And it Begins

Hung out with Jason this morning and ate what was possibly the yummiest pastry EVER. It was an almond croissant from Thorough Bread Pastry. Good grief. So amazing. I am still thinking about it. Really. Then we walked around, enjoyed the...SUN (something SF hasn't seen it at least a week), and then went home to begin cooking.

Today (in preparation for the week) I made...

Refried beans (for tomorrows burritos)
Granola (for this weeks cereal in the morn)
Lasagna noodles (for tonight's meal)
Spaghetti noodles (for Tues' meal)
Chicken Stock (for Wed. soup and my chicken pot pie...where I will also use the chicken from the stock)
Spaghetti Sauce (for tonight's meal...which there was supposed to extra of BUT...no go. It's all gone. oops).

And here are some pics. Enjoy.Refried beans. Made in the crock pot. Super easy. I literally through it all in and left it be for the day. Here is the recipe from allrecipes.com that I used. I tasted it before I put it away and it was pretty darn good. Much better than the can that's for sure...and it took very little work.After the beans I started in on a pasta sauce that was so unbelievably yummy. I used these onions and basil above from our garden. No actual pictures of the sauce but I used this recipe from food.com and highly recommend it. The alterations I made to the recipe are a) I certainly did NOT peel 12 tomatoes. Yeah right. Seriously, there is no need to peel tomatoes. I don't know why they tell you to peel them. I also at the end of it all put about 3/4 of it in to my Cuisinart and pureed it. Made for a creamer sauce that was more compatible with lasagna. Good either way though.

Next up...granola!Here are the ingredients and here is the recipe. Changes I made were a) could not find wheat bran so...oat bran it is! b) Did not want to pay $8 for a thing of wheat germ so I skipped it. c) I baked it for more like an hour at least. In the oven it goes! And out it comes! Golden, delicious, and crunchy yummy. Oh look, there's my sauce in the background. :)

And then I started my pasta. Have you ever seen one of these?

I sure as heck never had till I went to my parents house one day and my mom pulled it out and said I could have it. It makes pasta. Like for real. And it's really easy. You mix flour, water, and olive oil...and that's it. It does it all...out of little cut out thingys that will make any shape you want...spaghetti, lasagna...whatever. It's amazing. Look at it whirl up all the ingredients.And look at it make lasagna for my lasagna tonight.And look at the spaghetti it made that I dusted with flour, threw in a ziploc, and put in the freezer for our dinner later this week. Yeah. It's cool.And then we ate this. There's no recipe. I make up my lasagna. Really though, it's homemade noodles, the spaghetti sauce recipes above, ricotta, and mozzarella, all layered. And let me tell you. This was TO.DIE.FOR. I mean, I don't want to toot my own horn but holy cow I will never EVER (okay I probably will) but I will TRY to never ever eat non-homemade noodle lasagna again. I've tasted the dark side. And I am in love with it. Seriously, it was amazing. Jason and I pretty much said, mmm. oh my gosh this is so good. mmmmm. the whole meal. It was ridiculous. :)

And then there's the chicken stock which is really boring and it would be gross if I took a picture of a chicken carcass floating in the broth. I'll spare you. But it's good and if you want the recipe I use this one. I like the added twist with the ginger.

And that my friends, was my first day of all scratch cooking. And I'm going to be really honest. I'm exhausted! :) I'm off to bed to dream about the croissant and lasagna I had.