Getting Saucy

It is (sadly) the end of summer. But before the colder months officially set in there is one of my favorite foodie seasons- tomato season. Tomatoes are gorgeous right now- and the crows have been snacking on big, plump, brightly colored heirlooms sliced onto fresh bread.

I engaged in my own personal end-of-summer tradition this weekend- getting saucy. Off of tomatoes. Let me explain. I am a total marinara sauce snob- a product of being lucky enough to grow up in a Sicilian family where having jarred sauce in the pantry was the embarrassing equivalent to a dirty bathroom or being out of salt. Simply not done. Every summer my mother would cook an enormous pot of marinara sauce with the tomatoes she grew in her own garden and then freeze individual portions in her large basement freezer. That way there would always be fresh homemade sauce all winter- for pasta, lasagna, eggplant parm- where ever it was called for. And I became spoiled.

So now I follow suite, making my own sauce at the end of every summer. This year I made a total of 7 quarts; from roughly 16 lbs of fresh (although regretfully not homegrown) roma tomatoes. And although my mother's and my grandmother's sauces put mine to total shame, at very least the ten perfectly stacked portions of sauce in my freezer right now assure me that there will be no need for jarred sauce in this apartment this winter.

There is no exact recipe here for this marinara- for things like wine, paste, salt, pepper and basil you have to just taste and add as you cook. But basically for 7 quarts of marinara sauce I used:

16 lbs fresh roma tomatoes, diced with skin on

1 can tomato paste

2 medium yellow onions

1 1/2 heads of garlic.

1 large bunch of garlic

1-2 cups of red wine.

Absolutely, positively, never any sugar. This is law. I don't think I really need to explain.

Total from start to finish this whole operation took me about 1:45- about an hour for prep and to get it started and about 45 minutes to simmer. I tossed some of the fresh sauce with spaghetti and topped with grated parm- served up simple with a side salad. A delicious way to celebrate the close of my favorite season.

Mangia bene!

Fettucine! Parmigiana! Ay!

Pasta making: Great success! And holy moly, I never want to eat pasta out of a box again. It's an entirely different meal. Using this great book by Pasquale Bruno (replete with black and white photos of hairy, Italian wrists serving up dozens of what I am sure are delicious dishes but what all look like Bechamel and sausage vomit piles), we made what was exactly two servings of pasta with 2 eggs and 1 and 1/2 cups of white flour. So make much more if you are hungry. Starting from the well, it took about 8 minutes of kneading to get it right.


Pasta rollers are magic!



The best part is that after all the labor intensiveness of making fresh pasta, it cooks in about 1 minute, in a pot, "salty like the ocean." All topped off with eggplant sauce and shit loads of paremesean:

Now I'm hungry again...

2 Lovely Sauces

Let it be said that:

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Mac & Cheese for the summer days

1 lb dried pasta

Bechamel Sauce*
2 c whole milk
3 T butter, 2 T olive oil (I know, I know)
4 T flour

1 lb shredded cheddar
3 handfulls parm cheese
1 c peas
1 c corn kernels off the cobb

1 sliced heirloom tomato

Begin by boiling pasta to an extreme al-dente. Drain, rinse with cold water. Make bechamel sauce by melting butter with olive oil over low heat. Add flour and cook until the flour smell is gone. Add Milk. continue to simmer, never boil, until the milk starts to thicken. Add Parm cheese. Stir and remove from heat. Mix Shredded Cheddar (minues a little for the crispy top) with the pasta, corn, and peas. Put in baking dish. Pour white sauce over pasta. Place sliced tomatos along the top of the pasta, and then sprinkle extra cheese on top. Bake at 350-400 for 40 minutes, and then pop it under the broiler for an extra 5 to crisp the top.

Orange Basil Dressing

Juice from 1 orange, zest from half
6 basil leaves
1 small rosemary sprig
1 t mustard
1/2 medium avacado
salt and pepper
1 clove garlic
small amount of onion- red or green
olive oil

Blend all ingredients, if you want a more acidic dressing add some red wine vinegar. If you have some lemon, I bet that would be yummy. This comes out such a beautiful green!! I recommend enjoying this over a simple salad of mix greens, tomato and onion!

* A wonderful utility sauce that can be used to start a pasta sauce, or be the sauce itself if you add some chopped green onions and extra parm cheese!

Example of Sucess:

Here is the link to the recipe I used for Hollandaise sauce:

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/classic-hollandaise-sauce

Please note that the picture looks absolutely nothing like what I created.

Pack your knives and go

Feminist hero and possible historical crow Susan B. Anthony once said "failure is impossible." I highly doubt that Susan ever tried to make hollandaise sauce.

If there are two things that I have learned from obsessively watching "Top Chef" on Bravo, they are:
1. If you can't cook eggs, you can't cook.
2. If you can't make a good hollandaise, you aren't a good chef.

