Easy Roasted Tomato Sauce (low fat and sugar free)

It's almost tomato time...  So far, we've gotten a dozen here and there from our CSA, but soon we'll be getting tons and tons and tons of tomatoes.  So I thought it was time to dig out this recipe again...  

My family doesn't eat a lot of tomatoes.  I'm not a super-fan myself, but I can handle them in salads and on sandwiches.  The rest of my family pretty much only consumes tomatoes when they're deep inside an egg frittata and overpowered by cheddar cheese and sausage, or when they're on a BLT.  So you can imagine how worried I was when we started receiving bushels of tomatoes week after week from our CSA last summer.  I knew I'd have to come up with a plan quick so that they wouldn't go to waste.

I hopped on Pinterest and found an "easy" recipe for tomato sauce that turned out to be not my kind of easy.  I spend an entire day boiling, ice-bathing, and skinning tomatoes... The sauce turned out well, but at the end of the day my kitchen was a wreck, my kids had been totally ignored for 8 hours, and I had a very. short. fuse.  

Blessedly, the social network came to my rescue.  Charlotte witnessed my fiasco via Instagram, contacted me via email, and sent me a recipe from another blog.  Bam.  Problem solved.  Thank you, Charlotte!  Had you not sent Elizabeth's recipe, I might have drown myself, along with my sorrows, in the vegetable juices covering my kitchen counters, cupboards, and floors.  

I tweaked the recipe and added a few "extras" but it's still super easy and very delicious.  Click on over to In the Heart of My Home for the original recipe, and then you can check back here to see what I did a little differently :)

When roasting my tomatoes, I added some chopped onion and omitted the olive oil.  I actually forgot the oil one time and liked the results, so after that I just left it out so that this would be sauce with no fat besides the negligible amount found in tomatoes.  

I used my heavy duty Ninja blender to blend up the tomatoes, juices, onions, garlic, and basil.  I also added other fresh herbs from our garden - parsley, thyme, and oregano, as well as fresh-squeezed lemon juice, salt and pepper. 

For the sauce that I was planning to keep in the fridge to use right away, I whisked in a few shakes of xanthan gum to thicken it up.  For the sauce that I bagged for the freezer, I left out the xanthan gum, and I added it when I defrosted and heated the sauce.  

I ended up freezing enough sauce last summer that it almost lasted us all year, but not quite.   I wasn't sure if my kiddos would love it, but it turns out they did.  They don't even mind the seeds one bit.  If you think the seeds are going to be a major problem with your family, you might consider using a food mill to process it as opposed to a blender.  The blender is so quick (and relatively clean, compared to a food mill), it's my first choice for this sauce :) 

So what are you doing with your tomatoes this year??

Bon appetite!  

To Celebrate the New Year: Chocolate Pancakes with Raspberries and Bacon

I have a personal policy to not order restaurant menu items that I could conceivably make at home.  Make well, at home, I mean.  For instance, I make a really tasty lasagna, and a very tasty eggplant parmasan, and I can even make buttery garlic bread sticks with a golden crispy outside and a soft warm inside.  So, I usually avoid Italian restaurants and opt for places that serve entrees I don't make so well at home - like murgh tikka massala. (Oh, how I love Indian food.........  mmmm........ Indian food.........)

Ahem.  Sorry. 

Last weekend, I had the most delightful morning out with some of my family members in from out of town.  My mom treated all the ladies to brunch at a very trendy place where the menu was a tough one - so many delectable-sounding things to choose from and only stomach room enough for one.  I ultimately chose the rice bowl with Korean spare ribs and pickled vegetables (oh. my. goodness. it. was. unbelievably. delicious.) and a spiiiiiicy bloody Mary.  I forewent the chocolate pancakes with raspberries and bacon thinking - rice and vegetable are healthier for me and I think I could make that chocolatey-raspberry-bacony goodness at home.

So to celebrate the New Year, I did.  

I served it for dinner.

My family really loved me.

I used this pancake recipe from My Thirty Spot.   I tripled it to feed my large and hungry family.  I did not make the marshmallow topping, just the pancakes.  They were very cocoa-y, and were not too sweet.  They were juuuuuust right.

So pretty to see fresh fruit in the winter :)

I baked the bacon in the oven, of course.  Because since I learned about that little trick back in October, that's now the only acceptable way to cook bacon.  All those years, I never cooked real bacon because of the greasy mess, and could honestly say I wasn't really a bacon-eater.  Now, in the past three months, I've eaten more bacon than in all the rest of my life combined.  

