My tomato basil marinara sauce begins with the above. What are they? Broiled tomatoes. Mmmm. Broiling them makes them soft, perfect for crushing, and it ripens their flavor.

This sauce is great for baking (lasagna, manicotti, etc) or good with pasta. You could use it over chicken parm or dip fried mozzarella in it. Or, you could add veggies for a chunkier rendition.

Tomato Basil Marinara

2 large tomatoes, washed
3 extra large cloves of garlic (or 6 medium cloves), minced
1 cup basil, chopped – fresh only
3 small cans of tomato paste
water
1 tbsp dried Italian seasonings
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 tsp sugar

Place the tomatoes on a jelly roll pan, covered with aluminum foil. Place in the oven and turn on the broiler (high). Cook, flipping every five minutes, for 15 minutes, or until skin blackens and pulls away.

Let tomatoes fully cool before proceeding (allow at least an hour . . . I made the tomatoes a day a ahead and left them in the fridge over night).

Gather and prepare all ingredients. Halve the tomatoes and remove seeds and stems (discard). Chop and crush tomatoes finely.

Heat a large dutch oven or heavy pot over medium heat. Place the garlic and basil and cook, stirring frequently, for one minute. Add tomato paste and water. How much water? 2.5 cans worth per can of tomato paste. Stir in tomatoes and Italian seasonings.

Bring sauce to a rapid boil.

Stir in salt and pepper and sugar. Lower heat to low and simmer sauce for one hour, stirring occasionally.

* Be sure to taste your sauce throughout the cooking and add additional salt and pepper to your taste. Always add a little at a time though so as not to over season.

This is a post for Sweetnicks’ ARF/5-A-Day Tuesdays. Check out Sweetnicks for other like-minded, antioxidant rich recipes.

Will is a cheese-a-holic. He asks for it all the time in that cute little voice (“chhhheeeeesssssse”) and it’s always followed with a bit of gratitude (“dank you”) for his favorite food item . . . next to chocolate, of course. Fresh mozzarella is his favorite, but he’s not picky . . . he will eat whatever cheese you want to share. Then again, it’s no wonder that he’s a cheese-lover with the excess of cheese I ate while I was pregnant with him (the same justification applies to the chocolate too . . . geez, and I wonder why I was a whale when I gave birth).

Anyway, knowing that he has a penchant for cheesiness, I had him in mind when I created this dish on the fly this week. Originally, I had planned to make a lasagna with the wonderful, fresh flat sheets of egg noodles I purchased at Costco last week. But lasagna takes a while to cook and it was late. Besides, I was hungry and knew Will would love to eat this for lunch the next day.

So instead I made this lovely tray of manicotti. I love manicotti, particularly when the ricotta is smooth (instead of grainy, like it gets when you overcook it). There’s a great little restaurant in Danbury, Conn., that does it just right called The New Sorrento. Their manicotti is to die for. My husband and I actually had our rehearsal dinner for our wedding there since we loved their manicotti (and chicken parm, too) so much. We still drop by for take out once in a while. In any case, it holds a special place in our hearts.

I modeled this after the manicotti at The New Sorrento, with smooth ricotta and a homemade marinara. You don’t have to make your own marinara, but I do recommend it. (Check back tomorrow for my marinara recipe.)

Homemade Manicotti
serves 4-6

3 cups ricotta cheese
1 cup Romano cheese, freshly grated
4 eggs
4 cups marinara sauce (divided)
6 sheets of fresh pasta dough (or 6 manicotti shells, cooked according to package directions)
2 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded
1/2 cup Romano cheese

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium bowl, combine the ricotta, 1 cup of Romano, and eggs. Mix well until smooth.

Spread 2 cups of marinara sauce in the bottom of a baking pan.

If you are using fresh pasta dough, use a pastry brush to brush the sheets with water on both sides. Spread a generous amount of the ricotta mixture on one end of the pasta sheet. Roll up and place in the baking pan. Repeat with the remainder of pasta sheets.

If you are using manicotti shells, fill each prepared shell with an equal amount of the ricotta mixture and place in the pan.

Top the manicotti with 2 cups of marinara sauce. Sprinkle the mozzarella cheese and 1/2 cup of Romano on top.

Cook for 20-25 minutes, until mozzarella is fully melted.

Remove from oven and let sit for 5-10 minutes before serving.

