Spaghetti Sauce

 I will acknowledge upfront that is probably not traditional but it's tasty. And the hubby loves it so that's good enough for me.

I use it for more than just spaghetti. I've used it for my macaroni bake and lasagna as well. 

This makes about 5 quarts of sauce. It freezes well, just to make sure let it cool to room temperature before freezing it in a sealed container. In fact the batch I made today was strictly for this purpose. Now we'll have some for when we want some.

Spaghetti Sauce

2 28 oz cans of tomato sauce 

28 oz can of diced tomatoes 

6 oz of tomato paste 

1 can of medium olives, drained

1 large onion chopped

1 large green bell pepper, chopped

1 large red bell pepper, chopped

8 oz of mushrooms, chopped (preferably crimini)

A heaping tablespoon of minced garlic

About a 1.5 teaspoon of Italian seasoning

Large pinch each of basil and oregano

Salt and pepper to taste

Chop your vegetables. We like ours chunky so I cut mine large but you can chop them as small as you prefer. Don't want whole olives? Sliced olives work just as well.

Toss everything into a crock pot and give it a good stir. I generally set mine on high for an hour and then move it to low for another 5 or 6 hours. It is one of those recipes of the longer you can let it simmer the better. I give a stir around half way through and taste it. Adjust the seasonings as you see fit. I normally add more salt and pepper at this time since I go lighter in the beginning. It's always easier to add more salt and pepper than it is to counteract it.

I give another taste near the end to make sure the flavor is good. If it is, I turn it off to cool so I can ladle it into containers or use some for whatever I'm making. The rest I let cool to room temperature in their containers before putting the lids on and stick it in the freezer.

It really is that easy.

Cheese Puffs Pastries

 

 I cannot take any sorts of credit for this recipe. A dear sweet friend up in Washington, Lisa, gave it to me. I'm posting it here mainly so I won't lose it. They're that good.

Now I'm not the biggest fan of cheese danishes and/or pastries. My honey on the other hand LOVES them so when Lisa posted a picture I asked for the recipe. And they are incredibly easy to make.

It was so hard waiting for them to cool! Starting from the back: Plain, Blackberry Peach Jam, Orange Spice Marmalade and Elderberry Jelly

 

The blackberry peach was my favorite. The orange spice was my honey's favorite though all of them are so good. You can use any type of jam or jelly on them really. We just used what I had in my fridge. Too bad we had already finished off Lisa's Marionberry Jam than she had sent us for Yule. That would have been amazing on it. And they are even better the next day. At least to me they were. The cream cheese and the jam had more time to get happy together and soak into the puff pastry. With a cup of coffee or a strong breakfast tea....HEAVEN! 

The best thing it was really easy to make.

Cheese Puff Pastries

• 1 sheet of puff pastry, thawed
• 1 8 oz block of softened cream cheese
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Jam/Jelly/Marmalade optional

Mix the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla together. It's important to make sure the cream cheese is room temperature. This helps making sure it's a smooth creamy texture. 

Take the sheet of puff pastry and cut into squares. You can use a regular muffin tin and make 12 smaller pastries. As you can see I used the jumbo muffin tins for 6. (I made a double batch). Put a heaping tablespoon (if you are using a regular muffin tin, start with a heaping teaspoon, you can always add more) of the cream cheese mixture in the middle of a square and fold it up and place into a muffin tin that has been sprayed with Pam or equivalent. Place a teaspoon of topping if desired on top.

Bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for 30 mins. Note: it only took about 22 minutes in my oven as it runs hot so keep an eye on it.

Note:  I suggest if you are putting any jam on top to decrease the amount of cream cheese filling slightly, maybe just a tablespoon instead of a heaping tablespoon. As you can tell from my pictures, they did overflow a little bit, which led to some slight darker color around some of the sides. It's the jam's sugars carmelizing. You could also add the jam during the cooling process but we wanted a more integrated flavor. 

Hope you enjoy and THANK YOU LISA for sharing the recipe!