106. Pasta with Quick Tomato Sauce

Date Cooked: September 27, 2009
Page: 245
Rating: B

I have really begun to think more about the processed food that we buy and while I am not against pre-packaged food for convenience I do find myself frequently asking whether or not I could make it at home. The answer is usually a resounding YES followed by lots of cursing and frustration and questioning of why I didn’t just buy that damn package of frozen food.

While my attempt at hummus is what started me on this journey and actually got me thinking more about the food I buy, it was an attempt to make homemade chicken strips (which I hope to post sometime soon) that made me look at the food in stores differently.

We had some fresh pasta that needed to be used and I figured I would make a quick pasta sauce to go with it. I have learned from both the Chicken Parmesan and the Spaghetti and Meatballs that a simple pasta sauce is easy to make and as good as any store bought pasta sauce. The sauce takes about as long to cook as the pasta does. While this is a quick plain tomato sauce you can easily add to this mix to make it really delicious.

I deviated from the recipe almost immediately but I was certain that the change would not really alter the results in any significant way… I’m quite certain based on some of my exploits that I should refrain from allowing these kinds of ideas from taking hold. Since we were also going to be having some sausage I cooked them first and then used the grease from the sausage to sautee the garlic instead of starting with fresh oil. No need to dirty another pan right? I’m sure all you dish cleaning haters out there can agree. Once the garlic was fragrant, then I added a canned of diced tomatoes to begin reducing them.

In previous ‘quick’ sauce recipes I would use crushed tomatoes so when I dumped in the can of diced tomatoes I was thinking this was going to be a little chunkier than I would like… or actually my wife indicated how displeased she would be if this was chunkier than she liked. I’m married so we like the same things  As the tomatoes reduced and broke down though they became a nice paste and I figured if they didn’t it was nothing the immersion blender couldn’t solve.

As the sauce approached its final minutes of cooking I added some fresh basil, a little sugar and some salt. I drained the pasta which had been cooking during this time, being careful to reserve some pasta water. A tip I picked up somewhere suggested putting the measuring cup in the colander so you don’t forget to take some water before dumping. It has stopped me from forgetting a few times already.

I put the drained pasta back into its warm pot and introduced it to the sauce along with the reserved water and some oil. The mixture was heated through for a few minutes and then plated to serve. Actually it was then plated to take a picture and then I mixed the cooked sausage into the pasta and served that.

Rating: B. It was simple and delicious. Nothing spectacular mind you but it definitely was no more difficult than using store bought pasta sauce, well actually it was a little more difficult but I think instead of keeping pasta sauces on hand I will start keep cans of diced and crushed tomatoes on hand. I also learned that my children love cheese… except for the cheese that we grated to garnish this. My oldest decided that it smelt like vomit. I believe it was either Swiss or Asiago. Don’t know because we just grated the small amount we had left in the fridge. That should instill confidence for those that visit to eat. I’m not always sure what I am feeding you.

103. Spaghetti and Meatballs

Date Cooked: September 23, 2009
Page: 253
Rating: B+

Spaghetti and Meatballs! A quintessential Italian pasta dish that I truly cannot remember the last time I had eaten it. I’ve had spaghetti and sauce before, but big delicious meatballs were never on top of the spaghetti, all covered in cheese. And I never lost my poor meatballs, when somebody sneezed. I’ll probably be humming that children’s song for the rest of the day… I wonder if I can even remember the whole thing…

Anyway, let’s talk about some massive meaty balls. That probably sounds rather bad but I mean I seriously made some meaty balls. The first step in creating what the book calls the ‘Best’ meatballs is to make a paste out of buttermilk and bread. This is called a panade for those that didn’t know, which included myself until just a few minutes ago when I looked it up. Apparently this is the secret to keeping them moist. I’ll be honest, bread soaked and mashed into buttermilk looks really gross, something like what a newborn would spit up. But I put those thoughts aside and started getting the rest of this meal together.

