A Blonde's Blog

How was everyone’s Thanksgiving? Mine was dee-lightful. Filled with lots of food, family arguments, and me doing a month’s worth of laundry at my dad’s house.

Dad, sister, me at Thanksgiving. My whole family is tall.

After the meal, we went on a walk.

…except that I got tired. Luckily my sister and her friend are strong.

After Thanksgiving round 1, we went for Thanksgiving II at my mom’s. Before we ate scrumptious lefortovers, we did some baking and cooking. My mom makes this delicious and easy cranberry stuff that I thought I’d share. Even though Thanksgiving is over, you can eat this all year ’round!

Seriously, it’s so easy that it only needs 2 photos.

Ingredients:

1 orange

1 bag cranberries

3/4 cup sugar

Step 1: In two batches, food-process the orange (remove seeds, but keep everything else!) and cranberries

Step 2: Mix in 3/4 c. sugar. Let it marinate in the fridge for a while, then eat!

Hola, Mom, Nicolle, and Jill aka my entire reader base!

My mom is always trying to convince me that I should become a master soup maker, because it’s “so easy” and “you can freeze it!” (aka- I know you’re cooking for one and will die alone, so you should make something that will keep- to eat on all those cold, lonely nights).

Anywho, I cracked open one of my favorite cookbooks, Great Food Fast. I usually turn to Mamie’s more high brow cookbooks, but this one has some delicious recipes that are actually really easy to make. Good for beginners like me. Books that are bad for beginners like me include: the Tartine cookbook. I once tried to make the banana cream pie- I curdled 2 attempts at custard, broke both a food processor AND a pastry cutter, and subsequently found a bolt in my dough before calling it quits and just buying it down the street.

Today’s attempt at cooking was MUCH more successful! See for yourself:

First, you cook some bacon. I actually don’t think I’ve ever cooked bacon before, which is a terrible shame. You cook it for about 10 minutes until it gets brown and crispy. mmmmhhh bacon.

Next, add in an onion and 3 chopped carrots. Let that all cook together in the delicious bacon fat. mmmmmhhh bacon.

Add to that some chopped garlic, and tomato paste. There’s a great trick that I learned from a friend of mine. You know how you always need like, a tablespoon of tomato paste, but it usually comes in the cans? Well, what I do is scoop out tablespoon sized portions, wrap them in saran wrap and then throw them in a ziplock baggie and store them in the freezer. Then, when I need some, I just grab one or two and defrost them! It’s really quite brilliant.

It wouldn’t be lentil soup without the lentils!

Add them to the pot, along with some thyme, chicken broth and water. Then all you have to do is let it boil, and then cook for 30-40 minutes until the lentils are tender.

I ate mine with some bread that I brushed with olive oil and let toast in the oven at 375 for about 15 minutes.

Since it’s just about the end of tomato season and I’ve been making sauce like crazy for the last few weeks, I thought I’d post one of my recipes. Just in time for you to not be able to make it until next year!

Start with fresh, delicious tomatoes. I like the dry farmed early girls. Never been watered- can you believe it!?

Then, cut off the tops and slice into quarters.

Line the little soldiers up on a baking sheet.

Drizzle with olive oil, and add some garlic, salt, pepper, a bit of sugar, and fresh thyme:

Next, go watch your favorite trashy reality TV show while these babies slow roast in the oven (175 for about 2 hours)

They’ll be shrively and smell amazing when ready. Like me, after a nice long bath:

The next part is really fun, and messy. Take all the skins off and put the innards in a bowl (I like to include the basil and garlic, too):

What to do with the skins? I don’t know. Comment with your ideas, plz.

You can totally just stop here and refrigerate and eat on pasta or other things at your leisure. Or, you can make them into sauce! It’s so easy, a horrible cook like me can do it! Heat some EVOO in a big pot, and add onions and maybe some more garlic:

Then, all you have to do is puree your roated tomatoes in a food processor, and dump them into the pot! I usually let it all cook up together for about half hour. I told you it was easy:

Throw some fresh or dried herbs in there- my friend parsley is pictured above. I also like to add some oregano, and some fresh basil towards the end.

With the roasting, I find that I don’t need to add any sugar to the sauce (with raw tomatoes, I like to do this to balance out the acidity)- but if your sauce is tasting acidic, just add a small amt (a teaspoon or so) to get rid of that.

DELICIOUS TOMATO SAUCE

(adapted from Jill‘s recipe for roasted tomatoes + Greens Cookbook Fresh Tomato Sauce recipe):

2-3 pounds fresh plum tomatoes, quartered lengthwise
Fine sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
A pinch of icing sugar
2 sprigs fresh thyme, stemmed
4 plump, fresh garlic cloves, slivered
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil + 4 tablespoons for cooking sauce

1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic (if not using garlic from roasting)
3 branches parsley
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs fresh thyme
Dried oregano, sugar, salt & pepper to taste

FOR ROASTING

PREHEAT the oven to the lowest possible setting about 175 degrees

1. Arrange the tomato quarters side by side on a baking sheet. sprinkle each side lightly with salt, pepper and icing sugar. scatter the thyme leaves over the tomatoes and place a garlic sliver on top of each quarter. Drizzle with EVOO.

2. Place in the oven and cook until the tomatoes are very soft, about one hour. turn the tomatoes, baste with the juices, and cook until meltingly tender, and reduced to about half their size, about 2 hours in total. check the tomatoes from time to time, they should remain moist and soft. Remove from the oven and allow to cool thoroughly.

3. Remove tomatoes from their skins and puree in a food processor

NOTE: If you don’t feel like spending the time roasting tomatoes, you can skip the roasting part and just puree the raw tomatoes (minus the tops). Follow directions below, and just make sure to add a bit of sugar for a nice flavor.

4. Heat 4 tablespoons EVOO in a large pot

5. Add onions and garlic (if not using roasted garlic from tomatoes)- sautee several minutes until soft

6. Add tomatoes, along with parsley and thyme (add these whole- bundle together if you like and remove before serving)

7. Cook about 30 minutes, or until flavor is as you like it. Add sugar, salt, pepper, and additional herbs as desired.

8. I like to freeze mine to eat during the winter months when I’m craving a fresh, delicious sauce!

I, of course, failed to take a picture of the finished sauce on pasta. This is why I’m not a food blogger!