Rigatoni with Sausage, Bacon and Onions

Rigatoni with Sausage, Bacon and Onions - made April 16, 2011 from Cooking For One by Mark Erickson, CMC and Lisa Erickson

This is the recipe that I needed the homemade tomato sauce for.  It had all the elements on what I'll eat in a pasta dish so I didn't have to play around with it or take out any ingredients, as I'm prone to do.  Getting the red wine was a little tricky since I don't drink and know nothing about wine so I had to look through the wine selection at Trader Joe's and go by the shelf labels to figure out which was the red wine and which bottle to get (merlot? burgundy?  "plain" red wine?  what's the diff??).  Glen, my wine aficionado friend, would shudder at my ignorance but there you have it.  Besides, the recipe only called for 2 tablespoons of the stuff and it's not like I'm going to drink it so my standards for wine weren't that high.

As I've been taught in culinary school, I got my mise en place ready before I turned on the stove.  That means I got everything ready beforehand - water heating up to boil the pasta,  the onion, bacon and sausage cut up and ready on the cutting board, the bottle of red wine open and the tablespoon measure beside it.  The only substitution I did was to use turkey bacon instead of regular bacon, mostly because I prefer turkey bacon.  I knew it wasn't going to yield as much fat as regular bacon so I added a little olive oil to saute the bacon and onions.  Turkey bacon doesn't really fry up crisp like regular bacon so I only sauteed it until it was cooked rather than crisp.  Once you fry the sausage and remove it from the skillet then add the red wine, the reduction goes quickly.  I confess mine nearly dried out in moments so I must not have moved very quickly.  I added the homemade tomato sauce before it was all gone so crisis was (mostly) averted.

This was a pretty easy recipe to put together.  It was good and I liked the sausage and bacon aspect of it.  It might've had a bit more crunch if I had used regular bacon but I was okay with the turkey bacon.  The tomato sauce itself was a bit more bland than I expected and I'm not sure if that's from the tomatoes I used perhaps not having a lot of flavor.  It wasn't even acidic as some tomato sauces have a tendency to be.  Bear in mind I tend to have bland taste buds to begin with and generally don't eat a lot of spicy food so if this strikes me as a little bland, people who like spices might want to make a few modifications and add some heat.  Next time I might add a few more spices, especially more basil leaves in the initial roasting of the tomatoes and onions.  I couldn't really taste the onions which to me is a good thing but the sauce might benefit from a little addition of garlic.  However, I will say that overall I was pleased with how fresh the sauce tasted.  Which comes from using the homemade tomato sauce.  Now I can see why real cooks can be fanatic about only using the freshest ingredients.  It really does make a difference in how your cooking tastes.
 

½ medium onion

3 ounces bacon

1 link hot or sweet fresh Italian sausage (6 ounces)

2 tablespoons dry red wine

1 ¾ cups tomato sauce

3 ounces rigatoni pasta

Grated Parmesan cheese as needed

1.      Cut the onion into thirds lengthwise and then thinly slice it crosswise.  Cut the bacon crosswise into 1/3-inch-wide pieces.  Cut the sausage in half lengthwise, then cut the halves crosswise at an angle into 1-inch-thick pieces.

2.      Heat a sauté pan over medium heat.  Add the onion and bacon and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion and bacon are browned, about 10 minutes.  Pour the mixture into a colander to let it drain.

3.      Return the pan to the stove and add the sausage.  Cook, turning the pieces as necessary, until browned on all sides, about 3 minutes.  Add the sausage to the colander holding the bacon and onion.  Toss briefly to combine, blot lightly with paper toweling, and set aside.

4.      Return the pan to medium heat, add the red wine, and stir well to release any drippings.  Let the wine reduce by one-fourth, about 2 minutes.  Add the tomato sauce and bring it to boil.  Reduce the heat to low and add the onion, bacon, and sausage mixture.  Cover the pan and simmer the sauce over low heat until flavorful, 15 to 20 minutes.

