I’ve had so many questions about this sauce, so I thought I’d post pics and explain better!

Take 6-10 tomatos, any kind; cut in half to make “cups”.  Place on cookie sheet coated with olive oil.  Slice a large onion (or two, depending on your tastes!) and top the tomatos with the slices.  Slice or chop garlic cloves and sprinkle on top. 

At this point, depending on what I’m going to use the sauce for, I’ll slice a couple of green or red peppers, some jalepeno peppers, or similar spicy peppers to taste.  For the example below, I have an orange pepper and two jalepenos because I’m making chili.  I remove the seeds but sprinkle them over the whole pan for taste.

Then liberally salt (I prefer Kosher salt), some pepper, and basil if you like.  Fresh is always best, but the pics below show dried.  Drizzle olive oil over everything.

Bake at about 325 or so for an hour, then crank the heat to 450 for about 20 minutes.  We want the tomatos and vegetables to be really roasted!

Let cool for 30 minutes or so, then puree in a food processor or blender to desired consistency. 

I use this for a base for spaghetti sauce, chili, salsa, or anything requiring tomato sauce.  I make big enough batches that I can freeze part of it for use later.

ENJOY!

 

I loved this client for senior pics, and just wanted to show off some of my favorites from last week’s shoot:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/09/04/jon-kraushar-obama-school-speech/

Just in case you don’t like the “Menu of Classroom Activities [for] President Obama’s Address to Students Across America on September 8, here are ten suggested alternative questions to explore with students from pre-K through high school.

1. President and Mrs. Obama have chosen to send their daughters to private school, at a cost of about $29,000 a year for each girl. What choices, if any, should other parents have about where their children go to school and about how to pay for educating their children?
2. Why is it important that the president and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of Congress, or the governor listen to what citizens say, whether in town hall meetings or in any other form of citizen communication? Why is what citizens say important to these elected officials?
3. When elected officials pass laws should they and their staffs also be obliged to follow those same laws or should they be exempt–and in either case, why?
4. If an elected or appointed public official breaks the law what should be done about that?
5. When elected officials publicly make a promise, what should be done if they go back on their word and do something completely different–including the exact opposite of what they said they’d do?
6. President Obama is a big believer in personal responsibility. How does “personal responsibility” apply to elected officials and to citizens, in general?
7. How much control should individual citizens have over their lives versus the amount of control given to government when it comes to things like education, health care, saving and investing for retirement and any other issue?
8. What limits, if any, should there be on freedom of speech, such as on the radio, on TV, on YouTube, in print, in classroom discussions, etc.?
9. What do you think about giving some students special preferences in admitting them to schools or awarding them money or prizes: what guidelines do you suggest?
10. What is the one piece of advice that you would to each of the following groups: Teachers? Principals? Parents? Your fellow students? The American people?

http://bluecottonmemory.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/obama-is-not-my-kids-mama/#comment-619

Children are so impressionable.  It doesn’t take much appeal to get them on board for a project.  Last year, I had my fill of fundraisings. Some I didn’t mind; however, when they started coming home begging me to give them a dollar to wear a hat for Diabetes or Cancer or some other fundraiser, I hit the limit of my endurance.  I was sick of my little guys’ hearts being manipulated for money.

Let me give another example.  If my husband and I were divorced (which we aren’t), and I asked my children to ask their dad for the child-support payment, I would be taken to task by the government’s Child Services.  I would be chasitised for manipulating my children to achieve an ends.

Which is what I think some of those school fund-raisers do–or rather that is how they go about soliciting funds–by preying on the tractable hearts and minds of my children.

Children are so responsive to cries for help.  They do not see the “man behind the curtain” as in The Wizard of Oz.  They do not doubt that the person asking them for help has ulterior motives.  They are like little birds in the nest, happily opening their mouths to swallow the food their mother bird, or others that the mother bird trusts, drops down their gullets.

Based on this reasoning, I do not want my little guys listening to Tuesdays speech, beamed into my children’s classrooms, without parental guidance.  How many of those children will think the president is directly talking to their classroom or their school.  Imagine! The president needs their help!  “Gee, Mom, President Obama says I can help him.  He wants me on his side.  Wow-I need 3 ways to help him.  My teacher helped me come up with a plan.”

My malleable, trusting sons will come home telling me we need to help the President of the United States implement his socialist agend.  Then Iwill be the bad guy because I do not believe in his plans.

My high school students are different.  We have discussed politics, our beliefs, and history.  I am a firm believer that you need at leat 3 reasons to believe what you believe.  You just cannot believe because your mama or daddy does.  Understanding why you stand for something is critically important.

Faithful did his sophomore paper on the difference between capitalism and socialism.  Most of the students in his class seemed to think that socialism was the way to go.  “Everybody should get equal pay,” they said.  “After all, not everyone gets the same opportunities.” My son responded, “Well, do you want the garbage man doing brain surgery on you? “   

Marx’s ideological theory, “From everyone according to his ability to everyone according to his need” is the foundation of exploitation and reducation of freedom.  There is no American Dream in socialism.

Our forefathers fought to keep the government out of our life, our religion, our dreams, and out of how we raise our children.  A president attempting to beguile each child in America, trying to get little children to promote his agenda, doeson’t seem like the government that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison established.

When President  Obama goes into each classroom, bypassing our own community checkpoints like our school boards, bypassing parents–it sure seems like government is getting pretty personal, pretty intimate with our day-to-day life.

Even more insidious is that he knows those children will go home all pumped up, like they do for those fundraisers, begging their parents to support a president whose plans they cannot even begin to understand.  They just want to help. When their parents do not jump on the bandwagon with them, guess who ends up being the bad guy? The government driving a wedge between parents and children sure doesn’t sound like my America.

On Tuesday, my two youngest sons will be having ice cream with me and their dad while President Obama speaks.  We’re going to be reading the Preamble and Article 2 of the Constitution.  We might even talk about what President James Madison, the 4th president of the United States, thought when he wrote the Federalist Paper 45.

In Matthew 22:21,  Jesus says to “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” So far, in American, my children do not belong to our government.  They belong to their parents.  Let us keep it that way!

National Indoctrination Day is next Tuesday, September 8th.  Most of us have renamed it “National Keep Your Kids Home From School Day“.   

My children will not be attending if our district is participating in this indoctrination experiment.  I have already contacted the school board and the principals and they are trying to find out if our schools will be showing this hot air next week.  If they are, the principal has assured me they will have an alternate for my kids – however, I wonder what that will be?  Sitting in a hallway?  Perhaps being beaten out back because they don’t support the Otard?  If it ’s anything like what happened pre-election, that wouldn’t surprise me. 

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/09/01/obamas-sept-8-speech-to-schoolchildren/

Think it’s a joke?  Look at the official paperwork sent to the teachers.   Moms and dads, you MUST protect your children at all costs!!Anyone remember reading about Hitler in your history classes?  Yeah.  This makes my stomach churn.