Pizza Sauce from Fresh Tomatoes

I had a bunch of local Roma tomatoes at the end of the harvest season and needed to do something with them. I decided to make homemade pizza sauce. I used the olive oil dough recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day for the pizza dough, which was fabulous and really easy. I found this recipe for the sauce - it was actually kind of hard to find a recipe that did not call for canned tomatoes or tomato puree. I wanted to find a recipe that I could use when we live overseas, where I can't just run over to Walmart for a can of tomatoes.

This sauce was great and pretty easy to make. I used dried oregano because that's all I had, fresh basil from our patio garden, and added salt and pepper to taste at the end. I seeded the tomatoes, but did not bother peeling them, which I liked about this recipe. I used my immersion blender to puree it at the end. My husband was very impressed that you can make good pizza sauce from scratch (goodbye, Walmart pizza sauce! At least when we have good, fresh tomatoes).

Cranberry-Apple Crisp

My coworker brought in a bucket of apples from her yard a few weeks back. Never one to turn down free local produce, I took a bunch of apples home and figured I would find a use for them. We went to a potluck a few days later so I made this crisp, which was delicious. I still had a bag of cranberries from last Thanksgiving in my freezer, so this was a perfect recipe to use those up.

I made a few adjustments based on reviewer's recommendations - I doubled the topping, halved the cranberries, and doubled the apples. I also added a teaspoon of cinnamon to the topping mixture, and used water instead of cider since I didn't have any cider on hand.

This was delicious. I thought doubling the topping was a little much, though my topping-loving husband thought it was just perfect. Doubling the topping also made it a little too sweet for my taste. I think next time I would use 1 1/2 times the topping rather than doubling it. Other than that, I thought this was excellent, and it went really well with whipped topping or vanilla ice cream.

Wrigley Field-esque Frosty Malt

I have blogged before about my longing for the frozen chocolate malts that you get at Wrigley Field. My first attempt earlier this year was quite disappointing, so I hadn't tried again since then. Now that it's Cubs season again, I decided to give it another try, and found this recipe from Cooking Light. I had to make quite a few modifications to get it right, but I think I've gotten pretty close. The first time I made it, I used water as the recipe instructed, but this makes the end product as hard as a rock, rendering it impenetrable to the requisite wooden spoon (we didn't even try to use wooden spoons the first time). The second time I used all milk, and the consistency is perfect. I used quite a bit less cocoa powder too - with the amount in the original recipe, the frozen malt comes out way too dark and chocolatey - for you Cubs fans, as you know, the real thing is just the palest shade of brown, and the chocolate flavor is there but not overwhelming.

I made so many modifications that I feel like I can consider this my own recipe. Now, I have not had the real thing at the ballpark in over a year, so this may not be an exact replica. I do think the color and texture are very close, and the taste is pretty darn good. You can find malt powder in the coffee and tea section of your grocery store. I used my ice cream maker, but if you don't have one - well, you should get one. But if you want to try to make it without one, David Lebovitz has instructions on his website on how to make ice cream without a machine.

Here it is, fellow Cubs fans!


4 1/4 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa (I used Nestle)
2/3 cup malt powder (I used the Carnation brand - Horlicks is another good brand. Do not use Ovaltine!)

Whisk together 1 cup of the milk, the sugar, and the cocoa in a large saucepan. Heat the mixture, whisking frequently, until hot but not boiling. Add the malt powder and the remaining milk and whisk until thoroughly blended.

Cover and chill in the refrigerator. Pour mixture into the freezer can of an ice-cream freezer; freeze according to manufacturer's instructions.


When I made this, I was a little dismayed that there was still a bit of liquid in my ice cream maker after it was all churned - I guess because the recipe makes a little more than my canister can handle. However once this goes in the freezer for a night, everything solidifies and all is well. And then you have plenty of frozen chocolate goodness to enjoy. Because there is no cream in this recipe, it does come out fairly hard when you first take it out of the freezer - it helps to let it sit on the counter for 5-10 minutes prior to serving. Feel free to serve in paper cups with wooden spoons if you like!

