My friends, I love tomato sauce. I remember living in a house full of 6 women and cooking up a pot of sauce. One of my roommates walked in, and if my memory serves me correctly, she just about fainted (She now works at Zingerman's Roadhouse: a good place for someone so appreciative of good food). She raved about the aroma (the result of sauteed onions doused with a good amount of a few day old wine). When it got to the table, it was what we all hoped for, all galic-y and basil-orgegeno-ed. But I haven't made a sauce like that in a while. Perhaps not since then. But not too long ago I found this sauce.

It couldn't be simpler: 4 ingredients that bubble away on the stove, just asking for the occasional stir and mash while you get your brain together after a long day. The sauce, made with whole tomatoes, butter, onion (just cut in half and peeled) and salt, is warm, and rich, and comforting, and decadent. So, throw the ingredients in a pot, open a bottle of wine (no need to save any for the sauce), then take a little time to pick out a pasta (I'm a fan of long and skinny for this one), talk with your family (or roommates, whatever the case may be), set the table, get out some parmesan, light the candles (it's that good), and enjoy.


Oh, and by the way, I just made a double batch, because the only thing easier than this sauce is "planned-overs" for dinner. When I doubled it, I just used one stick of butter, and one onion cut into funky thirds (an of-set cut and then a slice down the middle of the bigger chunk). There was still plenty of onion flavor, and no buttery richness was lost.

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The first rain of the season drove us inside at 10:30 this morning, but already we had "watered" the cold frame (shoveled snow into it), cleared a lot of leaves and found some green oregano. Parsley and arugula in the cold frame survived the winter, as did the new thyme in the garden. The rosemary plant looks like a gonner, but I'll let it sit for a few more weeks to see if there's anything that might come back. Some spinach and lettuce planted too late for a winder harvests is already an inch high. Looks like local harvests will begin again soon!

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One of my friends had an intense day, so the kids and I decided to make her some cookies. We love to make cookies, with all the measuring and dumping and mixing, it's childhood heaven. I've been working on a low fat, low sugar recipe for a while. Cooks Illustrated created light recipe where you use all butter (no applesauce or other funny stuff), but you melt it, and somehow that means you only have to use half as much.

Well, it's a great recipe, but it has 1 cup of sugar, which is the main ingredient we try to avoid in this house, so I've been slowly reducing it. A half cup provides enough sweetness, but since sugar is important for moisture and cohesion, I have been tinkering with the recipe in other ways to compensate. I perused online for a trailmix cookie recipe and found one that included 1/2 tsp of baking soda dissolved in 1 tbsp of hot water. Wondering if that might do the trick, the kiddos and I set to work on a batch of cookies.

But wait. I forgot. We ran out of cinnamon a few days ago. Grrrrrr. What's an oatmeal cookie without a little cinnamon? Plus, cinnamon speaks to your tastebuds as if it's sweetness, thereby allowing you to reduce the sugar content without totally sacrificing flavor. What's a girl to do without cinnamon? Dorie Greenspan published the recipe for this amazing Spiced Cranberry Bunt cake in the November 2008 issue of Bon Appetit where she introduced me to Chinese 5 Spice*, and aromatic combination of cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and other spices. Since then, I've used it here and there to add ore interesting flavor than cinnamon alone.

Using 5 spice, I knew I had to be choose my nuts and fruits wisely. Thinking about the fruit, nuts and seeds I had, I thought a bit of a Turkish/Middle East inspired cookie with apricots and pistachios might work out well. Of course you could always replace the 5 spice with cinnamon and have a quite traditional (only healthier) oatmeal.

Also, sorry about the lack of pictures. Imagine an oatmeal cookie, not totally flat, not a puffy little cake cookie, but a nice normal one. Now imagine it a few shades darker because of the spice and molasses. There's your picture.

*I bought my 5 spice in bulk where I could get just a spoonful for a few cents, just in case I didn't like it. I've been back for more. Twice.


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This time around our assignment was 100% whole wheat olive oil dough, a southwestern foccia, and aloo paratha.

I needed to make bread right away (walnut cherry: my dad's birthday gift) so I replaced 1/2 cup of the water with yogurt and whey to give it a little zing from the get go. Also, I added ~1/3 of a recipe of the regular 100% whole wheat dough because 1 1/3 batches fill my container nicely.

With the dough I made the HB in 5 version of aloo paratha. One of our group members blogs from India and introduced us to more authentic aloo paratha. I look forward to trying those soon, or at least the spices for the filling!

The HBin5 recipe calls for curry, but I ran out a while ago and keep forgetting to buy more. However I did have a jar of spinach punjab sauce, so I used that instead.


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