I started with a pound of ground meat, in this case ¾ pound of ground beef and ¼ pound of ground pork. Mixed into this I added parmesan cheese, parsley, garlic, an egg yolk and salt and pepper to season. I added the baby vomit… I mean the panade, and mixed everything until just combined to prevent the meatballs from getting too dense from over working. From this mixture I rolled out 12 large meatballs. The recipe says I should get about 14 and I don’t doubt if I had been a little more conservative I would have had that many.

I’d like to look back to when I started this blog and look at the recipe for Corn Fritters. I was terrified of cooking in oil a year ago. Since then I have gotten quite used to it and I know this sounds ridiculous but I am proud of my basic cooking techniques. I also realize I wasn’t unique and I wonder how many people today in their early thirties haven’t learned the basics for cooking.

Anyway I carefully placed the meatballs into my pan of oil. I made sure not to crowd them and as such I did them in two batches. I turned them frequently to brown them on all sides and this took some delicate work for the first few turns as my meatballs definitely were not dense. Once browned, they were set aside and the oil was removed, and then some more oil was added, this time olive oil. Some garlic was sautéed before a can of crushed tomatoes was added. This was left to simmer until it thickened up before I finally added some chopped fresh basil (from my basil plant which is still growing nicely), along with some salt and pepper to taste. I added the meatballs to the sauce to keep everything warm while the pasta finished cooking.

Simple things the book has taught me are that ample water and salt are required for cooking pasta. I’m sure lots of people have their own beliefs but I am now firmly entrenched with the books ideology. Now I must confess one teeny, tiny deviation from the book here. The recipe is for spaghetti and meatballs but I found out that I didn’t have spaghetti after coming home from shopping and I didn’t feel like running back out when I had an abundance of linguini and I figure it was close enough. Once the pasta was drained I returned it to the pot and added in several spoonfuls of the sauce, sans meatballs, and tossed to coat.

Each plate was set with pasta, topped with some meatballs and then topped with more sauce and some parmesan. Well actually my wife and sons were plated. I ended up having to cook more pasta for myself because I had once again misjudged how much pasta I needed to feed my family.

Rating: B+. This was a good and satisfying meal. The meatballs were delicious and the sauce was easy to make. Everyone enjoyed the meal including my traditionally picky eaters. In fact we had to fight over the last meatballs.

In case you were wondering what nursery rhyme was stuck in my head, it was On Top of Spaghetti.

100. Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce with Garlic and Basil

Date Cooked: September 12, 2009
Page: 243
Rating: B+

100! I made it to a hundred posts! I had really hoped to achieve this type of milestone about six months earlier but my pacing is a little slower than initially intended. Regardless though I feel pretty happy about this! So to celebrate I am posting about a simple pasta dish… I actually thought about timing the 100th post to be a post about a cake or something but that didn’t happen. This post however marks a significant step, the slow acceptance of foods that our house has traditionally stayed away from.

Our neighbor is a very kind elderly gentleman who has discovered that he grows more vegetables than him and his wife can eat. So we have been the occasional recipient of some lovely fresh produce. This time around we were greeted when coming home to a bag of tomatoes on our doorstep. Tomatoes… not exactly the produce of choice for us and I was immediately trying to determine what I should do with them. They sat in the fridge for a few days while I tried to figure it out when I realized the book had a few recipes in the pasta section that utilized fresh tomatoes. I have been a little negligent in the pasta section so I figured this would be a great use!

My wife and I have the same general complaint about tomatoes, the slimy, seedy interior. I am a little more forgiving of tomatoes included in things but this is something hard for my wife to accept. But this recipe calls for the tomatoes to be peeled and seeded. Works for both of us. Now peeling and seeding tomatoes is a process all its own and not exactly the quickest of things. I started by plunging the tomatoes into boiling water for about 20 seconds and then transferring them to an ice bath. From there I peeled the skins from the tomatoes. I was really surprised at this stage. I tend to find that every time a book says that something will be easy I run into difficulty. But not this time. Once peeled the tomatoes were cut in half, seeded and then chopped. I let them rest in a bowl until I was ready to assemble the sauce.