Because I was trying to copy the menu offering as best as possible, I decide to make my own chocolate sauce for the first time ever.   It was easier than I expected and tasted so amazing, no husband of mine will ever be allowed to bring a squeeze bottle of chocolate syrup into this house again.  

This is the recipe I used -- I doubled it, but probably didn't need too.  We still have some left over in the fridge, which is kind of a dangerous situation.  

(No pics of the actual cooking process because I was non-stop stirring bubbling, steaming chocolate.  Make your own and you'll see what it looks like.)

I don't recall there being chocolate shavings on the restaurant pancakes, but it seemed like the right thing to do since I had a dark chocolate bar in my pantry and because... chocolate shavings.

The only sad side to this story is that I really wanted to make my own whipped cream so that the homemade effort would be complete.  But I didn't have any whipping cream and I did have a tub of whipped topping, so I went with the obvious and easy option.  Some nights, you just can't do it all.  Know what??  It still tasted awesome.

If you are a person who likes chocolate, raspberries, and bacon (which you probably are, since that describes 99.98% of the world's population), I think you should try it.

Happy New Year!

Slow Cooker Chicken Sweet Potato Tacos (say it with me now... Mmm, Mmm, Mmm!)

I'm not kidding... my kids chant Mmm, Mmm, Mmm! when they find out we're having chicken sweet potato tacos for dinner.  Or lunch.  Or breakfast...  

For this recipe you will need a slow cooker and people.  And some other ingredients.  But the most important thing is the people because you need someone other than yourself to eat these amazing tacos and then love you for making them.

I thought I made up this recipe all on my own.  I mean, I did because one day I had the idea to just throw some sweet potatoes and beans into our regular chicken taco thing...  I thought I was a slow cooker taco genius!  But it turns out there are lots of people out there eating chicken sweet potato tacos.  If "my" recipe is similar to yours, it is coincidental, and isn't it awesome that we discovered the same delicious thing independently of each other in our various parts of the world?!?!

Anyway, here it is...

Ingredients

2 large chicken breasts

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced

1 can diced tomatoes (I use the "no salt added" variety)

1 can Rotel (diced tomatoes with chilies)

2 packets taco seasoning (I use Ortega 40% less sodium.  I also know there are several recipes for making your own.)

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

Put all ingredients except the beans into a slow cooker on High for 3-4 hours.  Check to see if chicken is cooked.  Once it's cooked, shred the chicken breasts, stir all ingredients well, and continue cooking for another 1 hour or so.  Add black beans, turn slow cooker to Warm until ready to serve.  

Serve in taco shells or flour tortillas.  Add taco "fixins" - cheese, lettuce, cilantro, sour cream, guacamole, salsa...)

Makes approximately 16 servings a 1/2 cup each. 

Eating with diabetes??  Here's your carb info: Each 1/2 cup has 13 carbohydrates.  Served on an 8 inch flour tortilla (25 grams of carbs) a chicken sweet potato taco would be 38 carbohydrates.  (As always, it's safest to do your own carbohydrate calculations, but this should give you a good idea.)    

Enjoy.  (I'm sure you will!)  

p.s.  let me know if you make 'em and love 'em :)

Feeding My Family From the Freezer

And to clarify right out of the box, I don't mean the freezer meals department at the grocery store.

I'm speaking about my very own LG upright freezer happily housed in my basement laundry room - my faithful companion these last three years - enabling me to feed my family in a way that really, really suits me.  I'm taking about my method of going from this:

to this:

to this:

I LOVE serving my family dinners that that are healthy and that they enjoy, but I get very little pleasure from actually sorting out that project every day of the week.  I don't know what it is, but there's something so difficult/annoying/time-wasting (???) for me about getting a dinner together nearly every day, that a couple years ago I decided to treat myself to pre-made dinners most nights during the cold winter months.  Again, this isn't to say that we're eating store-prepared dinners or take-out all the time.  Home prepared meals are important to me. (But I certainly won't say no to the occasional Indian take-out!!) This is about my system of putting healthy, home-cooked meals on the table in the evenings... it's just that I made them weeks - or even months - ago!

(I should take this opportunity to thank my husband, Russ, whose hard word, budgeting ingenuity, and generosity is what permitted me to get a large upright freezer years ago, and each subsequent year to do wacky things to the grocery budget, and take nearly two full weekends "off" just to cook.  Thanks, Babe!  I love you!)

Last year I wrote about stocking my freezer and how I feel it's such a gift to myself and to my family.  (Check out these posts here and here!)  I still feel immense gratitude and personal satisfaction every time I take something out of there and we eat a delicious dinner that I "didn't even have to make." All the work was in the past, so it's mostly forgotten and it really does feel like we're eating food that magically appeared!

