Homemade pasta sauce and from-scratch pancakes

Hope you are not viewing this on an empty stomach ... first, the red pasta sauce simmering in my small crockpot.

my homemade red pasta sauce after mixing, before the hours of simmering

I don't use measurements on this, just toss into the crockpot and then dip a finger in to taste if it needs more of something.  Start with tomato sauce, then put in white sugar, garlic, salt, dried onion/powder, basil, oregano, and just a twist of black pepper.  Then let it sit in the crockpot uncovered for four to eight hours, stirring occasionally to keep the sauce on the bottom from scorching.  I usually put it on high for the first hour, then down to low.

Now, I related snippets of my dreams last night to hubby over coffee, and one snippet I remember is we were debating about what to make for breakfast.  Hubby asked what the options were, and I said, "I'm not sure, but the final verdict was pancakes."  Well, that pretty much decided it: second breakfast today was pancakes.  I gave up on pancake mixes over a year ago, and found a really kick-(*donkey*) recipe on the allrecipes.com site called buttermilk oatmeal pancakes.  I hope the link works, because these are hearty, stick-to-your-ribs pancakes!  The recipe says 4 servings, but it didn't mention those four would be all teenage boys on the football team, or farm/ranch hands.

leftover pancakes this morning, to be reheated in the toaster oven

There is one big downside to eating real food again (well, two if you count the mosquitoes loving you all the more!) and that is most restaurant food just does not compare.  For that matter, grocery produce and eggs don't compare to what we are capable of raising here.  I do hope the hens get over their molt soon!  I am tired of *shattering* the egg shells because I am used to tougher shells.  I am also tired of picking out the shell bits after shattering a store bought egg ... I have learned to crack them into a small bowl and not over the main bowl I am mixing stuff in.