Easy Cheesy Sides

I love cheese, as does my pastor.  In fact, he loves it so much he decided that if he were really going to sacrifice for Lent, he'd have to give it up.  As today is Easter, he has reached the end of his cheese fast.  We're having a potluck at church, so I thought just for Tim I'd make not one, but two cheese-laden sides.

One is traditional Southern cuisine, my new home, and the other is very Midwest, my first home.  The first is Spicy Baked Grits, my take on Paula Deen's cheddar grits, and the second is my version of hash brown casserole.  They are both high in fat, so are good potluck dishes where you won't be eating all of it.  I've included a lower fat version of both recipes for weekday supper consumption.

Spicy Baked Grits
4 cups water
1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup 5 minute grits (not instant)
2 eggs
1 stick of butter (for a low fat version, honestly you can just leave this out entirely, no substitutions needed)
3/4 cup shredded Helluva Good pepper jack cheese (use 2% milk version for lower fat)
3/4 cup shredded Cabot extra sharp white cheddar (use 2% milk sharp cheddar--I don't think they make a low fat white cheddar)
One good squirt of Sriracha (my hot sauce of choice, but Tabasco works, too)

Preheat oven to 350.  Bring 4 cups of water to boil with salt in a medium saucepan.  Add grits and stir boiling for one minute, then turn down to low and continue cooking for the rest of the five minutes or so, until it gets think and creamy.  Temper the eggs with some of the hot grits in a small bowl, then add to the rest of the grits. Cut up the butter and stir in until melted.  Do the same with the two cheeses.  Add your squirt of hot sauce, and then pour into a 2 quart casserole and bake for 45 minutes.

Hash Brown Casserole
1 package frozen Ore-Ida Potatoes O'Brein, thawed
1/4 cup melted butter (again, just leave out for a lower fat version)
1/2 cup sour cream (use Breakstones' fat free)
1/2 cup chive and onion cream cheese (either use 1/3 less fat version, or just use more fat free Breakstone's sour cream)
1 carton of Trader Joe's Cream of Portabella soup (don't have to change, but could use Campbell's fat free cream of mushroom, but doesn't taste the same)
1 teaspoon salt
freshly ground pepper
2 cups cheddar (I used half Cabot extra sharp white cheddar & half mild regular cheddar.  For low fat, again substitute 2% milk sharp cheddar)

Preheat oven to 350.  Mix all of those ingredients throughly in a bowl and then pour into a 9x13 casserole dish.  To make a yummy topping, melt 1/4 cup butter (or 2 tablespoon Smart Balance for low fat version) in a small frying pan and saute 2 cups crushed cornflakes in it.  Sprinkle buttered cornflakes on top and bake for 40 minutes.

New houseswapping feature

I finally got a houseswapping guide up on a separate page. Just click the link on the nav bar at the top, and it will give you more info that you probably want to know!

Potato Salad, plain and simple

My mom always made awesome potato salad.  When she would ask me what I wanted to eat for my birthday, my response was usually, "Whatever goes with potato salad."  She never really had a recipe, just did it by taste.  She put interesting things in it including, if I remember, pimentos and a dab of French dressing.  I was never able to replicate it to my liking, so I slowly developed my own potato salad, and have been just as bad about doing it by taste and never writing it down.  This last time, I made myself measure everything so others could reproduce it.

3 lbs potatoes, russets
1 cup real mayo
1 small onion (around 1/2 cup)
3 hard boiled eggs
1 tablespoon Grey Poupon
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoons pepper
1/2 teaspoon paprika

Wash the potatoes, but don't peel them.  Boil or steam them until soft but not mushy, and let cool.  If you poke a fork in the potato, it should go in easily, but the potato shouldn't fall apart, or you've cooked them too long.  Then peel them and cut into small pieces.  If you cut them up before cooking, the potato salad tends to turn into mashed potatoes.  Add the rest of the ingredients and stir carefully.  A couple of notes:  I am a huge fan of Duke's mayo, but you really can only find it in the South, so use Hellman's or what you have available, but use the full fat stuff or it's not going to taste the same.  Also, use the Grey Poupon, not another kind--again, it makes a difference.  Please, please, don't use regular yellow mustard.  Yuck.  I had to take the picture quick, because it disappears quickly at a cookout.

