Italian Red Meat Sauce For Beginners

This morning I made Italian Red Meat Sauce for the lasagna that I'm taking to a dinner party this evening. It's 8:15 AM now and it's starting its day long simmer. Be prepared to end up with a huge pot of sauce if you follow this recipe. I'll be having a lot left over today to freeze in quart-sized bags.

I'll list the ingredients for the seasoned cooks and you'll know what to do with them. For the beginning cooks, I'll go into painful detail that would drive a seasoned cook up the wall.

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First, pretend you're filming a cooking show so you can chatter and gesture and sneer and mmm and ahhhh and laugh out loud. But first... if you don't have a wooden chopping bowl and chopping blade, get one right now - the sauce can wait. You can do each of the vegetables in it and you can chop all of the fresh herbs in it at the same time without making a huge mess. And it's a lot more fun than a chopping board.

Now that you have your chopping bowl...

Ingredients:

One dozen sundried tomatoes - soaked beforehand for two days in the refridgerator - save water
Virgin olive oil - or evoo if you can stand the taste, I can't - blech
One sweet onion
One head of garlic
Large package of ground beef - sorry, I threw out the package before I looked at the weight
Large package of hot Italian sausage - same thing with the weight
Two large zucchini
One large carrot
One eggplant
One dozen crimini mushrooms
One can of green beans - save juice
One can of cannelini beans - save juice
One large bottle of roasted red peppers - save juice
One third of a grocery store sized bunch of Italian parsley - use the leaf end - or dried if you don't have fresh
A couple stalks of fresh marjoram - or dried if you don't have fresh
Five or six stalks of fresh curley parsley - or dried if you don't have fresh
Five or six stalks of fresh basil - or dried if you don't have fresh
A couple small stalks of fresh oregano - or powdered if you don't have fresh
A few sprigs - not stalks - of rosemary
You really should use fresh herbs - hunt all over if you have to, you'll find them all eventually
Ground allspice - not fresh
One large can of tomato puree
One large can of diced tomatoes
One large can of tomato paste
Dry red wine
Fresh lemon juice
Sugar
Salt

Simmer the sundried tomatoes and water in a saucepan - for about twenty minutes, and let cool
But first... lay out all of your fresh ingredients in a pile because the camera loves them
Heat olive oil on low in your biggest pot - I mean big
Chop onion and add to pot - they should hiss, otherwise turn up heat a little until they do
Crush and de-paper the head of garlic, chop finely and add to pot
Raise heat to medium and cook onions and garlic, stirring often with a wooden untesil - easier on the pot than a metal one - until the onions are translucent
Add the ground beef and the Italian sausage to the pot and break up the meat as you stir
If the Italian sausage comes in casings, squeeze the meat out first
Stay on top of this, allowing the meat to brown and stick, then add just enough water to scrape the brown gunk off the bottom of the pot and let the water boil off
Turn meat so a new bunch browns in the same way
Repeat whole process - as many times as you can stand, but not until the meat dries out - remember to keep adding just a little bit of water to the brown gunk - it adds flavor to the sauce, like bouillon would
When you get bored with doing this, turn the heat to low
Chop the zucchini - not too fine - you want your eaters to get a little mouthful of recognizable vegetable now and then - add to pot and stir in
Grate the carrot into the pot and stir in
Chop the eggplant just like the zucchini - including skin - add to pot and stir in
Chop the mushrooms, including stems - add to pot and stir in - I use the stems too because crimini mushrooms aren't cheap
Chop the green beans a little bit and add to pot with juice in can and stir in
Add the cannelini beans with juice in can to pot and stir in
Add the juice from the red peppers to pot and stir in
Chop the red peppers, add to pot and stir in
Add the water from the sundried tomatoes to pot and stir in
Chop the sundried tomatoes pretty fine, add to pot and stir in
Let the pot simmer for a while on low heat, stirring occasionally while you:
Chop together the Italian parsley including stems, curly parsley including stems, oregano - leaves only, marjoram - leaves only, basil - leaves only, rosemary - leaves only, and add to pot and stir in - more to taste as sauce cooks
Or add one and a half teaspoons of dried basil, one teaspoon of powdered oregano, one and a half teaspoons dried marjoram, two tablespoons each of dried Italian parsley and dried curly parsley, and one half teaspoon of rosemary - to pot and stir - more to taste as sauce cooks
Add one half teaspoon ground allspice to pot and stir
Let this simmer some more for a while, stirring occasionally to let the vegetables and herbs release their juices and oils and flavor and all that
Add all the canned tomato stuff to pot and stir in
Add two empty tomato paste cans worth of dry red wine to pot and stir, more to taste as sauce cooks
Simmer uncovered forevah - hours and hours, stirring about every half hour, until it's the thickness you want - it will make a big mess of your stove but your whole house will smell incredible
At the very end, tweak with lemon juice and/or sugar and/or salt if you think it needs any of these
You can use the sauce on pasta or in lasagna
Freezes well

Too Much Reality Teevee? D'ya Think?

Warning: Dream Alert! You've been warned! (Sometimes there's nothing more boring than listening to someone else's dreams....... uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....)

I love reality teevee. I follow several programs, so many that I’ve had to make myself an Xcel spreadsheet to keep track of them all. I usually miss watching most of them and have to set aside a block of time to catch up on all the latest episodes online. One of my favorites is The Colony on the Discovery Channel. Another is RuPaul’s Drag U on Logo. Another is Big Brother on CBS.

The Colony fancies itself a post-apocalyptic sociological/psychological human experiment which strands a group of survivors in an urban setting and tests their abilities to interact as a group while attempting to procure potable water, food, shelter and power. They're attacked by rival gangs, they have their supplies stolen and they have their members abducted for food and medical supply ransom. Gnarly!

