Homemade pasta sauce

It's been a while!

Here is an easy way to make your own pasta sauce. This is a base, so try your own variations on this and post them in the comments!

Ingredients:

• 8 tomatoes, chopped (or 4 cans crushed tomatoes)
• 3 cloves garlic, diced
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 cup fresh basil leaves (or 3 table spoons dried)
• Meat (optional)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 cups water
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes
• Parmesan for garnish

Directions:

• Put onion, garlic, and basil into a food processor, run until almost liquid
• Sauté onion mix for 5 minutes in olive oil in large pan or sauce pan
• Add tomatoes, crush a bit if fresh, stir well
• Add salt, pepper, red pepper flakes
• Add 2 cups water
• Add sugar
• Add meat (optional)
• Boil until sauce reduces to your liking, slower and longer the better
• Serve, mailman, repeat!

This sauce is delicious as it is, and so any additions you make will only make it better. Be careful on the red pepper flakes, they are quite strong with the garlic. Otherwise, this is super easy and can be used for chicken, ground beef, meatballs, sausage, etc. Here's Natalie dominating some angel hair with this sauce :)

Happy cooking mailmanning!

Asparagus Bruschetta

This is the perfect light dinner/appetizer for a hangover recovery. Natalie and I were both feeling drained yesterday, so we made this quickly to get us over the hump.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb asparagus
• 1.5-2 large tomatoes, sliced
• Olive Oil
• Basalmic Vinegar
• Parmesan Cheese
• Salt
• Pepper
• Basil (julienne or dried both work fine)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400º F
2. Place asparagus on a baking sheet dowse with olive oil, salt, pepper, and Parmesan
3. Place asparagus in oven for 10 minutes
4. Once asparagus is done, mix tomatoes, asparagus, basil, olive oil, balsamic vinegar (OO:BV should be 1:1)
5. Season with salt and freshly cracked black pepper
6. Serve over toasted bread and fresh mozzerella, triscuits, or by itself as a salad

If salad tasted more like this, I'd eat it every day

Happy cooking mailmanning!

Grilled Tomato and Cheese on Toast with a Fried Egg

This is a meal I had nearly every day on Inishbofin this summer, well not every day but at least twice a week after it's discovery! I eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner because it is delicious. If you haven't noticed I have a lot of quick easy, semi-well rounded meals (This one has a tomato in it!). I am super excited to move into a new apartment in August (with more kitchen space) and do fun/semi-elaborate like bake bread!

Ingredients-
1 egg
1 slice of sandwich bread
1 tomato
1/4 c Shredded Cheese (I totally made up this amount, really I make it super cheesy)
Cooking spray (I use a Misto filled with Olive Oil)
salt and pepper
Hot sauce/spicy spices

Sometimes I get super hungry and double the recipe, and by sometimes I mean most of the time.

Directions-
First toast the bread. While the bread is toasting slice the tomato. I tend to remove the guts of the tomato so the bread doesn't get too soggy (even though you pre-toast it I still gut them). I use a toaster oven for all toasting. It makes clean up super easy, but I suppose you could do the next step in a proper oven. Next take your toast, add a layer of sliced tomatoes, top with shredded cheese (Sometimes I uses slices).  Put it in the toaster oven on Medium.

Cheese!

While the bread/cheese/tomato are in the toaster oven I fry the egg. You can prepare the egg any way you like, but I like over easy so it can be gooey.

Then I plate it up! Bread first, then the egg on top. I chose to add some spices with a little kick to the egg. Please note the Cholula in the picture. I used it too.

This was a dinner meal- note the wine. If there was a bloody it would have been breakfast! Speaking of which- if anyone has a really good bloody from scratch mix I would be interested!

Don't forget to mailman!