Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

There is nothing as yummy as slow-cooked, homemade spaghetti sauce! Here is my recipe for a huge batch of sauce that you can freeze in portions you need or even pressure can in jars. I must warn you...its delicious!

Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

20 to 25 large tomatoes

4 large green bell peppers, seeded

4 large sweet onions

4 (6oz sized) cans tomato paste

1 cup canola oil, (you can also use olive oil)

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup salt

8 cloves of garlic, minced ( I use the already minced fresh stuff, about a tsp per clove called for)

4 tsp dried oregano

2 tsp dried parsley flakes

2 tsp dried basil

2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

3 tsp Worcestershire sauce

The first thing you need to do is get the skin off your tomatoes. Bring a large pan of water to a boil on the stove. Cut the stem out of the tomatoes and cut out any bad spots. Place them a few at a time into the boiling water. You will see the skin start to separate from the tomato. Using a slotted spoon, remove the tomatoes and place into a large bowl filled with cold water. While another batch in the boiling water, peel the skin off the ones in the cold water and cut them into about 1 inch slices. Set aside in another bowl until you get them all done this way.

In a food processor, chop the green bell peppers and the onions until they are finely chopped.

In a large stockpot, (seriously a HUGE stockpot), combine the tomatoes, the peppers, the onions, the tomato paste, oil, sugar, salt, garlic, oregano, parsley, basil. red pepper flakes, and Worcestershire sauce. Mix well and simmer on very low heat, uncovered for about 4 hours. Stir this quite often because you do not want it to stick to your pot. I suppose you could transfer this into 2 large crockpots and cook for 4 hours or so on high and it should do fine. I have never done it that way but it should work in theory.

You can store this in the freezer in containers or baggies for future use or you can pressure can it in mason jars.

Cube Steak Casserole

This recipe was a big hit here with The Herd! Sorry no picture to go with this one but I promise you this one is worth trying!

Cube Steak Casserole

4 to 6 cube steaks or pork cutlets

( 4 of they are large, 6 if they are small)

1 envelope of dry onion soup mix

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 1/2 cans water (the can from the mushroom soup)

1 cup minute rice

1 cup flour

salt and pepper to taste

Mix the flour with the salt and pepper in a shallow dish. Coat the steaks in the flour and brown in hot oil on each side.

Transfer once browned to a 13 x 9 baking dish.

In a bowl mix the onion soup mix, mushroom soup and the water together. Pour over the steaks.

Sprinkle the rice over the top, making sure you get the rice in the liquid.

(if you don't get the rice in the liquid , you end up with crunchy rice!)

Cover and bake at 350 for 1 hour!



You can even use chicken cutlets, just change the cream of mushroom soup to cream of chicken and follow the rest of the recipe!

Beignets

Well, so many of you asked for my beignet recipe that I decided to post it!

For those of you who do not know what a beignet is, it is basically a french doughnut. It is also the single most effective way to have powdered sugar ALL over you!

Here is a pic of these yummy confections!

Beignets

1 cup warm milk

(heat in the microwave for about a minute)

1 pkg. dry active yeast

1/4 cup sugar

2 eggs, beaten

1/4 cup melted butter

1 tsp salt

3 cups of flour

In a bowl, stir together the warm milk, yeast, & sugar and let it sit for about 5 minutes.

Place the yeast mixture into your electric mixer bowl and add the eggs, mixing well. Then add the melted butter.

In a bowl, mix the flour and salt then add to the mixer bowl. Using the dough hook, mix until a dough ball forms. You may need to add a little more flour as you go because you want the dough soft but not wet.

Spray a large bowl with non-stick spray and transfer the dough to the bowl. Cover with a towel and let sit for about 40 minutes in a warm place so the dough can rise.

40 minutes later, remove towel and place dough on lightly floured surface. Punch down the dough and let sit for 15 minutes, covered.

(To those of you who do not know what Punch down the dough mean, seriously...think about it. Its pretty self-explanatory really! Just punch the dough!)

Now you want to GENTLY roll out your dough into a rectangle, about 1/4 of an inch thick. (I have to cut my dough in half due to the fact that I have no counter top space so if you need to make 2 batches, you can just work quick and you should be fine!)

Cut your dough into 3 to 4 inch square-ish pieces and deep fry in shortening for about 2 minutes tops. Look for that golden brown color and flip them to get both sides done. Remove and place on a paper towel lined pan.  

(I recommend shortening over oil because it just seems to make the beignets crispier!)

As soon as you get them on the pan, sprinkle a heavy layer of powdered sugar on top!