5.      Cook the rigatoni in salted boiling water according to directions on package.  Drain the pasta in a colander, shaking it to get rid of the excess water.  Add enough of the sauce to dress the pasta and toss to combine.  Spoon the pasta into a warmed bowl and serve with grated Parmesan cheese.

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Homemade Tomato Sauce

Homemade Tomato Sauce - made April 15, 2011 from Cooking for One by Mark Erickson, CMC and Lisa Erickson (book #89)

You have to know me really well to understand what an epic accomplishment this was for me.  I've already alluded to the fact that I don't really cook. It's usually a major undertaking for me, at least in my head.  I also don't like most vegetables.  I can count on the fingers of one hand the veggies I normally eat and I can only count that many if you let me include french fries (for the people who say potatoes are not a vegetable but a starch....I can't hear you).  Add to that, when I do cook, I reach for the most convenient things to make.  Pasta is one of them as even I can boil water and noodles at the same time.  When it comes to sauce, the easiest thing for me to do is reach for a jar of pasta sauce or those dry spaghetti mixes where you add tomato sauce and water plus some ground beef and call it sauce.  My friend Emily tells me her Italian grandmother would roll over in her grave at what I do.  She even offered to come over one day and teach me how to make real pasta sauce.  Thanks, Em.

That's my lead in to say even some of us old dogs can be taught new tricks.  It started when a friend sent me this cookbook and asked if I would do a book review of it.  It was written by two graduates from the Culinary Institute of America and she wanted my take on it as a CIA grad myself, albeit my certification was from the Baking & Pastry Arts program and I had nothing to do with the "hot side" and I only did 8 months for the certificate, not 2 years for the AA degree.  Plus, I'm just not much of a cook.  But I'm willing to try anything once and agreed to take a stab at it.  The recipe I chose called for homemade tomato sauce as the base and the recipe for that was also in the book.  Honestly, you can't know how much I just wanted to buy a can of Del Monte and be done with that part of it.  But that seemed like cheating and I had promised to break out of my non-cooking comfort zone so I went for making tomato sauce from scratch.

The "before" pic of the tomatoes before roasting

I bought the tomatoes from Trader Joe's as well as all the other ingredients one day and made the recipe the next day (it's already a "production" when I have to spread it out to more than a day).  When Emily found out what I was doing, she instructed me to call her on her cell phone in case I ran into any problems.  That's more context setting for you on how cooking-challenged I am.  This whole lead-in is going to be anti-climactic though because I have to tell you....it was the easiest thing in the world.  Wash the stuff, cut it up, roast in the oven for an hour and fifteen minutes, stir every now and then, take out, let cool, then puree in the food processor.  Who knew making tomato sauce was so easy??  What the heck did I find so intimidating about it?  I can make real tomato sauce from honest-to-goodness tomatoes!  Woot!  I was on a culinary high.  Real chefs can laugh at me but that's fine.  It is laughable.

Someday, this will hopefully yield tomatoes

Two major lessons I learned:
1) real tomato sauce isn't as red as the Del Monte and Hunt canned versions or jarred Ragu version.  It's a sad statement that I wondered if anything was "wrong" with my tomato sauce that it wasn't as red as the processed version.  Then I realized my tomato sauce was pretty much the color of the tomatoes I started with because I didn't add any red dye or other artificial ingredients.  That's how it's supposed to look before it gets interfered with for mass production.  Just like real mac and cheese with real cheddar cheese isn't supposed to be the color of Cheetos.  Who knew?

2) I really need to stop building up stuff in my head as "too hard" or "I can't do it".  I can't believe I spent so much time thinking about this when, once I actually did it, there was nothing to it.  Nike got it right with their slogan: Just Do It.  I would also add, "it ain't that hard".

I was on such a high from the whole making-tomato-sauce-is-so-easy that the next day, I went to Home Depot and bought some tomato plants.  Yep.  I'm going to try growing my own tomatoes so I can keep making my own tomato sauce.  If you've been reading my blog, you also know that's another epic moment.  The non-gardener and non-veggie eater is going to grow a vegetable.  Yeah, I know tomatoes are technically/scientifically a fruit but don't kill my buzz.  Tomatoes go in the veggie category for me.  I don't eat whole tomatoes as is but I do like tomato-based pasta sauces and that's what I'm growing them for.  I also bought and planted some basil - pesto sauce in my future.....