To start the sauce I heated some garlic in oil and then added the tomatoes. The tomatoes were reduced down until almost all of the liquid had evaporated. I added a small amount of salt and some fresh chopped basil. Let’s discuss the basil. I never have fresh basil on hand so as I typically do I went to the store to pick some up. This time however I came home not with fresh basil but an entire basil plant. For a dollar more I figured the plant was better than the packaged stuff. My kitchen gets plenty of sunlight during the day so I figured it will do fine there. We’ll see though since I am not known for my ability to grow things.

With the sauce done I waited for the pasta to finish boiling to complete the meal. I reserved ¼ cup of the pasta water and drained the rest. The sauce, reserved pasta water and some oil were mixed together and the whole thing was plated to serve.

Rating: B+. This dish was well received by the entire family. My oldest son who freaks out when vegetables are put on his plate ate two helpings of it. He didn’t even try to pick the basil out of it! My youngest ate a small amount but his lack of appetite may have to do with his constant pilfering of cheese, yogurt and any other food he can reach from the fridge. He has reached a stage where I may need to lock the fridge. There is no doubt that it was fresh tasting and simple. The only problem was I made the sauce based on 2 ½ pounds of whole tomatoes when I should have used 2 ½ pounds of peeled, chopped and seeded tomatoes. The sauce to pasta ratio was definitely off.

A quick question. The book constantly refers to a pound of pasta. How does a pound of fresh pasta translate into dried pasta?

 A hundred recipes done…

82. Turkey Tetrazzini

Date Cooked: June 8, 2009
Page: 292
Rating: A

I didn’t plan to make this dish but the circumstances surrounding a thawed turkey left me with a whole roast turkey and no dinner for it. My mother-in-law picked up a frozen turkey because it was on sale and it was left to thaw in my fridge with the intention of having it roasted for a family dinner. Life is hectic and dinner plans were cancelled but I still had thawed 15lb turkey that needed to be cooked. So I roasted it.

Now the last time I roasted a turkey it tasted great and the picture was horrible… The picture actually scares me to look at. This time around the turkey looked golden brown and just delicious. Of course I never thought to take a picture of it because it wasn’t for the book. Anyway I carved it up, we ate some and I figured I didn’t mind having turkey sandwiches for the next week or two (I love turkey sandwiches!). The next day though I was lamenting the fact I had not really cooked anything from the book in a long time when I realized that there was a recipe that required cooked turkey meat! I couldn’t think of a better way to utilize the turkey, not to mention when else was I going to have 4 cups of cooked turkey meat available.

This recipe was a vicious reminder of all my poor cooking habits that I had been trying to change. What a month of cooking familiar recipes can do to a sense of organization. Let’s just say that prepping the onions and mushrooms and turkey was easy. Everything after that was a near disaster. Basically three things needed to be on the go at once since I was trying to get dinner ready quickly. This was the first indicator of impending disaster. I was boiling water for the pasta, cooking down onions and mushrooms and trying to prepare the sauce which starts with a roux. Since I had decided that getting everything together first was somehow a waste of time I came very close to destroying the roux (but didn’t)… Let me stop for a second. This post is becoming as chaotic as my cooking techniques.

Okay, so cooking down the onions and mushrooms in butter was easy and once they had sufficiently released themselves of moisture I set them aside. The pasta I stopped cooking at al dente but since nothing else was ready it sat in the pot with a small amount of reserved pasta water. The sauce eventually came together with the only deviation from the recipe coming at the sacrifice of dried thyme instead of fresh thyme, I thought I had some (and I did), but it was a touch… aged, and not it the fine wine sense but more the backyard compost way. This is a common trend for me and fresh herbs. I always think I have them only to realize it wasn’t last week I bought them but several weeks ago. My sense of timing these days is a touch off.

So once everything was done the pasta and reserved water was mixed with the sauce, onions and mushrooms and turkey, oh yeah and some frozen peas. This entire mixture was placed into a baking dish and baked for about 30 minutes. I also forgot that I sprinkled the top with fresh breadcrumbs and parmesan.