Enameling

I just finished an enameling on metal class at Pullen Art Center in Raleigh.  It's part of Raleigh Parks and Rec, and sadly, I have to admit this is an area where my beloved Durham falls short.  The metals classes are pretty nonexistent, although I believe one of the jewelers in Golden Belt might do classes on the side.  I have loved every class I've taken at Pullen, and their instructors are extremely knowledgeable.  This one was no exception, taught by Julie Brooks.  She sells on Etsy, mostly her more modern pieces, but she also has a show at the Pullen Gallery right now.  I've also taken from Betty McKim, who also does some amazing work.  Betty has a great blog http://bettymckimjewelry.blogspot.com/ and she is currently featuring a step by step enameling video on the same technique I did from one of nation's best enamelists, Lillian Jones.  That would give you an even better idea of what I was doing in class, but I have some stills to show the process with one of my own pieces.  I was pleased at how well it turned out since this is my first time enameling, and I just sort of skipped the beginning enameling class.

Enameling is using powdered glass in different colors to create a design on metal.  Cloisonne, the particular technique I was learning, is using metal wires (in this case fine silver) to create a design and then filling in each of the little cells you create with the wire with color.  This is usually done on a base of fine silver or gold, but at $48 a troy ounce for silver, I was not doing that.  I started with copper and came up with a work around.  This is the rectangular piece of copper I started with:

The first step after making sure it was really, really clean (something messy me was sad to discover was rather important to enameling), was to counterenamel the back.  To do this, I sifted some powdered enamel over the copper and fired it in a kiln, which made all those tiny glass particles melt and then reharden into a nice smooth finish.  I had to do three layers of this on the back before I could start on the actual design.  If you don't counterenamel, the weight of the enamel on the front will start to bend your metal.  The counterenamel is actually a nice blue.  Here you can see the back of the piece after I had finished counterenameling.  The front is still that plain copper of the previous picture:

Once you get that far, you are able to start putting the design on the front.  First you fire a layer of clear enamel on the top.  Then I did my cheater to make it look like I enameled this piece over silver.  I covered the whole piece of copper with a very thin sheet of fine silver foil, and covered the whole thing in another layer of clear enamel. Then you set your wires.  I had already bent my wires into the shapes I wanted.  You can see in the picture that I had taped a design to the inside of a plastic CD cover.  Then you put double stick tape over your design, and start bending your wires and sticking them to the tape.  That way you're design is all prepped and ready to go when you want to add it to your piece.

The wires are definitely the hardest part.  You can tell that I wasn't able to completely match the design, but I got pretty close.  You have to make sure all of the lines have a curve to them, or they'll fall over.  Sadly, I discovered that even if they do have a curve, they have a tendency to fall over when placing them on your piece.  My hands shake, which definitely did not help me in transferring the design to my piece.  All those little thorns went bye-bye quickly, because I just couldn't get them to stand up.

Once you transfer the design on top of the layer of clear enamel, you fire it again, and when the enamel goes all liquidy again, your wires sink down into, sort of setting the design.  Then you FINALLY get to put the different color enamels in.  This involves several firings.  When you have the color the way you want it, you put another thick layer of clear enamel on top.  Then you get to do a lot of sanding and polishing and beveling, and six weeks later, it's finally done.  Tada!

Swiss Mushroom Loaf

I think this is my brother-in-law’s favorite thing I make. It involves a lot of stuffing, but it’s worth it. It’s considerably easier when I started using sliced swiss and sliced mushrooms.

