Moxy Thoughts

This week, I’m getting ready to share some of my sauces with some friends for the first time.  I’m very excited but also a bit nervous about it all.  On the one hand, it’s great to feel the progress of this project!  But, on the other hand, it’s a little bit scary – what if they think they taste awful?  I mean Derek and I have been eating what I cook for over 15 years, we may have gotten used to it, right?  Well, it’s time to put myself out there and get the feedback.  If I can’t cut it with my friends, I definitely won’t be able to cut it with total strangers!

With all my sauces, I try to keep the ingredients simple and easy to find in the grocery store, because who has time to go hunting down exotic (and usually expensive!) ingredients? I always have at least 3-4 cans of tomatoes in the panty, I prefer them already diced or crushed but you can get them whole and just smash them into your sauce – that can be satisfying, just saying.  The only caution on the canned is that you have to look at the ingredients panel and hunt till you find the lowest sugar grams you can. The Costco organic ones are good, and so are the Sunny Select store brand, both have 2g of sugar per serving, which is great because 1 medium sized fresh tomato has about 3 g of naturally occurring sugar in it. I don’t worry about the sugar that is natural to the vegetable, that is much more easily processed by our bodies than the added stuff.

Which sauces to do for the focus group was a big decision and I decided I’d like to make 3 if I have time, but 2 for sure.  First, I’m going to make them my Roasted Sweet Pepper sauce.  I love this one because it’s so delicious and very flexible to use in a lot of dishes.  I make this sauce for any dishes that call for a basic tomato sauce including lasagna, spaghetti, pizza or even as a dip for breadsticks.  As a sidebar, even with a diabetic husband, we do make all of these carb rich foods – but, I make or buy them with alternative flour or at the very least with 100% whole wheat flour.

Back to the sauce.  What makes this first sauce amazing is the little sweet peppers, they are like delicious little vegetable candies.  You buy them in the multiple colors right in the bag at the store and they are tasty just like that, but if you want to take the flavor up a bit, pop them into the broiler or grill with a bit of olive oil and sea salt and the only word to describe them is delicious!  I used to buy the big red bell peppers and they just don’t pack as much of the yummy flavor as these little guys do, plus they are just too pretty and amazing once they’re grilled or roasted, we serve them as a side dish all summer just like that.

The other magic ingredient is garlic.  You have to have garlic on hand if you’re going to get sauces that have a lot of flavor and complexity.  Just like the peppers, I roast garlic to punch up its flavor without as much of the smelliness.  It’s so easy and it packs so much flavor!  Plus, garlic is full of beneficial effects, there is a lot of research out there that suggests that garlic is responsible for lipid-lowering, anti-blood coagulation, anti-hypertension, anti-cancer, antioxidant and anti-microbial effects.  All that and you get to make something great by putting it in the recipe, I’m in!

Two tips on garlic that I’ve found useful when I use it.  First, getting that skin off can be annoying, but there’s a simple trick to save you some sanity on this step.  Pull a few cloves of garlic off the bulb and grab a good large chefs knife.  Trim off the ends of each clove, not too much, but precision doesn’t matter here and then use the flat side of your knife and smash the garlic right down.  This smashing separates the skin from the good stuff inside and now it’s super easy to slide the skin right off without getting it stuck in your nails or fussing with it too much.  The second tip is all about the smell you’ll have on your hands after cooking with garlic.  Although that smell is critical to the taste, you don’t want to walk around wearing it!  Invest in a little aluminum ‘soap’ and have it at your sink.  Once you’re done cooking and you’re washing your hands for the last time, grab your aluminum soap bar and wash with it just like regular soap, magically the metal will ‘wash’ off the smell of the garlic.

The whole recipe is here, check it out and let me know if you liked it and if you made any of your own personalizations!

Roasted Sweet Pepper Garlic Sauce

1 tsp. Extra virgin olive oil

15 sweet mixed color mini peppers

2 cloves garlic, peeled

½ cup yellow onion minced

1 cup carrots, chopped

1 cup zucchini, chopped

1 cup diced fresh tomato

2 tbsp. sun-dried tomato, soaked and chopped

1 tsp. Cumin seed, crushed

½ tsp. dried Oregano

¼ tsp. Crushed chili pepper

Pinch Salt and pepper

¾ cup vegetable broth

½ cup tomato paste

14 oz crushed tomato

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Toss peppers and garlic in oil, salt and pepper and put on cookie sheet into oven for 8 minutes.  Turn once and cook another 3 minutes.

Once cooked and out of oven, chop peppers and garlic.  Heat 1oz. EVOO in pan over medium heat and add onions, cook till slightly yellow.  Crush and add next 5 ingredients one at a time and cook until each is slightly softened, about 2-3 minutes.  Add all spices, roasted peppers and garlic, stirring well, cook 3 minutes until well blended.  Add vegetable broth and bring to a slow boil, stirring often, about 3-5 minutes or longer until broth reduces significantly.  Add paste and cook 1 minute, finally add crushed tomato.  Simmer 30 minutes and serve.

Makes 27oz.