Full Stop

This morning I learned something that rocked my world: I have been typing incorrectly my entire life. I read in this article that even though my keyboarding teacher in elementary school told me to, it is incorrect to use two spaces after a period. I am practicing using full stops and the space bar correctly now, but it's going to take me some time to get used to this strange new world.

Anyhow, today is Saturday which means it's Bountiful Baskets day. If you're reading my first blog post, you most likely know me so you have no doubt heard me go on (and on and on) about how amazing Bonutiful Baskets Food Co-op is. Just in case you've missed the good word, BBFC is a co-op operating out of Arizona with sites in several western states including Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Each week, contributors log in at the website and pre-pay $15 for a half fruit, half veggie produce basket. There are also addons available every week like 9 grain bread, tortillas, honey, and 24-36lb boxes of whatever's in season. You can also sign up to get a guaranteed organic basket each week, but I don't. It's smaller, more expensive, and the regular baskets often include organic produce anyway.

Saturdays are now my favorite day of the week. I am the kind of person that finds a lot of comfort in routine, so the weekly trek to Sunny Springs Park to pick up my produce followed by unpacking, cleaning, menu planning and cooking is soothing. It restores my sanity. I am a barefoot zen master making refrigerator pickles each week. The sangria I usually make with whatever fruits I have leftover from the previous week helps too.

This week, the baskets had lettuce, spinach, asparagus, butternut squash, Anaheim peppers, cherry tomatoes, tangelos, apples, Asian pears, regular pears, kiwis, and a pineapple. I bought everything to make chili rellenos, and if I can find some pre-made ravioli or won-ton wrappers, I'll try my hand at butternut squash raviolis as well. Today, though, I am going to make stuffed shells because I still have tomatoes left from last week's basket that need to be used.

Since I guess this is mostly going to be a cooking blog, I should share my favorite recipe for marinara sauce. I try to use nothing from a can or a packet if I want something to taste really good, and this recipe only uses a few tablespoons of canned tomato paste for color since whenever I try to make sauce with fresh tomatoes it turns out sort of pinkish and not the robust, appetizing red one expects.

May Not Be Actual Marina Sauce Better Just Call It Tomato

• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1 mediumish yellow onion
• 4+ garlic cloves (I use at least 6. No matter what the liberal Forks media tells us, vampires are scary, not sexy, and garlic is your first and best line of defense.)
• a palm full of fresh chopped basil or 1tbsp dried.
• a smaller palm full of fresh chopped oregano or 2 tsp dried
• 1/2-1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (I like it spicy)
• 1 6oz can tomato paste (though I use a few spoonfuls, not the whole can)
• 4-6 tomatoes or 1 28oz can whole tomatoes
• 1/2 cup dry red wine
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp (or more) salt

1. Saute diced onion and garlic in olive oil until soft, add herbs, red pepper flakes, and tomato paste.
2. Stir in tomatoes (to prepare fresh tomatoes, I just core them and run them through a few pulses in my food processor), wine, sugar and salt
3. simmer as long as humanly possible

Today along with the garlic and onion, I diced up and added some mushrooms and yellow squash I had, but then I found the sauce a little too chunky, so I hit it with my stick blender until it was smoother. While it simmers, I am going to go back through this post and make sure I only used one space after each full stop.