9.07.2008

Oggi finalmente ho visto, solo dalla macchina, la vera Los Angeles. Hollywood e le zone limitrofe. Hollywood è completamente diversa da come l'aspettavo. Sapevo fosse brutta, ma non così tanto. Le case sono dei prefabbricati fatiscenti, ed ogni tanto si vedono gli alberghi alti solo qualche piano, molto simili alla casa dei fantasmi a Disneyland. A rendere tutto più smothee c'è stato anche un terremoto.  Ma che figo!! E' stato bello grosso e la casa si è praticamente messa a ballare sbattendo a destra ed a sinistra tutti gli oggetti. Adrenalinico. Insomma, anche sull'esperienza del terremoto ad LA (che tanto mi ha ricordato la paura del Big One) posso mettere un check, ed ho scoperto finalmente che queste case non sono tanto fragili come sembrano.

In mattinata io, N e P siamo andati sulle colline per visitare il Griffith Observatory. Costruito nel parco cittadino più grande d'America (cinque volte il Central Park di NY), questo posto mi ha affascinato sin da quando l'ho visto la prima volta in Charlie's Angeles. Ho silentemente sperato di vedere Demi Moore comparire dall'alto delle cupole scure, ma mi sono dovuto accontentare solamente di ripercorrere le stesse mattonelle calpestate dal trio Diaz, Barrimore e Lui.

Ma la cosa più importante è che finalmente ho visto The Hollywood sign sulle colline. "So, it's real!, isn't?, ho chiesto stupevatto con l'occhio perso verso l'orizzonte. Quella scritta è così enorme, così eccessiva. Solo qui in America potevano pensare di scrivere sul lato di una collina il nome di una città.

ITALIAN DINNER

Per la sera N ha organizzato una cena per la sua classe di italiano. Io ho cucinato la bolognese ed una ciambotta di melanzane. Cucinare italiano in America è difficile. Quello che loro pensano sia pasta, sono dei vermicelli sottilissimi dal gusto diverso. La mozzarella non sanno neanche cos'è! Quando ne ho chiesto una grande, Dan mi ha portato un rettangolone bianco, pesante, difficile da tagliare anche con la motosega. Praticamente non era mozzarella. Quando infine ho chiesto il sale per l'acqua "loro" non sapevano di cosa parlassi. Nino ha preso il sale per insalate ed ha messo sorridendo, in cinque litri d'acqua, solo un pizzichino. Fortuna che in qualche modo son riuscito a rimediare ai danni.

La prima della classe ad arrivare è stata Bree Van DeKamp. Praticamente la copia identica. Alta, grossa testa, capelli rossi. Lavora, come la maggior parte degli abitanti di LA, nel cinema. Precisamente produce molti dei commercial americani. Gli altri della classe erano dei messico-americani (o qualcosa di simile). E' stato weird osservare come cinque persone non italiane siano legate alla nostra terra. A tavola cercavano di parlare italiano il più delle volte, sembrando tanti piccoli robot con la voce sintetica (o semplicemente Britney Spears in una canzone a caso), e tutti pendevano dalle mie labbra anche quando chiedevo gentilmente (in italiano) l'acqua. Una sensazione bellissima.

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(Clicca sulle foto per vederle in HQ. Griffith Park Observatory. Hollywood sign. Veduta di LA.)

]]> http://thebestrecipes.wordpress.com/?p=2836 Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:45:17 +0000 theflyingchef http://thebestrecipes.wordpress.com/2008/10/07/kangaroo-bolognese-sauce/ I made this to go with another recipe, I also made for the swap I am in this month I served this with Cheese Filled Jumbo Shells except I could not get the shells, so I made it in cannelloni instead. I topped it with this sauce and sprinkled Parmesan cheese over the top and baked for about 10 Min's in the oven and it was excellent. I will post the recipe for the stuffed shells too, this was and excellent sauce to go with it but would be just as good served by itself with spaghetti and topped with lots of Parmesan cheese. I served it along with a green salad and some garlic bread and it got rave reviews from all. To read more reviews or to see other photos of this recipe please click here.

