[Firebird Rising]

Tuesday food:

For breakfast, I made french toast out of the Quick & Easy Cookbook by Dr. McDougall. It is one of our favorite meals. I used extra french bread that was given to us after Elijah was born.



Nutty French Toast (from the Quick & Easy Cookbook by the McDougalls)

1/4 cup cashews
1 cup water
2 TB chopped dates
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cinnamon
dash of tumeric
about 6 slices bread

Cashews go into blender with half the water. Process them until smooth, add the remaining water and all ingredients except for bread. Process until very smooth. Pour onto a plate and dip the bread slices into the mixture. Cook on a nonstick griddle for 2 minutes on each side, until browned on both sides.

For Lunch, it was more of the same salads, nothing new.

Dinner was extravagent. I made spaghetti with a from-scratch marinara and a large garden salad.


Marinara sauce (measurements are totally approximate)

2 stalks celery
3 carrots
3 cans (14 oz) crushed tomatoes
1 can (14 oz) tomato sauce
1 can (little one) of tomato paste
garlic
1 onion
basil (fresh or dried)
oregano (fresh or dried)
sugar
salt

I finely mince the carrots and celery and place them in a frying pan with just a tablespoon of water or so. Cook until the water is gone and the carrots and celery are just slightly sticking to the pan. Throw that into a deep saucepan. Next, take the onions and throw them into the frying pan. We're going to carmelize them without oil. Add just a bit of water (maybe a tablespoon or two), keep the stove on high. Let the water saute down till it's gone and let the onions stick just a slight bit, add another 1-2 tablespoons water and stir to unstick the onion. You'll notice that the onions start to turn a slight brown. Repeat this process once or twice until the onions are nice and honey colored. They will be sweet at this time, usually, too. Toss those into the saucepan with the carrots and celery. Add some crushed or minced garlic (anywhere from 3-5 cloves). Add the tomatoes and rest of ingredients except for the salt and sugar (do a couple pinches of oregano and basil for this, you might add more later. Let this cook on medium-low for as long as you are able. I'm talking 1-3 hours, if you want (alternatively, a crockpot on low will do a good job at cooking this as well). You can also just heat it up and eat it at that point, but the longer it gets to heat together, the better the sauce will taste as the flavors combine.

I don't measure any of the spices for this. I add them as I taste it. You will add a LOT more sugar than you think you'll need. The acidity in the tomatoes will be cut drastically by the sugar. I've used honey and/or maple syrup for this before and it has worked just fine as well. Add sugar, then salt, then taste. If it's acidic, add more sugar. If it's just kinda bland tasting, then add more salt, I usually taste it up to 4-5 times just checking the flavor as it cooks.

When I do spaghetti, I do a lot of "add-ons" to it. In other words, I make up another batch of carmelized onions and put it in a bowl, some sauteed mushrooms (with garlic), some steamed or sauteed zucchini (with garlic), steamed broccoli, steamed chard, olives, etc. I just put them all in little seperate bowls so people can add stuff that they want to their pasta. This bumps up the amount of veggies going into everyone's system AND it uses up things in the fridge that need to be eaten.

Enjoy!

Jen D.