Pizza Sauce

I want Pizza!! But I don't want to pay a gazillion bucks for it, plus I want it now!! Not in 45 minutes or more. So? I dug out a can of tomato sauce, dumped some dried basil, oregano, a pinch of thyme and bunch of re-hydrated minced garlic and a packet of crushed red peppers from the last pizza delivery in a little saucepan, warmed it up so the flavors could blend and Viola! Yummy pizza sauce! I looked up recipes online, and there are a bunch of them but what I was hoping to find was a Copykat recipe for Pappa Murphy's Take N Bake red sauce. All I could find was the garlic ranch chicken sauce. I might try that the next time I have left over chicken meat, tonight all I had for my toppings was thin sliced sandwich ham, sliced black olives and medium cheddar cheese. Came out a bit greasy from the cheddar, but smacked those pizza craving buttons and I am extremely satisfied :) Oh! It's an old sour dough bread round I had in the freezer that I used for the crust. I guess that makes it Pizza Bread instead. Either way, I sure hope I can duplicate my sauce 'cause it was delicious!!

Left Over Pot Roast? Make Black Bean Chili!

Yup, I'm not much of a pot roast fan, but my husband and his father like it and it's one of the less expensive cuts of meat that I just can't pass up when on sale. However, we always end up with a huge chunk of that grisselly fatty meat left over. Usually it gets put into a sandwich for lunch the next day, then sits in the fridge till it turns into a nice little dog snack for Nelly and Scooby.

This time, we had such a large roast, there was just too much to let go to waste. I got this idea that since the old fashioned ground up suet meat that we used to get to make chili con carne was mostly fat with a little beef in it, why couldn't I grind up the left over pot roast and use it the same way? Guess what? It turned out super delicious!! We trimmed off as much of the fat and grissle as we could, chopped it up in the food processor and then added it to a pot of black beans, seasoned it up for chili and it was fantastic!!

Getting creative with leftovers is soooo much fun, especially when it turns out well :)

Enchilada's!

I love enchilada's, but rarely make them because I never really cared for the red sauce from the can. My mother used it, but she always added left over gravies from other meals, like chicken gravy or roast beef gravy or even both kinds of gravy added to the same red enchilada sauce, and they were always delicious. Actually, now that I think on it, I believe she used those powdered sauce spices you buy in the envelop and doctored those up instead of the cans, or maybe both from time to time. She was a Super Mom, career woman on her own with kids, before the term was even coined and back in the 60's there weren't many kitchen shortcuts like there are nowadays. (Isn't it amazing how delicious pre cooked food from the market deli's are now? We take it for granted but the meals you can make with a simple roasted chicken picked up on the way home are wonderful!)

Well, I had left over pork adobo taco meat, left over frijoles, onions and other taco fixings that I usually make into a taco salad, but it was a cold and gloomy, rainy day and I wasn't in the mood for a cold salad meal. Aha! Why not make Enchilada's! Meat, cheese, onions, corn tortillas, a little bit of this and that all rolled up together with enchilada sauce, huh-oh, I don't buy enchilada red sauce, not a can of it in the house and I was about to give up on the idea since I didn't have any left over gravies either. Dumb idea Clarisse, and it hit me. Doh! The internet silly woman! Recipes are all over it, I've been trying new stuff for years now, ever since I got "connected" and Viola, several home made enchilada sauce recipesright at my fingertips . They are really super simple too, and guess what? Delicious!! I should have taken a picture but my family devoured them before I could get the camera out.

What's my point? I'm an idiot sometimes. It's like when the power goes out and you think you can't use your gas stove because it has electric ignition switches and all you really need to do is hold a match up to the burner to get fire LOL!!!

Wow! Time Sure Flys!

Well, it's certainly been ages and ages since I posted on my blog! Glad I'm not giving out life or death information here LOL!!

So far, 2011 is sure looking to be a much better year than 2010. Even with job losses and other family disasters, we are beginning to smile a bit again.

And better yet, I'm sewing, knitting, trying to paint and beading again! Yay!!! I got a new Brother electronic sewing machine for my birthday, a new camera at Christmas and have almost worked out my crafting spaces so that I can actually get some stuff done. It's about time, I've been missing my creative me. It's one of the things about myself that I treasure most and it feels good to have my emotions and my mind in a place that I can actually be productive again.