Made From Scratch Tuesday 12/13

Sometimes when you're trying out new recipes (or concoctions), you end up with an EPIC FAIL. That's what happened last week when I was working on a recipe for Ott A's Iron Chef Challenge. December's challenge is for the winners throughout the year. We all start with the same recipe (cinnamon raisin bread) and then used the finished product to make something else. More on that on Thursday when you see my official entry.

I spent a few days trying to decide what to make and finally narrowed it down to two recipes. I figured the best way to decide was to make them both and enter the one we liked the best. The first one I made was spaghetti and meatballs. I used the cinnamon raisin bread as the binder in the meatballs. We're not going to go into the failure that was. They were just waaaay to sweet and almost confusing to eat. But while preparing that dish, I knew I couldn't just use regular tomato sauce, so I found a Sicilian pasta sauce with raisins in it that I could adapt to bring the dish together. In the end, the meatballs were horrible but the sauce was awesome! We'll definitely use this sauce again.

What you'll need:
equal parts raisins and rum
1 medium onion, diced
2 T olive oil
2 cans diced tomatoes
Oregano, basil, savory, thyme (I used between 1 t and 1 T of each)
Salt and pepper

Simmer equal parts raisins and spiced rum in a small pot. I used 1/2 c of each.

While those simmer, saute the onion in olive oil in a large skillet until translucent.

Add in herbs and tomatoes.

 By this time, the raisins will have plumped up. They should be about three times their original size.

Add in the raisins

 Toss and serve over pasta.  Ignore the meatballs in the photos...at this point, we didn't know they were horrible!

The husband, ever the skeptic, did not want to try to sauce. I told him if it was that bad, we'd just order pizza, but he had to try it first. To my surprise, he LOVED the sauce! He couldn't believe how great the raisin/tomato combination was. He ended up eating all the sauce I made.

Moral of the story, out of epic fails can sometimes come accidental hits!


Now it's time to link up all of your creations!
Here are the rules:
1. You can link up as many posts as you'd like.
2. The post has to be made from scratch.
3. The post you link up MUST CONTAIN A RECIPE!
4. If you want to put my button somewhere, that'd be cool. You can grab the code for the Made From Scratch Tuesday button on the top right of my sidebar.