Italian Evening

Hey kiddos

I’ll tell you what…I think the reason I am a hungry caterpillar again today is that all I have been doing all afternoon is sorting through all your amazing dessert recipes!!!! It has turned into *quite* the project, but I am loving doing it! I was reading a few out loud to my mom….coconut almond pound cake, maple almond butter cookies, coconut butter rum pound cake with rum glaze, coconut vanilla bean ice cream……….holy moly! =) I can’t reveal any secrets of the future e-cookbook, but let’s just say that it really is looking fabulous and I can’t wait to finish so I can make some of these goodies. I think the nice thing about an e-cookbook that I didn’t even think about is once you download it and find a recipe in the table of contents that you want to make, you just have to scroll down to that recipe and print it out individually to take to the kitchen with you!

After a solid hour and a half of cookbooking, I grabbed a very large carrot from the kitchen and took it as a snack on the go while I walked Mikan to stretch my legs—

Then I started chopping veggies for tonight’s pasta sauce. Look at all the pretty carrots, celery and bell peppers!

I dipped a few veggies in some Sabra’s Greek Olive Hummus (as well as a few unpictured Kashi crackers!).

While chopping, I enjoyed a glass of organic syrah (I had another tiny splash with dinner)—

For the veggie pasta sauce—

Chop:

1 large onion

2 large carrots

4 celery stalks

1 red bell peppers

1 yellow bell pepper

4 large garlic cloves

~Saute garlic & onion in olive oil. Toss in the carrots, celery and bell peppers. Saute for 5 minutes. Add two large cans crushed tomatoes, one small can of tomato sauce, 2 bay leaves, 1/3 cup red wine (big splash), a few pinches of red pepper flakes (depending on how much spice you like).

Sprinkle a tbsp of sugar over it all and add 1/4 cup sliced kalamata olives. Simmer for about an hour (at least an hour…it can go 2 hours).

While simmering, we like to take about 1/3 cup grated parmesan and romano cheese and sprinkle on top. It gets all melty and delicious 🙂

We love to freeze small plastic baggies full of sauce. That way it is easy to just grab out of the freezer for an impromptu dinner!

I added a chopped morningstar farms veggie burger to my portion of sauce for a little extra somethin’ somethin’ because I’ve been so hungry all day! We also had yummy all natural garlic bread—

Here’s my portion with whole wheat spaghetti and 1 slice garlic bread

Perfecto! I ate with my parents in front of the tv. We ordered and watched Milk tonight. Very interesting!

And I had a really fun dessert that I couldn’t wait to dive into!

A delicious cannoli from the Greenwise bakery! 🙂 This was actually quite large and I shared it with my dad. I loooove a good cannoli!

its sleepy time down South