Thursday Night Chefing

I know, Reef had been rocking this blog out lately. I've been sadly lacking in the cooking and baking department, or at least anything different. I haven't even gone out to eat anywhere new either. Mmmmm just lots of old standby's (HELLO CHICKEN BASKET!!) 

Last weekend Jeremy and I decided to make a pasta sauce in the crockpot, because Jacob gave us a whole slew of tomatoes (how many IS a slew anyway? Hmmm food for thought.) I APPARENTLY didn't take any photos of the sauce cooking (WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME???) but basically we threw in a ton of tomatoes, salt, pepper, basil from the garden, oregano, onion, garlic, and bell peppers and just let it cook down for like...10 hours. Then we put it in the food processor and blended it. It came out AWESOME. 

So. Today I cooked spaghetti in the sauce and it was DEEEELICIOUS. 

 

 

I used the garofolo pasta that I buy at Costco. It's very delicious. I had a good time making this dish as well as making the sauce. The pasta came out not super saucy, more like the noodles have the sauce almost Infused in them. I did have to add about a cup of water to the sauce to thin it out a bit. I added some fresh Parmesan and it added just the right bite of salt to it. Mmmmmmmm happy pastaing for lunch tomorrow. 

 

Nextly, I decided that I should make these Strawberry Oatmeal bars that I saw on the Pioneer Woman's Facebook page. 

Basically, I really wanted some dessert and had picked up the preserves for this recipe over the weekend. I think you could use any kind of preserves in this recipe. It kind of reminds me of a homemade nutrigrain bar, but about 90000000 times better. 

It's flour, brown sugar, oatmeal and butter. Lots of butter. One and three quarter sticks of butter. So much yummy butter. I digress. I do have heart shaped measuring cups hence my packed brown sugar. Mmmmmm. 

 

You mix it all up and put half of it (smash it down with your fingers)into a 9x13 inch pan and then spread in your preserves and then put the rest of the mixture on it and bake it. The pioneer lady's looked really really pretty when she spread her preserves on. Mine looked.....less pretty. This actually looks kind of gross. OBVS before the top layer went on. 

 

 

Finalized and baked bars. Mmmmmm very crunchy on the top, like a crumble. 

 

Seriously. These came out amazingly. I'm super happy with them. I think half of my kids would like them and ALL of the adults will like it. Unless they are monsters, in which case I will take away theirs and they get nothing. 

I'm a little hyped up, and I've been binge watching Parks and Rec while baking. It's been a week since I'm back at work now and I'm glad I made the time tonight to indulge in my favorite pastime. Woohooooo!!!!