1 loaf crusty bread boule

8 oz sliced Swiss

8 oz sliced mushrooms

4 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon garlic powder

½ teaspoon paprika

Preheat the oven to 350. Place the bread on top of a sheet of foil, so when things start spilling out, it’s contained. Slice the bread almost all of the way through in normal sandwich size slices. Then turn the bread 90 degrees and do it again, so it creates a grid. Stuff as many mushrooms and little pieces of Swiss cheese as possible into the places where you sliced the bread. Then melt the butter in a small microwavable bowl. Add the spices and mix well. Pour the butter mixture over the bread, trying to get it in some of the cracks. Wrap completely in foil and bake for 30 minutes. It should look like this before you put it in the oven.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

This is what spaghetti tastes like to me. My mom used this recipe and my grandma gave it to her. My mom used to call it Mama Marcellino’s recipe with a fake Italian accent. Our name might have been Marcellino, but there’s not a drop of Italian blood in us. We’re Portuguese, and before Ellis Island it was spelled Marcelino, which is a very common name in Lisbon. So I don’t know where this recipe originated before my grandmother, but it certainly wasn’t old world Italy.

Both my sisters use this recipe now, too, but none of us Marcellino women make it exactly the same. I’ve probably changed it the most, substituting breadcrumbs for the slices of bread, turkey for beef, and add quite a bit more seasoning. The version below is my take on it, as I don’t think I even have the original recipe anymore. I usually serve it with Barilla Plus Thin Spaghetti. I’m a huge fan of Barilla. They’re not joking when they say it’s perfect every time. Is it as good as homemade past—no—but as far as boxed grocery store varieties go, they’re the clear winner. It’s also the only whole grain/omega 3 pasta that doesn’t taste like cardboard.

For the meatballs:

1 lb ground turkey (I like Butterball best)

1 cup bread crumbs (plain is fine, but I use Progresso Garlic and Herb)

1 egg

½ cup grated or shredded good quality parmesan (I grew up on the Kraft powder stuff, which works in the meatballs, but the good stuff adds a lot of flavor)

1 teaspoon granulated garlic or garlic powder (you can use fresh, but I actually prefer the powder in this instance)

½ teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Essentially just dump everything in a large mixing bowl, then mush it all up with your hands. You can use a spoon, but you’re going to have to roll them up anyway, so there’s no avoiding getting your hands dirty, but you can avoid getting the spoon dirty. Grease a broiler pan and set your oven to high broil. My mom always left the oven door open when she broiled, but I don’t and I’ve never burned up my oven. Roll the meatballs as fat or small as you like and place them on the greased pan. Broil them for around 20 minutes, but watch them like a hawk or you’ll burn them. It helps if you turn them half way through, but not absolutely necessary. Basically you’re looking for them to just be cooked through with a bit of browning on the top. They’re going to simmer in the sauce for a while, so the danger is more overcooking them.

For the sauce:

1 28 oz can diced tomatoes (with our without Italian seasoning, doesn’t matter)

1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes

1-2 teaspoons salt (to your taste)

½ teaspoon pepper

½ to 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper (I like it spicy)

1 teaspoon basil

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1 bay leaf

1 small onion, chopped

3 cloves of garlic

1 tablespoon olive oil

Heat oil in a large skillet, and add the onion and garlic. Cook until slightly browned. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for about 30 minutes. Add the meatballs and simmer another 30 minutes. Remove bay leaf and serve.

Cherry Tea Ring or Rosca de Reyes

Four or five years ago my friend Sarah went to a party after Christmas with some Latino friends and came back saying she got the baby Jesus.  I could not make heads or tails out of what she was saying but understanding eventually dawned.  In many cultures around the world they make a much bigger deal out of Epiphany, the celebration the first week January when the three wise men came to visit the baby Jesus.  One of the traditions is to bake a cake made to look like a crown (for the three kings) with a small porcelain Baby Jesus baked into it.  It's called Rosca de Reyes, and if you get the baby Jesus in your piece, you have to bring food for Candlemas (another holiday we don't celebrate).  New Orleans has a similar tradition, called King's Cake, where if you find the figurine, or sometimes a coin, you get to be king for the day.  All of those cultural factoids are just so I can explain this recipe.  For the last couple of years I have been trying various recipes for different countries' Epiphany breads and bring them to church, and we use them for our communion bread the week of Epiphany.  My Church of Christ background would call eating a sweet yeasted bread for communion sacrilege, but I digress.