My poor family. They are always my guinea pigs when I experiment with recipes. Some, like this one, turn out great and end up on the blog. Others, like a tragic butternut squash casserole I made for Thanksgiving nearly four years ago plague me. They won’t let me forget the poorly conceived, over sweet dish that made my brother swear off butternut squash forever. But fortunately that was one of my first experiments, not one of my latest. (And besides, nothing tops my mother’s homemade pumpkin pie with the sinews . . . ew. It looked like pecan pie. And of course, the friend I had sleeping over that night had never had pumpkin pie before . . . hell, she probably hasn’t since.)

Anyway, the butternut squash incident came up (for the umpteenth time) the other night at dinner while everyone was trying the peppers. Why can’t they just let it go???

On to these stuffed delights. This is a pretty fast and low-fat, low-carb appetizer that’s great for parties. I picked up these mini sweet peppers in bulk at Costco last week and scoured the internet for a worthy recipe. There seemed to be only two really out there: one that was stuffed with goat cheese and garlic and one that was stuffed with a rice-y mixture. The rice didn’t appeal to me and I didn’t have any goat cheese or garlic (gasp!) on hand, but what I did have was feta. The resulting mixture (see below) drew raves and tasted great. And being that it’s an easy make-ahead finger food that is actually better cold, it’s perfect for when you have guests coming (think: day ahead).

Anyway, I thought the colorful peppers and sundried tomatoes would make it a great candidate for Sweetnicks’ ARF/5-A-Day Tuesdays. Check her site later for a roundup of other like-minded, antioxidant-rich recipes.

More Delicious Appetizer Recipes:

• Roasted Red Pepper and Artichoke Crostini
• Sundried Tomato and Red Pepper Meatballs
• Roasted Garlic and Artichoke Bread

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Stuffed Mini Sweet Peppers
yields 30

30 mini sweet peppers
7 oz feta cheese
1/4 cup fresh basil (packed down)
1/4 cup fresh rosemary (packed down)
1/4 cup sundried tomatoes (the dried ones, not the ones packed in oil)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with aluminium foil.

Slice the peppers from stem to tip on one side, leaving the stem intact. Carefully remove the seeds (there aren’t too many).

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the feta, basil, rosemary and sundried tomatoes. Pulse until evenly chopped (the mixture should be very fine).

Use a small spoon to divide the feta mixture among the peppers. Place completed peppers on the prepared baking sheet.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, until peppers are just starting to soften. Transfer to a serving dish and serve hot or cold.

When I heard that Sugar High Friday was being hosted by David Lebovitz and the theme was “Chocolate by Brand” I just knew I had to join in. But what to make? What delicious confection should I craft and with what chocolate?

I started with a thick and rich dark chocolate mousse (see Part 1 of 2) but wanted to craft something a little lighter and with a more unique flavor. I was running out of heavy cream though and didn’t want to run to the store for more unless it was absolutely necessary.

Then I remembered: we have an unopened bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream in the basement. The gears in my head got to turning. What if I substituted the Irish Cream for some of the heavy cream? What would that take like? What would it look like?

I talked it over with my husband who said that as long as it didn’t reek of alcohol he’d give it a shot (what a glowing endorsement, right? LOL). So off I went.

The Chocolate:
This time I used 2 oz of Trader Joe’s Bittersweet Chocolate and 2 oz of Trader Joe’s 70% Dark Chocolate. Why these two chocolates? I had them on hand, and have used both successfully in chocolate mousses before. As I noted in part 1 of this entry, Trader Joe’s chocolate is from Belgium.

Now a quick note:
Although the Irish Cream is heated, it isn’t made hot enough or cooked long enough for the alcohol to burn off, I think. So this is an adults only dessert.

Adults-only Mudslide Mousse
serves 4

1/2 cup Bailey’s Irish Cream
1 egg
1/8 cup sugar
2 oz bittersweet chocolate
2 oz 72% dark chocolate
3/4 cup heavy cream

In a small saucepan, heat the Bailey’s Irish Cream until wisps of steam come off it. Do not let it boil.

At the same time, beat the egg in the bowl of a mixer until light yellow and frothy. Gradually beat in the sugar. Then beat in half of the Irish Cream.

Stir sugar, egg and Irish Cream mixture into the saucepan. Cook on low for about 5 minutes, whisking constantly.

Stir in chocolate until fully melted.

Cover pot and place in the refrigerator for about 2 hours, stirring once or twice.

