A Sauce for All Seasons

A few weeks ago someone asked me about homemade tomato sauce.  Got me thinking about it, so I thought I'd share it.  Please keep in mind this is a variation of Alton Brown's "Seeing Red".  Yes, there is an exact recipe, which I followed the first time, but since then I just shoot from the hip.  Measurements are not exact, but rather to taste...

"Mr. Brown I presume"

Ingredients:

• 2 White Onions (diced)
• 6 Stalks Celery (diced)
• 6 carrots (diced)
• 7 cloves garlic
• three Large cans whole tomatoes
• 1 tsp dry basil
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 tbsp dry oregano
• 3 bay leaves
• 3 tbsp capers
• 1/3 cup white wine
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cube butter
• olive oil
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 brown sugar
• salt
• pepper

Open up cans of tomatoes and pour contents into a strainer over a pot (you want to keep all the juice) Try to remove all the seeds from each tomato, this is a time consuming task, but seeds don't taste good so...discard.

Place all the juices along with seasonings into a pot and reduce liquid by half over Med-High heat.

In a large oven proof pan, sweat the onions, celery, carrots, and garlic with olive oil...about 10-15 minutes until tender...then add the tomatoes and capers.  Mix it around so everything is incorporated and then  

Place in oven under your broiler.  When things start to brown five them a stir every 4-5 mintues...do this for about 15-20 minutes.  Watch carefully as they can burn fast.

salt 'n' pepa

 Remove from oven and de-glaze pay with the white wine...move everything to a large pot, add reduced liquid, butter, and brown sugar. Hit it with a blender stick until smooth.  add Salt and Pepper to taste. 

This can be used for just about anything italian, pasta, lasagna, I use this to simmer my meatballs, pizza, etc.  I also have used this as a base to make a tomato cream sauce, the ideas are endless, or at least have a slight potential to be endless...you can even make Chili?  Really?  Yes...really...but that is another blog ... did I mention it freezes well.  Once batch will last us a long time.

So caught up...what happened?

Life goes by fast, sometimes faster than we would like it to.  It was just the other day that Isaac was just a little peanut that feel asleep on my chest.  Yesterday the little guy, who is getting bigger, started kindergarten and loves it.  So what happened to the last 5 years?

I joked the other day that now Isaac is in school, he will be graduating from high school soon.  I know it's still 13 years away, but that time will be here before we know it.

A comedian that I used to listen to, had said, "Do you know what life is? Whether you are a believer or you're not a believer life is life - life is a series of emotions. Life is a mountain after a valley. A wife to feed, a husband to clothe, children to raise, a boss to put up with, car notes, taxes, April 15th. Life is life." You can read the whole thing here

I hear that phrase in my head all time time.  Life is "a series of emotions".  It's up there with death and taxes, it's gonna happen, there's no way to avoid it.  Everyone will have highs and lows, some may argue that the lows outnumber the highs, or visa-versa.  My advice, is to just ride the waves, eventually you'll reach the shore.  A good friend of mine always talked about those "Mountain Top Experiences".  Everything is good, you're 'high' on life.  You feel like you're on top of the world. 

I'm losing my train of thought, oh yea, Isaac...This past weekend we have reached another milestone.  I admit that it was way back in June that we finally took off his training wheels, but it wasn't till Saturday that we have had a successful ride on just two wheels.  The video below is just the beginning, approx 3 hours after his first attempt, he is now starting on his own with no assistance.

The next day we took our first bike ride around the neighborhood....tomorrow I'll teach him to ride backwards while standing on the handlebars....juggling.

Life is going by too fast, so how do you slow down?

Sappy emotional mess...

Have you noticed, that when you are tired you have a tendency to react more emotionally to things than you normally would?  It really doesn't matter how you answer that question, but I do know that we all have some type of emotional response to different things.  If you type "emotional response" into google, it will auto-populate:

 

Anyone know who Paul Oakenfold is?  Me neither.  But I digress....here are a few videos that should provide some type of emotional response, if you feel nothing, you must be a cold-hearted rock, why are you reading this?

 

 

 

That's all I got, have a great evening....

Random thoughts

Has this happened to you?

....you're headed towards the bathroom, and you have about 8-10 feet before you get to the door, which swings in (that means you push it)...you've been here before so you know it's a multiple stall/urinal type, the door won't be locked.  As you approach you see the door open up and someone walks out.  There are different scenarios to this event, sometimes they will hold the door for you to enter, and sometimes they- won't.

Today I experienced the latter, the door was not held, as I was still the previously mentioned 8-10 feet away.

I had options on what to do, everyday we all have choices and we live with the consequences, whatever they may be.  This day and this choice was no different.

• continue at the same pace, because of the exiting party there could be an awkward moment where you may need to take evasive action to avoid collision.  The door will not fully close, and you'll be able to enter with less force to open the door.
• slow down to give a wide birth to the exiting party, this will usually cause them to take evasive action to avoid collision considering the location of the doorway.  This may result in the door fully closing which will require you to open it fully to enter.
• increase speed to catch the door before it closes, this may allow you to squeeze through the doorway without having to touch the door (Lord knows how much bacteria is on there)  Considering your surroundings, this may be a dorky move.
• Take caution as someone may be exiting the Ladies room at the same time, this can cause a major incident.

So having these three options, I took several factors into account.  Who was exiting, how much time did I have, with the sudden rush of speed use more energy then it would take to push open the door?  This got me thinking which way was more efficient.  Force vs inertia.  wind resistance, the weight of the door, the weight of me...my current velocity...what to make for dinner...

...I really hate math....

so I ended up with option three, and did a little hop through the door...no one was injured

If anyone can tell me the correct calculation to determine the answers to these kind of questions, I'd appreciate it.