Tag: tomato sauce

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Recipes San Francisco Thoughts on Life

tomato sauce, chicken broth and wedding plans

Saturday was the first weekend day I’d spent at home in a month—October really was an exceptionally busy month.  I took the day to catch up on home things, which mostly meant clearing 20 pounds of tomatoes and three chicken carcasses out of my freezer. Glamorous.

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While my sauce and stock were simmering, I started a new weaving. I’ve been pretty into this small-scale textile art lately. Like cooking, it requires just enough effort and concentration to occupy my mind, but not so much that it’s no longer is relaxing. On top of that, the states are low. If you make a mistake, grab a pair of scissors and you start again. Low stakes, moderate concentration, repetitive movements, reruns of Archer in the background—ideal hobby characteristics in my opinion.

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We’ve also began to really put our minds to planning this whole wedding thing. My mom has been a tremendous help so far, taking most of the dull tasks off my plate, like booking hotels and shuttle buses and tables and chairs, and leaving me with the fun stuff, invitations, food, flowers, photgrapher. It’s a pretty lucky setup.

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The more things we plan, the more real it gets. I’ve got our Save the Date cards mocked up, and Jordan’s favorite of those attempts is sitting on our kitchen table. Every time I look at it, I think, we’re really doing this thing, aren’t we?

Even though we’ve been together for ages, marriage still feels like a big step. I have no doubts it’s the right one, but hitching your wagon to someone else’s forever, it’s hard to imagine that not feeling pretty huge, even when you know it’s exactly right.

-Emily

Ps. Tomato Sauce Recipe & Canning Instructions, and Chicken Stock Recipe.

 

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Recipes

meatloaf

Both Jordan and I were craving meatloaf last week. It had been years since we’d had it, I’d never made it, and so we decided to give it a go. For this meatloaf, we used an Italian meatball sandwich recipe as our inspiration. It was topped with a simple tomato sauce, instead of the more traditional American loaf topped with ketchup. We liked it, but you could easily swap the marinara for a combo of ketchup, sugar and worcestershire sauce. Because this recipe makes a two-pound loaf, we recommend you share it with friends.

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One Year Ago: Bacon-Wrapped Dates
Two Years Ago: Ricotta Gnocchi

Meatloaf, adapted from Tartine Bread

For the meatloaf
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground pork
4 large eggs
1 cup whole milk
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup red wine
2 cups bread crumbs
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
a few tablespoons of assorted fresh herbs (I used mostly parsley with a bit of thyme and oregano thrown in)

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees. In a large skillet, saute the onion in the olive oil over low heat until translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and saute for a few more minutes. Remove from the heat.

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In a large bowl, mix onion and garlic mixture with the ground beef, pork, eggs, milk, cheese, wine, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, red pepper flake and herbs. Mix well so all the ingredients are evenly distributed. At this point, I like to pinch off a bit of the meat and fry it up quickly in a pan to test for seasoning. If you need more salt after testing, add a bit more.

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Press the meat mixture into a loaf pan or shape into a loaf form and place on a rimmed cookie sheet. Bake for an hour at 350 degrees. You could also use the same mixture to make meatballs. Shape them into 1.5-inch balls and then bake for 20 – 30 minutes. Alternatively, you could simmer the meatballs in a tomato sauce for 30 minutes. I’d serve them with pasta or rice.

For the tomato sauce
1 – 16 oz can of whole tomatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup red wine
salt and pepper to taste

While the meat is cooking, you can make a quick tomato sauce to go with it. I basically just tossed all the ingredients into a sauce pan, let it simmer for 30 minutes partially-covered and then pureed it. When you take the meat from the oven, let it rest for five minutes then cut into 1/2″ slices. Spoon the tomato sauce over the meatloaf and enjoy!

Jordan suggested that for our next meatloaf we cook it on a baking sheet and pour the tomato sauce over it before baking so the sauce cooks into the meat and caramelizes along with it. Sounds promising. We’ll report back.

-Emily

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Recipes

pasta with roasted tomato sauce and bacon

In the past few weeks, I’ve made three variations on this recipe. The first was great but time-consuming, the second was delicious and will become my fallback recipe, and the third was our ultra-budget version that turned out better than expected. Here is how it all went down …

A few weekends ago, I was reading cookbooks and drinking coffee while Jordan slept in and Willow took up too much space in the bed. (It’s hard to kick something this cute out from under your covers, trust us).