Use a mixer to beat the heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Add chocolate mixture to the bowl and beat on low until it begins to combine then beat on high until fully combined.

Spoon mousse into individual serving glasses and chill until ready to serve. Top with homemade whipped cream.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I ran out of heavy cream and had to use low-fat Cool Whip for these photos . . . fresh, homemade whipped cream would be so much better.)

When Rachel from Food Maven (and Coconut & Lime) shot me an email about her one time event, What’s in Your Basket?, I was thrilled to join in. After all, it’s so much fun checking out what other people purchase.

Okay, okay, so that probably makes me a shopping cart voyeur, or something of the like. But that’s okay with me. I’ve discovered some interesting and exciting products through my snooping, so I would say that it isn’t only okay, but it’s worthwhile.

So, here it goes. Will and I hit Stew Leonard’s, a local chain of farm-market-y stores. This particular location in Danbury, CT used to be a tiny outdoor farm market and dairy. I remember stopping there with my grandmother (back when Reed’s Department Store was down the street). There were rows and rows of fresh apples, pears and other produce. Then Stew’s expanded, making the farm market more indoors. Today, it’s bigger than ever and encompasses a fishmonger, butcher and considerable prepared foods section.

Here’s the haul:

• fresh herbs (rosemary, sage, thyme) – $2.49/each
• 3 greenhouse tomatoes (1.41 lbs @ $1.99/lb) – $2.81
• 2 bulbs of garlic (0.37 lb @ $3.29/lb) – $1.29
• 1 small head of endive (0.33 lb @ $3.99/lb) – $1.32
• 1/2 gallon of freshly squeezed orange juice – $2.69
• 1/2 gallon of skim milk – $1.49
• Fage Greek Yogurt (fat free) – $3.99
• Dutch Gouda cheese wedge – $3.71
• brie with chives – $3.15
• roast beef cold cut ends – $1.61
• 1/2 pint chocolate milk – $0.49
• sliced baby bellas – $1.99
• bananas (1.41 lbs @ 0.59/lb) – $0.83

Grand Total: $32.84

A few notes:

The herbs come in larger and fresher bunches at Stew’s then the ones you find in tubs at Trader Joe’s and the like, so I am willing to pay the premium if I know I will be definitely using them. The endive was kept in the herb area and just looked so good that I needed to pick up just a little.

The roast beef ends are for my husband to snack on (hey, it’s better than chips or cookies).

The cheeses are all me. I am a cheese nut.

And this is my first time trying Fage yogurt . . . I will be using it in smoothies for breakfast.

When I heard that Sugar High Friday was being hosted by David Lebovitz and the theme was “Chocolate by Brand” I just knew I had to join in. But what to make? What delicious confection should I craft and with what chocolate?

Typically, I use Ghiradelli chocolate but I didn’t have enough on hand. I also recently picked up a few single origin bars to test out, but didn’t have enough of either to craft a full recipe . . . and it just seemed oh so wrong to mix them up. After all, they are *single* origin.

Ultimately, I chose to go with what I already had (and had a lot of, at that). See, around Christmas I had purchased a good deal of chocolate – dark, bittersweet, etc – from a variety of makers. I always keep some form of Trader Joe’s Pound Plus bars on hand because it’s an inexpensive and decent quality chocolate for baking and whatnot. It is crafted in Belgium, a country known for its fine chocolate (though let’s face it, though a country is known for something doesn’t mean everything that comes out of there is good – but this one tops some other locally available brands like Nestle). Anyway, this bar was 72% dark chocolate (meaning it has a minimum of 72% cacao solids – that’s high).

Making Chocolate Mousse

I set to work. First I took one egg and mixed it until it was light and frothy. Then I beat in 1/8 cup of sugar.

Meanwhile, on the stove, I heated 1/2 cup of heavy cream over medium heat until it just started to let off little wisps of steam.

Then I poured half of the hot heavy cream into the mixture and mixed it for about 30 seconds. Then I mixed that back into the pan with the rest of the heavy cream and cooked it on low for about 5 minutes. I stirred it the entire time, and knew it was time for the next step when it had thickened slightly – the mixture should never boil.

Next I stirred in 4 oz of the dark chocolate and continued stirring until it was fully melted. The result was somewhat ugly and lumpy. I covered the pan and transferred it to the refrigerator for 2 hours. I pulled it out once and stirred, which made it much smoother.

