Homemade Tomato Sauce

I have never much liked canned tomato sauce. It's aggressive - overly tart and one-dimensionally tomato. Homemade tomato sauce is a totally different flavor. It captures the sweet freshness of ripe tomatoes without being too sweet (like many a jarred spaghetti sauce). It is fresh tomato transformed into something that you can stow in your freezer. When you pull it out to use in the dead of winter, you will think of beautiful summer tomatoes.

I have made a number of fresh tomato sauce recipes from Marcella Hazan, the queen of Italian cooking. Nowadays, there are other Italian queens but Hazan is still tops in my book. At the release of her The Classic Italian Cook Book, it was said that she did for Italian food what Julia Child had done for French food. In 2010, it's hard to read it and think of it as revolutionary, but in the 1970's, when originally released, Italian food in the US did not include pesto, polenta, arugula or broccoli rabe. Not unless you happened to be part of an Italian-American family and lived in a major city like NY or Boston.

This recipe, which I made recently when Roma tomatoes were cheap and field ripened, is great for freezing. I used it in a baked penne dish and it was so much better than anything that came out of a jar or a can.

Fresh Tomato Sauce adapted from Marcella Hazan's The Classic Italian Cook Book
(makes 6 servings, about 3 cups)
This recipe can be doubled or tripled and the sauce freezes very well.

2 pounds fresh ripe Roma tomatoes, cut in half lengthwise
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup finely chopped yellow onion, about 1/2 a medium onion
1/3 cup finely chopped carrot, about 1/2 a medium carrot
1/3 cup finely chopped celery, about 2 stalks
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon sugar

1. Cook tomatoes in a covered 2 quart saucepan at a steady simmer for 10 minutes.
2. Uncover and reduce heat to hold a gentle simmer. Cook for 1 1/2 hours.
3. Run the tomatoes through a food mill to remove the skins and seeds.
4. Rinse and dry the saucepan. Add the olive oil and lightly saute the onions over medium heat. The onions should be translucent but not browned.
5. Add the carrot and celery and saute for another minute.
6. Add the pureed tomatoes, salt and sugar. Cook at a gentle simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.
7. Sauce can be used for pasta immediately, or frozen in 1 or 2 cup containers for a touch of summer in the middle of winter.

Note: If you don't have a food mill, you can skin and seed the tomatoes before cooking. You'll lose some of the flavor but it will still be far superior to canned sauce.

Link to PDF of Fresh Tomato Sauce

A couple of new things at World on a Platter

You may have noticed the Foodie Blog Roll on the right hand side of my blog. There are tons of food blogs listed here. Maybe you'll find some new interesting food blogs using it. For me, it increases traffic on my blog and so far it's given me the opportunity to meet some other fun food bloggers out there. Us foodies are one big hungry community and we love to chat and share. It's kind of cool!

The other thing you will notice are links to pages on Foodista.com on some of my blog posts. Foodista is a nifty food wiki. If you look at my recent blog post on cucumbers, there is a link to the Foodista page on cucumbers. It contains a lot of useful information about cucumbers, like growing, storage, and seasonality. I think these links will help my readers learn more about ingredients, techniques and tools I mention in my posts. I think it's a pretty spiffy site.

Thanks again to all my loyal readers and keep on cooking!

Why do we love cooking?

I have been spending a lot of time thinking about how to get young adults excited about cooking. Statistics show that Americans spend little time cooking. How little? In the 90's, on average, we spent 15 minutes a day cooking. Not per meal, per day. This is incredibly sad for those of us who love to cook and appreciate that cooking for yourself is key to both your spirit and your health.

As part of my continuing research on this subject, we are going to have a little bit of class participation. I hope you are willing to indulge me with this parlor game. Most of you reading this like to cook. Why? What happened in your life to turn you on to cooking?

