigned to girls the night before. Grf).

So today we went down nice and early. Got our hair and make up done. (I didn't particularly like how my hair looked up close, but in the pics it looks fantastic). One of the makeup artists has been a plus sized model for 7 years so she took us through a run through on the catwalk so that we wouldn't be afraid of falling on our face. Then its game time. Everyone in that back room was NERVOUS. My first dress was so much too big that I was popping safety pins right and left, they had to bring in the massive industrial safety pins. Kelsey was behind me in line and all I kept hearing her say was "oh shit oh shit oh shit". Deep breath time to go. First half of the catwalk I was just focusing on not falling, then I realized, "Woops! Slow down" took a deep breath and things went great from there. Alex (and Jimmy, Kristin, and Mothra) were at the end of the catwalk so I just had them to focus on. Smile at the photographer, turn around without hitting someone in the face with my train(and then popped a safety pin which scared the crap out of me, but thankfully my dress didn't fall) and keep on going. Then it was back into the first room and out of the dress as fast as possible. In hind sight having my back to an open door (that some ppl could see into) in a thong... maybe not my best look. oh well. Back out for dress #2. This one wouldn't quite stay up high enough (they didn't have enough time to pin it properly) so I was walking on it the entire way down, it also was heavy satin, had a train and a half and was HEAVY!. Afterwards we took a few individual and group shots and then off to take my$150 credit for my time and bought a brides maids dress for Kelsey's wedding. All in all it was a great, fun, day.



(see the clips)
(I rock the $3000 dress)
(really surprised me how great the makeup looked in pictures, goes to show you need to do drastically different makeup from your day to day when youre being photographed)
(kristin liked my hair)
(That was a LOT of fabric to get in that small of an area)