I stumbled across a variation on Pasta Amatriciana—pasta with braised bacon and roasted tomato sauce—in the Zuni Cafe Cookbook. When Jordan woke up, I shared just the recipe title and he was sold. I set out to make this magical pasta. The recipe calls for slab bacon, which you then braise with a variety of vegetables and spices. Well, slab bacon is really hard to find, even at a fine market like Whole Foods. In a stroke of genius, I tied the cut bacon together so it re-formed a slab. Sadly, this does not work. My braised bacon was so bland; all of the smokey, salty flavor had leached into the broth and left the bacon beyond dull. There are few things sadder than flavorless bacon.

Fortunately, Jordan saved the dish by bringing home the back-up bacon. We sautéed that bacon and added it into the roasted tomato sauce, plus some of the braised bacon for texture. It worked well, but was slightly disappointing. The time-energy input did not match the deliciousness output.

The second time I made this recipe, I skipped right to adding sautéed bacon to the roasted tomato sauce. It is so good and so easy.

The last time I made this recipe, we had no bacon at all. We did however have some rendered bacon fat in our fridge. I sautéed the onions for the sauce in that bacon fat, and  like magic, delicious bacon flavor infused the whole sauce. It was unexpected and amazing and so inexpensive. The next time you cook bacon, pour the fat into a small bowl. Fill with the bowl some water to separate the fat from the burnt bits.  Refrigerate this mixture until the fat forms a solid mass on top of the water and carefully scoop the fat off the top. Sauté away, adding delicious bacon essence to whatever you cook!

Pasta with Roasted Tomato Sauce and Bacon, adapted from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook
1 16 oz jar of whole tomatoes
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, sliced
2 T sugar
2 T olive oil or bacon fat
salt, pepper, chili flake
1/4 lb bacon, cut into lardon
1 lb pasta (we used ziti and penne).

*A is a beautiful photo of a technique that I don’t recommend you subject your bacon to.

Heat an oven to 475 degrees. Strain the tomatoes of their juice and reserve that juice. In an oven safe dish, add the strained tomatoes and a drizzle of olive oil. Roast the tomatoes for 20 – 30 minutes, until browned.

In a saute pan, saute the bacon until just cooked through. Remove from the pan and set aside. Pour off the excess fat, leaving a tablespoon or two. Sauté the onion in the bacon fat until translucent. Add the garlic and sauté two minutes more. Add the roasted tomatoes and reserved juice. Add sugar, salt, pepper and a pinch of chili flakes. Cook for 20 minutes and test for seasoning.

Meanwhile, put a pot of salted water to boil. Cook the pasta until al dente. When the pasta is nearly done, add the bacon back into the sauce. Toss the sauce with the cooked pasta and serve with a sprinkle of parmesan.

-Emily

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Recipes

albondigas y arroz

When I lived in Argentina, I had dinner with my host family almost every night. It was at these dinners that I really learned how to speak Spanish, really fell in love with my host family and really learned to love meat (after 5 years of vegetarianism!). Like most moms, my host mom Josefina had a repertoire of dishes that we enjoyed on a regular basis. All of her food was good, but one of my favorites was her albondigas y arroz—meatballs and rice.

While I do enjoy spaghetti and meatballs (and may have claimed that they saved my life in the past), meatballs and rice have a really special place in my heart because of those many dinners with Josefina and my host brother Juan. Josefina—in true busy-working-mom form—would prepare the meal in advance and then heat it back up right before serving. She would reheat/saute the rice in plenty of delicious Argentine butter, ladle on tomato sauce and top that with beef meatballs. The dish was so satisfying, so comforting, so simple … perfection that transcended language barriers. This is my adaptation of her recipe.

Albondigas y Arroz
For the tomato sauce
1 onion, diced
3 to 5 cloves of garlic, sliced
1 T olive oil
2-16 oz cans of whole tomatoes
1/4 cup sugar
2 t red wine vinegar
salt, pepper, chili flake (a sizable pinch of each)

I think that tomato sauce pairs best with the meatiness of the meatballs if it is sweet and just slightly spicy. The kick from the chilis is not very Argentine, but sure is delicious.