When this dish was done and I pulled it from the oven, the whole ordeal was worth it.

Rating: A. This dish reminded me of the chicken pot pie. It was a stick to your ribs comforting meal. My wife loved it and both the kids ate it (although one decided that since I put the peas in it that I should take them out so he could eat it!). Next time I’m faced with four cups of chopped poultry I will try this again.

68. Chicken Parmesan

Date Cooked: February 6, 2009
Page: 337
Rating: A-

I blogged about the chicken cutlets which were the main component of this dish so today I will tell you about the dish as a whole. Besides the chicken I needed to make the sauce and cook the pasta. Let’s start with the sauce.

The book calls for a can of crushed tomatoes along with your traditional herbs and spices. I didn’t have crushed tomatoes so I used dice tomatoes… I really didn’t like the look of it so I had a bright idea! I grabbed the often forgotten immersion blender and reduced the sauce to a smoother consistency. I didn’t puree because I wanted some texture to the final product. I left the sauce to simmer while the chicken cutlets were being cooked.

Now for everything that I have learned apparently boiling pasta is not something I am learning very well. I boiled some spaghetti while the cutlets were finishing up and then drained it leaving it to sit for a minute or two while I got the plates ready. I forgot to rinse the cooked pasta. It took only a couple minutes for the entire batch of spaghetti to clump together into a stringy sticky mass. I literally had to cut the pasta with shears into serving size clumps because the starchy noodles had fused together.

On top of each clump of noodles I added a chicken cutlet and then some sauce. This is the part that got me confused, but not until later. I was browsing through some blogs and came across several chicken parmesan posts. In all of the pictures I noticed something different from mine. The cutlets had the cheese added on top of the sauce and then broiled. I felt like a fool until I re-read the recipe and it does actually say to add the sauce over the cheese. Interesting considering their picture of Chicken Parmesan on their website shows the melted cheese on top of the sauce. Regardless it all tasted great!

Rating: A-. The chicken parmesan was delicious even though the noodles had turned out clumpy. Once mixed with the sauce though, they were fine. The chicken as said in the previous post was delicious and the sauce was flavorful and mild enough not to drown out the chicken. I’m happy with the results.

54. Hearty Meat Lasagna

Date Cooked: January 12, 2009
Page: 282
Rating: A-

My favorite lasagna ever is a President’s Choice Vegetable Lasagna (a national grocery store chain’s brand). I love it dearly even though it contains no meat. There meat lasagna on the other hand is pretty bland and is typical of most of the lasagna I’ve eaten. I was hoping this recipe would strive to be better and if it could topple my current favorite then all the better… because this one contains meat!

Before anything could be eaten though, I had to get this thing put together. As with the past few dinners this was a coordinated effort between my wife and I. I started things off by making the sauce for the lasagna. In a dutch oven some onion and garlic was softened before a mixture of ground meats was added (veal, pork and beef). Once the meat was cooked through, cream was added and reduced to pretty much just the fat. Then I dumped in the tomatoes. This part scared me because as mentioned before, neither my wife nor I are huge tomato fans. Well I am proud to say I am beginning to tolerate them. The sauce was simmered while I got the cheese mixture put together.

For the cheese layers of the lasagna I mixed ricotta and parmesan cheese with fresh basil, salt and pepper. This would be used with the ton of shredded cheese to create a truly cheesy lasagna. The recipe calls for no-boil pasta noodles but we opted to use fresh whole wheat lasagna noodle sheets. Well the ingredients were ready it was time to assemble. My wife did this part… I think I had to run to the store because we didn’t buy enough pasta noodles.

Sauce starts us off before the first noodles get laid down. Next went some ricotta, then meat, then shredded cheese, then noodles, then repeat, repeat, repeat until everything is used up. The whole thing was topped with lots more shredded cheese (with a little parmesan thrown in for bite.)

