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Thick and Chunky Homemade Pizza Sauce (new recipe)
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This isn't my mom's pizza sauce recipe, but then I haven't had access to her bounty of garden-fresh tomatoes since we moved from small town, Ohio to the Seattle area. Whether it's apartment life or the tall trees that now shade most of our yard or the cool climate of the Pacific Northwest, I've been finding excuses to not grow tomatoes or even get out to buy tomatoes to make my own pizza sauce.
Now, I think it's totally fine to not make homemade pizza sauce... if you like the stuff from the store... which I don't really.
Yet I get these weird mental blocks where I feel like I just can't do something even when I've done it before and I know I could... if I would. Making pies has always been that challenge for me.
Recently, it's been my homemade wheat bread. I know, really! Me, the queen of homemade bread. I don't like bread from the store at all, but the last time I made my 100% whole wheat bread it flopped. Again. Seattle weather doesn't seem to be a friend to 100% whole wheat bread.
I'm going to try again, after I convince myself it will be okay and probably even turn out great. I can do this, I can do this... (Anyone else in the PNW have problems with 100% whole wheat bread??)
So back to the sauce. I finally pulled out an old recipe from a not-old friend, Sheri. (She's been mentioned here before; this post has links to some of my recipes that were from Sheri or created by Sheri!)
I hadn't made her chunky pizza sauce in 8+ years, but I made it again last month. It's actually easy to make. How could I think cooking from the pantry would be difficult, exactly? I don't know. ;)
At any rate, I'm hopefully pushing through that "can't make pizza sauce without my mom" issue, especially since I got organic canned tomatoes buy-one-get-one-free at Costco last month. And since homemade pizza sauce is just so good. :)
Have you encountered any cooking-related mental blocks lately? Dishes don't count. ;)
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Comments
I live in the PNW
I live in the PNW (Bremerton) and use your whole wheat bread recipe all the time! I grind my own wheat (hard white) and make it 100% whole grain. For a while, I had some trouble getting it to rise and it would typically be dense or would fall while baking. What I've found that works best for me is to use the dough enhancers you've recommended (vital wheat gluten, lecithin, citric acid & ginger). With the dough enhancers, and following your recipe to the letter, I typically have awesome bread every time! (I make the dough in my bread maker and then put the dough into a bread pan and bake it in the oven) I have noticed that baking bread here in the PNW can be affected by the weather, humidity, pressure etc,. Hope you give it another try - don't be discouraged!
Source for hard white wheat in the PNW
What is your source for the hard white wheat? I've noticed that different wheat can make very different flours. I ground some hard white wheat for a friend last year and it made very light, fluffy flour! I need to ask her again where she got it (I think it was Azure). Last I tried, I was having good results with my hard red wheat and not as good of results using hard white wheat. Strange! :)
I do need to just try again... and not be discouraged if I need to add a little white bread flour if it's a time of year / weather condition where the texture just isn't perfect. I am used to making perfect bread and give up quickly when it stops working just right! ;)
I buy my hard white wheat in
I buy my hard white wheat in the bulk foods at Central Market. (Poulsbo) I agree that the wheat has a lot to do with how bread turns out. I'm looking forward to hearing an update on your bread endeavors!
Yum!
I don't care for store pizza sauce either. I make mine in the crock pot. It's nice to have batches of that type of thing in the freezer so you have it when you need it......convenience cooking at home. :-)
PS - I'm loving your new CAPTCHA code thing. Much easier. Thanks!
~Stacy from Stacy Makes Cents
Captcha
Thanks for mentioning the Captcha; I thought I had it set so that if you were logged in, you didn't need to answer a question. Oops. I changed it for that now... man, I hate spam. It just makes life harder! :P (And the fact that I'm technically limited in my website maintenance skills...) :)
Floppy Homemade Bread
Hi, Tammy,
I love your whole wheat bread recipe. I use a slightly modified version of it that I think was posted by Katie at Kitchen Stewardship. My husband actually like my homemade bread now! Anyways, I live in Florida and the humidity here is always changing and has made bread making and getting a consistent result very difficult. It really affects how much it rises. I have finally found a solution that works for me! I think you make yours the same way I do - mix in the bread machine and then bake it in the oven. My solution has been to use a large roasting pan with a lid to provide a consistent environment for the bread to rise in. When the bread is done in the bread machine I put the roasting pan in the oven while it preheats to 350. While the pan is getting heated up I shape my loaf and put it in the loaf pan (I use a Pampered Chef stone pan). Then when the preheat cycle is done on the oven, I pull out the roasting pan and put the loaf pan into the roasting pan and put the lid on. I set a timer for 30 minutes, come back and - voila! - consistently rising bread! The other day I forgot about the roasting pan in the oven so it got hotter and I got a better rise. I haven't experimented with that again yet to see if that was really why it rose better, but I thought I'd mention it. I've also wondered about trying this with a crockpot on "Keep Warm" instead of a roasting pan from a hot oven, but my crockpot isn't large enough for my loaf pan to fit into. So, I hope that maybe this helps you!
Getting bread to rise
Thanks for the tips! I will have to experiment with providing a consistent rising environment for my loaves of bread. They usually do rise okay/acceptably at least, but the texture is what tends to be "off"...
I've not made bread since
I've not made bread since baby #7 was born... Sorry your bread hasn't ben turning out. Have you ever tried to make no knead bread? It is so delicious and yummy!
http://homeschoolblogger.com/lilyofthevalley4/783894/
As for mental blocks, I use to think making pumpkin pie was hard, but we made 4 this fall so far! Yummy!! Menu planning was also something I thought I couldn't do, LOL, but it has really been great here. :)
~Tanya - mama to 7 treasures. :)
No Knead Bread
I haven't tried the No Knead Bread, because we like our softer-crust sandwich bread and then if I'm making bread for with soup or something, I do rolls or biscuits or something like that. I should try the no-knead-bread for garlic bread though! Joshua's been wanting garlic bread (although I doubt he could eat the crust of that, lol!). :)
true...
That is true the crust is harder, he might have a hard time with that.
~Tanya - mama to 7 treasures. :)
No-knead garlic bread with braces
I know, and I hate wasting anything so I said "You know if I make garlic bread, I'm going to get/eat nothing but crusts since you can't eat that part!" haha :) I love garlic bread too, though... I'll have to put it on the menu next week. :) Even crusts dipped in garlic butter are good! ;)
Yes...
Yes, garlic bread crusts would taste good dipped in garlic butter.
~Tanya - mama to 7 treasures. :)
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