Finally, I beat 3/4 cup of whipping cream until stiff peaks formed. Then I folded that into the mousse. Then I transferred the mixture to serving cups and topped it with homemade, sweetened whipped cream and chocolate shavings (courtesy of my Microplane Grater).

This is a poor photo of the final product. Sorry! I was really tired when I got to this point.

Anyway, the result was a very dense, chocolate-y mousse that tasted wonderful and would be the perfect center to a chocolate mousse cake. Though this is a recipe I will be repeating, I didn’t feel that it lived up to what I wanted to display for Sugar High Friday. So I decided to try it again, this time altering the recipe a touch and using a chocolate with less cacao solids (so it will be less dense. I also decided to use Irish Cream in it.

Also see Part 2.

I got up to post this morning, only to realize that I am pretty much caught up. Well almost. There is that pesky (delicious) risotto to write about and, of course, Sugar High Friday to contend with. But they will come over the next few days.

In 2006, I experimented a lot in the kitchen. Unless I am baking or I note it otherwise, I typically will look at dozens of recipes and tweak them together to make the dish I create. You can get a lot of great tips by reading recipes.

Anyway, I’ve been toying with doing something that reflects on my recipes in 2006. But although I like the idea of a retro menu or an appy party, I don’t have time right now for that. So I am just going to list off my favorites. These are the best of the best.

So without further ado, I present to you – very simply – my favorite recipes of 2006 in no particular order.

Vanilla Mousse with berry sauce

Herby Cheese Foccacia

Blue Filet Bites

Zuppa Toscana

Stacked Steak Asiago Sandwiches

Swiss chard and kielbasa pasta

Mango Salsa

Beet Greens Bruschetta

Sauteed broccolini

Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies

Sometimes we all need a moment of relaxation. (How coincidental that one of those moments is RIGHT NOW for me, thanks to Blogger.) In times like that, we might turn to cookies or some other comfort food. Or maybe it’s a hot bubble bath and a glass of wine that relaxes you.

Well here’s something new. Now, I will preface this by saying that this drink has 230 calories and 9 grams of fat in a small (not to mention the 37 grams of carbs). Click here for more nutritional info.

Let me also say that, generally, I am unimpressed with Dunkin’ Donuts. On average, I find their coffee mediocre and their donuts not fresh enough.

But this Dunkin’ Donuts White Hot Chocolate drink defies all odds. As my husband said when describing it to me, it’s like “a white chocolate bar melted in a cup.” He’s totally right and it’s totally delish. Hey, it’s good enough for me to rave about it on here.

After a long, stressful, hard day a White Hot Chocolate is a great way to unwind (while sitting in maddening bumper to bumper traffic).

But then again, there are other great ways to unwind. Like this:

And that doesn’t pack 230 calories.

Here’s another of my new kitchen toys: a Le Creuset Tagine. Tagine refers to both the pot and the traditional Moroccan dishes made in the pot. The traditional pots like this are made of clay.

But enough with the lesson, let me tell you about the first recipe I tried in this. This recipe is adapted from one that was in the little Le Creuset booklet. Of course, I had to do a little addition, substitution, etc along the way. The result was delicious – my husband and Will both enjoyed it.

One of the big surprises of the dish was the addition of sliced almonds and raisins. I almost didn’t add them but am I ever glad I did! They really added a depth of flavor. Serve this over couscous or with rice.

Now for leftovers: use the chicken on a salad with a light vinaigrette or in a wrap with lettuce and tomato (perhaps a bit of cheddar too). Or reheat and eat with couscous or rice.

Spiced Honey Chicken Tagine
serves 4

1 tbsp olive oil
1 shallot, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed
4 large, boneless chicken breasts (cut into bite sized pieces)
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 cup chicken stock
salt
fresh ground black pepper
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup sliced almonds

Place the tagine base on a large burner and add the oil. Warm the oil over medium heat. Stir in the shallot and garlic and let cook but don’t let the shallot and garlic begin to brown though.

Stir in the chicken. Cook, flipping frequently, until browned on all sides. Stir in the ginger and cinnamon and cook for an additional one minute.

Combine the honey, lemon, vinegar and stock. Pour over the chicken and stir to combine.

Cover the tagine and lower the heat to low. Cook (covered) for about 1 1/2 hours.

Remove the lid. Season generously with salt and pepper.

Raise burner the temperature to just higher than medium and bring the tagine to a rapid boil. The original directions said to reduce the sauce to a syrup-y consistency but I ended up just reducing it almost away.