Marinara Sauce

I have lots and lots of recipes for marinara sauce, meat sauce, alfredo sauce, on and on. I feel like I have sauce recipes coming out of ears sometimes I swear. So, for some reason I decided to NOT use one those many, many recipes and try out something new. I wanted something not exactly homemade, since that takes all day, but I didn't want the out of the jar stuff either. So on the internet I went a looking. I found one on www.allrecipes.com that is a good place to go, right?? So I was taking a look at all the different marinara sauces and finally decided on one. It seemed pretty easy and it was ready within 30 minutes and there were lots and lots of great comments and reviews, so why not. Here is the recipe:

Marinara Sauce

Ingredients:

2 (14.5 oz) cans stewed tomatoes

1 (6 oz) can tomato paste

4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

1 clove garlic, minced

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

6 tablespoons olive oil

1/3 cup finely diced onion

1/2 cup white wine

Directions:

In a food processor, place stewed tomatoes, tomato paste, chopped parsley, minced garlic, oregano, salt and pepper. Blend until smooth.

In a large skillet, over medium heat, saute the finely chopped onion in olive oil for 2 minutes. Add the blended tomato sauce and white wine. 

Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

In true Heather style, I immediately started messing with the ingredients. First of all, I didn't have any canned stewed tomatoes, but I did have some whole tomatoes (in a can), so I used that, I also didn't finely dice the onions. I like mine a little chunkier. I did dice them, just not finely. Other than that, I did EXACTLY what it said to do. Once it was done I tasted it. It was NOT what everyone was saying it was. It tasted like watered  down tomato sauce. I was very disappointed. I threw caution to the wind at that point and decided that it was time to start messing around with the recipe. First, I added about 3 more cloves of garlic, we are big garlic lovers here, and I used about 4 tablespoons of Italian Seasoning (my personal favorite is made by McCormick and it's in a grinder) and extra pepper and a little more salt. I let it simmer for about 45 more minutes with a lid and stirred every so often. It was the best marinara sauce I have had. So, I have decided that I should add this one to my ever growing recipe collection, i.e my cookbook, with the changes I have made. 

I wanted to also add to this, that you don't have to use the white wine if you don't want to. You can use chicken stock instead. It doesn't really change the flavor sooooo much, maybe a little, but if you aren't a fan of wine, this is a good substitution. 

Before I met my husband I wasn't much of a wine drinker at all. In fact, I hadn't even had wine before I met him. Now, not that I drink it all the time now but I do have it around. Mainly just in case we have company or we have decided to have a really nice dinner at home. One of my favorite things to is have a nice glass of wine out on my back porch while my husband is grilling. I also enjoy just sitting out there with him and the beautiful night sky. The night sky is so open, so simple. There isn't anything going on, nice and quiet. So much different than normal day to day routine. It's so big and it makes you feel so small, yet comforted at the same time. Maybe that's just me, but as we sit outside either having dinner or just chatting, I like a nice glass of wine to go with it, let us unwind from the day or the week. 

Anyway, totally off subject.

If you don't have wine in your house for whatever reason, you can use the chicken stock and it will be just as lovely. No need to go buy a bottle of wine just so you can have this dish. 

My family ate it all up without any complaints and even said that the sauce was one of the best they had had and wanted me to make sure to put this into our rounds. I also made homemade garlic bread a little different than I had in the past as well, and that was out of need and not trying something different. That's a different post for a different day I think. 

It's here, it's here...come look!

My website is finally here. I am so proud of it, like a mother who had just given birth to her first....or last baby. It's the most beautiful thing I have ever seen and it is perfect in every way. I am a novice when it comes to websites and pretty much all things computer, take this site for instance, so I did have some help with it.
In fact, it took me more than 3 days and about 3 posts to my favorite ladies in the world to figure out exactly how in the world I could get to the point where I could post anything. It's obviously NOT as easy as blogger.

So, here is how it came about:
Step 1) go to www.godaddy.com and find my site, pay for it and feel like a million bucks, I just bought my first website.
Step 2) Get frustrated because I couldn't figure it out. Look on line to find that I need a host
Step 3) Buy a host
Step 4) Look through all kinds of stuff and figure that I need something else, get that
Step 5) STILL can't figure it out, bake some bread to relieve my stress....6 loaves to be exact.
Step 6) Continue to procrastinate and make an apron, and plan on making 4, maybe 5 more
Step 7) Decide that I have to get this website together and get online to ask some of the smartest women I know what to do, it just so happens they all have children the same age as my little one.
Step 8) TAKE their advice and get an a-m-a-z-i-n-g host.
Step 9) Get this great site up and going.
Step 10) Mess it up, again! Dang stupid computer and website....it's obviously their fault, it couldn't be mine.
Step 11) Call customer service and get some help.
Step 12) After 2 hours, it's up!!! Again, it's the most beautiful thing I have ever done....besides having my beautiful children (although this website took me longer to get ready than it was to give birth to any of them, and almost as exhausting).

Now, it's ready and,again, it's beautiful. I love it. I just know that it's going to generate all kinds of business and I will be rich beyond my wildest dreams, ha ha, I know better....but a girl can dream, right??

I'm sure most of you are wondering about all that bread I made? Well, I cut and froze 2 loaves for my children's lunches and the other 4 I wrapped in tin foil and froze them too. When my youngest woke up in the morning she about had a fit when she saw all that bread in the freezer "Mommy, why is there all this bread in here??? Are we going to have bread all day long???" Big sigh, "Yes baby doll, we are going to have bread all day long for days at a time." She then proceeded to say "Oh great!" In her language that means, I really don't want to eat all that bread. When she looks back at this time when she gets older, she will remember just how great the homemade bread really was and how the house always smelled wonderful and how she just can't eat "regular" bread anymore, but for now...she can't imagine eating all that bread. By the way, she didn't eat bread all day long. Just for lunch, and maybe tomorrow I will make french toast for breakfast. If she is a good girl, maybe stuffed french toast!