RuPaul’s Drag U takes a new group of three everyday women each week and “schools” them with an over-the-top makeover in an attempt to release their inner diva. Fabulous!

Big Brother plops a group of surprisingly shallow people into a home with all the creature comforts. They are isolated from the outside world and followed by cameras 24 hours a day. Vacuous!

So last night, in the middle of the night, my dog Spike awakened me right after an interesting dream that seemed to combine the three reality shows. I found myself stranded in a building in Las Cruces with two other women and three other men. We had all of the creature comforts – food, water, shelter, power, internet, cable tv, everything. The building itself was a very contemporary structure designed as a maze. It was a pain in the rumpus to get around in, let alone find the other people most of the time.

Now imagine a young Jason Bateman, bright, funny, adorable. In my dream he appeared as a twenty-something surfpunk - very athletic, with long surfer hair and trendy surfpunk attire. All of the women had their eye on him. One of the women was a statuesque twenty-something supermodel without much presence other than her physical perfection; the other a petite vivacious little twenty-something bubbling over with personality and artistic flair. I found myself represented as the token zaftig girl, slightly older, self-conscious and feeling at a distinct image disadvantage as we three vied for Jason’s attention, all totally in love with him.

He'd decided from the beginning that I was the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with but he did get side-tracked by the other two in the beginning. First he was distracted by the supermodel - not very interesting but beautiful - until he found out from the others that she’d had extensive “work”. When he discovered that she was not only boring but totally fake, he rejected her advances. In the meantime the petite entrepreneur had produced a brilliant film about herself which she projected onto the ceiling of the building so it could be seen from anywhere in the maze. She’d also made clever beautiful full-colored posters which she put up all throughout the structure. Jason was briefly distracted by her but also rejected her advances - funny and talented but too self-absorbed.

Once he'd gotten back on track, the remainder of the dream was all about us finding each other in the maze. While we searched for our true love, I was desperately trying to apply my diva makeup for our first romantic encounter. (I'd previously won a professional makeup kit when I graduated from Drag U with top honors.) Jason and I finally came face to face and fell into a deep embrace. I moved in for the first of many romantic kisses, lips slightly parted (TMI Bucksnort! TMI!!). He moved in too, gave me a very short peck, smiled and said “What’s for dinner?”.

So, did he want “the girl” or was he attracted by her obvious culinary skills? I guess that some day if I go to heaven, they’ll tell me it was “the girl”. If I go to hell, they’ll tell me it was my cooking.

Moral of the story: Don’t watch too much reality teevee. Delete that spreadsheet! This stuff'll soak into your psyche and send you careening through a maze in search of your true love, and in the end, all you'll discover is that being fat has its dubious advantages.

Did my self-esteem triumph over my competition? Or did my lack of self-esteem place me in a laughably humiliating situation? If you’ll excuse me, I've gotta go. Apparently my inner diva needs some more attention. Work it, Bucksnort!

Jack & Redbull

Have you ever been to Walmart at midnight? On Friday night, I was having trouble sleeping because of a really annoying med change. So I gave up at midnight, got up, got dressed and headed off to Walmart (or Malwart as my daughter is fond of calling it) with my weekend shopping list. I'm not sure what I threw on but I can guarantee it wasn't prêt-à-porter. The Project Runway boys would have had a field day. At least I remembered to put my teeth in.

It's a whole different planet in the middle of the night at Malwart. No lines - a maximum of fifty other shoppers in the whole twenty square mile store. So, who are these people?

Well, I crossed paths with several angry drunk couples... where's the most logical place to go after an evening of Jack Daniels and non-stop bickering? Walmart!

I crossed paths with shiny happy frat boys... where's the most logical place to go after an evening of Paintball and Redbull? Walmart!

I understood the mission of the frat boys. They were carrying bacon and eggs and bread and orange juice. A boy's gotta eat a good breakfast (even if it's the middle of the night). btw, did you know that bacon is the new black for the 20/30-somethings?

I didn't quite understand the mission of the angry drunk couples. Were they shopping to avoid going home to an empty house, an empty liquor cabinet and a pissed off partner?

Well, Karma's a bitch and I could see it in their eyes when they crossed paths with me. They saw a tired old lady with hair sticking straight up and a wrinkled dress and I'm sure they were wondering "Now where did that old homeless lady get the money to buy Buitoni's Shrimp & Lobster Raviolis With Garlic Butter Sauce? What kind of system are we running in this country? How entitled does she think she is? How is she going to cook that? Who paid for those teeth? We did, of course!!"

Karma Ketchup! I deserved it for jumping to similarly snotty conclusions about them.

Next time you're tossing and turning, Malwart is my suggestion. Cheap and entertaining. Auntie Bucksnort gives it two thumbs up. (Now there's a homeless moniker if there ever was one. And you'll have to ask my sister why she named me that - long story.) Sweet Dreams!

btw, I highly recommend those raviolis. Enough for three meals for one person and really good hot or cold. $2.50 per meal. We homeless old ladies have gotta watch our budgets after all.

btw redux, I can joke about homeless people because I've been one and there's nothing I enjoy more than joking at my own expense. Might get me into heaven after all.

btw troisdux, slightly off-topic if there is such an animal in the blogosphere. For mosquito bites, make a paste of Adolphe's meat tenderizer and water (doesn't take much, just a dash) and dab on the bitesite before you scratch. This hearkens back to the days when we discovered that my daughter was allergic to beestings when she was three. I think her pediatrician recommended it. Adolphe's contains a papaya enzyme that breaks down the proteins in the bite. Works for me.