Simple Tomato Sauce

Oops!  Forgot to put the garlic in the shot. 

There are so many different ways to concoct this based on what I have on hand that it's challenging to write down.  It's the first thing that turned out delicious consistently with no outside recipe in hand.  It's the dumbed down friend of my all time favorite red sauce recipe--Marcella Hazan's Ragu alla Bolognese.  I believe the proscuitto and cream laden original recipe is from one of her renowned cookbooks.  Mine is a photocopy about 5"x3" that may or may not have come with the food processor my parents got when I was a baby.  Still works just fine.

Maybe you do, but I don't usually have prosciutto, heavy cream, or the time and energy to spend on the food processor.  If your family (or picky kid) prefers smoother sauce, feel free to use the food processor.  Have fun washing it afterwards.  This adaptation is an easy everyday meal.  My pickier kid slurps it up with the chunks of veggies.  He is actually why I started making it instead of falling back on a jar of premade here and there.  He will not touch jarred sauce, even organic and/or reduced sodium, not even for the fun of noodles.  There are some other things he refuses to eat that are extremely processed, kind of like the canary in a mine.  Of course, he'll knock you down for goldfish, marshmallows, and dye-loaded frosting.  

It's also dinner for tomorrow.  We have a busy day that will last well into the afternoon.  I'm not usually one to plan ahead that well, but I had the time and ingredients today.  It also gets better as it sits.  Just leave it in the pot, let it cool, refrigerate, and pull out to reheat in the original pot. 

Are you noticing a theme here?  Minimizing dish washing!

4 carrots peeled and finely chopped
3 stalks celery finely chopped
1 large or 2 regular onions finely chopped
5-8 garlic cloves (We go through a lot of garlic) smashed then minced or peeled and grated on a microplane.

Lots of veggies, but they cook down well.

Smashed, skins still on.

1/3-1/2 cup wine (red or white will do, though the original recipe calls for white), or 1/2 cup any stock (preferably homemade) + 3 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 lb. ground meat--turkey, beef, venison, chicken, some blend of any of these with sausage shucked from casings)
1-28 oz can crushed tomatoes (I have not gone so far as to put up my own tomatoes, but a food mill is on my ultimate kitchen tools list)
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes (we love fire-roasted)
1 6 oz can tomato paste (just in case your sauce doesn't thicken and you like a more stew-like sauce)

Italian seasoning
Nutmeg
Salt & pepper
Olive oil (or bacon grease, ghee, or tallow if you are all into the paleo thing and worried about rancid oils from heat)
Butter

In a large pot (perferably an enameled cast iron dutch oven) heat 2 Tbsp olive oil and 2 Tbsp butter over medium high heat.  Once the foam on the butter subsides, add the carrots, celery, onion, and ground meat.  Cook, stirring frequently until veggies are tender and meat is almost cooked through.  This is easiest to tell with beef or venison.  Toss garlic with salt & pepper plus 3-4 dashes of nutmeg on top and give it a quick turn around the pot, maybe 1 minute of constant stirring as garlic burns easily.

Like that hunk 'o turkey?

Excuse my poor exposure here.  Still getting to know the new camera and took these in a hurry.

Add wine and turn heat to high.  Stir constantly until liquid is evaporated almost completely.

It was seriously purple when I first poured in the wine!

When there is little to no liquid, add crushed and diced tomatoes plus a palm full or heaping tablespoon of Italian seasoning.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium low or low, cover and cook for about 30 minutes.  Maybe stir 2-3 times and replace the lid. 

Again, operator error with the camera.  You get the idea.

Cook uncovered for 15-30 minutes more until slightly reduced and deep red in color.  Add water if it looks too thick for your liking or that can of tomato paste if it looks to thin.  Adjust seasoning if needed.  You could always leave out the dried herbs and add some fresh basil on top before serving.  Sadly, my basil is defunct.

Thick with all the flavors well "married" and ready to eat.

Soaked Bean Chili

It's that time of day when I'm either prepping what I can of the pre-planned dinner or scrambling to thaw what I've decided to throw together.  This means I have to have a fairly decent stock of basic items.  Tonight we are having Paleo Almond Chicken Tenders (if my chicken breasts thaw in time), baked sweet potatoes, and something green that has yet to be decided.  They are delicious, require a few ingredients, and both kids like them.  This is somewhat miraculous.

Spaghetti is my other last-minute fallback.  Will eats spaghetti like he has not eaten for days.  He is my pickier kid.  He eats lots of things, but not lots of dinner-type things if that makes sense.  Soup and casseroles are two of the biggies on his "no" list.  This makes dinner challenging.  Isabelle will wolf down just about anything.