To start things off, I'll give my story. My mom didn't trust or like processed foods. And she definitely had a knack for cooking (which she presumably got from her mom, also an excellent cook). Growing up, my mom cooked almost everything from scratch. She also believed that her kids should know how to cook. We joined 4H and learned basic cooking skills. We helped at home. In high school, my mom started catering out of the house and we all pitched in. Oddly enough, I was the pickiest eater in the house and often refused to eat the food my mom cooked. But, I liked cooking it even if I wouldn't eat it. How crazy is that? In college, my eating patterns broadened quite a bit. Certainly not because the food was so good there! I finally came to appreciate how fantastic the food cooked by my mom really was. After that, I was totally hooked on cooking and eating great food. It's only become a bigger and bigger force in my life.

What's your story? I can't wait to learn something new about my friends and get more further insight into why we love to cook.

Cooking Cucumber

Most folks (American folks, specifically) would never think to cook cucumber. Cucumber is purely a salad or pickle ingredient in the US. But, there are food cultures who have embraced cooked cucumber. In China, cucumber is never eaten raw (pickled, yes, but not raw) and I have included 2 stirfries with cucumber below. China isn't the only country to enjoy cooked cucumbers though. France - yes, France - cooks cucumber. I can't say I've ever seen it on a menu in a restaurant or cooked it French-style myself, but Julia Child includes a number of cooked cucumber recipes in her Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

I very much enjoy the Chinese treatment of cucumbers. Cooked cucumber is what zucchini wishes it could be. It retains its crunch. It doesn't get watery and Chinese spices accentuate the mild flavor. It's also a great way to use overgrown garden-grown cucumbers. And, are there any gardeners who haven't found a giant cucumber hiding among the leaves? Well, I'm here to tell you there is something you can do with it. If you do use oversized cucumbers, cut off about half an inch on either end. Bitter compounds accumulate there and these pieces will often be quite bitter.

Stir-Fried Cucumber (serves 3-4)

2 large Cucumbers
1 Tbsp Oil
½ Tbsp Garlic, minced
1 tsp Ginger, minced
1-2 tsp Chili Paste
1 Tbsp Soy Sauce
¼ tsp Sugar
¼ tsp Salt

Peel cucumbers and cut each one in half lengthwise, and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Cut each half in two lengthwise again and cut each section crosswise into 1" pieces.

Set a wok or skillet over a high flame and add oil. When oil is hot, drop in garlic, ginger, and chile pepper or paste, and stir for a few seconds. Add cucumber and stir-fry  for 1 minute. Add soy sauce, sugar, and salt and cook for another 3-4 minutes. Serve hot.
 
Link to PDF of Stir-Fried Cucumbers 

Garlic Chicken with Cucumbers (serves 2-4)

¾ pound Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast
½ large Cucumber
¼ tsp Salt
2 tsp Peanut Oil
2 tsp Minced Garlic
1 tbl Minced Scallion
2 tsp Soy Sauce
2 tsp Rice Wine Or Dry Sherry
¼ tsp Chili Paste

Cut chicken into 1" cubes and set aside.

Peel cucumber, halve lengthwise and scoop out seeds with a spoon. Cut lengthwise again, into quarters. Cut quarters into cubes. Sprinkle cubes with salt and put into a colander to drain for 20 minutes. Rinse the cucumber under cold water and blot dry. Salting the cucumber removes excess moisture.

Heat the oil in a wok or large skillet. When it is hot, add chicken and stirfry for a few seconds. Add the garlic, scallion, soy sauce, rice wine/sherry, and chile paste. Stir fry for another 2 minutes. Add the cucumber and keep stirfrying another 3 minutes.

Link to PDF of Garlic Chicken with Cucumbers

Cucumber 

Slow cooked green beans from the garden

Beans from the garden

I've been gone a while. Shipped the only child off to college (very successful). Traveled around the east coast visiting old friends (also very successful). Returned to a garden overrun with very large green beans. My house sitter wasn't very diligent about picking the beans and many of them got quite large. Like 8-12" long. Even stringless pole beans develop strings at this stage so either you chuck them onto the compost pile or you cook the heck out of them. I have never been a fan of undercooked green beans so cooking them to death (if done properly) does not bother me in the least.


