Stromboli & 5 Minute Marinara Sauce

This meal is right up my family's alley. We like to dip, we like bread, we like cheese, and we like easy. The stromboli is made with rhodes bread dough, but you could easily use your own bread dough and it would be divine. For ease of prep though, you can't beat rhodes. The filling can be tailored to your likes, we chose ham and pastrami. Next time I think some spinach would be terrific. And for a vegetarian version a combination of onions, mushrooms, spinach, and peppers would be yummy. So versatile.

The marinara literally comes together in 5 minutes and it is gooood. Perfect for dipping and I'd imagine great over noodles. Can't beat that! A delicious meal that will be gracing our table often.

I also happen to think this would be a yummy and easy to transport take-in meal. Just add a veggie or salad and plenty of the dipping sauce and they'll definitely thank you!

Stromboli

{Note: I made 2 of for our family of 4 and we had enough for some nice leftovers, 1 wouldn't have seemed like quite enough for us.}

1 loaf of rhodes bread dough (not rolls)

4+ slices pastrami (or hard salami)

1/2 cup diced ham

4+ slices provolone cheese

1 cup shredded mozzarella (as always I recommend grating your own)

1/4 t oregano

1/4 t basil

Olive oil for brushing

Water for sealing dough if needed

Cornmeal for dusting

Let bread dough thaw on counter, not raise just thaw completely. Once thawed, stretch and roll into a good size rectangle. It's pretty finicky, but just keep at it. Lay pastrami slices down the middle, longways, of dough leaving a little bit of uncovered dough on either end. Sprinkle diced ham on top. Sprinkle with oregano and basil. Layer on provolone slices and sprinkle with mozzarella. Fold one half of dough over and then the other half (it's like folding a piece of paper into thirds with the middle third holding the filling-if that makes sense?!) and seal with water if needed. I used a fork to seal the seam and both ends. Flip over and place on cookie sheet lined with silpat. Brush with olive oil and dust lightly with cornmeal. Place in preheating 375 degree oven for 20-22 minutes, until golden. Let stand 5 minutes before slicing into 1-2 inch thick slices. Serve with marinara sauce.

5 Minute Marinara Sauce

2 T olive oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 t red pepper flakes

1 T tomato paste

1 28-32oz can crushed tomatoes

1 tsp italian seasoning

salt and pepper

Add olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes to pot. Cook briefly over medium-high heat, don't let garlic burn. Add 1 T tomato paste and stir. Add crushed tomatoes and italian seasoning. Season with salt and pepper to taste and let simmer for 5 minutes. Done!

Both recipes from The Sister's Cafe.com

Homemade Buttermilk Ranch Dressing

Ahhh Ranch, America's dressing of choice. We buy enough of this stuff I thought it high time I tested the homemade version and was delighted to find that homemade is definitely all it's cracked up to be! It has found a permanent home in my arsenal. It was surprisingly tasty and easy to make with ingredients that aren't so secret after all and we loved it. That's not to say I won't still have a bottle of store-bought in my fridge door for pure convenience. But it's nice to know if I want to take things up a notch that it doesn't take long to whip up a batch, plus it keeps in the fridge for a week or so. However, ours won't last that long I'm sure.

Homemade Buttermilk Ranch

{I found the spice amounts a bit lacking when following this recipe to a T. I don't think I would be amiss in saying that you can double the amount of spices but still leave the wet ingredients amounts as called for, with some possible tempering as needed, and find great success. I'll leave it up to you and your tastes, but just know that's my game plan from here on out! Original non-doubled spice amounts recipe follows...source: Our Best Bites}

1 cup+ mayo

2/3 cup buttermilk

~If you find the flavor level lacking, I recommend doubling the following spice list~

1/4 tsp white vinegar

1 t parsley

1/8 t dill

1/4 t garlic powder

1/4 tsp onion powder

1 1/2 tsp chives

1/8 t black pepper

1/4 t seasoned salt

1/8 t dry mustard

optional-fresh lemon juice

Combine mayo and buttermilk and whisk till smooth. Add vinegar and spices and stir to combine. Taste and adjust as needed. Recommend that this be made ahead of time and stored in the fridge so flavors have a chance to meld. Keeps for a week or more in airtight container in fridge.

Could Not Be Simpler Tomato Sauce

This recipe has been floating around the blogosphere for quite some time. I found it via Smitten Kitchen, but she found it via so-and-so, who found it via another so-and-so, and so on. At first I thought tomatoes, butter, and an onion? This cannot be good! Too few ingredients that don't seem to have much flavor. But put the 3 together and it's a whole new story! It's simple and refreshing and I quite liked it. I'm sure my husband would have liked some sort of meat added in, but I liked it's non-meatness so left it as is. I did take the liberty of blending it up, rather than just crushing the tomatoes as the original recipe calls for. I'm a smooth sauce kind of gal, not so much chunky tomato sauce loving and I also decided I couldn't let the onion go to waste so I blended it in with the sauce instead of removing and discarding it. I added some shaved parmesan and if I'd had it would have sprinkle some basil chiffonade on top as well. But feel free to do as you please with it! It's an easy light dinner or lunch kind of dish, we added a hearty salad to our plate just to fill it out a bit more. Some crusty grilled bread would be great on the side too.

Tomato Sauce with Butter and Onion

{Slightly adapted from recipe source: Smitten Kitchen and elsewhere}

1 28 oz can whole stewed tomatoes

5 T butter

1 medium yellow onion, peeled and halved

Salt to taste, if needed (I didn't need it)

Shaved parmesan, optional

Basil chiffonade, optional

Hot cooked spaghetti noodles

Place tomatoes, butter, and halved onion in 3 quart heavy sauce pan over medium heat. Let come to boil and then reduce heat to maintain a steady simmer for at least 45 minutes, stirring occasionally and crushing tomatoes as you go. After 45 minutes you may either remove and discard onion and serve as is over pasta, or blend it all together and serve with shaved parmesan and basil on top. Easy as pie!

Homemade Thai Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce

My family and I LOVE thai food, we cannot get enough of the stuff. Even our kids are big fans. As you can imagine this means that when we go out to eat, just about every other time we find ourselves at one of our favorite thai food haunts. One of THE best things is the sweet chili dipping sauce. I pour it on everything!

This recipe was my attempt at a homemade version of the stuff. And while it wasn't as top-notch as our favorite restaurant's sauce, it was a pretty delicious alternative. We used it as the dipping sauce for out Baked Veggie Egg Rolls. I found the recipe on a thai food blog and they suggest using it just like you would any other condiment going so far as to use it on fried or grilled chicken, to doctor up salad dressings, brushing it on corn on the cob, etc. And they say it keeps in the fridge up to a month.

Dip away, I say!

Homemade Thai Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce

{Recipe source: She Simmers}

3 cloves of garlic, peeled

2 RED jalapeno or Serrano pepper, deseeded or almost deseeded depending on your heat tolerance

1/2 cup sugar

3/4 cup water

1/4 cup white vinegar

1/2 T salt

1 T cornstarch

2 T water

In blender, puree garlic, peppers, sugar, 3/4 cup water, white vinegar, and salt. Transfer mixture to small saucepan and bring to boil over medium-high heat. Lower heat and simmer until mixture thickens up a teeny bit and the garlic and pepper bits soften, about 3 minutes. Combine cornstarch and 2 T water to make a slurry. Whisk cornstarch mixture into sauce pan and simmer one more minute. Use warm or at room temp for dipping. Store remaining sauce in a glass jar in the fridge for up to a month.