I couple of weeks ago, I decided to try chili on top of spaghetti noodles.  I'm not the first to make Mexican spaghetti.  He always loves to help cook, so we made it together, and he ate it!  I think he may have even enjoyed it!

The basic ingredients and cooking techniques for chili are just like that of spaghetti--one big pot, meat, onion, bell pepper, tomato--the spices and add-ins are where it gets different.  Onion, bell pepper, various canned tomatoes, frozen veggies, and frozen meat are all basics for me.  I can find all organic, the cans are BPA-free, and I can send Frank on a big trip to the commissary monthly to keep my pantry and freezer stocked without opening a vein at Publix.  I can also order any organic spice that I need from the awesome Frontier co-op that a friend runs.  Avoiding GMOs, eating organic foods, and eating fresh foods when and where you can and can afford does truly make a difference in your overall health.

One thumbs up

Another thumbs up

I hope your kid's plate will look like this

1. 1 pound grass-fed ground beef (optional: 1-1/2 pound of your favorite sausage, casings removed.  I had chorizo from Fresh Market.)
2. 1 green bell pepper, finely chopped
3. 1 large onion, finely chopped
4. 3-5 (or more for me!) cloves of garlic, grated on a microplane or smashed then minced
5. 1 can of crushed tomatoes
6. 1 can of tomato sauce 
7. 1 can tomato paste
8.  1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into about 1 inch chunks
9. 2 cups soaked, precooked kidney beans (soak for 12-24 hours and cook.  This makes the beans no big deal on your tummy and increases nutrient absorption)
10. 1 10-oz package frozen corn (one can drained or 1 1/2c fresh may be substituted) 
11. 1 tsp salt
12. 2 tsp cumin
13. 2 tsp chili powder

In a large pot or dutch oven (you cannot beat enameled cast iron!), cook ingredients 1-3 over medium heat for 5-8 minutes until the meat is no longer pink and the veggies are tender.  Do NOT drain off the liquid.  This is both good for you and flavorful.  If it's organic and grass-fed, I do not waste a drop!

Add the garlic, ingredients 11-13, and give a quick stir.  Garlic burns easily, so have your tomatoes open and ready to pour in as soon as you give the garlic and spices a turn around the pot.

Add ingredients 5-7 to the pot ans stir until well combined.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low so that bubbles still break occasionally.  This is a simmer.

Add ingredients 8-10 and stir gently.  This is why you needed to use a big pot.  Cover and forget about it for about 30 minutes to let the flavors meld.  You may stir occasionally, but leave it alone for the most part.

Just after removing the lid

After about 30 minutes, uncover and taste-test.  Adjust seasonings to your liking and add a splash or water or stock if you like a soupier chili.  Let it simmer and cook down for at least 30 more minutes, stirring occasionally.  It will get darker red and the sweet potato will get tender. 

 

See how much darker red and chunkier it gets?

 Enjoy, and top with avocado, sour cream, creme fraiche (I'm all about those cultures!), whatever you like.  If you don't want or need to put it on top of noodles, serve it with cornbread of course.  Does that even need saying?  We like the Pioneer Woman's Skillet Cornbread, though I make a few tweaks, including using bacon grease instead of shortening.  Get a copy of Nourishing Traditions.  It'll change your mind about animal fats and health.

Fennel & Cardamom Braised Pork Loin

Pushing a double jogger towards a towering thundercloud certainly counts as spitting in fate's eye.  I love the almost queasy feeling of an iffy course of action decided upon--if we make it home dry, it'll be a fast, fun race; if the bottom falls out, we'll be soaked and find a spot to wait it out.  Today, we were far enough from our street that a terra cotta tiled roof caught my eye.  It shelters white stuccoed benches built to house the help arriving and departing from the homes within the gates of a lovely old neighborhood.  Aside from the cars and foot traffic, there are these eerie places in the middle of the city here in the deep south where time is frozen.

On the return, I was leading the storm.  I would have had static-raised hair had we been on the water.  The cloud had blackened and stretched from end to end of the distant stretch of raised interstate.  Now, almost two hours later, nothing.  It's still grumbling, but an even gray rather than the rising triangle of grey set against bright blue.

Today I intended to write out a recipe that turned out nicely yesterday.  So far I've collected our third egg ever, gotten ballet stuff, been to the health food store, tended children, bathed a cat who somehow got a large clump of chicken poo glued to her white fur, and run a couple of miles pushing 70+ pounds of kids while sweating off my warpaint.  Time to take a minute and let the tv enthrall nap-deprived the kids for a few minutes before dinner and bed. 

