I’ve wanted to make my homemade pizza sauce for some time now and this was the perfect opportunity. I also made the dough from scratch… I forgot how easy that was too.

JOAN’S PIZZA SAUCE

• 3 tbls. olive oil
• 3 lg. garlic cloves chopped
• 4 medium onions chopped
• 24 tomatoes peeled or 5-6 can tomatoes
• 2 tbls. fennel
• 4 tsp. basil
• 3 tsp. oregano
• 2 tsp salt.
• 1 tbls. chili flakes
• 1/4 lemon juice (if canning).

Saute garlic and onion in olive oil until soft. Add canned tomatoes or cut fresh tomatoes in chunks and add to onion/garlic. Add other ingredients. Simmer about 3 hours stirring occasionally. Cool, then blend in blender till smooth. Freeze or can.

This recipe is flexible and can be cut down in quantity if needed.

Don’t be afraid of making your own pizza dough, it’s really easy…..

The toppings for pizza is endless but for this pizza I put black olives, spicy italian sausage and “special” Valentine pepperoni. You’ll see below…. Bake at 400° for 20 to 40 minutes. This depends on the thickness of the crust, amount of toppings, etc. Good luck and enjoy!

Pizza Sauce Ingredients

Pizza Sauce

Pizza Dough fixin's'

Pizza dough with sauce

Pizza dough with sauce and cheese

Cutting Out Heart Pepperoni's

Special Heart Pepperoni Topping

Pizza with sauce, cheese and special toppings

My Homemade Valentine Pizza for Steve

What to make for dinner? Looking at the contents of my refrigerator I was able to come up with a couple of good meals but decided to make Chicken Pot Pies. I had a roasted chicken, all the vegetables and a box of puff pastry . I looked at several recipes and came up with my own. they’re all similar…  I estimated all the amounts of the ingredients….1 roasted chicken from the market

• 2 carrots, chopped
• 2 celery, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 carton mushrooms chopped
• 1 cup peas (fresh or frozen)
• 1 +/- cup chicken broth
• 3 tbsp. butter
• 1/3 +/- cup white wine
• Wonder Flour
• s&p to taste
• puff pastry or pie crust

You could add your own spices or other vegetables to this dish.

Remove meat from chicken and cut into bite size pieces. Set aside. In a large pot sauté carrots, celery and onions in butter. Add mushroom and continue sautéing, Add peas last. Mix Wonder Flour into vegetables to make the gravy, add the chicken broth and wine. You want a nice thick gravy, not too watery. Add diced chicken and cook till consistence is right for putting in the pie pots.

Ok now….. for puff pastry. Cut out the pastry to the size you need for your pie pots (top and bottom). Line the bottom of your pie pots with puff pastry and bake at 350° for about 15 minutes (check box instructions). You want it baked really well so it won’t be soggy after you put the filling in.  Add the filling and cover with another piece of puff pastry. Brush with butter. Bake at 350° for about 45 mins…. or so. To save the bottom of your oven place the pie pots on a foil lined pan to catch any drippings. I served this with a nice leaf lettuce salad. Enjoy!

Pot Pie Ingredients

Pot Pie Ingredients

Pot Pie Ingredients

Filling for Chicken Pot Pie

Pie Pots with Puff Pastry

Covered Pot Pies

Baked Pot Pies

Cheers!

It’s been nice not to have the pressure of making something every night to impress… So when I feel like it I make something special. I went through my recipe box to find some old favorites and decided it would be fun to have garlic breath for a few days. We never go anywhere so I wasn’t worried about offending anyone. I got this recipe from a friend I had many years ago when we lived at the Lazy Shamrock Ranch in Heeney, CO. (the good ole days).

40 CLOVE GARLIC CHICKEN

1 chicken cut up or pieces (I use skinned thighs bone in)

40 cloves peeled garlic (unlike when I first made this you can buy garlic already peeled now)

3/4 chicken stock

1/4 cup olive oil

4 stalks chopped celery

1 teaspoon dried oregano

2 teaspoon dried basil

2 tablespoons dried parsley

juice of one lemon

salt & pepper to taste

French bread

Rice

Place chicken in shallow baking dish. Sprinkle all ingredients over chicken. Cut lemon rinds and place on chicken.

