my go to red sauce

For those times when you truly want fresh tomato sauce, but haven't the time to boil, crush, mix, puree your own tomatoes--I always go for the San Marzano canned tomatoes. 
If you haven't tried cooking with these you must.
It will give you a little inside taste of what tasting fresh tomatoes from Italy tastes like.
They are a bit pricey, but from time to time I've seen Whole Foods have sales on them, and that is when  I stock up.
Hands down, these tomatoes are the best--so sweet, never bitter.
Mix them with fresh herbs, a little garlic, salt, pepper, maybe a little heat and you're good to go.
I'd like to share with you my "go to" red sauce, it has a tiny amount of heavy cream in it to bring it all together.
Feel free to add or take away what you like or don't like; it's a great base recipe for customizing it to your own tastes.
And as you'll notice we don't put cheese on this sauce; the flavor of the san marzano tomatoes are just so good, so sweet, that cheese takes away from that.
But feel free to customize this sauce to your own likings.

This paste goes a long way, it's very strong, so you only need a little bit.



This recipe makes just enough for about a pound of pasta.
Does it freeze? I have no idea.
I highly suggest saving a little bit for a homemade pizza--delish.

dawns red sauce

print recipe

1 can (28 oz.) san marzano crushed tomatoes (drained, reserve some of the liquid)

1 TB (or more) San marzano tomato paste

3-4 TB extra virgin olive oil

hand full fresh basil, chopped

hand full fresh parsley, plus more for garnish

fresh oregano (half a hand full) or 1 TB dried

2-3 TB fresh garlic

1 – 1 ½ TB heavy cream

1-2 TB fresh pepper flakes

salt & pepper to taste

In a medium saucepan, heat up the olive oil, add in the garlic, sauté a bit.

Add in the red pepper flakes, heat through (1-2 minutes).

Add in the tomato paste, stir through.

Add in the drained crushed tomatoes.

Heat this through.

Then add in all your herbs and a pinch of salt & pepper.

Heat this through and taste-test—see what it needs.

Might need more salt or pepper or need more oregano.

Let it sauté a bit over medium to low heat.

If the sauce it too thick for you, add in some of the reserved liquid from the crushed tomatoes. (I like my sauce thick).

When ready to serve, add in about 1 to 1 ½ TB of heavy cream, heat through.

Serves enough sauce for almost a pound of pasta.

cashew-butterscotch cookies + OneFundBoston.org

Sorry for being so m.i.a. lately.
With all that's been going here in Boston, my world was shaken up, busy, crazy with work, etc..
On the day of the Boston Marathon, my husband who works at Mass General Hospital in Boston stayed home.
You can imagine my excitement, my confusion,  my gratefulness, my fear --all rolled into one on how lucky I was that he stayed home that day.  Anything could have happened. Anything!
We were blessed that nothing did, but I was so "spooked" (is that the right word?) that of all days, that was the day he stayed home.
My mind went a-spinning for days on end on the coulda, woulda, shoulda....it's only human nature I guess to do so, but thankfully for work, I submerged myself in to it to get lost and move on.
I haven't been baking for a while, but as I type this on Sunday night, I'm ready to get back into it again on Monday.
There are, as you know, a lot of people who were not so lucky and lost loved ones that day.
And a lot of other victims were badly hurt; their lives changed in an instant and forever.
Please if you can, keep those people in your hearts and if you can help them out with a donation to
OneFundBoston.org
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Tom Menino have announced the formation of The One Fund Boston, Inc. to help the people most affected by the tragic events that occurred in Boston on April 15, 2013.
Thank you!
Our wonderful city of Boston is strong, a very strong city, with doubly strong resilient people.
It was good to see the Red Sox game last night.
Did you see that Neil Diamond showed up to sing?
Apparently he hopped a plane from california at like 12:30am, showed up at Fenway and asked "Can I sing?". There was no schedule, he just wanted to get here to Boston as quickly as possible in hopes they (Fenway) would let him sing.  As if Fenway would turn down Mr. "Sweet Caroline" himself.
Just like that.  What a great man.
If you didn't see it, here is the link.  (I know it looks as if he was lip-syncing, he wasn't, the song was playing along with him singing).
Brought tears to my eyes; every person in that audience was so proud.
All is well in Boston again...