Covered in foil it had a chance to rest in the oven for about 40 minutes. I ended up leaving it for an additional 10 minutes because it wasn’t looking done. I’m glad I did. Once removed from the oven it sat for a few minutes to cool slightly so I could remove it from the pan. I cut a slice and held my breath as I tried to wrestle it out of the pan without turning it into a mangled pile of noodles, cheese and meat. I was surprised with the result.

Rating: A-. It was damn fine lasagna. It wasn’t full of liquid which I find common with a lot of lasagna and is a real bonus to this one. I don’t like soggy lasagna. It tasted nice and cheesy and the meat was nicely dispersed that I didn’t feel like I was eating a hamburger wrapped in saucy noodles. It didn’t topple the vegetable lasagna but I will never buy another meat lasagna again. I can make a much better one now.

53. Classic Macaroni and Cheese

Date Cooked: January 11, 2009
Page: 288
Rating: B+

Nothing beats a good bowl of Macaroni and Cheese… or for those of us north of the US border, Kraft Dinner. I love boxed Macaroni and Cheese. I could eat it every day and the few times it gets made for my kids I often help myself to a few spoonfuls from their plates. I know it is probably not the best thing for people but I just love it. So when my wife decided that we should make homemade macaroni and cheese I was a just a little concerned. Was this going to upend my love of KD? Would my picky kids identify it out for the imposter it is and refuse to eat it?

The recipe starts out simple enough. Make bread crumbs. Some slices of bread and a few chunks of cold butter get a spin in my food processor (which I am truly beginning to hate more and more each time I pull it out). The final, crumbly mess gets set aside for future use. Onto the pasta!

With great skill born from months of honing my culinary abilities some water was boiled and pasta dropped in. Then came the fun part. Time to make a roux. I melted some butter in a dutch oven and once the foaming subsided I added some flour along with mustard and cayenne pepper. I’m definitely getting better at roux making and I must thank the Gumbo I made a few months ago for that. The biggest problem here was the mustard. The recipe calls for dry mustard powder and the only container I had of that I threw out when I found it a few weeks ago. I truly believe that I either inherited it from my great-grandmother or it was retrieved from deep beneath the bowels of my cupboards from the previous owner of the house. Either way it was never to be used. So as for the dilemma I figured I would add some French’s prepared mustard. I mean isn’t it just mustard powder already prepared?

Once the roux was cooked but not browned I slowly whisked in some milk. The mixture was brought to a boil and then simmered until it thickened up. Once suitably thick an enormous quantity of cheese was added (thankfully we decided that it would be wise to buy shredded cheese since I don’t have the best cheese grating equipment). Once the cheese had melted then the cooked pasta was tossed in and coated. Macaroni and cheese calls for elbow pasta but we didn’t have enough of it, so I threw in whatever other pasta we had available. This concerned some people later on.

The whole mixture was placed in a 9x13 baking dish and topped with the breadcrumbs before being put in the oven. Now this dish was almost overflowing and only half of the breadcrumbs fit on the macaroni. I figured we probably added too much pasta and that I probably shouldn’t have thrown in the last slice of bread in the package in the food processor, but it turns out that the 9x13 baking dish I have is actually 8x12. It actually explains a lot of previous difficulty with using this dish in recipes. Now that being said this recipe still makes way too many breadcrumbs.

Once removed from the oven it was left to cool for a few minutes before being served up. What did everyone think?

Rating: B+. It was good and the kids loved it. Even my picky 5 year old actually complimented it. My biggest issue with it was the breadcrumb topping. My wife didn’t mind it and the kids had no issue but I found it tasted too much like toast on my pasta. I had to mix the whole thing on my plate so I could minimize the textural taste of it. The use of multicolored pasta in it caused my son a little concern because he thought we were trying to sneak vegetables into it. He believed our excuse of using green pasta. Next time I’ll tell him it is pasta but actually use some vegetables. Did it surpass my love for KD though? No. It’s too different to replace the lovely processed cheese flavor of box macaroni and cheese. I love them both and they can each have a place on my plate.