If you have been keeping up with the progress of my beautiful handcrafted camphor laurel chopping, cheese boards, platter boards and mezzaluna boards. My official site is finally finished and live so to see my full collection please click here.

Ingredients

600g Kangaroo mincemeat
1 Large onion (finely chopped)
I added 2 crushed garlic cloves as well
2 Teaspoons oil
400g Canned tomatoes (peeled)
4 Teaspoons tomato paste
1 Teaspoon oregano
1/2 Teaspoon thyme
1 Liter water
Salt & pepper
Parmesan cheese, grated

Method

1. Cook onion in oil until browned.

2. Add meat, mash while cooking to break up any lumps. Cook until meat browns.

3. Push tomatoes through sieve then with liquid add to meat mixture. Stir in tomato paste, herbs, water and salt and pepper.

4. When sauce comes to boil, reduce heat and cook on low heat for 2 hours.

5. To serve, spoon sauce over hot spaghetti and top with Parmesan cheese.

See introduction above for how I served it.

All photos taken by me unless otherwise stated.

I added my own twist to this classic sauce by adding some italian sausage.  This was better than I ever imagined it would be.

The supplies:

• 1 lb of lean ground beef, browned and drained
• 1/2 pound of precooked pizza sausage
• 4 large tomatoes, peeled and pulsed in a blender
• fresh basil to taste
• fresh oregano to taste
• 2 cloves of garlic minces
• 1 onion diced
• 1.5 tablespoons olive oil
• 1-2 carrots chopped
• red pepper flakes optional
• grated parmesan cheese

Heat the olive oil over medium high heat, add onion and garlic and sautee until the onions are clear.

Turn down heat to medium.  Add the carrots and let sautee until cooked through.

Add hamburger, sausage, tomato, basil and oregano.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  let simmer until cooked through.

Place on top of pasta of choice, top with grated parmesan.  Enjoy!

250g Hackfleisch (gemischt)

2-3 Karotten

1 Stangensellerie

1 Zwiebel

1 Knoblauchzehe

1 Dose Tomatenmark

1 Dose pürierte Tomaten

Salz, Pfeffer

1-2 EL Honig

Majoran, Oregano, Rosmarin, Thymian

Zubereitung:

1. Zwiebeln, Karotten, Sellerie kleinschneiden. Zwiebeln und Knoblauch in Olivenöl andünsten, Gemüse dazugeben und ebenfalls andünsten.

2. Hackfleisch hinzugeben und durchbraten.

3. Tomatenmark und geschälte Tomaten hinzu. Honig dazugeben, gegen die Säure.

4. Salz und Gewürze hinzugeben. Kochen lassen. (Je länger, desto besser)

I didn’t make major changes to the recipe, just a few minor tweaks based on ingredient availability:

1)  I didn’t have veal, so I just used ground beef and ground pork.

2)  I didn’t have canned whole tomatoes, but I did have tomato puree, so I used that instead. Another Bolognese recipe I’ve seen uses the puree, so I figured it would work out ok.

3)  I didn’t have chicken stock or broth, so I used beef bouillon instead.

4)  I grated some Parmigiano Reggiano to sprinkle on the dish when it’s ready.   I put the Parmesan rind in the sauce while it cooked to add flavor and then removed it when the sauce was ready.

The Food and Wine recipe makes 8-10 servings and there were just 2 of us, so I made a much smaller amount of the penne pasta and froze the extra sauce.  Since this dish takes a while to cook, it’s really nice to be able to pull a batch out of the freezer at short notice.

Wine

We drank Bogle Old Vine Zinfandel 2006 with this dish.  Zinfandel, Shiraz, Barbera or Chianti would all probably work with Bolognese.