Sweet Basil - pesto sauce in the making

2 lbs cored and quartered tomatoes

½ onion, peeled and sliced (about 4 ozs)

2 garlic cloves, peeled and coarsely chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 basil leaves, optional

Salt and freshly ground pepper, as needed

Pinch of sugar, optional

1.      Preheat the oven to 350⁰F.  Toss the tomatoes, onion, garlic and olive oil together in an 8 x 13” roasting pan.  Roast, uncovered, for 1 hour, stirring occasionally to break up the tomatoes.  Add the basil leaves, if using.  Roast for another 15 minutes.  Remove from the oven and cool to room temperature.  Some of the vegetables will be browned in spots, which adds a nice, rich flavor.

2.      Pass the vegetables through a food mill or process them in a food processor until pureed, then strain through a medium sieve, pressing on the solids, to remove the skin and seeds.  Season to taste with salt and pepper and a pinch of sugar if the sauce seems too acidic.

3.      Heat the sauce over low heat and combine with cooked pasta, or store the sauce in jars in the refrigerator for up to 1 week or in freezer containers for up to 6 months.

Honey Whole Wheat Biscuits

Honey Whole Wheat Biscuits - made April 16, 2011 from Whole Grain Baking by King Arthur Flour (book #88)

I wanted to make some kind of bread to go with a pasta dish I was making for some friends and although you normally don't have biscuits to go with a dinner entree, these were faster to make than the whole wheat dinner rolls recipe I was initially looking at so I went with this instead.  It was also another potential Easter brunch option that I wanted to try out.  Besides, whether it's a biscuit or a dinner roll doesn't matter as much as eating it warm with melting butter, right?

As with most biscuit recipes, this was pretty easy to put together.  Combine all the dry ingredients in one bowl and all the wet ingredients in another then mix the two together all at once.  Roll out, cut into rounds and bake.  Also like with all (or most) biscuits, these are best eaten warm, preferably-to-me, spread with butter.  I wouldn't necessarily call them flaky, not in the way a Pillsbury biscuit from a can is flaky but it's still pretty good, especially when the outside/top is crunchy and the inside is warm and chewy. The honey gives it an added sweetness and the whole wheat flour gives it some robustness.

2 ½ cups (10 ounces) whole wheat flour, traditional or white whole wheat

½ cup (2 1/8 ounces) unbleached bread flour

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

¾ teaspoon salt

½ cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) cold unsalted butter

1 large egg

¾ cup (6 ounces) buttermilk, plus more for brushing

3 tablespoons (2 ¼ ounces) honey

1.      Preheat the oven to 400⁰F.  Lightly grease a baking sheet or line it with parchment paper.

2.      Whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large mixing bowl.  With a fork, two knives, a pastry cutter or food processor, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Whisk together the egg, buttermilk and honey in a small bowl or large measuring cup.  Add, all at once, to the flour mixture, and blend lightly and quickly with a fork until the mixture is evenly moistened.

3.      Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface, and using a bench knife or dough scraper, fold the dough over on itself three or four times until it comes together.

4.      Pat the dough out (or roll very lightly with a rolling pin) until it’s ¾” thick.  Cut the dough into squares or rounds with a 2” biscuit cutter, and transfer the biscuits to the prepared baking sheet.  Stack the scraps on top of each other, fold them as you did for the original dough, and pat out and cut again.