In a heavy bottomed saucepan, saute the onion in olive oil over low heat, until translucent. Add the garlic. Saute for another minute or two. Add the tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, salt, pepper and chili flake. Simmer uncovered for 20 – 30 minutes, until most of the liquid has evaporated. Taste for seasoning and adjust. Puree until smooth with a blender or food processor taking care to not splash yourself with the molten liquid.

You can make this sauce in advance. It can also be frozen. This recipe makes a lot of sauce and a lot of meatballs, the idea being you can freeze half and whip that out for a quick meal when you’re feel nostalgic for albondigas y arroz. 

For the meatballs
3/4 pound ground beef
3/4 pound ground pork
1 large egg
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
salt, pepper, dried herbs of your choice

Preheat an oven to 400 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine beef, pork, egg, breadcrumbs, salt, pepper and herbs. Mix with your hands to combine. Shape into 1 inch diameter balls and place them about 1 inch apart on a baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes, until firm to the touch.  Don’t worry too much about the doneness of the meatballs; they will cook for another 10 – 15 minutes in the sauce as you reheat it.

Put on a pot of rice. I used long grain white rice—1 1/2 cups of water to 1 cup of rice. Bring the water and a little butter to a boil, add the rice, simmer for 20 minutes and then turn of the heat until ready to serve. If you make the rice in advance, fluff it with a fork and then saute in some butter over low heat until warm. Meanwhile, reheat the tomato sauce and meatballs over low heat until warmed through. To serve, pile on the rice and top with the meatballs and sauce.

-Emily

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Recipes

pizza, pizza, pizza

Friday night we had a couple friends over to our place for dinner.  Emily and I discussed a dinner menu; we knew we wanted something casual that would be a crowd pleaser.  Obviously, the perfect answer was pizza.  (On a more personal note, I think pizza is one of the two perfect foods in the universe.  Maybe I’ll discuss the other later, but for now, I’ll keep you in suspense).  When making homemade pizza, I usually assume one pizza per two people.  It seems like a lot, but it’s really difficult to make large pizza at home (more than 12″) and I make pretty thin crust, so it’s not too filling.

I’m going to make a confession right away.  I bought the dough from Whole Foods.  I know it’s a terrible thing to do, but to be perfectly honest, their dough is really good.  I’ve made my own before and it only comes out okay in my opinion.  As an added bonus, they only cost $1.30 each.  I’ve also heard that Trader Joe’s dough is tasty too, but I’ve never tried it.

To make up for my store bought dough, I did make the sauce from scratch.  This is something I highly recommend because it’s super easy, cheap, it tastes better than jarred sauce, and you can make a batch as large as you want and just freeze it for at least a year.  I made a very basic version where I simply sautéed an onion, a carrot and a few cloves of thinly sliced garlic.  Then I deglazed with some red wine vinegar (probably about 1/4 cup) and added two 28oz. cans of whole tomatoes.  Let that simmer for a couple hours and puree to your desired consistency.  Season with salt, pepper, chile flake, and a couple tablespoons of sugar (to cut the acidity).

Now for the fun part.  Preheat your oven as high as it will go (If you have a pizza stone, which is highly recommended, preheat for about an hour so the stone gets good and hot).  I like to take the dough out of the fridge about a half hour before baking to make it a bit easier to work with.  Stretch it out with some flour on the counter and get it to a nice thin disc about 12″ in diameter.  Put some cornmeal on your pizza peel and lay the dough on it (I leave about an inch hanging over the edge of the peel as the dough seems to slide off more easily that way, that could just be me though).  Then you just throw on your toppings.  The only advice I can really give here is that less is more.  Just use a little bit of sauce, a good quality cheese (I like fresh mozzarella) and no more than 4-5 toppings.  We made three pizzas: one was sausage (pork of course), olives, and cherry tomatoes; basic mozzarella and basil; and bacon, sautéed chanterelles, goat cheese, garlic, and onion (I also threw some fresh tarragon on after it came out).

Conclusions:  We’ve done this before and we will do it again.  It’s super fun and not too difficult (your friends will love you for it too).  If you’ve never made homemade pizza before then just give it a try; it seems really hard at first, but the more you do it, the easier it gets.

P.S. We had a salad too.  Just spinach and arugula with more cherry tomatoes and a balsamic vinaigrette.  Tasty.

-Jordan