Red Gold Spicy Tomato Sauce...and a Winner!

Today is the first official day of spring! Although, here in South Florida, we've been experiencing our spring since about January, and we'll be going into full blown summer, by May...go figure! This it the tropical climate that we are accustomed to. Such a wonderful weekend we had, how about that bright and beautiful full moon that only comes around every 18 to 20 years? (witnessed it and took photos)...Sunday was such a relaxing day, did not have barely anything in my fridge to cook for lunch, for my family in my little beach condo, but I always have canned tomatoes on hand, and pasta...the little ones love the mezze penne, and the spaghetti. I also found some Italian sausage in the freezer which I defrosted, so lunch did not take long. A little bit too spicy, but my little grandson eats everything, and did not mind the spicy sauce. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend and got to witness the gorgeous moon that was 14% larger, and 30% brighter than your average full moon...that's what I call "romance in the air...or is it "Love is in the Air?"...remember that song from the eighties?

I still had two can of the Red Gold diced tomatoes left over from my giveaway winning, one was a regular 100% Natural diced, and the second was the Red Gold petite diced with green chilies, hot...and I do mean "hot" as in spicy hot. I also had on hand my trusty Hunt's fire roasted diced tomatoes, which I started out with.
The sauce turned out incredible, but with all these diced tomatoes in their natural juices, it called for a thickening source in which case, I used about 2 teaspoons of Hunt's tomato paste, mixed in 1/2 cup of water to add to the sauce. With, or without meat, you can make this wonderful sauce. If you can't find Red Gold tomatoes in your grocery supermarket, well, you can use your favorite brand of diced tomatoes, but you will need at least 3 cans of about 14.5, or 15 ounces.

You can start with cutting about 1 lb. of Italian, or any
other sausage of your choice into about 3 inch pieces, and saute the sausage first, in 1 Tbsp. of vegetable oil.
When it's about halfway browned, add 1 sliced onion, and 3 cloves of garlic sliced. (If you are making it vegetarian)...just saute the onion and garlic by themselves, until slightly browned, and wilted. Add 3 cans of 15 ounce diced tomatoes of your choice, and 2 teaspoons of tomato paste, mixed in 1/2 cup of water. Add salt and pepper, which is optional, since the tomato with the chili pepper is quite hot. Also, you can add fresh, or dried basil, and at this point, add 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, right into the sauce. The reason for this method, is, so it can bring out the glossy texture, and the true delicate flavor of the oil.

I cooked this magnificent sauce in my large cast iron skillet...this is the true vivid color, and texture after about 35 minutes. You can cook it with, or without the sausage...also, you can substitute the sausage with chicken pieces, and follow the same method of cooking. If you are making this sauce vegetarian style, just omit the sausage or any other meats, and just cook the sauce...either way, this to me, is the best sauce...ever, that you can make with the beautiful diced tomatoes! Yumm...enjoy!


...and the Winner is!

Well, looks like the comments got stuck at #30...so it wasn't difficult for me to generate the random.org number. and the winner came to #28, which is Mateja @Indulging Life.
Congratulations Mateja, you won the fabulous giveaway book, I hope you will enjoy it! I will contact you about the shipping address.

 Saturday night was such a fabulous event, watching the basketball awards given out, at the UPWARD event, from the open stadium right by the Intracoastal Waterway. This was my sweet granddaughter's 4th year of playing in the team, and she absolutely loves it. She is such a great team player, loves to get those shots in the basket. (she is also very tall for her age, 9...nearly 5') I took this photo at 7:00PM...still light out.

The famous pink building, which is the Phipps building in West Palm Beach...a sight to "behold" when the sun is setting, with the true pink color, glistening, as the sun is going down.

Proud granddaughter, admiring her basketball trophy award!

A beautiful and pleasant weather for an outdoor award event!

Italian Sausage with Grilled Cheddar Polenta, and a Giveaway

After posting my vegetarian spaghetti carbonara, now I feel so guilty...Not!...but I should be, for posting sausage of all things, but not just any sausage, this is homemade, by my favorite Italian meat market, Mario's that's been around forever...about 30 years, with the same owners, now the owner's daughter in charge. This is the sausage, hot, and mild, that I bought for New Year's and still had another 2 lbs left over. I invited a friend over for dinner last night, and she was appalled and I could tell just the sound of her voice saying..."sausage?"...and then, silence!