5.      Brush the tops of the biscuits with buttermilk, if desired.

6.      Bake until the tops are golden brown, 20 to 22 minutes.  Remove from the oven and serve warm, or cool on a rack.

Coconut Pound Cake

Coconut Pound Cake - made April 15, 2011 from The Lady & Sons Just Desserts by Paula Deen (book #87)

I'm still trolling for recipes that use up milk and/or buttermilk and that inevitably leads me to cakes.  I love coconut, especially in my favorite recipe for coconut cake.  So I figured I would love coconut pound cake as well and wanted to try this recipe.  I think I've only tried one recipe from this cookbook.  Not that it doesn't have a lot of good-looking recipes in it because it does.  But sometimes Paula Deen's recipes scare me on a caloric level.  I love her accent and listening to her on her show but I shudder when I see the amount of butter that goes into some of her cooking and baking.  I love butter but it doesn't love me back....

There probably aren't enough workouts I can do in a day that would offset a piece of one of Paula's creations.  Which is why it's important to make those empty calories count with your taste buds. I walked 11 miles the same day I made this cake so I had a fighting chance that I burned enough calories to try a taste test piece, lol.  The  rest is going into the freezer in slices to be later distributed to friends and family.

Fortunately this recipe didn't have more than the usual amount of butter a cake might have.  Although the addition of shortening isn't typical.  The only alteration I made to this recipe is I substituted vanilla extract for the coconut extract.  Much as I love coconut, I don't like coconut extract.  It tastes too artificial.  I also added an extra handful of coconut to the batter to make up for not using the coconut extract and because I love coconut.  This made a little too much batter for my Bundt cake pan so I also baked some in a small Bundt pan.

I really liked this cake.  It's slightly more dense than a layer cake so it's the perfect texture for a pound cake without being too dense as it also had some "fluff" to it.  I loved the flavor and chewiness of the coconut in it.  The only thing I didn't like is it didn't come out cleanly and intact from my Bundt pan but that's more a problem with the pan than the cake itself.  It's time for me to get a new (and really) nonstick Bundt pan.  Bottom line: this was well worth the 11-mile walk to consume the taste test piece.  Heck, I'd walk another 11 miles for a second piece.

¾ cup shortening

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

3 cups sugar

5 eggs

3 cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 cup milk

2 teaspoons coconut extract

1 3.5-ounce can flaked, sweetened coconut

1.     Preheat oven to 325˚F.  Grease and flour a 10-inch Bundt pan.

2.     Using an electric mixer, cream shortening, butter, and sugar together.  Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Sift together flour, salt and baking powder, and add alternately with milk to shortening mixture, beginning and ending with flour.  Add coconut extract and stir in coconut.  Pour into prepared pan and bake for 1 hour and 25 minutes or until done.  Cool for 10 minutes; invert onto cake plan.

Serves 16 to 20

Cornmeal Griddle Cakes

Cornmeal Griddle Cakes - made April 15, 2011 from Baked Explorations by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito

Since I'm not even halfway through all my baking books for my baking challenge, you'd think the last thing I need is a new baking book, right?  I've been checking out other foodie blogs and a few made mention of this baking book along with posting some scrumptious looking pictures of what they'd made from it.  Plus they all raved about this book.  So it becomes yet one more baking book I want to have as (of course) my inner Gollum says, "Oooh, shiny object!"  Bald-headed beast.  Fortunately, my local library came to my rescue and I was able to borrow this book instead of buying it.

A first run through of the book suggests I may want to eventually add it to my collection (shut up, Gollum) as it contains some mouth-watering recipes that look awesome to make.  But for now, I'm okay with having it in my greedy possession only for the next 3 weeks.  Of all the recipes in this book, surprisingly, I chose to try a relatively humble one for Cornmeal Griddle Cakes.  It's not a recipe I see everyday and, more importantly, it calls for more of the buttermilk I need to use up shortly.  I was also thinking, with Easter Sunday a little over a week away, it seems to call for exploration of brunch options.  Nothing like springtime brunch on Easter Sunday.  Not to mention I love breakfast for dinner which is what I had when I made these.

The term "griddle cakes" always reminds me of Little House on the Prairie and Ma frying them on an iron spider over hot coals while Pa set up camp and Laura and Mary played in the prairie grass.  Can you tell I loved reading those books when I was a kid and practically had them memorized?  As an adult, I replaced my worn, well-thumbed, dog-eared paperback versions of the books with more durable hardbacks.  And I admit to rereading them every once in awhile.