I, apparently, am neither of these things. Last night I felt genius burn and I decided to embark on the deceptively simple mission of creating a twist on Eggs Benedict; a poached egg served on top of a thick slice of sourdough bread, fresh asparagus and smothered in hollandaise sauce. Sounds Delicious, right? "Simple," I thought. "Quick," I mused. Innovative! New! Challenging, but in a good way! "Get out there," I told myself, "try something new!"

To be fair, I have never in my life poached an egg or made hollandaise. But I was determined. So, armed with a hollandaise recipe from Food and Wine, I set forth into the kitchen.

The hollandaise, was, frankly a disaster. I think the double-boiler method recommended by F&W made the bowl too hot, and the yoke basically cooked on contact. Second reading of the recipe suggested I should have held the bowl over the steaming water while whisking and slowly adding ingredients. WHO HAS THAT MANY HANDS??? I added the butter too fast. The sauce never thickened, only sorta curtailed, despite my most furious whipping.

The egg poaching started off promising but ended in ruins; I am without egg poaching tools, but I cam up with the what I still believe to be genius idea of cooking the egg inside silicone muffin wrappers, which I have always regarded as silly. It worked fabulously for the eggs, they kept their shape and would have come out perfectly. However, I completely over-cooked the eggs. The yoke was solid. Not the soft clouds I wanted perched on my benedict. Hard white masses.

So will overdone eggs and not-smooth hollandaise sauce I admitted early defeat. But, to be honest, it wasn't half bad when all together. The overdone egg was much more of a travesty since it just sat awkwardly on top of the asparagus and make it difficult to eat and break apart. Plus there was none of that gooey inner egg that softens the bread and makes the Benedict so rich and good. The hollandaise, although without the correct texture, wasn't bad tasting; it's difficult to screw up the taste of something that's ingredients include butter, egg and lemon.

And the meal was quick, if nothing else. And although you may have bested me this one time General Benedict, I will return to battle once again.

Pictures to come.

Dump it in the Dumplings

Before we begin, here is a picture of a plate of dumplings sitting on a picture of a dude with a silly mustache with a copy of Rick Astely's infamous record above it.


Now, Greetings!

Slow week? Or frustration with blogger? This week has been lacking in the post-frenzy-fantasy land.

I for one slacked of cooking-wise this week and overwhelmingly took the easy way out with several meals. The best, though, was Monday night's dumpling fest.

It was quite and lonely in this crows apartment that night, and the fridge was looking intimidating. There were left-overs of Broccoli and asparagus with 45 tons of garlic, but other than that all that occupied my icebox were ingredients.

Now, some days I love "ingredients." Other days, I really just want fast-easy-raw foods for quick satisfaction. I knew that if I wanted to eat at home, I was in for a challenge. I accepted.

Sometimes, I like patting myself on the back and making pasta dough.* Sometimes, it just is so much easier to buy dumpling wrappers from the grocery store. You can usually find them in the refrigerated section, or mixed in the produce. I have no brand preference, they all seem about the same.

Starting from scratch can be tedious, I recommend everything you are stuffing into the dumpling be cooked beforehand, to an almost mooooosh consistency. Personal preference should obviously take the lead, but the only things I like to be crunchy in my dumpling are scallions. So this night, the broccoli/asparagus combo would work perfectly. To make the filling more interesting I quickly sauteed onions and mushrooms with a hefty amount of fresh ginger and more garlic. When it comes to dumplings, you can really add whatever you want but there are three things that should always be there: Garlic, Ginger, and Green Onions.

Traditionally dumplings are stuffed with pork, but I have been trying very hard to find new ways to transform left-overs, rather than just re-heating them(something Holly is so good at!). Dumplings are such a good way to do this.

Now, methodology is the only thing left to discuss!

You can steam, or fry them, I prefer a nice combination of the two that can be done in a deep frying pan with a lid. A lid is very necessary.

I won't get into the details of stuffing the dumplings, as I think most of us here have done this before- its the same as a ravioli- a little water or egg was as a sea sealant-get out air bubbles- etc-etc.

I will say, avoid to much touching or overlapping of the little guys on your cutting board and in the pan.

Dumpling Methodology

Pulse all ingredients minus your plethora of scallions a few times in the food processor. You want a coherent mixture, soft, but not to squishy. Now mix in scallions. Assemble dumplings.

Heat up about 2-4 T of oil in your pan, and place your dumplings one-by-one in the pan. Fry until brown, and flip. Allow this side to brown and then add about 1/4 cup water (approx- after the first batch you'll get the hang of it and see how much you think you'll need for future batches) to the pan. This will crate a nice violent reaction from the oil- but fear not! Place the lid quickly on the pan and return to heat. Alow to steam for about 2 minutes. Again, with each successive batch you will figure out what works for you. The longer you fry or steam, the amount of water you use, etc. will change the final outcome. But its all tasty!

*My personal favorite pasta-making memory was at McBride. Nothing beats rolling out ravioli with wine bottles!

Dipping Sauce*

Soy sauce
Honey
Chili - Garlic Paste (aka. Sambal Oelek)

Mix them to your liking. Add some sesame seeds if you have them. That is all.

*There are a lot of great store bought dipping sauces out there, but this one is so fast that why bother?