This recipe is as easy as it gets.There is no reason to use small beans here; in fact, that would be a waste of small, tender beans which are best steamed and eaten with a little butter and salt. Save this method for overgrown beans from your garden or large supermarket beans.


This recipe is dedicated to Ronnie. I have many recipes for slow cooked beans and they all include lots of onions. Ronnie does not like onions. Trust me, slow cooked beans are just as good without the onions.


Slow-Cooked Beans
(serves 4)


1 pound large green beans (really big will work fine)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 large cloves garlic, sliced
2 cups peeled tomatoes (either canned or fresh)
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1-2 cups water


1. Wash green beans and remove stems. Cut large beans in half. Don't worry too much about strings because you will cook them long enough to dissolve these.
2. Heat olive oil in a large skillet with a cover.
3. Saute garlic until golden.
4. Add tomatoes and mash until large chunks break up.
5. Add green beans, oregano, salt, pepper and water. The quantity of water is dependent on how big the beans are. If they are not too big, use 1 cup. If they are really big and need to cook a long time, use 2 cups.
6. Bring to a brisk simmer and cover. Cook until beans are very tender, about 30 minutes.
7. Remove lid and continue to cook to evaporate most of the liquid.
8. Check seasoning and add more salt if necessary. A little drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil is nice too.


Link to PDF of recipe for Slow Cooked Beans (no onions)

Cooking over a wood fire

When I was a teenager, I would go camping with my aunt and uncle. We would drive many hours to Moose Brook State Park, north of the White Mountains in New Hampshire. This being the North Woods, there was never such a thing as a wood fire ban, as we have on a regular basis here in Colorado. We had a Coleman stove for cooking but every night we would get a good, hot wood fire going and cook some of our dinner over the fire (provided it wasn't raining, which is did more than I care to remember). There is something very special about cooking over a wood fire. It's not easy, like cooking over a gas grill. More like cooking over charcoal, but even less reliable. Wood doesn't burn as consistently as charcoal, so the fire may not burn hot enough for cooking. It burns faster than charcoal, so you have to be vigilant to add more wood and keep the coals going. It's challenging, largely because most of us lack the necessary skills anymore. When was the last time you cooked over a wood fire? Have you ever cooked over a wood fire?


I recalled these long dormant skills this month. My lovely niece Lindsay was visiting from the east and we took her camping in Rocky Mountain National Park. I cooked the entire meal over the wood fire and dinner was a great success. It sprinkled and rumbled a bit just before dinner. Just enough to add some suspense to the proceedings but not enough to ruin our meal. All my clothes smelled strongly of wood smoke. My eyes burned from the inevitable smoke that blows in your face. But, it was worth the pain, the trouble, the constant tending of the fire. There is something very primal about tending a wood fire and cooking your food over it.


We had baked potatoes, fresh asparagus and garlic sauteed on a cast iron griddle, and a delicious marinated top sirloin. Dessert was smore's, of course. I've included the marinated steak. I'm sure it will taste wonderful cooked on your gas grill, but it will never taste as good as that steak cooked over a live fire.


Ginger-Soy Grilled Steak
[Recipe from Epicurious.com]
(serves 4)


Ingredients

 ● 6 tbsp soy sauce
  ● 1/4 cup chopped onion
  ● 1/4 cup rice vinegar
  ● 2 tbsp oriental sesame oil
  ● 1 tbsp chopped peeled ginger
  ● 1 cup chopped green onions
  ● 1 1/2 lb. top sirloin steak, about 1 inch thick

Directions:
Blend first 5 ingredients in processor until almost smooth; pour into a large glass dish or ziploc bag. Mix green onions into marinade. Add steak and turn to coat. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 1 day, turning steak occasionally.

