Pancakes, Spaghetti

Last week I made a few more foods that I forgot to post about.

First up was some pancakes.  I made them as an after-school snack for the kids before Japanese lessons.  I used a recipe out of Cooking for Isaiah again, this time for S'mores Pancakes.  No recipe for this today, you just take your favorite pancake mix, add a little bit of brown sugar and molasses in place of the regular sugar, throw in some chocolate chips, and cook them up.  Top with marshmallow cream for a good s'mores-like treat.

They turned out okay.  The kids loved them, but they were super sweet so what can you expect haha.  The pancakes were mochimochi again, because of the rice flour.  I'm not really going to complain too much about rice flour - at least it holds together and doesn't have a funny taste.  Maybe I can't do real baking with it yet, but for pancakes and such it will be just fine.  It's a good beginning for me to be able to hold onto little things that I really want to eat.  I'm sure it will be wonderful in my crepes...hmmm...

The other thing I made last week was some really thick spaghetti sauce with meatballs.  I liked the way the sauce turned out, it was just like normal.  This is the same sauce that I use as a base for my lasagna, so you know it has to be good. :D


Spaghetti Sauce
1 large can seasoned crushed tomatoes
1 medium can tomato sauce
3 small cans seasoned stewed tomatoes
1 small can  tomato paste
1 cup red wine
1 cup finely chopped sweet onion
1 clove garlic, crushed and chopped
1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
1 can mushroom steak sauce
1 pound Jimmy Dean Sage Sausage
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 extra cup red wine, or more if needed

Cook up sausage.  Add everything except for extra wine.  Simmer for 4-6 hours, adding wine if you think it is too thin or like more body to the flavor.  That's it.  Super easy, right?  Serve over anything.  I used gluten free elbow pasta for mine, the boys just had it over spaghetti noodles.  The sauce is so thick that I had the leftovers just wrapped up in some corn tortillas!  So good.


Oh, the meatballs.  They were kind of dry.  I really think that I needed an extra egg and less breadcrumbs, but I was using up what I had.  These would also be awesome cooked up in the sauce, and would give it a meatier flavor, but I like to make them in the oven so I can eat them right away.

Meatballs
1 pound ground beef
2 cups GF bread crumbs (less next time?)
1 egg (needs to be increased)
Garlic, pepper, cumin, etc to taste

Mix everything together.  Shape into 1 inch sized balls, put into a cake pan and bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.  Good on their own or in a spaghetti sauce.