Low Sodium Spaghetti Sauce

I have a crock pot of Low Sodium Spaghetti Sauce going. My 57 year old husband has high blood pressure and he's overweight. Yes, I'm a fatty too! Ugh! My sauce is so American! Just two large cans of tomato paste and 4 cans of water. Whisk until smooth and add herbs and spices and ground beef. A simple recipe with no salt added other than what's in the tomato paste.
Why do I use tomato paste only for my sauce? Well if you read a can of plain tomato sauce it says "TOMATO PASTE, WATER" That's it! And it costs a lot more than a 8 ounce can of sauce like I used to use when I was a young wife married for the second time to a 27 year old man with high blood pressure, (Yes even at that age!).

Baking Bread

I'm baking a batch of Sourdough Potato Bread in the morning. It won't be very sour because the sponge will only have fermented for about 12 hours, but you know what? I might like it better that way.  I'm using 1/2 Cup Potato Flakes, they seem to work fine in my regular white bread, so why not Sourdough? 

Bread Bags - what do you use?

I reuse Maier's Italian bread bags and even hamburger and hot dog roll bags to wrap my own loaves of homemade bread. I wash them in soapy water, rinse well and dry them by hand and then again hanging up inside out. How do you wrap your homemade breads?

The Ledger

I bought a small piece of property 2 doors up from my parents, it belonged to relatives. When my aunt bought the old lean too house it included an old tannery store ledger from the late 1880's, filled with great recipes. I still have that ledger, even though we tore down the old house and built a new one years ago.  I copied down most of the recipes before I donated the ledger to the local county historical society. Now I wish I had it back. Perhaps it wasn't a permanent loan.. I'll have to call and find out. I would like to scan the whole book now and give it back for safe keeping if I feel like it.. maybe I made a mistake.. you know? I'll post some of the recipes.. most of them are for sweets.

Yummy Childhood Memories

I grew up in a small town in North East Penna. on a dead end. The house was old, and cold and drafty with a coal furnace in the dirt floor cellar. Dad had to rip off the old wood shingles and re-roof the whole house. In the 70's the old house stood on stilts as a new cinder block basement was built underneath by my dad and his friend who taught him masonry.  I remember bats flying around the house form the attic, and an old coal stove in the kitchen.. the pipe ran through the ceiling into the bedroom I shared with my sister. An old drunk dies of the DT's in our bedroom many years earlier before I was born, but I swear it was NOT a haunted room or house.. although the old steam radiators did sound like a man deep breathing in his sleep. I remember us kids running though the corn field being the house and getting yelled at by the farmer.. Later I'd run through the alfalfa he planted as I took a shortcut to my cousins house.. and get yelled at for that too.

Do I remember the food I ate back then? Let's see.. Mom made baked chicken every Sunday for a while.. It was a whole chicken cut up and coated with melted margarine and sprinkled with garlic salt, paprika and pepper. I still LOVE that chicken.. so does my son now..MOM makes it for my dad's family reunion every year..I make it with chicken thighs every once in a while.. try it sometime.. it's very moist! Bake it for 45 minutes at 375 degrees.

I remember Dinner In A Bowl..  A Stew/Soup.. with Italian sausage, ham, cabbage, carrots, potatoes and onions.. Very tasty..

And venison roasts cooked in a pressure cooker.. the gravy was VERY rich and strongly flavored. The pressure cooker makes it so tender it falls off the bones. I cook my Beef roasts the same way. A 2 pound chuck roast cooks for at least 45 minutes, then I remove the meat and cook at least 3 pounds of carrots in the beef juices for a mere 4 minutes in the pressure cooker before making the gravy to serve over the meat and mashed potatoes. I admit to using instant potatoes from time to time.. No one cares! That's the whole meal:  beef, carrots mashed potatoes and gravy. I use onion powder, Mrs. Dash Original, and beef broth the cook the roast in the pressure cooker. Many times now I've used Chicken Soup Base instead of broth.. It's cheaper..

I remember Dad going to the corner store and buying Hershey's Ice cream for himself and Fudgo's and Orange Blossoms and chocolate coated vanilla ice cream for us kids.. Did would eat half a gallon one night and the other half the next night..  Even cutting the box in half to save himself the dirty bowl. Many a time he's pored Root beer or dark birch beer soda over a bowl of ice cream. He kept adding more soda as he ate.. He still does that.. LOL

When I was growing up my main meal for breakfast was "COCOA AND TOAST" We ate and drank so much of it Mom made her own instant cocoa powder mix from Carnation instant milk, coffee mate and Nestle's sweetened cocoa powder.. We just added boiling water and milk to cool it down. Then she'd go down town to the nearest bread bakery and buy day old bread every week. At least 8 loaves of bread.. I'm not kidding. My older sister and I ate 4 sliced of margarine slathered toast with our cocoa. I dunked my toast in the hot cocoa I still do today. Mom bought one pound bricks of margarine. Us kids didn't even like butter back then..But we love it now.. LOL My youngest sister and I are the only ones to eat COCOA AND TOAST  these days. It's best to use reconstituted evaporated milk, Hershey's dark cocoa powder sweetened with sugar and crunchy toasted homemade bread with real butter.

I can go on and on about food from the good old days..

Pumpernickel Flour? What the heck is that?

