Easy Marinara Sauce

When I lived in Buenos Aires there was a fresh pasta shop near my house where I would buy the most wonderful marinara sauce. Alas, I haven't been able to find a good marinara sauce here in Santiago so I combed most of my recipe books for an easy and tasty homemade marinara sauce.

My girls have recently started eating marinara sauce. However, they still don't like to taste the onions, so what I do is make a chunky sauce for us and then purée half of the sauce for them. For our adult version, I also add some fresh basil, which is to be avoided in the child's version since it's green!

Ingredients:

1 can tomatoes
1 small can of tomato paste
1 onion
1 red pepper
2 garlic cloves
salt, pepper
1/2 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp thyme

In a pan, cook the diced onion, pepper and crushed garlic in a little olive oil. Add the can of tomatoes and the tomato paste, and condiment it with some salt, pepper, sugar and thyme (you can add paprika if you want).

Let it simmer for 20 minutes.

Kids' version:

When the sauce cools down blend it on high.


Adults' version:

After you turn off the heat, add some diced fresh basil.

Healthier version of the zucchini muffins

I received this e mail from my best friend: "Your blog has truly inspired me. I made the muffins today and RJ loves them. He keeps asking for more cake and he is convinced that mommy mixed the icing into the cake and that is why the cake has green specks. I just wrapped them individually in wax paper and packaged them in Ziploc bags so I can thaw them out 1 x 1 for breakfast or snack etc." She not only tweaked my recipes but also made it healthier.

She also wrote:

First of all, since I didn’t have self rising flour I added 1/2t baking soda, 1/2t salt, and 1/4t baking powder. Secondly, I added 1c all purpose flour and 1/2c whole wheat flour because I am always trying to pump up the fiber in all our foods. Since I added the whole wheat flour, I added 1/3c oil instead of 1/4c and another egg to moisten the mixture more. Lastly, I added 2t vanilla because I am a vanilla addict, but I followed all the rest of your recipe and added everything as per your instructions. They came out amazing!

Ingredients:

1 cup of all-purpose flour
1/2 cup organic whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup sugar
1 cup shredded zucchini
2 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1/4 tsp orange peel
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup nuts (optional)

In a bowl, beat the sugar, zucchini and egg. Add the oil and orange peel.

Stir in the flour and cinnamon into the mixture and fold in the nuts/raisins.

Pour the batter in a muffin pan and bake in a 350°F oven for 18-20 min or until golden brown.

Fondant de coco y banana (o dulce de leche y coco)

Este fin de semana, tenía ganas de comer algo diferente, ni torta ni pura fruta y decidí cocinar este fondant de banana y coco, lo cual me pareció una combinación super interesante. Cuando se lo comenté a mi mejor amiga, me dijo que su esposo no come banana. Entonces para una variación mas dulce, se puede reemplazar la banana por dulce de leche (manjar/cajeta).

Ingredientes:

3 huevos
150 g de azucar
extracto de vainilla
100 g de crema líquida
125 g de harina con polvos (Blancaflor)
3 bananas
35 g de mantequilla
25 g de coco

Para la masa:
Batir 2 huevos con 100 g de azucar.

Luego agregar el azucar, crema, y harina y batir nuevamente.

Cubrir un molde enmantecado con la masa.

Luego cortar las bananas y apoyarlas suavemente sobre la masa.

Para el fondant de coco:
Batir 1 huevo con el coco, 50 g de azucar y la mantequilla bien derretida.

Cubrir la banana con la mezcla de coco.

Cocinar 35 min a horno en 150° C.

Torta de manzana y pera

Anoche tenía ganas de comer una torta con mucha fruta, más fruta que masa y decidí buscar entre mis recetas francesas y encontré esta torta. La comimos de postre y solo quedó un pedacito, el cual guardé en el microondas para que mi gato no lo mordiera. Esta mañana cuando abrí el microondas, salió un olorcito a panadería francesa que me hizo acordar al tiempo que viví en Paris.

