Hodge Podge Kitchen

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

A Tale of Two Sauces: Part 1


I like the idea of having food prepared/ready for the work week ahead when I get the chance to cook on the weekend. An idea came to me to make a couple batches of sauces to use during the week so I don't have to start everything from scratch. I'm the type of person that will gets bored easily, and I know from past experiences that cooking a big pot of stew or something to eat for the rest of the week won't work. This way, I will have a base to built my dinners on and get different dishes out of them.
Sauce #1 Tomato-Olive Sauce
1 can tomato sauce
1 can crushed/chopped tomatoes
2 tbs capers
1/4 cup black olives
1/4 cup green olives
1/2 cup onion
1 tbs red pepper flakes
1 tbs Italian seasonings
Simmer everything together for 1 hour.

Weeknight dinner #1
I ended up also make a batch of polenta along with the sauce. My polenta recipe is 1 cup polenta, 1 cup chicken broth, 1 cup water, and 2 cups milk. Cook until creamy, then pour into a greased loaf pan. Put plastic wrap directly over the polenta and wait until cool enough to put in refrigerator. It takes about 15 minutes after work to make a nice dinner. First, you heat the oven up to 400F. Slice the polenta and line a baking dish with them. Spoon half of the tomato sauce over the polenta. Sprinkle the top with cheese (whatever you have on hand). Then you cut up two zucchini and a red bell pepper into chunks, toss with a little oil and seasoning to taste. Finally, score the chicken legs and season with seasoned salt and pepper. Put the chicken and the vegetables in another baking dish and bake everything for 30 minutes.

Weeknight dinner #2: Spaghetti and Meat(less)balls
I don't need to really post a recipe for this, do I? I have some frozen meatless meatballs that I just simmer with the sauce while the spaghetti cooks. Toss pasta in the sauce when cooked through. Sprinkle with shavings of parmesan cheese.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home