Cover and bake at 350° for 40 minutes. Uncover and bake another 30 minutes.

Serve with rice.

Spread soft garlic on french bread.

My notes:  Except for the chicken, celery and garlic I double all the ingredients so we can have lots of juice for the rice and bread. I’ve also used fresh herbs… either is fine. Add a vegetable of your choice. This is one of our family favorites! The picture below is not mine…

40 Clove Garlic Chicken

I said if I made something special I would post it. Here we go… this week I found a very labor intensive recipe for Coq au Vin. Usually I only make things with about five ingredients but the picture looked so good I had to try it. This recipe took a long time and was very good. After making it once I know I could cut the steps in half and it would still be a nice dish.

Steve is glad “his” blog is over. He didn’t look at it much anyway. He said this years blog should be “How I got the weight off my husband he gained from last years meals”. We’ll work on it….

Unlike the rest of the east coast we ran our air conditioner today. We just turned it off and opened up the house for the night. I love the smell of the night air flowing in the window above my headboard….

No picture of mine of the Coq au Vin so how about a Steve picture….

Steve

Dear Family and Friends,

My year project has ended, a full circle. It’s been an interesting journey. I was not trying to compete with all the wonderful food bloggers out there (and there are many). I just did a simple blog (my first) to document a year of meals. It is fun to look back at some of the posts and remember exactly that day and what was going on. Makes me wish I had kept journals my whole life. You forget so much.

I’ve learned a lot about my cooking habits, my menu choices and about myself…..

• I actually finished a project I started
• Lost enthusiasm as the year went on
• I cook less from scratch then I did years ago
• hard to cook for just two people
• helps to prep for dinner early in the day before I get tired
• I learned we eat a lot of tacos and hot dogs
• I take care of Steve and he takes care of me
• Spend way to much money on groceries
• Waist more food then I should
• Still burned out on cooking
• I’d cook differently if I was cooking for myself
• Glad there’s spell check
• …and Steve never complained!!!!

Part of me will miss posting our dinners daily but… I’m glad it’s over. I have aways wondered who looks at this blog so if you have followed me this year I’d love it if you would sign the comment section.

I have a new blog planned for 2011 but I won’t be posting daily. I hope everyone who has visited the “What I Feed MY Husband” blog will check out my new blog and enjoy it as well. See you next year at Joan’s Kitchen.

Best wishes and may 2011 bring you joy, love, laughter and good food!

p.s. I think it might be hard to never come back here and post something again so maybe I’ll post the really nice meals I make…. If you’ve subscribed to my blog you’ll know if I do that.

Like last year at this time dinner today was the traditional New Years Day Hoppin’ John….

Hoppin' John

The last meal I made for Steve in 2010 is his all time favorite, beef stroganoff. Steve has eaten this since he was a little boy. His mom, Clara gave me her stroganoff recipe right after Steve and I got married in 1971. I copied it on one of my brand new recipe cards and put it in my brand new recipe box that my sister gave me for a shower gift. I still have both the box and the card to this day. A great meal to end the year.

I’ll be making one more post on New Years Day so please check in again tomorrow.

Beef Stroganoff

"Mrs. Cobb's Beef Stroganoff"

I decided that the last two meals for 2010 were going to be my favorite meal and Steve’s favorite meal. So tonight I made my favorite… spaghetti. Stay tuned to see if you can guess what Steve’s is. December 31st will tell.

Steve's Plate

Joan's Plate

Decided on elk burgers tonight. I just cooked them in the fry pan. Seasoned them with soy sauce. Got some nice fresh buns from the bakery to put them in. Steve put artichoke hearts, red onions, cheese and lettuce on his. Baked some sweet potato fries and had a great meal.

Elk Burger