So, if you want to check out my website that I am so proud of its, www.creativecatering.co

Please leave me feedback here to let me know what you think of it, and be honest! I can take some criticism...even with it being my latest baby :0)

Getting this business up and running!

So, I had my first real, honest to goodness catering job last Friday. It went really, really well. I learned a lot from it as well. Like if they want me to stay there and serve them or if they want me to leave and come back. Instead, I was there, with my friend, in heels, the entire two and a half hours. Needless to say when I finally got into the car afterwards I just wanted to take my shoes off and just feel my feet.

So, things I learned.....
Don't wear high heels to a catering job
ASK if they want full catering service or to just come drop off and pick up
Wear comfortable clothing and preferably NOT black....or dark blue (trust me on this one, flour and dark pants)
Wear an apron. Preferably, a cute one :0)

So, with that first notch in my belt I decided that I needed a website, and a business bank account. I already have my business license. So, I got them. I am a full fledged business!! YAHOO!!! Now it's all about getting clients, so I thought! I am having such a hard time with this website. Coming up with the name and buying it was the easy part. Getting it actually up and running? THAT is the issue I can't figure out.
I am a COOK people, not a web designer! I can't even figure out where it is that I start typing things, much less  put pictures or anything. Everything is written in Greek, well, at least to me. Now, give me a recipe, I can cook it...perfectly, this....not even close. Have problems with your bread? Ask me, I can figure that out without a problem. I can't even begin to figure this out. I'm thinking of hiring someone to make my website workable, maybe even cute and professional. I guess I just never thought getting a website together would be this hard. How do people do this everyday, all day? Not sure, but my chef's hat is off to them for sure.


So, tonight as I was sitting here trying to figure this web page thing out I decided to make a few loaves of bread. I mean really, who doesn't do that? I guess I was so preoccupied with the lack of knowledge of the website that I did something to my bread that I have never done before. I'm not sure what it was, but after the second rising I went to put it in the oven and it looked, well, weird. The middle of it looked like a normal loaf of bread and then it looked like another loaf around the middle. I always score my bread, maybe it was a little deeper this time? I don't know but it wasn't pretty. So, I decided to punch it down and start all over again. I was worried that it wouldn't rise again, or at least not rise properly but boy was I wrong! It actually rose great and when I baked it, it was, well....better. All around better. It was lighter, fluffier and the crumb was better. I know that is a total 3 hour rise, but man it's so much better. I am going to start making it like that for now on. I just know that the kids are going to love it tomorrow when they take it to school for their lunches.  

Bread Machine VS. Hand Made Breads

I am one of those people that have always said that they would NEVER use a bread machine. Making bread with your hands was the only way to go. There was no way I was ever going to make a single loaf of bread in a bread machine. It took all the fun out of it. It took all the love and the passion out of it. I felt like I was cheating when I used my kitchen aid stand mixer to mix and knead my dough for me. How in the world could I ever use a machine to do all of it for me.

Then, a friend graciously gave me her bread maker. She told me it was just collecting dust in her garage and she knew that I made bread, a lot of bread actually.

I agreed that I made a lot of bread. The kids use bread for their sandwiches for school lunches and I make a lot of bread for donations to varies functions.

*My most memorable one was last October when I made 13 loaves of bread for my youngest child's preschool for their barbecue fundraiser. It broke my mixer.*

So, I have a catering job coming up and they asked for a few loaves of different breads. THIS is where I was going to try it out. I cut the bread up anyway, so why not!

I made pumpernickel, rosemary and sun dried tomato with asiago cheese.

Pumpernickel was my first try. The very first loaf I made came out as hard as a rock. I didn't know what I did but I knew there was no way I or anyone else was going to eat that. In fact, I could of used it for a door stop. I decided to try again. I changed my recipe and did it again. It wasn't the prettiest bread, that's for sure, but it actually came out ok. It was a real good thing that I was cutting it up.

Next was the Rosemary bread. I only had to try this one once. It rose beautifully and the entire house smelled of fresh bread and rosemary. It was AMAZING. When it was done, it did look a little strange to me though. Definitely different my precious loaves. It was tall, very tall and squatty. I'm use to long and lean loaves. Beautifully shaped loaves of bread. At that moment, I knew there was no way I could use this machine for my kids sandwiches.....ever! It just didn't look like sandwich bread. I cut this bread up and the smells.....oooohhhhh the smells. I am going to make more of this bread, that's for sure. I was even thinking of making rosemary dinner rolls to go along with homemade chicken soup or marinara sauce.

Last, but not least, my favorite bread. The sun dried tomato and asiago cheese bread. I have only made one loaf of this BUT I think that I am going to have to make another. It didn't rise as well as the rosemary one did. It also seems a little hard.

So, my 2 cents? I will stick to making it by hand. The last time I have had these kind of issues with bread was when I was 12 and had just started making it. I didn't measure anything out and well, being 12 I didn't do things exactly like I should of. Using the bread machine is suppose to be easier and stress free, but it has done nothing but waste flour and time. I find making bread by hand to be relaxing anyway.

As for my bread maker? It makes jams as well, so I might use it for that. I might and that is a BIG might use it for mixing the bread for me to shape, rise the second time and bake in my oven. If that doesn't work either, then I will graciously offer it back to my friend or my mother....I know she loves the bread machines.