Five-Minute Artisan Bread

I have had a love-hate relationship with homemade bread over the years. I love the taste of homemade bread, but I hate kneading. I just can't get it right. I have tried using a breadmaker, and also the dough hook on my stand mixer, to avoid the whole kneading problem - but I just haven't been able to make bread with the texture that I want.

Then I found this recipe online. Fancy looking bread that you don't have to knead - really? Am I dreaming? I had to try it. The recipe looked pretty easy, and reviews online made it sound like you couldn't mess it up. I tried it for the first time last week. One word: wonderful. This bread is so easy to make, and it is delicious. Baking it on a pizza stone gives it a lovely crust. We were very happy with the flavor. I love that you make a big batch and just store it in your fridge for whenever you want fresh bread. We had our second loaf tonight, and it was even better than the first. The flavor changes a little over time, becoming more sourdough-like the longer it sits in the fridge.

One tip that I have found helpful - since the dough is pretty wet, it can be difficult to transfer to the baking stone. I don't have a pizza peel, so I just put a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet and put my dough on there to rest. When it's time to put the bread in the oven, I slide the dough and the parchment paper onto the stone. I let the bread bake for three minutes, then open the oven and pull the parchment paper out from underneath the bread.

Chocolate Fondue

My husband and I got a fondue pot as a gift when we got married five-plus years ago. We used it a few times during our first few years of marriage, but then it just sat in the cupboard collecting dust for a while. Until we discovered a few weeks ago how incredibly easy it is to make chocolate fondue. Since then we have had it whenever we have guests over! The recipe we found takes only a few minutes to make, and you just zap it in the microwave and then transfer it to your fondue pot. You really don't even need to use a fondue pot for this, if you are going to eat it right away. We skip the wine, so this fondue only has four ingredients - cream, bittersweet chocolate (we just use Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips), butter, and sugar. We have dipped angel food cake, strawberries, and bananas in it, all of which are very good. This is a great dessert for entertaining - it looks so fancy, but it takes less than five minutes to make.

Baked Northern Pike

My husband went on a fishing trip to Canada a couple months ago, and brought back some walleye and northern pike filets so that I could vicariously experience a part of his trip. I have never had northern pike before, and had no idea how to cook them - and my usual dependable recipe websites did not have any recipes for them. So I took a gamble and Googled for recipes. I decided to go with something simple - I figured that if this fish tasted as good as my husband says it does, then it shouldn't need much to dress it up. I found this simple recipe for baked pike on a fishing in Canada website. There are several recipes on the page I have linked to - I used the last one. I guess soaking the filets in milk helps make the fish less oily, or so I've read.

This was very easy, and the results were great. The simplicity of the ingredients allowed the flavor of the pike to shine through (I don't really like battered, fried fish much for that reason - the coating and the oil usually make it so that you can't really tell what the fish really tastes like) (not that I don't like the taste, but I can't tell walleye from cod or perch when it's cooked like that). I served this with white rice and fresh green beans. A nice, quick meal with simple, delicious flavors. We still have four pike filets in the freezer, and I think I know how I will make them the next time....

Phyllo-Wrapped Salmon with Leeks and Red Bell Pepper

Would you believe that I had all the ingredients for this in my kitchen? I guess that marks me as a total foodie. I have had some salmon filets sitting in my freezer for a while. I also got leeks in my CSA basket, and a search on Epicurious came up with this fabulous recipe. This could easily be served at a fancy romantic restaurant for much more than the ingredients cost. The flavors and textures melded beautifully, and the phyllo packets make for a classy presentation.

I was just making this for the two of us for dinner, so I halved the red pepper and leek mixture. Since I have baked with phyllo before, it wasn't nearly as intimidating to work with those thin sheets as it used to be. I served this with wild rice, and corn on the cob because that's what we had. I think this would go well with asparagus or a salad of field greens instead. This is now one of my favorite ways to prepare salmon.