This year I thought I'd give you a quick idea of how it works. I can even go on as long as want to - I've got lots more time for blogging now that... dinner's done!  

I've mentioned before I divide up my cooking mostly over two weekends in the fall - soups and casseroles.  (Last year I had a third category which was Crock Pot freezer meals.  I *might* do this again right before the baby's born, but it just wasn't a priority for me this past fall.)

I've already written about how I cook all my soups in a matter of a few days.  Casseroles are similar.  I get all my recipes together and make a master shopping list.  This year I had chosen seven different casseroles, each of which I double or triple.  I think I ended up with 16 casseroles. 

I head out on Friday evening or early Saturday morning to do my grocery shopping, and then get started right away.  In addition to food ingredients, I get lots of aluminum pans and foil :)  The weekend before Thanksgiving was my big casserole weekend.  On Saturday I made the pasta casseroles and the chicken casseroles. On Sunday I made shepherd's pie and lasagna.  And then I was too tired to do anything more until Wednesday night, when I realized if I didn't get some more of my fridge cleared out our Thanksgiving leftovers might be homeless.  So, I quickly finished up with the finish rye casserole (recipe care of Heather at Mama Knows, Honeychild!  Delish, as always, H!) 

Russ is willing to get the kids out of the house for me the majority of the Saturday and Sunday that I'm cooking, so I have the place to myself - I make messes, listen to loud music or audio books, drink tons of coffee, and cook like a crazy person - all without interruption.  For me, the key is efficiency, so there's always a few things going on at once - I may be chopping vegetables for the casserole I'm currently assembling, but I'm also browning the beef and sausage for next day's lasagna, or soaking the lentils for the shepherd's pie (I made it with half beef/half lentils this year), or boiling noodles, or cooking rice. 

Casseroles and soups are always labeled with defrosting and cooking instructions, as well as additional notes like "add bread crumbs and cheddar cheese half way through baking" or "needs more sauce" or "serve with tortilla chips and sour cream."  That way, even if it's a meal that's being eaten while I'm not around, no one (Russ) has to guess at what needs to be done.  

Besides dinners, I also use our freezer for ridiculous amounts of freezer jam and frozen whole berries from summertime picking, apple sauce from fall picking (and pear sauce this year, thanks to the fabulous  Mary!!) as well as frozen cookies and breads (of the breakfast variety, like pumpkin cranberry bread, etc...)  I really enjoy baking, but don't get to it very often anymore, so when I do, I just double everything and then throw it in freezer bags.  It's been absolutely wonderful to pull a couple oatmeal raisin cookies out of the freezer as needed (needed by whom, I shall not say ;) )  

Even with this abundance of food nearly at my fingertips (I DO have to trudge down to the basement to get it...) I still do "meal planning."  About once a week I head down there and pull out a variety of stuff to bring up for the next seven days - you know, one meal with beef, one with chicken, and three soups - usually two of which are meat free.  Everything for the week gets transferred up to the kitchen freezer until it needs to be defrosted.  I also get the sauces, jams, and cookies we'll want for the week.  

I use my kitchen dry erase board to plan out the week, leftovers included - this ensures that I remember to defrost stuff and also allows me to plan veggie sides or breads, etc... where needed. 

As for variety, it's never been a problem - there are enough different soups and casseroles that, with the occasional pizza night or dinner with my parents, we never eat anything twice in two weeks.  And every so often I actually do make a fresh dinner if the urge hits me or the price for the groceries was too good to pass up.

I love my freezer-to-table method.  It works so well for me.  I am so energized and cheered by my weekends of crazy cooking.  I feel so productive in the moment (obviously!) and I'm so happy thinking ahead to the tasty meals that will be awaiting us months later. Once in a while I feel a little pang of guilt that I don't make more hot and fresh meals for my family, but it doesn't last long.  I'm confident that they are eating healthily (even though  it's "fast food") and I am always so content and grateful to know that dinner is done and I don't have to rummage through the pantry or panic at 4:30 in the afternoon about what to make for dinner.  (I do enough of that over the summer!)

* * * * * *

I think most busy moms have a meal planning/preparation/rotation system that works for them.  But in case you think there's a chance you share this love of frozen-dinners-on-hand but don't know where to start, here are two more posts to check out...

Freezer Meal Ideas and Tips
How to Host a Frozen Meal Exchange

And although the page isn't that well organized, a lot of the recipes I use can be found at the Recipe tab at the top and in the post on planning for the soup party referenced above :)  


PS - You can tell how much I love talking freezer meals, but even I can see I might be yammering on about this a little much.  I will try to refrain from writing about this again.  Will try.