In any case, those griddle cakes just sounded delicious.  This version is probably a far cry from Caroline Ingalls' though.  For one thing, they were lighter and fluffier than I expected from something that had cornmeal in it.  Probably from the chemical leavening which she wouldn't have had.  They also weren't very sweet (which may be more true to the Little House version).  These are pretty much pancakes.  They were fairly good although I think they're optimally served hot with melting butter slathered over them or with warm syrup if you want something more sweet.  I only had one but wrapped the rest up individually and deposited them in my freezer for future breakfasts, lunches and dinners.  Cook them long enough for the top to get crunchy and try to make them small if you do serve them for a brunch so your guests don't get too full from 1 griddle cake.

1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 cup yellow cornmeal

2 tablespoons firmly packed light brown sugar

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

4 to 6 tablespoons unsalted butter for the skillet

1.    In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.  Set aside.

2.    Bring 1 ½ cups water to a boil.  Place the cornmeal in a large bowl.  Stirring continuously, slowly pour the boiling water over the cornmeal.  Keep stirring until the mixture has cooled to lukewarm, almost to room temperature.  Add the brown sugar and stir until combined.

3.    In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs until pale yellow.  Add the buttermilk and whisk until blended.  Add the flour mixture, alternating with the buttermilk mixture, to the cornmeal in three parts (beginning and ending with the flour mixture), stirring after each addition until just combined.  Stir in the melted butter.

4.    Heat a skillet or griddle pan over medium-low heat.

5.    Add 1 or 2 tablespoons butter to the skillet and make sure it coats the surface.  Drop griddle cakes in ¼-cup batches into the skillet (they will spread – do not crowd the pan).  Cook until the bottoms are medium-brown, about 3 minutes, and the tops are bubbly, then flip the griddle cakes over and cook the other side for about 2 minutes and serve immediately.  Continue cooking and serving until all the batter is gone.  Serve with generous amounts of sweet butter.

Krispies

Krispies - made April 14, 2011 from Mrs. Fields' Cookie Book by Debbi Fields (book #86)

I remember when this book first came out.  I was still crazy about Mrs. Fields' cookies and obsessed with baking cookies just like hers.  None of the chocolate chip cookie recipes I tried even came close to staying thick like hers did.  I even wanted to work part-time at a Mrs. Fields' Cookies in high school just so I could learn how they make those cookies.  Except I found out the workers don't really know the actual recipe.  Everything is pre-bagged and measured out and they just mix everything together and bake it.  Plus my parents would only let me do tutoring jobs and occasional baby-sitting after school during the school year so that nothing would take away from my studies.  During the summer, I worked at office temp jobs because they paid more than being a cookie baker at the mall.  So I never did find out how the cookies were made.

So imagine my excitement back in the day when this cookie book was finally published.  Of course the first recipe I tried out of it was the chocolate chip cookie recipe, fully expecting to be able to make cookies like Mrs. Fields.  Unfortunately I was disappointed.  My cookies still spread!  The taste was good but they didn't have the thickness or texture of a Mrs. Fields' cookie and were almost nothing like the mall cookies.  I tried a few more recipes from this book and had some success with some of the recipes, notably the lemon sandwich cookies, but still, that perfect chocolate chip cookie eluded me.  I kept this cookie book out of sentimental value and haven't baked from it in years.  This time around, I decided to try the Krispies recipe.  Looks like a typical cookie recipe in the book but it has the advantage of using up some of my Rice Krispie cereal that I still had on hand from experimenting with the brownie recipes.  I didn't have any Nestle Crunch Bars to chop up for the cookie dough so I increased the amount of rice krispies to 1 1/2 cups and chopped up a plain milk chocolate bar to add.  Also, past experience with Mrs. Fields' cookie recipes taught me that the cookies spread so I substituted 1/4 cup of shortening for 1/4 cup of the butter to minimize that.  Do NOT overbake these cookies.  In fact, better to underbake them.  I didn't bake them as long as the recipe called for but just long enough for the edges to get a little color and the middles to lose the doughy look, maybe 13-15 minutes.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about these cookies.  I think they turned out the way they were supposed to.  The Rice Krispies gave them a nice little crunch and the cookies stayed nicely puffy and thick.  But they seemed kind of ordinary.  Like chocolate chip cookies with Rice Krispies in them.  Which is, I guess, exactly what they are so I'm not sure why I expected anything different.  I think I still expect more from Mrs. Fields, at least something amazing.  This was good but I don't know that I would call them amazing.  Although I acknowledge I have high standards for sweets so most people roll their eyes when I call something "okay" because they think better of it than I do.  So take my assessment with a grain of salt.  It's a nice little cookie if you want something a bit different from the norm or, if you want a little crunch to your cookie but don't like nuts in them, the Rice Krispies are a perfect addition.  For regular chocolate chip cookies, I think I'll stick with Alton Brown's recipe, the browned butter version.