The idea for these cookies...
Sometimes I buy things at Trader Joe's en masse, take them home and eat them en masse and later have an en masse stomach ache.
Said "en masse" this time was those delish thai-lime cashews.
Gosh those are good!
Once you have too much of one thing, you rarely go back to it for a while; that craving for it goes away.
I had a small amount left and wanted to use them use before the gift of staleness set in.
When in doubt on what to do with leftover sweets--throw in Cookies!
And it worked!
The thai spice, lime and hint of heat go really well in here, you really can't taste the heat that much or maybe my heat-tastebuds are numb from all the years of eating spicy foods?
Up to you if you want to add them, plain, roasted salted cashews is fine too.
But I know a few of you might have leftover trader joe cashews sitting in your cupboard right now.



I usually roll into oversized-tablespoon balls, never press flat, just leave as balls and let the heat of the oven do the rest.

cashew-butterscotch cookies

cookie dough based off of Jacques Torres cc cookie recipe

print recipe

2 cups cake flour

1 2/3 cups bread flour

1 1/4 ts baking soda

1 1/2 ts baking powder

1 1/2 ts coarse salt

2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter

1 cup light brown sugar, loose pack

1 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 ½  ts natural vanilla extract

1 cup butterscotch chips or chunks

1 ¼ cups salted, roasted cashews

Sea salt for gently sprinkling tops of cookie dough balls, optional

Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.

Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes.

Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla.

Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds.

By hand, add in the butterscotch chips and cashews.

Cover dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat.

I scooped out about oversized tablespoon dough balls, and kept them as balls; did NOT press them flat.

Sprinkle cookie balls lightly with sea salt, making sure to push the salt into cookie dough. (this is an optional, but wonderful step)

Bake about 18-22 minutes or until center is not jiggly and edges are LIGHT golden brown.

Makes about 30-33 cookies.

chocolate chip cookie bars stuffed w/ peanut butter

Remember when I (finally) made the Jacques Torres chocolate chip cookies?
Well ever since then (it was my 1st time making them) my husband has asked for them again EVERY SINGLE WEEK.
You know me, I just can't re-do a recipe the same way again.
if I was going to make them again I had to kick them up a notch.
So, with this next batch I was curious if a) they were stand up ok to pan cookies and b) can I stuff them with something!?
Answer? When made into pan cookies they make the best "almost" gooey cookies.
I like gooey chocolate chip cookies if they aren't too gooey, you know?
And the stuffing with peanut butter worked great; I was afraid the peanut butter might just melt away or dissolve away into the batter, but it didn't.
If you make these, please remember to sprinkle the sea salt on top before baking (just like Jacques does in his cookies).
Can I tell you again, just how darn good these are?  I mean they are so melt in your mouth good, so tasty, decadent, not too sweet, buttery, rich pan cookie.
The part I love most about this recipe is you can make the batter literally days ahead and keep it in the fridge.  This time I left the batter in the back of the fridge (wrapped in plastic really well) for 4 days.
I know you always ask "how can you not eat the dough earlier?"
My fridge has a lot of doughs, crusts, and other foods sitting waiting to be used; so temptation is never a factor really.
I'd be curious though to see how well the dough freezes?
Anyone know?
Also, why is the Jacques Torres cookie recipe also called the New York Times cookie?
I thought Jacques made the recipe?



Follow these simple steps.

Cover in those edges.

Ready for baking!

Almost done, little bit more; look for more golden brown.

Fresh out of the oven its all gooey baby!


The peanut butter middle did not melt away!


They are easy to make.
The hard part, if you have to have one, is letting the dough rest for a few days. ha!

chocolate chip  bar cookies stuffed with peanut butter

cookie base from Jacques Torres

print recipe

2 cups minus 2 TB (8 1/2 ounces) cake flour

1 2/3 cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour

1 1/4 ts baking soda

1 1/2 ts baking powder

1 1/2 ts coarse salt

2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter

1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar

1 cup plus 2 TB (8 ounces) granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 ts natural vanilla extract

1 1/4 pounds bittersweet chocolate disks/chips at least 60 percent cacao (don’t skip this part, use a high quality chocolate, it makes all the difference)

1 – 1 ¼ cups smooth or chunky peanut butter, (not all natural-- too oily for this recipe)

Sea salt for sprinkling top of dough

Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.

Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes.

Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla.

Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds.