So that recipe--it was a braised pork loin, and it was delicious!  When I go off the reservation and don't use a recipe, I have little confidence in the edibility of the final product.  I didn't take a single picture of the meat uncooked, the seasonings, the jar of bacon grease I keep, or the browning process for this very reason.  If it's awful, let there be no evidence.  Pretend it never happened and eat a bowl of oatmeal or get take-out. Not the case last night.  Here's when I realized it was good enough to share

Lighting is hard.  I'm not a photographer.  If you are, feel free to help me out and lessen the yellow.  It was not that yellow, but the pan sauce was nice and glossy just like the braising section of The Joy of Cooking said it should be.  If you have an enameled cast iron Dutch oven, use it for this.  Mine is a Le Creuset.  I love it so much that I eventually got the smaller size.  Actually, Frank got it for me for Christmas.  His friends think it's funny that he gifts me with cookware and doesn't get an earfull about me being a liberated woman.  I like tending to house and hearth.  It's my choice, so I can be just as liberated standing barefoot in a cutsey apron working on this dish at 3 o'clock in the afternoon as I could be working outside my house.  To each her own.  Being home is hard work.  Anyway, the blue one above is the big mamma jamma size, like hard to pick up when full big or hit an intruder over the head with big.

Take one pork loin (This one was from Sam's Club and cut in half with slices across the top.  The labeling was not very helpful as I thought they were actually slices like short ribs or something.  I threw the packaging in the trash and dumped several dustpans of floor grit on top before I thought to see how much the pork weighed.) and season well with salt and pepper on both sides.  Next, sprinkle both sides liberally with whole fennel seeds then ground cardamom, patting to be sure it sticks well.  Quality counts with spices.  Both of mine were Frontier organics and so aromatic in the jar.

Put a pot on medium to medium-high heat.  Add your fat.  I used 2-3 tablespoons bacon drippings and about 2 tablespoons good olive oil.  Your oil should be hot--not smoking hot or rippling.  Burning and browning are kissing cousins but very different, er, processes.  Add your meat.  It should sizzle immediately.  Wait a couple of minutes to check for browning.  If it sticks do NOT yank it up.  When it is properly browned, it will NOT be glued to your pot.

Once browned on both sides, add a sliver, or a chunk if yours is a garlic loving household, of fresh garlic to each top slit

Add liquid--1/3-1/2 cup of white basalmic vinegar and 1/3-1/2 cup of white wine.  You don't want more than an inch of liquid in the bottom of the pot per Joy, or the cooking bible.  If you check later and the liquid has absorbed or reduced, you can always add another splash.  Let's take a minute to talk about wine, specifically what you cook with and what you drink.  There should be NO difference.  If you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it.  Somebody has to finish what's left in the bottle!  I'm not a big white wine fan, but this unoaked Pinot Grigio was quite tasty

See the two eggs in the background?  Eggciting and so tasty!  That's a wildcrafted fenugreek tincture behind the eggs.  It's replacing Mucinex in my medicine cabinet, though there are many other uses.  I'm shifting to homeopathic remedies rather than relying on OTCs for every little thing.  So far, my homemade elderberry juice (from fresh, local berries), local honey, some essential oils, and this little bottle have been great helpers.

Turn that heat down to LOW (the knob on my gas cooktop was literally turned all the way down), put the lid on, and leave it be.  Seriously, the whole point is for the little bit of liquid, the juices from the meat, and the steam to slowly soften and cook your meat.  Done correctly, braising produces fork tender meat every single time.  It is not a perfect science, though.  Every stove, pot, cut of meat is a little different.  Forget about it for at least an hour once you are sure the temperature is right.  When you check, you should be greeted with a cloud of steam as you lift the lid.  It gets more and more aromatic as it cooks down.  Never should your liquid be boiling.  It's more of a steam room than a jacuzzi.

Mine took between 2 1/2 and 3 hours to look like this

See how the fennel seeds reconstituted without burning and the meat is golden to caramel color?  It's that caramelization that produces the complx flavor in your pan sauce.  You want your cooking liquid to bubble up initially and get up the browned (not burned!) bits from the bottom just after browning.  If you like, you can carefully remove your meat once tender and reduce the sauce down to concentrate flavors further.  Just add your meat back once you get the sauce just right.

While I hovered over the pot and nibbled on this, my children sat at the table picking off fennel seeds and begging for ketchup.  Let's hope their taste buds develop in the coming years (says the woman who dips even the most hoity toity steak in the stuff).  We enjoyed ours with whole baked sweet potatoes and roasted beets seasoned with olive oil and a little S&P.  The sweet potatoes were so good that there was no need even for butter.  No action shots of it all plated up.  I was busy wiping kids and deciding that I did indeed enjoy that wine.

What's your favorite accidentally delicious home recipe?