Ingredientes:

3 manzanas golden
3 peras
70 g de harina con polvos
50 g de azucar
20 g de mantequilla derretida
2 huevos
100 ml de leche
1 cda de extracto de vainilla

En un bowl, batir los huevos con el azucar hasta que la mezcla esté amarillo pálido.

Agregar la mantequilla derretida, la leche y la vainilla. Sin dejar de batir, agregar la harina tamizada. Lo que yo hice es tamizarla directamente sobre la mezcla.

Dividir la masa en dos bowls, aproximadamente mitad y mitad. A un bowl añadir la manzana pelada y cortada en láminas. Al otro agregar la pera pelada y cortada en rodajas. En los dos casos, a medida que uno vaya añadiendo la fruta, ir mezclando bien.

En un molde cuadrado enmantecado y enharinado, agregar primero la preparación de la manzana y aplastar bien (con cuidado), luego agregar la preparación de la pera.

Cocinar 35 min a horno a 200°C. Cuando sale del horno, dejar enfriar.


Luego tamizar un poco de azucar impalpable (azucar flor).

Esta torta se puede comer tibia o fría y al día siguiente es más rica todavía, si aguanta hasta el día siguiente ...

Ham and cheese lasagna

I had bought lots of ham and had no time to cook dinner, so I decided to make a no prep lasagna. You just assemble it, stick it in the oven and cook it for half an hour and you have a scrumptious meal in no time.

Ingredients:

2 cups roughly chopped ham
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 box oven ready lasagna noodles
1 cup white sauce (see recipe below)
1/2 cup grated romano cheese
1/2 cup marinara sauce (optional)
salt and pepper
paprika
thyme

In a bowl, mix the ham, mozzarella cheese, ricotta, part of the romano cheese, salt, pepper, a dash of paprika and thyme.

In the bottom of a rectangular oven dish, spread some marinara sauce and a layer of lasagna noodles. You can avoid this step if your kids don't like tomato sauce (like mine).

Spread a layer of the ricotta mixture and another layer of the lasagna noodles.

You can put a little marinara sauce and some cut up mozzarella cheese.

Then pour the white sauce on top and sprinkle with some romano cheese.

Bake it for half an hour in a 375°F oven.

You can also make it ahead of time. For example, if you have guests, you prep up the lasagna the day before and put it in the fridge, then the next day just stick it in a cold oven and bake for forty minutes.

To prepare the white sauce:

In a pan, add the butter, cold milk, cornstarch and seasonings and stir until all the cornstarch has disolved. Then for the next 10-15 min boil in very low heat, stirring constantly.


Tips for the white sauce:

If you get lumps, just stir vigorously until they disappear.

If it's not thick enough, in a cup, add 4 tablespoons cold milk with 1 tablespoon cornstarch and stir until it has disolved. Then add it straight to the pot and keep on stirring (at low heat) until it thickens.

If you don't have cornstarch, you can substitute for all-purpose flour.

Hummus

I like making home made hummus and if I'm pressed for time, I'll use the canned garbanzos. If not, I like to have all kinds of beans on display in my kitchen (split peas, garbanzos, black beans and lentils) and love the ritual of putting the beans in water the night before.

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked garbanzos (or 1 can garbanzos, do not drain)
2 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper
juice from half a lemon
paprika and cumin (for decoration)

In a blender, add the garbanzos, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper, lemon juice and some garbanzo water (either saved from the can or the pot). Turn it on high for a minute.

Serve on a dish decorated, in the middle with olive oil and on the sides with paprika and cumin. Serve with pita bread wedges.

Zucchini bread

When I started to make the zucchini bread, my daughters asked me what I was cooking and when I mentioned that it had a vegetable in it, they declared that it sounded gross. When the bread came out of the oven, they saw that it had tiny green"things" and no way would they eat it. So I said, "well, you like carrot cake, why don't you give this bread a try" and not only did they taste it but they ate the whole thing in half an hour!!! I told them that next time I was going to give each one of them a slice and hide the rest, since they were even eating the crumbs when the cake was gone.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of self-rising flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup sugar
1 cup shredded zucchini
1 egg
1/4 cup oil
1/4 tsp lemon peel
1/2 cup nuts, or in my case raisins

In a bowl, beat the sugar, zucchini and egg. Add the oil and lemon peel.