Drop chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them.

Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours.

(I left mine for 96 hours and it was perfectly fine)

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spray a 9 x 13 pan with non-stick spray.

Divide dough into 2 piles: 2/3 and 1/3.

Take the 2/3 dough and line the bottom of the baking pan with it, making sure to get all the corners, making sure there aren’t any holes or gaps in the dough.

Spread a layer of peanut butter; do not spread peanut butter to the edges!

Take the 1/3 remaining dough and crumble on the top. Also make sure to take any dough and close up any gaps you see in the corners.

Don’t push the crumble down into the dough, just leave it on the top—it’s ok to have spaces in the crumble—gaps are good on the top, it will let the peanut butter swirls show through.

Sprinkle the top with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, roughly 25 – 31 minutes.

Look for golden brown edges, non-jiggly middle.

The middle will be a bit soft, but once it completely cools it won’t be as gooey; it sets up really nice.

Slice with a sharp knife.

Makes about 20-24 bars depending on how you cut them.

friday links

Congrats to the winners of the Harmless Harvest 100% Raw Coconut Giveaway: 
#7 Shannon and #35 Caitlin.
Please email me your shipping address.


I finally got to try Pinkberry for the first time.
We don't have any on the cape, but I was in place last week that had one.
And I was impressed.  Really good--now I know what all the rage is about.
This was the key lime with raspberries and coconut.

Allergy season is here!  Stinging Nettle: this is what I've been using for many years.
Every year around the beginning of March I start taking these right through to the end of August.
It works for hay fever and other allergies plus it has other medicinal benefits.
Do some research on "stinging nettle"--and you'll see.
And if you do start this or any herb, remember they do not work overnight; they take a while.
I share this with you because it truly works for me; I use to suffer badly from hay fever.

Finally tried the new Hazelnut Macchiato from Starbucks.  Wow that was good.
It's really sweet, so I ask for 1-2 pumps as opposed to 5, and have them use whole milk.
What makes it is that hazelnut drizzle on the top!

With ice cream season in full swing, I wasted no time trying the newest flavor from Ben & Jerry's: Candy Bar Pie.  Seriously, do I even need to explain how crazy-good it is?

Isn't this hilarious?  I can't remember where I got it, some where on pinterest.

There are two bridges that connect the mainland to cape cod, the sagamore bridge and the bourne bridge.
I was stuck in traffic on the top of the sagamore bridge (they are in the process of painting it so they had closed two lanes which causes traffic); I just had to grab a quick shot of the cape cod canal.  Rarely do I ever get to see the canal because I'm always driving and cannot get a good view.

Can you see how the canal curves out?  Pretty cool right?

We had one day, so far, with 70 degree temps; it was glorious.  After the winter we had, it was so refreshing to have full on sun and calm blue sea.

On sunny days you just have to take off, pack a lunch, and go to your favorite spot for the day.


Not a bad view for the day. No complaints here.

Around the web:
yoga poses for a good nights sleep from yoganonymous
9 small changes to boost energy from mindbodygreen
mini jamaican beef patties from toast the host
yoga for weight loss (video) from alignyo
foods good for your teeth from blisstree
what's your under eye circle? from youbeauty
the latest trend now: kosher yoga from blisstree
the hormone diet: reduce weight by lowering inflammation from blisstree
the power of dreams from harvard gazette
do you have a "leaky gut"? from intentblog
11 hidden sources of gluten from mindbodygreen
rare photos of The Rolling Stones from flavorwire
increased fiber reduces stroke from dailyburn
the best restorative yoga poses to relieve stress from greatist
paleo banana bread from paleomg
8 ways we block our creativity & keep ourselves stuck from tiny buddha
root beer float cookies from foods for the soul
this is your body without sleep from mindbodygreen
easy 'no yeast' cinnamon rolls from back for seconds
milky way brownie bites from crazy for crust
paleo country biscuits from fastpaleo
super brain smoothie from mindbodygreen
crispy orange cauliflower from veganricha
energy density & weight loss mayoclinic
honey-lemon cream cheese danish swirls from sassy early grey
chocolate pound cake from tutti-dolci
karma 101: cause & effect for beginners from intent blog
is your past dictating your future? from intentblog
8 ways to use fresh mint from seriouseats
lunettes jam sandwich cookies from seriouseats
plum friands from a spoonful of sugar
linzer tart from swiss miss in the kitchen
salted caramel pecan fudge from vegan yumminess
banana-pecan coffee cake from seriouseats
6 tea ingredients that can help you unwind from marksdailyapple
lamington rice krispy treats from mallow & co
olive sables from eatlivetravelwrite
americas oldest person dies at 113: how she lived so long from discovery.com
walnut flour brownies w/ bitter chocolate ganache! (bookmarked!!) from anafernandez
canvas cookies decorated w/ food pens from the decorated cookie
cleanse your diet, lifestyle, & home for a better spring from yoganonymous
bacon fries from oh bite it
5 ways to wake up happy every day from intent blog
top chair poses for strength (do at your desk) from yoganonymous
organic apples & pears aren't free of antibiotics? from npr blog
what to eat in the springtime (great spring cookbook list from new yorker)