This year's was especially tasty, found once again on my bread wondersite, King Arthur Flour.  I felt there was absolutely no reason to relegate this to a once a year bread, especially when you could try it with different fillings.  It's a very versatile sweet dough recipe.  I imagine it would make excellent cinnamon rolls, too.

To make the original Rosca de Reyes recipe which has dried fruit and nuts in the filling and decorated with candied orange peel, it can be found here: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/three-kings-cake-rosca-de-reyes-or-roscand242n-de-reyes-recipe
I highly recommend it as is, but this time I made it more like a cherry tea ring.

For the Dough:

• 2/3 cup milk (I had some half and half that needed to be used, so I substituted it for the milk, but I think it tasted the same as when I used skim milk)
• 1/3 cup unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons instant yeast
• 3 1/4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

For the Filling:

• 1 can (around 15 oz) of pitted tart cherries
• 1/3 cup unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

For the Icing:

• 2 Tablespoons butter
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• water or milk
• 1) For the dough: Heat the milk to a simmer in a small saucepan or at medium power in your microwave. Pour the hot milk over the butter, sugar, and salt, and stir occasionally until the butter melts. Cool the mixture to lukewarm.
  
  2) In a mixing bowl combine the milk mixture, eggs, and yeast. Add the flour 1 cup at a time, and mix until a soft, smooth dough forms. You can also use your bread machine, set on the dough cycle, for this step.
  
  3) Place the dough in a greased container, cover it, and set it in a draft-free place to rise until doubled (about 1 to 1 1/2 hours). Or let your bread machine complete the dough cycle.
  
  4) After the first rise, deflate the dough, cover, and let it rest for 10 minutes. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface; roll into a 20" x 12" rectangle.
  
  5) For the filling: Combine the sugars, flour, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Cut in the butter. Sprinkle this mixture evenly over the the dough, leaving a bit of room at each end so it doesn't ooze out when you roll it up. Sprinkle the cherries on top of the butter/sugar mixture.
  
  6) Assembly: Starting with the long edge, roll the dough up jelly-roll style. Pinch the seam together to seal it firmly, then bring the ends together to form a ring. To keep the bread round, grease the outside of a small bowl or custard cup and put it on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Place the ring, seam side down, around the bowl and tuck one end inside the other, pinching it together to seal it. (I put the custard cup in the middle a couple times I made it and the last time I just left the hole in the middle empty and hoped it wouldn't close up, and it did fine)
  
  7) Flatten the ring slightly, and using a pair of scissors, make cuts in the dough at 1 1/2" intervals around the outside edge. Cover with greased plastic wrap and let rise until nearly doubled (about 30 to 40 minutes).
  
  8) To bake: Once the dough is shaped and is rising for the second time, preheat the oven to 350°F. When the dough is risen, remove the plastic wrap..
  
  9) Bake the bread for 25 to 30 minutes, covering the loaf loosely with foil after the first 15 minutes, as it will brown quickly. Remove the bread from the oven when the inner parts of the slits look cooked and the interior measures 190°F when measured with an instant-read thermometer. Cool the bread on a rack.
  
  10) Icing: Beat the butter in a mixer until creamy. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla and mix well. If
  you like thick icing, you're done. I was going for more of a glaze consistency, so I add either milk or water until in thins out to how I like it. I don't always ice it, as it tastes just fine without it, but I had made some icing for some cookies earlier in the week and had some left over. It seemed like a good use for it. 

Chocolate Cannoli Sandwich Cookies

I love cannoli, but they are difficult to make at home. You have to own cannoli tubes and it involves deep fat frying, which I try to avoid both for health reasons and because I tend to make a mess and burn myself when I've tried. I came across this recipe around Christmas and have been wanting to try it ever since. It has that great cannoli filling in a much easier cookie. It's not exactly the same, but very tasty. The cookie still provides a nice crunch in contrast to the cream filling.

