Tomato and pesto sauce

Some friends came over for supper last Saturday and she requested the pasta with roasted red pepper sauce, which is a mix of a tomato sauce with pesto. I made this years ago, from the Epicure cookbook that I got. I do still sell Epicure, but it's just once in a while sort of thing, and I do love their spices.

This was perfect since I'm cutting back on meat, so I'm sharing this awesome vegetarian pasta recipe

Pasta with Roasted Red Pepper sauce

1 lb bite sized pasta (use any pasta you want, which I used spaghetti)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 - 7.25 oz (210 ml) jar roasted red peppers (or you can roast your own)
1 - 19 oz (540 ml) can tomatoes (I just used tomato sauce)
2 tsp (10 ml) VE Mint (Epicure sells this, but I didn't have any on hand so I used fresh mint)
1/3 cup (80 ml) prepared VE Pesto (I had this spice so I made it according to the spice jar, but you can make your own pesto)
Salt and pepper to taste
Parmesan cheese, freshly grated

In pasta pot, cook pasta according to package directions.
In a large frying pan, heat olive oil over medium high heat. Sauté onion and garlic until softened
Drain roasted red peppers, reserving liquid. In a food processor, combine with tomatoes and blend until smooth. Add to sautéed onion and garlic.
Add Mint and Pesto. Simmer 10 minutes until slightly thickened.
Moisten cooked pasta with liquid from roasted peppers. Add sauce and season to taste with Salt and pepper. Serve with Parmesan cheese.

My friend and I wanted to do a bit of shopping before supper so I ended up putting this all together into the slow cooker and put it on low. I got it ready first thing in the morning, and to make it more chunky, I added a red pepper (chopped) and also some mushrooms. I also didn't use the liquid from the roasted peppers, I just added some sauce to the pasta to prevent the pasta from sticking together, and so that the pasta can absorb the flavors of the sauce.

It turned out great, it was so good! Our friends also really enjoyed it. The guys really wanted some meat though so I marinated some chicken in some tomato sauce with rosemary for them. I also prepared some garlic bread and my hubby and I enjoyed a nice Italian wine to go along with it.

For dessert we had apple crisp. I had left over sauce and not enough pasta, so the next day I cooked up some macaroni brown rice pasta, and we have been enjoying the left overs for our lunch.

It was a great night with friends, and we will be celebrating Christmas with them in a few weeks, along with more friends. We are doing a pot luck style get together, and I will be trying out 2 new dips from Epicure, and I'm looking forward to it.

Orange flavored muffins

Christmas came early for my hubby and I. I've been wanting a kitchenaid mixer for a while now, so finally decided this was the year. I have been baking a lot more lately, and it would make baking a lot easier.

I got to try it out today and I love it! It will get used quite often. I watched Pioneer Woman this week and she made orange flavored muffins, so decided to make those, but I did make some changes so it's healthier. Here's the recipe:

2 sticks of softened butter (1 cup)
1 cup of sugar (used coconut sugar)
2 eggs
2 cups of flour (used spelt)
1 cup of buttermilk (used almond milk)
1 tsp of baking soda

Glaze:
2 oranges
1 cup brown sugar (again used coconut sugar)

In a mixer or bowl, cream together the butter and sugar, then add the eggs, flour, milk, and baking soda and mix until well combined. Add the zest of 2 oranges and mix a bit to combine. Add to mini muffin tins and bake it in the oven at 375 for 15 minutes. Then in a bowl put the remaining 1 cup sugar and the juice of the two oranges and mix. Once the muffins come out of the oven, what I did was put them on a plate and then with a spoon I drizzled the glaze on top. This made about 42 mini muffins. Let them cool and enjoy!

My hubby and I tried one and they are really good!  It's a recipe I'll make again, it was simple and they are tasty. I'm also trying out another new recipe for supper. From the Rachael Ray talk show, they made their own scallop potatoes and they looked really good. I'll also cook up some asparagus and pork roast to go with it.

My last post, I said I was going to cut back on meat and gluten to help with my endometriosis pain, well a little update, I have cut back a bit, but last week my hubby and I go pretty sick, his lasted 6 days and it was 4 days for me, and the thing I love to have the most when I'm not feeling well is chicken noodle soup. We are both feeling better and I'm getting back on track, although tonight I do plan on having some pork roast but it will be a small amount. I had some pain yesterday, but today, so far so good.

Steak oscar and strawberry jam

A few weeks ago I was watching the Pioneer Woman, and got a really great recipe, steak oscar. You end up paying a lot of money when you order this at a restaurant, and I'm sure it's not as healthy as this recipe. We both loved it, and will make it from time to time.

Cook up a really great steak fillet that is thick cut so you can cook it up medium rare if that's what you like. The only thing you should add on the steak is salt and pepper. We cooked up ours on the BBQ, along with some asparagus, which I added some olive oil, salt and pepper.

Hollandaise Sauce: In a pot melt a stick of butter until it's melted and hot. In a blender add 2 egg yolks, then add in the juice of a lemon, pulse it a little bit. Remove the middle part of the lid so you can stream in the butter. Turn on your blender while slowly streaming in your hot butter, you will see that it will start to thicken as your going. Once butter is all in, turn off, and add quite a bit of salt and some pepper and just a small dash of cayenne pepper, and you can add a bit of fresh tarragon (1 tsp), but I didn't have any on hand so didn't add that. Turn on for a few seconds to mix up the seasonings and then it's ready.

In a pan fry up some shrimp. Doesn't take long, so this is why you cook this last. Plate up by putting your steak (make sure to let it rest before you cut into it), add shrimp on and around your steak and poor the sauce over it. She had cooked up a mushroom rice with this but I decided on some mashed potatoes and gravy. It was absolutely delicious! We enjoyed it with some red wine.

Today I decided to try a new cookie recipe, and made some peanut butter and jam cookies, and they turned out great, although I did have to add more liquid because I did follow the recipe but the batter was way to dry to form cookies, so I added more maple syrup. It called for any sort of flour, so I used buckwheat, and of course the peanut butter is all natural (only ingredient is roasted peanuts).

As for the jam, instead of buying one that is loaded with sugar and preservatives, I created my own, I used some frozen strawberries (can use any berry or fruit you want) and I put a layer at the bottom of a pot with a splash of maple syrup, and let it come to a light boil, then used my potato masher to mash them up.

I let it cook a while, then added it to a bowl with 2 tbsp of chia seeds (they act as a gelatin, but way healthier as they are a super food).

I mixed it up, and then put it in the fridge to let it do it's magic. Then I got the cookies ready and baked them in the oven. Once they came out I added my homemade jam on top.

So delicious and healthy! For the next little while I'll also be cutting back on meat. I have been eating quite a bit lately and it's causing some endometriosis pain for me. So I'm cutting back a lot and also going to go as gluten free as I can, and the pain should go away. From the book signing I went to, Joy told me how gluten free will also help my endometriosis, and it's the first time I have ever heard that, so will give it a try and see how I feel. I will let you know how it's going.

Hope everyone turned their clocks back an hour, and hope everyone had a great Halloween!