Have a wonderful weekend!

cookie butter-cream cheese chocolate truffles

My love affair with cookie butter continues....
I bring you truffles.
For me, the ultimate creation to make with cookie butter.
The creaminess of chocolate mixed with cream cheese and then cookie butter?
Oh heavenly.  So good.
And you know, I'm not a fan of white chocolate, but it truly goes so well with this truffle; just melded right into the savory, melty goodness of the chocolate middle.
I highly suggest using the crunchy cookie butter as opposed to the smooth.
The crunchy adds a nice texture.
I get so many emails asking me the best way to melt chocolate in the microwave.
I gave you a few hints below.
We you all like for me to do a dedicated post on tempering chocolate?


Cookie butter and chocolate--this is an eating stage, wouldn't you say?

Mix with the cream cheese.

Add another layer of cookie butter on the top for that nice visual swirl. Optional of course, but wonderful!

Tip: when mixing the cookie butter in with the chocolate, don't overmix so you leave "visibile" swirls.


Make the truffles a bit smaller than this one.

Always keep the truffles nice and cold before their chocolate bath.

Tip: try using ramekins for dipping truffles or other one-bite candies/chocolates.
They do hold the heat longer, and they are smaller for easier dipping.

When microwaving chocolate always zap it for 10 seconds intervals. Easier to under-do than over-do.
And always stir in between zapping!

Get your dipping station all set before you start.
If you want to top your truffles with nuts or cocoa powder, then have that ready at your dipping station too.



You have to know how fabulous of a treat these are.
These truffles make excellent gifts--Mothers Day is right around the corner!

cookie butter- cream cheese chocolate truffles

print recipe

8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

10 ounces semisweet chocolate

¾  cup cookie butter (use Trader Joe’s Crunchy cookie butter—excellent texture!)

an additional  ¼  to ½  cup of cookie butter, set aside

a hefty pinch of sea salt

Additional white chocolate (10 ounces) and semi-sweet chocolate (10 ounces) for dipping

nuts, cocoa powder, sea salt if you want to top the dipped truffles as decoration, optional

I don’t have a mixer, so I mixed this by hand, but if you have a mixer, then mix the cream cheese until creamy; set aside.

Melt the chocolate over a double-boiler.

Take off heat and add in the ¾ cup of cookie butter and stir—no need to over stir; swirls are good. Pour this mixture over the cream cheese and stir until just combined.

Spread into an 8x8 or 9x9 dish.

Working fairly fast, take the remaining ½ - ¾ cup of cookie butter and place on top of mixture.  Using a chopstick or narrow knife, make swirls and gently mix with the chocolate.  Leave visible swirls, do not mix all the way through.

Cover dish with plastic wrap and chill for several hours.

(I left mine in fridge for two nights and it was fine).

When ready to mold the truffles, take dish out, let it come to almost room temp or you can try rolling out at any time; it might need about 20 minutes to be workable.

Scoop chocolate out with a spoon, melon ball size scoop or a half open ice cream scoop (this is what I used, in photos).

Roll chocolate mixture into balls, place in bowl/plate and chill for a few minutes while you get your dipping station set up.

I highly suggest using semi-sweet and white chocolate for dipping.

Milk chocolate was just too sweet.

I did a few dips with half semi-sweet and half white chocolate for decoration.

If you want to coat the tops of the truffles in nuts, then feel free.

Depending on how big or small you make them, you should get between 20- 30 truffles.

Keep them in an air-tight container for a few days.