2 cups all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ cup dark brown sugar, packed

½ cup white sugar

¾ cup salted butter, softened (I used 1/2 cup butter and 1/4 cup shortening)

1 large egg

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 cup crispy rice cereal

1 ½ cups (8 ounces) crispy rice chocolate bar, coarsely chopped

1.    Preheat oven to 300⁰F.

2.    In a medium bowl, combine flour, salt and soda.  Mix well with a wire whisk and set aside.

3.    In a large bowl, blend sugars with an electric mixer on medium speed.  Add butter and mix to form a grainy paste.  Scrape down sides of bowl, then add egg and vanilla.  Beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.

4.    Add flour mixture, rice cereal and chocolate chunks.  Blend at low speed just until combined.  Do not overmix.

5.    Drop by rounded tablespoons onto ungreased cookie sheets, 2 inches apart.  Bake for 22-24 minutes.  Immediately transfer cookies with a spatula to a cool, flat surface.

Apple Cinnamon Bites

Apple Cinnamon Bites - made April 14, 2011 from Cindy's Everyday Insanity's blog

Another recipe and blog I found from Sweets for a Saturday (although I can't remember exactly which one since there are so many yummy-looking recipes linked up there each week and I ended up just bookmarking this one).  I loved how these looked on Cindy's blog post - almost like sugared doughnut holes.  I was in Berkeley earlier this week with one of my nieces and her classmate and after we hit Blondie's Pizza for an early lunch, we stopped at Kingpin Doughnuts which has been in business at the same spot even back when I went to Cal.  I was too full from the pizza to get anything from Kingpin but the two teenagers I was with got a glazed doughnut and some kind of fritter, both of which looked delicious but neither of which I had the room or the metabolism for.  So naturally I've been wanting a doughnut ever since.  Or something that looks like a doughnut and/or is covered in sugar like a doughnut would be.  This will do.

The cool thing is these are baked so that makes them instantly more healthy than being deep-fried.  (Never mind the butter, flour, sugar - hey, it's got apple in it.)  They don't use a lot of milk but the recipe still calls for milk and I had milk to use up so it was a good time to kill two birds with one stone - try a cool-looking recipe and use some a little more milk before its expiration date.  There was enough batter to make 24 mini muffins plus some extra for a small ramekin.  I didn't bake these for very long, maybe 10-11 minutes?  I'm terrible about timing things since I mostly go by look and the toothpick test.

OMG.  These are fabulous.  It's like eating a snickerdoodle in muffin form.  I couldn't really taste the apple though - this was more like a little cinnamon snickerdoodle muffin.  But overall they're quite good (yes, I'm using the plural since I had more than 1 mini muffin - oink) and would be great to serve at a brunch or an afternoon tea.  I wouldn't consider them in the doughnut category at all but rather, they really are mini muffins.  I worked out before I made these and now I'll probably have to do another workout to offset the taste test pieces I just consumed.  But they're worth it.  Thanks for the recipe, Cindy!  (Click on the title to go to the recipe on Cindy's blog.)