Oh, my! I committed the "Cardinal Sin"...yes, I said "sausage, Italian sausage"...in her mind, since she doesn't eat sausage, thinking I was making these "dinky little breakfast sausages"...or, as she said...is it "Jimmy Dean sausage patties?"...no silly homemade Italian sausage. Enough said, just come on over, and "stop complaining, already!" I recently, or actually the other day, browsing through my followers blogs,

I found a blog, which had the most delicious Hungarian polenta, well in Hungarian, it's called "puliszka", which I thought looked so delicious, and more tempting was the amazing meat stuffed with sauer kraut, and topped with Hungarian bacon. Wow!...just looking at the photo made my cholesterol, go high, but I had to make a polenta dish which I have not made in a few years.
Lucky for me, I had everything on hand, and did not have to buy a thing.
Do check out Gesztenye
which in English mean Chestnuts she also has another blog too, all about truffles, or as she calls them bon-bons.
Another talented, and creative food blogger, from a different country, Hungary, my mother's birth country!

I had some zucchini on hand, red skinned potatoes, onions, garlic, and a couple hot cherry peppers, and fresh rosemary springs in my freezer, which I peeled, and added to the roasted vegetable, in a heavy duty iron skillet, on top of the stove. Very simple, just slice everything thin, and saute in some extra virgin olive oil, about 2Tbsp. and some canola oil, 1Tbsp. The reason I mixed the two, is because the olive oil tends to burn on high heat, so the canola, or vegetable oil tones it down. I also used the same large skillet, to roast the sausages in the oven, on about 425 degrees for about 35 minutes, and after the vegetables were done, I saved it in a casserole dish to keep warm, and added everything together to display on a large platter.

I was hesitant to post the polenta photo, because of the messiness, and unevennes of the grill marks...but just look at my pride-and-beauty, my cast iron grill pan. Would not, and will not change it for any other, except, the outdoor gas grill, of course...and no, not the charcoal grill. I take pride in my cooking and baking wares, and treat them kindly...as in the cast iron grill pan, but before you grill in it, rub it well with vegetable oil, and not cooking spray, and heat it up until it starts to smoke, and lower the temperature till you're ready to grill your meats or vegetable, and in this case the polenta, not just with cheddar cheese, folded in there, but with sliced canned jalapeno peppers, as you can see the green speckles, in the pan, and in the polenta. I didn't even get a chance to chill my polenta, and it was a bit softer for not being refrigerated. Recipe, and the giveaway, which will surprise you, to follow!

Cheddar Polenta
my own recipe

3 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 cup 8 ounces shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
3 tablespoon canned sliced jalapenos
1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Bring chicken broth to a boil over high heat in a medium size saucepan. Gradually add cornmeal, whisking constantly. Reduce heat, and simmer, stirring often with a wooden spoon, for 10 minutes or until mixture is thick and creamy. Remove from heat, and stir in salt, pepper, olive oil, and fold in the cheese, and jalapenos. Spoon into a cooking sprayed loaf pan and chill in refrigerator, for a couple hours, before slicing to heat up or grilling. It is a nice vegetarian side dish, or by itself, Serves 4.

Now, on to the Giveaway!


To enter the giveaway:

1) Please follow foodandthrift on Twitter...sorry, I don't have an account on Facebook. If you already do so,  please see number 3. If you are doing so for the first time, please let me know that you are now following me on Twitter, so I could add you to the giveaway.

2) Leave a comment on this post! You are encouraged to share a comment about the Matryoshka Dolls, or any other thoughts.

3). If you RT or post on your Twitter page this giveaway post link, you get an additional entry. Please drop me an additional comment on this post saying that you did so.

4) To get an additional chance in the giveaway, become a "follower" of 
 food and thrift find's  blog.

5) Drawing will be done randomly from all comments recorded by Tuesday January 18, 2011, at 11 PM (EST) and one lucky winner will announced.

6) Please note: Shipping only in the US, and Canada. I apologize to my other International friends.