I had inadvertently signed myself up to bring snacks to three events this week, so if there was ever an opportunity to try out some new dessert recipes, this was it. I doubled the cookie recipe, and even then had some leftover filling. It not really a problem if you have some of either left over as the cookies are good by themselves, and the filling is a great dunker for chocolate Teddy Grahams. They suggest putting pistachios in the filling and mini chocolate chips in the cookies. Again, I like nuts by themselves, but not a huge fan of them in things, so I left out the pistachios and put the mini chips in the filling, as that is sort of the more traditional place to put them. They also used a combination of mascarpone and ricotta, but if you can't find the mascarpone, or don't want to shell out the cash, you can substitute either cream cheese or just use all ricotta, which is the traditional way to make it, anyway.

Ingredients

For the Cookies:
2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into pieces and at room temperature
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
3 tablespoons whole milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips (optional)

For the Filling:
1 1/2 cups chopped roasted unsalted pistachios
1 1/2 cups (12 ounces) mascarpone cheese
3/4 cup ricotta cheese
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon salt

Make the cookies: Beat the butter and both sugars with a mixer until creamy. Beat in the milk and vanilla until combined. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, cocoa, salt and baking soda. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and beat until combined. Stir in the chocolate chips, if desired. Scoop the dough onto a sheet of wax paper and shape into a 2-inch-thick log. Wrap in the wax paper and refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight.


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Slice the dough into 1/3-inch-thick rounds with a sharp knife. Place on the prepared baking sheet and bake 10 minutes. Cool the cookies for a few minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a rack to cool completely.


Meanwhile, make the filling: Combine 3/4 cup pistachios, the mascarpone, ricotta, confectioners' sugar, vanilla and salt with a mixer on low speed until just blended; do not overmix or the filling will be too thick. (It can be prepared a day ahead and refrigerated.)


To assemble, sandwich about 1/2 inch filling between 2 cookies. Repeat with the remaining cookies and filling. Roll the edges in the remaining 3/4 cup pistachios.

Couple Changes and Things to Come

My friend Mindy was kind enough to tell me how to create multiple pages and a recipe archive, so I have added that at the top of the page.  Hopefully, that will making looking for recipes a bit easier than just using the search function.  Mindy has a wonderful food blog, too, which you can find at http://www.theworldinmykitchen.com/  She is light years ahead of me in food blogging.

Now that I know I can do some stand alone pages, I also soon hope to add a page on houseswapping, since I get asked how we do that quite a bit.  Also, when my little sister got married this year, I put together the granddaddy of registries for her I thought I'd share it for all those out there who aren't exactly sure what to put on their list.  I know I had no idea, and almost 12 years later, have a much different kitchen than I registered for.  It's also a good resource if you're in the market for any kitchen equipment and aren't quite sure which brand to buy.  I'd also like to start posting local Durham restaurant reviews.

Finally, I changed my background from a stock background that Blogger provided for a picture of a multimedia mosaic I did.  This is my first "art" entry in a blog that thus far could have just been called Durham Food.  I'm almost finished with an enameling class, so will soon have a post of at least one of the pieces I am doing in there.

Strawberry Angel Cake

This is a great Cooking Light recipe for all those people out there who want something fast that looks and tastes more impressive than the work involved.  While I much prefer homemade angel food cakes, this one makes a store bought or mix one taste pretty darn good.  And, as I pointed out in a post earlier this week, like everyone else, sometimes I just want something fast and easy.

Basically you take a store bought angel food cake (or one that you made), and cut it into three layers.  This is best accomplished with a long serrated bread knife.  Then you layer on a cream cheese mixture, strawberries, and Cool Whip.  That's it.  Normally I prefer real whipped cream, but usually the point of angel food cake is to consume less calories, and icing it in heavy whipping cream kind of defeats the purpose.  I even used frozen strawberries instead of fresh because we had a huge bag in our freezer I needed to use up.  If you don't have or like Triple Sec you can just leave it out.  I used Limoncello because it's super yummy.  Were not nuts on or in cakes people, so I left those off.

