Homemade Pizza Sauce

Our family has committed to never ordering a pizza again.  In fact, we want to make as much of our pizza as possible.  So, today, we tried to make our own pizza sauce!  It was fabulous.  Way cheaper than buying a jar and it mixes up in a snap.  It may be even faster than trying to open one of those stubborn jars.  So here you go:

1 can tomato sauce
1 can tomato paste
1 1/2 tbsp italian seasoning
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp paprika
1 tablespoon garlic (we used the kind you get in a big jar from Sam's club.  It helps to have a lot of the juice with this recipe).

Mix it all together.  We used an immersion blender to make sure we got the paste blended in well.  But you could do it with some patience and a spoon as well. 

Yield is enough sauce for 4 pizzas.  Its also way cheaper than a jar of sauce.  From my calculations, this recipe costs less than $1.50 and a can of good sauce costs around $2.50.  And you can really only get two pizzas out of a jar of sauce.  So, instead of spending $1.25 per pizza for sauce, you're only spending about 36 cents. 

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Ethiopian Mild Red Chili Pepper Powder (YeAwaze Duket)

Mild Red Chili Pepper Powder (YeAwaze Duket) is one of the main ingredients of Ethiopian cooking.

Ingredients:

10 lbs Hot long red chili peppers
3 lbs Fresh cloves garlic
2 lbs Ginger roots
½ cup Sacred basil (besobla)
½ cup Cardamom (korerima)*
2 tablespoons Cloves
3 tablespoons Cinnamon
¼ cup Bishop weeds (netch azmud)*
1 cup Shallot or red onion
1½ cup Salt
Water as required

Preparation:

1st Step: Cut the peppers and remove all the seeds; keep the seeds aside if you wish to use the seeds for another recipe called Afringe;

2nd Step: Rinse the peppers 3 to 4 times and dry under the sun until crunchy; pound the peppers;

3rd Step: Peel and chop the onion and ginger, peel the garlic; mix with bishop weed, scared basil; add the spices to the pepper and pound again.

4th Step: Add to the spiced pepper one cup of water. Keep it tight in a container for a day.

5th Step: The next day, Put mixture under the sun to completely dry;

6th Step: Lightly warm and grind cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and salt.;

7th Step: Mix all ingredients together and take it to the mill house. Keep the Awaze powder in a tight container preferably in fridge.

* You will find these spices in Ethiopian or Indian shops.

For nutritional facts of this recipe please visit http://www.recipezaar.com/431511. For vitamin content please click on "Print Recipe" on aforementioned site.

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Ethiopian Corn Cereal (YeBekolo Qiniché)

Ingredients:

2 cups cracked Corn
2 tablespoon purified butter (NitirKebe)* or
3 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium shallot or red onion
4 cups or more water
½ cup milk (optional)
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
¼ teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon turmeric powder
Salt to taste

Preparation:

1st Step: Thinly chop the onion; in a medium pot saute the onion with one tablespoon of oil for 5 minutes or until tender;

2nd Step: To the saute onion add, 3 cups of water, milk, 1 tablespoon butter or 2 tablespoon oil, garlic, black pepper, turmeric powder, salt;

3rd Step: Rinse the cracked Corn, add to the spiced boiling pot; in a lower heat, cook it for 20 to 25 minutes or until it absorbs the water, stir continuously and gently;

4th Step: Remove from heat; add the remaining butter or olive oil and mix it very well; serve it immediately or keep it in the fridge, warm it when needed.

* Click here to prepare Purified/Clarified Butter (Nitir Kebe)

For nutritional facts of this recipe please visit http://www.recipezaar.com/431170. For vitamin content please click on "Print Recipe" on aforementioned site.

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Comments

I've noticed that we tend to get a lot of spam comments on this blog.  Anything we can do to eliminate those?

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Bread

My friend Analisa came over last week, and we made bread together. She has a great recipe that is super easy to make. Here it is:

First, make a sponge out of

3 1/2c. Wheat Flour (can also substitute 1/2c. of a grain mix for 1/2c. of this flour)

2 1/2c. Water

4tsp. Yeast

by mixing together the ingredients in your mixer until everything is wet. I remove the paddle after mixing, and throw a tea towel over the bowl.

Wait at least 20 minutes, but as long as 12 HOURS!! When you have a two-hour block of time that you know you'll be around for, finish making the dough by adding

4Tbsp. Butter (softened is best)

1tsp. salt (unless you use salted butter, then you leave this out)

1/4c. Plain Yogurt

1/4c. Honey

2 1/2c. Bread Flour, more or less (start with 2c.)

to the sponge. Use a dough hook to mix it together, and add remaining 1/2c. of flour a little at a time, until the dough pulls away from the bowl and is no longer sticky. You'll probably knead it for around 5 minutes, scraping the bowl down after additions, if necessary.

Next, spray two loaf pans with cooking spray. Flour your counter. Divide your dough into two. Roll the dough out as wide as the length of the pan, and as long as you can easily get it. Roll it up tightly, and stick it in the bread pan. Let rise until you get a nice crown, which should take around an hour. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Cool on a rack until you can't stand to wait any longer, and enjoy!

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