The Matryoshka Dolls are made in Russia, exclusively, they have a gloss finish, and are made of basswood, from linden tree and are hand painted, and varnished. They come in 2 pieces, as in this one, in 4, 5, and up to 8 or nine pieces, all with different hand painted fairy tale story villages, and characters. They retail from about $39.99, to $69.99, up to $89.99, which this one is, being that this is about 17 inches high, and the smaller, about 6 inches high. It is brand new, and obviously someone did not want it, and donated it. I snapped it up for $6.99...honest! I will ship it to a lucky winner, who would be interested in this beautiful set. This is certainly a collectors' item, and one of a kind!

I think you all overlooked my mention of a giveaway in my previous post, from Goodwill, where I took a picture of the beautiful bird perched upon the shoulder of it's owner, and there at the checkout  counter, sitting, waiting to pay for, and getting the "eagle eye" from other customers that distinctively knew what my purchase was...a Matryoshka Doll, otherwise known as, Babushka doll, as well. 





Italian Sausage and Peppers

I was not going to post this...seems like I'm contradicting myself about eating healthy. Actually this is not so bad, considering I made it as light as possible. No grease, no extra fat...this would certainly can be categorized in the Atkins diet, maybe even Weight Watchers?...been there, done all that...and so, the saga continues.

Before I post the recipe for my Italian sausage and peppers, I will proudly show off my Suzanne Somers stainless steel skillet, 10 in. in diameter, has a nice non-skid handle, and the best part was, that this skillet has never been used by any one. I paid $2.99 for it, at Goodwill, and I've had it for over 1 year. In order to cook or fry on high heat, you must either have a cast iron skillet, or a calphalon, or a heavy duty stainless steel, as it is in this case. You will only destroy you nice non-stick pan. I absolutely love this frying skillet, it's easy to clean, even if you get burns on there. When you soak it in hot soapy water, the stain just rolls off. I am all green practically, with cleaning supplies. Just simply scour it with baking soda...takes the place of the strong chemical scouring powder, and you can also clean your sink with the baking soda, and will freshen up your garbage disposal. So now, on to my recipe...actually not really a recipe, just the instruction of how I came up with this great idea for the sausage and peppers. Not drowning it in oil, not letting it get lost in red sauce, but everything fresh from my refrigarator, that needs to be used up, anyway.

Italian Sausage and Peppers

2 links of mild Italian sausage
1 link of hot Italian sausage
(about 1 lb.)
1 green bell pepper
2 Hungarian wax peppers (or banana peppers
or Cubanelle, you can variate the peppers of your choice)
1 large onion
1 or 2 cloves garlic, sliced
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
2 medium tomatoes (fresh)
1/2 cup vegetable broth or plain water is good
salt and peppers, (optional)
(sausage and peppers, are hot and salty enough)
1 teaspoon Hungarian paprika
Cut sausages with a sharp blade knife, to 3 inch pieces. ( slices will just fall apart, so this is suggested.) Cut peppers lenghtwise into about 1 inch strips, (not too thin) Cut onion in half, and cut fairly thick slices, lengthwise, also. Tomatoes cut in half, and also sliced thick into lentghwies slices. (Everything is cut lenghtwise, so they look nice and uniformed.)  First, start with the sausage to brown them in the vegetable oil, on med.high heat, for about 10 minutes, so they get nice and brown. Lower the heat, and just cook them low, for an additional 15 minutes. Add all the peppers, onion, garlic, and tomatoes, and saute them, leaving the sausages in the skillet, but at this time, add half of the broth or water. It will start to caramelize it, and keep cooking them for an additional 15-20 minutes, adding the rest of the broth to keep getting nice and juicy, this way it will not burn, or get dry. You should end up with perfectly cooked sausages, and just the right texture of the peppers, and onions. The tomatoes will stay nice and soft, and not falling apart. Serves 2.
note: 
Leftovers are great for the next morning with scrambled eggs, or reheated and served in a hoagie roll with melted mozzarella. (that is if you're cooking this for 1, but if for 2, you will not have any leftovers.) If you like pork, this is an ultimate comfort food!
Another excerpt, from WOMEN FOOD AND GOD

The shape of your body obeys the shape of your beliefs about love, value and possibility. To change your body, you must first understand that which is shaping it. Not deprive it. Not shame it. Not do anything but accept--yes, Virginia--understand it. Because if you force and deprive and shame yourself into being thin, you end up a deprived, shamed fearful person who will also be thin for ten minutes. When you abuse yourself (by taunting or threatening yourself) you become a bruised human being no matter how much you weigh.