You know... for Valentine's Day. When my seven children were home I used to have a lot of fun serving red food for this fun holiday. I'd use red food coloring in their milk, the pancake batter, even the butter that went on top of the pancakes. I even added it to my bread dough so we'd have red bread for our sandwiches.

For those of you that are saying "WHAT was she thinking? Didn't she know about all the negative press about red dye #..?" In my defense, back then I wasn't aware of the downside of red dyes in our food. I don't know if my kids suffered any side effects from all these years of the Valentine's Day red foods, but now that I know better I've been looking for good red alternatives to serve to my grandchildren.

The first idea I've come up with (no surprises here), is strawberries. They puree into milk nicely and this goes really well over hot oatmeal! Then there's tomato sauce - I've added it as my liquid to white bread dough, and wow - what a sort-of-red but very tasty bread this makes. Steaming white vegetables such as cauliflower and cabbage with lots of red cabbage turns everything a purply red that serves my Valentines them well.

Do you have any more ideas on how to turn our food red for the day? We'd love to hear from you. Meanwhile, here is my white bread with tomato sauce recipe. Let me know what you think:

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Basic White Bread Turned Red

2 cups warm tomato sauce (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
2/3 cup white sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast
1 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
6 cups bread flour

In a large bowl, dissolve the sugar in warm tomato sauce, and then stir in yeast. Allow to proof until yeast resembles a creamy foam. Mix salt and oil into the yeast. Mix in flour one cup at a time. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth. Place in a well oiled bowl, and turn dough to coat. Cover with a damp cloth. Allow to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. Punch dough down. Knead for a few minutes, and divide in half. Shape into loaves, and place into two well oiled 9x5 inch loaf pans. Allow to rise for 30 minutes, or until dough has risen 1 inch above pans. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 minutes.

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