Yes, I'm still making Sourdough breads. I usually make a Rye Sour or Sponge made with raw onions, but next time I'm making a Milwaukee Sourdough Rye, no onions in the sponge. I have plenty of Rye bread in the freezer, but I'm itching to try that "Pumpernickel" flour Mom picked up for me at the local Co-Op grocer. The store owner suggested Mom buy that since she was out of rye flour. I was NOT a happy baker when I saw that flour which is lighter in color than the rye. I imagine she added bread flour to the "pumpernickel flour" You see in my Bread Cookbook there's no such thing as "Pumpernickel flour" You just use Rye flour and add Cocoa powder and the typical rye bread ingredients. (Personally I doubt if the Russian peasants added expensive and heard to find cocoa to their pumpernickel bread). In fact I'm not a fan of that bread. I like seeded Rye. The flour wasn't too expensive- not quite $5.00, but I feel like I should use it.. and not waste it. But I really wanted the Dark Rye flour I asked mom to pick up, which was the same price by the way. I was thrilled to get 3 OZ of caraway seeds for a mere $1.50! (Can you believe that price!?) I was thrilled.

Turkey Burgers

I turned 1 and 1/2 pounds of 85/15 ground turkey into 7 turkey burgers this morning. Today I didn't have the Mrs. Dash Original so I used Mrs. Dash Italian Medley in the mix. I added Panko bread crumbs just to use them up. I hope they soften well. As usual I added an onion chopped and 5 cloves garlic minced, and about one egg white for each 1/2 pound of turkey. I omitted the milk this time and formed the burgers on a greased jelly roll pan. Using my food scale for approximate 1/4 pound burgers. Here's my now revised recipe:

TURKEY BURGERS

1 & 1/2 Pounds Ground Turkey

1/2 tsp Mrs. Dash Original or any other seasoning you prefer.

5 large cloves of Garlic minced

3 egg whites

Small Onion finely chopped

1/2 Cup Italian Bread Crumbs


Mix all the ingredients and form into burgers on a oil sprayed jelly roll pan. The meat mixture is so soft I have to do it that way and then freeze them before I Freezer bag them.

NOTE: Although I'm pretty laid back when it comes to the rest of my life, I like to measure things when I cook and bake. I have an 11 Pound food scale I use for weighing ingredients for my handmade soaps and I like to use it to make sure all my burgers weigh 4 ounces approximate.

Pumpkin Puree - Discussion

Every fall I buy at least 8 pie pumpkins and make my own pumpkin puree for pies. Here’s my methods for preparing the puree:

For the past 10 years or so I have cooked my pumpkin in a pressure cooker, then I scoop the flesh from the rind and puree in my cone-shaped ricer. Do NOT peel your pumpkins! I manage to cut up my thumb every time I do. I found it much easier scrub the outside of the pumpkin and break off the stem if possible, then I cut my pumpkins in half and then quarters and then eighths and then to cut those in half! Then I remove the seeds and pulp with a spoon or paring knife and drop them into a pressure cooker with the handled perforated insert that goes in the bottom. I add a 1/2 inch of water and place the lid and steam vent regulator on the top. After it comes up to steam I turn down the heat to medium and let it cook 10 minutes. Then I quick cool it under cold running water to remove the lid and then place the cooked pumpkin in a bowl to cool while I fill the cooker with another pumpkin or two. I usually do this over and over again until I get a huge bowl of cooked pumpkin, enough to make at least 12 cups of pumpkin puree. I puree the pumpkin in my cone-shaped ricer with its wooden pestle or my equally effective plastic hand held ricer with interchangeable disc, (One of my favorite kitchen gadgets). I do have to rinse it between batches to remove the stringy pulp from the holes.

Now I have an alternate method that requires less stress, but it takes longer and probably uses less energy. This is the crock pot method. I prepare the pumpkin the same way but place the cubed pumpkin in my crock pots and let them cook on high 3-4 hours in a cup of water. Then I scoop the pumpkin from the rind and puree or rice it. I did this with butternut squash and it works wonderfully. I am definitely going to prepare pumpkin this way very soon. There seems to be a huge pumpkin harvest this year at the local farmer’s pumpkin patch.

Leftovers are now Pasta Salad

What do you do with leftovers? I usually eat them as separate parts of a whole meal- as an entree and a side-dish, but lately I've been making pasta salad. Here's what I did today: I took Sunday's leftover chicken salad and added yesterday's grilled veggies which I chopped, and today's angel hair pasta. Then I added a heaping Tb mayonnaise, 1 TB Italian salad dressing, one tsp sugar, some salt and pepper to taste and now I have two servings of delicious pasta salad.

Delmonicos or Rib Eye Steak?

Here's two Rib Eye/Delmonico steaks I tenderized and now they marinate in some Montreal Meat Marinade. They LOOK like Delmonicos to me, but the butcher at Wegman's informed me years ago that they are the same cut of meat. The sticker on the package at Weis, where I bought them called them Rib Eyes.

NOTE: The marinade is too salty and they could have marinated another hour at least! I need to get some Balsamic vinegar and make my own marinades.

What Do You Do With Cubed Steak?

So my friends, what do YOU do with cubed steak? I bought cubed steak for the very first time last November, (I'm 51 years old). The reason I bought it was because I watched The NEELY'S make Chicken Fried Steak on Food Network! So I copied their recipe and made some myself. I bought a large package of steaks- enough for 2 meals for the three of us. Chicken Fried Steak was VERY fattening being fried and all, so I decided that next time I would marinate it and grill it.. well I had my husband grill it actually. Well let me tell you it was delicious! And an odd entree. It was like eating a medium rare steak, but it was also like eating a burger. The texture was different in the mouth. Nonetheless, I keep buying CUBED STEAK now, usually on sale for $10.00 a pack and I get two meals out of it.

Bread Crumbs

I need bread crumbs for my chicken nuggets I'm making today. I saved up left over bread heels and hamburger buns and dinner rolls (which I froze). I will cube and bake the bread for 15-20 minutes until golden brown and crispy, then I will grind the dried cubes in my Bullet food processor. That way the bread doesn't go to waste, and I save a few cents.. I'll just have to add some Mrs. Dash Italian Seasoning.