Ingredients

• 4  cups  sliced strawberries
• 3/4  cup  sugar, divided
• 2  tablespoons  evaporated skim milk (doesn't have to be evaporated)
• 1  (8-ounce) block 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, softened
• 1  (10-inch) round angel food cake
• 3  tablespoons  triple sec (orange-flavored liqueur) or orange juice, divided
• 1  (8-ounce) tub frozen reduced-calorie whipped topping, thawed
• 2  tablespoons  sliced almonds, toasted

Preparation

Combine strawberries and 1/4 cup sugar in a small bowl; cover and let stand 1 hour. Combine 1/2 cup sugar, milk, and cream cheese in a medium bowl; beat at medium speed of a mixer until smooth.

Cut cake horizontally into 3 layers using a serrated knife; place bottom layer, cut side up, on a serving plate. Brush with 1 tablespoon liqueur, and spread half of cream cheese mixture over cake. Spoon one-third of strawberries over cream cheese mixture using a slotted spoon. Repeat layers, ending with cake and liqueur. Spread whipped topping over top and sides of cake. Cover; chill 30 minutes. Arrange remaining strawberries on top of cake before serving; sprinkle with almonds.

Roasted Tomato Soup

I was not much of a tomato soup fan for years, having only had the condensed variety.  Then my friend Jenny made this awesome soup for us one snow day.  Now it's one of our favorite soups.  I also was only recently introduced to the beauty of grilled cheese dipped in tomato soup.  My school cafeteria growing up for some reason always served tomato soup with plain peanut butter sandwiches.  PB and tomato--Bleah.


This is a Barefoot Contessa (Ina Gartner) recipe.  I'm not usually a fan of her stuff, but this one is good.  It's absolutely the best in summer when you can get ripe, juicy tomatoes and fresh basil, but it's pretty tasty in winter, too, just make sure to use Roma tomatoes because they tend to have the best flavor out of season.  Also, a note about the canned tomatoes--include them even if you have enough tons of fresh tomatoes, as it adds a different sort of tomato flavor.  Also, don't make the mistake I did once and use undrained diced tomatoes as it makes the soup kind of watery.  The best is canned San Marzano plum tomatoes, but those are pretty pricey usually.  Cento and Tuttorsuso both have a canned plum tomato that's pretty good and less expensive.  Plus, Harris Teeter often does a buy 2 get 3 free special with those brands.  It does make a difference in taste, so try to use one of those three.  When I've used my normal Del Monte tomatoes I get at Costco, I've been disappointed.  It's also imperative to use fresh basil.  If you don't have fresh, just don't make the soup.  It's okay to substitute 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme for the fresh, though.  Don't fear the 4 cups of basil; it gives it a good bite without being overpowering.  She says to put the finished soup through a food mill, but I just use an immersion blender, so as not to lose all that good fiber from the skins.  It's good as is, but I like to add some cream or half and half, which is why mine is kind of orange-ish instead of red.


ALWAYS serve with grilled cheese.

Ingredients

• 3 pounds ripe plum tomatoes, cut in half lengthwise
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons good olive oil
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• 2 cups chopped yellow onions (2 onions)
• 6 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 (28-ounce) canned plum tomatoes, with their juice
• 4 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
• 1 quart chicken stock or water

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Toss together the tomatoes, 1/4 cup olive oil, salt, and pepper. Spread the tomatoes in 1 layer on a baking sheet and roast for 45 minutes.

In an 8-quart stockpot over medium heat, saute the onions and garlic with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, the butter, and red pepper flakes for 10 minutes, until the onions start to brown. Add the canned tomatoes, basil, thyme, and chicken stock. Add the oven-roasted tomatoes, including the liquid on the baking sheet. Bring to a boil and simmer uncovered for 40 minutes. Pass through a food mill fitted with the coarsest blade. Taste for seasonings