Prepare barbecue (medium-high heat). Pour marinade into small saucepan and bring to boil; then pour into small bowl. Grill steak to desired doneness, about 5 minutes per side for medium-rare. Transfer steak to cutting board. Cut steak crosswise on diagonal into thin slices. Serve steak with marinade as sauce.

Made for campfire cookout. Delicious especially cooked over wood fire.

Link to PDF of Ginger-Soy Grilled Steak

Wine (and some Beer) in Italy

As promised, a blog post on drinking in Italy. Italy is a country of wine. Beautiful inexpensive wine. Yeah sure, there are some very expensive beautiful wines, but I didn't try many of them. The dollar isn't so strong over there that I'm going to spend 50-60 euro on a bottle of wine. But, not to worry. There is plenty of lovely wine to be had for very little. 


House wine is not the disaster it is in the US. It's local, cheap, and from what I tried, universally decent. And I mean cheap: most of the time you can get a 1/2 liter of wine for 7 euros. Now, that's a bargain! Don't ask me what I drank because I don't know. In Venice, it was from the Veneto. In Cinque Terre, I have no idea what it was but it was white, refreshing, and delicious. In Reggio-Emilia, it's Lambrusco and in Tuscany, it's Toscana. I drank a fair amount of Chianti too and it was all good. Sadly, we missed a food & wine festival in Siena by one day. When we arrived in Siena, they had a giant Chianti cork, complete with the rooster, by the train station. We didn't take a picture and it was gone by the time we returned later in the day. In Rome, we drank Frascati because the weather was hot as the blazes and Frascati is cold. It was good too.


I am definitely the wrong person to ask for specific wine recommendations in Italy since my plan was to order what was local nearly everywhere and not think too much about it. Call me lazy. Call me cheap. Hey, it worked! I wasn't disappointed in any of the wines I got.


We did splurge one night. We went to Cantinetta Antinori, the wine bar owned by the Antinori family in Florence. Even better, it's in the Palazzo Antinori, which has been occupied by the family since the 15th century. How many of you have enjoyed lovely wine in a Florentine palazzo? Cantinetta Antinori isn't really a wine bar. Far more formal than a wine bar and it's not exactly cheap. Their wine list by the glass features wines exclusively from Antinori estates, and the food was excellent. I have been a fan of Villa Antinori Toscana IGT for years; we even drank some of it somewhere else. But, since they have many of their better wines by the glass, you come here to try them without having to buy a whole bottle. We had a glass of the Peppoli Chianti Classico DOCG and a glass of the Marchese Antinori, a Chianti Classico DOCG Riserva. They were both delicious but I liked the Peppoli a little better. They are 90% Sangiovese but the Peppoli uses Merlot and Syrah to make up the remaining 10% while the Marchese uses Cabernet Sauvignon. If you really want to splurge at Cantinetta Antinori, you can order a glass of Tignanello, Antinori's Super Tuscan. I think it was 30 euro a glass. Don't ask me the vintage. At 30 euro, I didn't look that closely! This was the fanciest restaurant we ate at in Italy. The service was impeccable and it's a lovely space.


On to beer...there is plenty of beer in Italy. Mostly lager and great on a hot day. Which they have plenty of in Italy! It was muggy and  over 100 degrees in Naples. Good beer drinking weather, for sure. I only found one microbrew while we were in Reggio-Emilia. We ate dinner at a wonderful restaurant called Osteria La Casa di Nonna in Bibbiano. They had bombers of local beer. Unfortunately, I didn't note the producer. I doubt you can find it anywhere except in the countryside near Parma. We enjoyed Peroni red ale at their brewpub in Rome, a casual and reasonably priced restaurant. As brewpubs go, not much of a selection though - Peroni lager and Peroni red ale.


My advice to anyone traveling to Italy - drink lots of wine. Drink lots of local wine and you won't be disappointed. You'll also get off cheap.