Stir in the flour and cinnamon into the mixture and fold in the nuts/raisins.



Pour the batter in a greased 8 x 4 x 2 loaf pan and bake in a 350°F oven for 55 min or until golden brown (mine was done in 45).



Remove from pan and cool thoroughly before cutting.

When I told my friend Hortensia about the bread, she said "why don't you make zucchini muffins?" Since I had leftover shredded zucchini, I decide to try out the muffins and the only difference is that I used orange peel. They were so delicious that I had to take the picture before they disappeared!

Empanadas de carne (Meat empanadas)

Thinking about making meat empanadas can sound like a scary undertaking, but they are quite simple to make. The trick is learning how to close the empanada, which you can either do it with a fork or by hand.

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef
1 small onion
2 hard boiled eggs
salt, pepper
green olives (optional)
12 disks of empanada dough (you buy it in the supermarket)

Cook the chopped onion until translucent.

Add the ground beef and cook thoroughly.
(the image shows the raw meat)
Add the chopped eggs and let cool.

If you want you can add olive and if you are feeling daring, even raisins.

Put a disc of empanada dough on a plate, fill the middle with the cold beef mix without touching the edges of the pastry.

With your finger, wet half the border of the dough (one half should be wet and one half should be dry); this helps you close up the empanada so that it doesn't open when its cooking in the oven.

Close up the empanada, this should resemble half a moon.

Use a fork to seal the empanada, pressing the dough lightly with the back of a fork.

Place on a cookie sheet and glaze with an egg.

Bake in a 350°F oven for 20 minutes or until the pastry has turned golden.

Note: for an alternate filling you can use ham and cheese.


You can also prepare them ahead of time and freeze them. Then whenever you want to cook them, just put them straight from the freezer to the hot oven, and you have a homecooked meal in minutes.

Croque monsieur

Last night, I had no desire to cook dinner so I decided to make some Croque Monsieur, which are basically ham and cheese melted sandwiches. With the help of my girls, we started an "assembly line" and dinner was ready in 20 minutes.

Ingredients:

12 slices of bread
6 slices of ham
6 slices of cheese
1/2 cup grated emmenthal cheese
1 cup white sauce (recipe below)

To assemble the sandwiches, just layer one slice of bread, then the ham and cheese and the other slice of bread.

While my daughters were assembling the sandwiches, I was preparing the white sauce.

On top of sandwiches, pour a dollop of white sauce and the emmental cheese.

Stick it in the broiler oven at 350° for 20 min and dinner is ready!

To prepare the white sauce:

In a pan, add the butter, cold milk, cornstarch and seasonings and stir until all the cornstarch has disolved. Then for the next 10-15 min boil in very low heat, stirring constantly.


Tips for the white sauce:

If you get lumps, just stir vigorously until they disappear.

If it's not thick enough, in a cup, add 4 tablespoons cold milk with 1 tablespoon cornstarch and stir until it has disolved. Then add it straight to the pot and keep on stirring (at low heat) until it thickens.

If you don't have cornstarch, you can substitute for all-purpose flour.

Shrimp stir fry

This weekend, I didn't feel like going to the supermarket so I decided to cook something with whatever was leftover in my fridge. I found a leek, a celery, some shrimp in the freezer and decided that a stir fry would be a perfect choice. You can substitute with any veggies that you have at hand.

Ingredients:

1 leek
1 celery
1 onion
1 red pepper
4-5 mushrooms
1/2 cup shrimp
1/2 cup sweet peas
salt and pepper
garlic

In a some hot butter and olive oil, lightly fry the cut up leek, onion, red pepper and celery for a few minutes.

Set it aside in a dish while you cook the mushrooms in some butter and then add the peas.

Once again, set aside the cooked mushrooms and peas with the onion mixture and lighly sautee the shrimp with some garlic

When the shrimps are cooked, add the previous mixture to the pan with the shrimps and cook a few more minutes.

I served it on a bed of couscous.