(OT Food) I nee a pasta sauce for tonight!

[Pielorinho]

Sauce is an art, not a science!

The tricks that I think are important:

* Use good olive oil.
* Saute your herbs -- even if they're dried -- in the olive oil for a minute or so before throwing in the onions. It really brings out their flavor, plus it makes the house smell divine.
* It's better to use a little too much herbs than too little, but better to use far too little herbs than far too much. Try to go a little bit heavy with them.
* Make sure you chop everything fine. Chunks larger than your little fingernail are okay if you want your sauce to seem wholesome and rustic, but if you're going for romantic, keep 'em teensy.
* Add in about half a glass of dry red wine with the tomatoes: it'll give the sauce a depth of flavor. Drink the other half a glass: it'll relax you.
* If the sauce is too harsh, you can sweeten it with a tablespoon of honey or (don't let anyone know) ketchup. (Ketchup is tomatoes, vinegar, lots of sugar, and herbs -- a great additive to a red sauce).
* Don't skimp on the simmering time! A good sauce should bubble gently for a bare minimum of half an hour, and ideally an hour or longer, so that it'll cook down to something thick and rich.

Mmmm....maybe I'll make pasta for dinner, too. Now I'm hungry.

Daniel

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

Count this as another vote for heating up the pasta sauce in a pan, adding in cut up veggies from the salad bar isle, and making sure she doesn't find the jar.

Just watch out, dude. Women can smell this kind of deception a mile away.

 

[Pielorinho]

Count this as another vote for heating up the pasta sauce in a pan, adding in cut up veggies from the salad bar isle, and making sure she doesn't find the jar.

Just watch out, dude. Women can smell this kind of deception a mile away.

He's right: anyone who loves good food can tell a storebought sauce from a homemade one.

Those crinkle-cuts in the carrots don't help, either .

Seriously, y'all: learn to cook. You'll eat better, and cooking is damn sexy. Ask around.

Daniel

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

Seriously, y'all: learn to cook. You'll eat better, and cooking is damn sexy. Ask around.

Oh yeah. By the way, this won't help for tonight, but when you get a chance pick up Eating In . You probably won't be able to buy it new, but it's worth tracking down. It's gotten me ...

*Eric's Grandma arches an eyebrow*

... um ... hugged ... more than anything else.

 

[Guillaume]

http://www.foodtv.ca and http://www.foodtv.com are great sources of recipes. I use them often for inspiration.

Here is a link to a carbonara sauce that I like. I usually half the pepper though to make it a little more palatable.

http://www.foodtv.com/foodtv/recipe/0,6255,6005,00.html

I also love this light and simple red sauce :

Blanche, peel, seed and dice four or five italian tomatoes.
In a sauce pan, heat about 2 tbs of olive oil, add 1 medium onion, blanche and add 1 or 2 cloves of garlic (depending on taste).
Once the garlic is blanched, add the tomatoes.
Let simmer a few minutes. The tomates should break apart and start making a sauce.
Add a handfull of minced fresh basil.
Salt and pepper to taste.

Serve on long pastas.

Bon appétit,

Guillaume

P.S. : Tell us how it went .

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

This place never ceases to amaze me. All that creative knowledge and expertise, and people can cook as well? Cool.

 

[thatdarncat]

1 onion, chopped
6 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1lb mild Italian sausage, or hot sausage if you prefer
2 (15 ounce) cans tomato sauce
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
chopped fresh basil to taste (usually very, very hard to add too much basil)(if using dried basil, use about 1 tsp.
4 (16 ounce) cans diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons white sugar
1/4 Tsp cayenne pepper, omit if using hot sausage

This one is good when you want to save time, or can't get good, fresh tomatoes.

Saute onion and garlic in the olive oil. Add the sausage in little pieces (removed from casings) and brown. Add everything else, and simmer as long as you can - at least 30 min.

I went with this one, but if you have a good recipe, share it with everyone! I'm going to bookmark this thread and I'll try other recipies

 

[thatdarncat]

This place never ceases to amaze me. All that creative knowledge and expertise, and people can cook as well? Cool.

When you get a community this big, there are bound to be some people with pretty much any skill you are looking for. What makes ENWorld so great is people are willing, glad even, to help each other out.

 

[kenjib]

Simple and effective:

1 16 oz can of imported italian tomatos canned with basil leaf (like Cento brand), fresh tomatos are not generally good this time of year so good canned ones are usually much better. Using good tomatos is the most important part. Don't use the typical tomatos canned in the United States. Drain them thoroughly. After, you can dice them or, if you like more smooth sauce (I do), run them through the Cuisinart or blender for a very brief amount of time.

Some dried oregano - plenty of it, dried yourself if possible (fresh basil works too)

Some crushed rosemary, fresh if possible but dried is fine too

A few cloves of fresh garlic, minced (don't use the preminced stuff in a jar), purple garlic (don't remember exact name right now) has better flavor but standard is fine too

olive oil - a tablespoon or two

optionals:
mushrooms -- porcinis are the best (both fresh and dried are fine but you need to rehydrate dried ones), I like chantrelles too -- you just brush them off, don't wash them
fresh spinach, cleaned & stems removed
zuccini, diced, cubed, whatever

Baking is a science. Cooking is not, so exact amounts aren't too important.

Start boiling water for pasta first.

Just heat the oil, throw in the garlic when the oil is getting hot. Then throw in the tomatos. Dried herbs go in early on, fresh herbs go in more towards the end. A little later you can throw in the mushrooms and spinach. If you use zuccini, throw it in only for the last 3-5 minutes, depending on how much you like it cooked. To me, overcooked zuccini is really nasty/mealy so I like it still nice and crisp and only let it go in there for a few minutes.

When the sauce is going (time it with the finishing of the sauce if you added zuccini -- for me I cook the zuccini exactly as long as the angel hair, which is convenient), throw in the pasta. I like fresh ravioli from the farmer's market or similar (ravioli from the store really sucks pretty much without fail) or angel hair (from the store is fine for this), but anything is fine. Make sure you don't overcook the pasta.

A good side dish:

get one bunch of brocollini if available (all the stores here have it). Mince a lot of garlic and spread it over the brocollini in a pan with just a cm of water at the bottom. Let if cook for a bit, but not too long. It should still be crisp and al dente. Drain the brocollini and squeeze large amounts of lemon juice over it.

You can never go wrong with artichokes either.

 

[Seri]

Hi lo,


wow, Happy Anniversary, what a sweetheart

Thanks everyone for the recipes, dinner was excellent!!!!!

/me pouncer huggle tackles Maerdwyn!!!!

soooooooooooooooooo yummy!!


And to Tdc, love you tons