Put the olive oil in a large, deep saucepan.  Turn the heat to medium-low and, a minute later, add the onion, carrot, celery and bacon.  Cook, stirring occasionally until the veggies are tender, about ten minutes.

Add the meat and cook, stirring and breaking up any lumps, untill all pinkness is gone, about 5 minutes.  Add the wine, raise the heat a bit, and cook, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid is evaporated, about 5 minutes.

Add the tomatoes to the pot, stir, and add the stock.  Turn the heat to low and cook at a slow simmer, stirring occasionally and breaking up the tomatoes and any clumps of meat that remain.  After an hour or so, add salt and pepper to taste.  Cook for at leaast another hour, until much of the liquid has evaporatd and the sauce is very thick.

Add the cream, and cook for another 15 to 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, taste and add more salt and pepper as needed.

250g Minced beef

250g Minced pork

One large white onion 

Three gloves of garlic

One large glass of red wine

One tin of quality chopped italian tomatoes

300ml of vegetable stock

Salt and ground black pepper to taste

Leave to simmer for an hour and enjoy...

Un gioco erotico è finito in tragedia nel Bolognese. Un ragazzo, travestito da donna, è stata trovato morto legato a un albero nel giardino di una casa a Passo Segni, frazione di Baricella. Con lui c'era un 35enne che ha chiamato i soccorsi. L'uomo, fermato, è accusato di omicidio preterintenzionale. La pratica sadomaso sarebbe andata oltre il limite e il ragazzo ha perso la vita, soffocato dai lacci.

I due si erano conosciuti qualche mese fa su Internet. Sempre stando al racconto del fermato, la vittima, di 19 anni e originaria di Trieste, gli aveva detto di essere un ermafrodita. Tra loro non c'erano, ha aggiunto, mai stati atti sessuali completi. Ed è stato il giovane a introdurlo alle pratiche estreme.

Il partner aveva lasciato solo il ragazzo, come previsto da una parte del loro gioco, e quando è tornato l'ha trovato senza vita. Erano le 17 quando sono stati chiamati i soccorsi.

Ai carabinieri è giunta una chiamata per una ragazza morta, forse impiccata, ma quando sono arrivati nel giardino dell'abitazione affittata dal trentino, nella Bassa Bolognese, la scena non li ha convinti. C'erano manette ai polsi e catene al collo. Ora saranno ulteriori accertamenti sulla salma a chiarire l'esatta causa della morte.

This week has been interesting to say the least. Tonight I'm a bit unmotivated and having a problem figuring out what I want to write about. I wrote three paragraphs about the restaurant and then decided it was boring so I tossed that out the door.

I find that many of my readers enjoy hearing about the restaurant and what goes on there so I've been trying to include more stories about it. I also have some readers who have told me they would like to know more about how I've managed to lose 45 pounds in the last seven months even though I cook some pretty tasty food and work in a restaurant that has been awarded the title of "Best Baked Goods"!

Well let's get to the point tonight and touch on the food thing since I'm most bothered by it right now and then I will go back and plop myself on the couch and watch the Olympics.

I have an addiction to food... Food is to me what alcohol is to an alcoholic. The only problem is I can't quit cold turkey, I work at a restaurant, I'm Italian, I love food and my wife is a chef. Doh!

From January this year to the beginning of the Olympics last week, I've exercised 30 to 45 minutes of hard cardio, six days per week, every week. Yes every week! During the same period of time, I've eaten anything I wanted, but have limited my general overall calorie consumption to 1,300 to 1,800 calories each day.

In the first four months I didn't break that routine, but maybe twice. In the past four months I broke the routine on average once per week. In the first four months I lost on average one to two pounds per week. In the last four months I've had periods of time where I don't lose any weight for a month.

Everyone now tells me I shouldn't lose anymore weight and I don't intend to lose much more, but will start adding weights to build more muscle, which in turn will burn more calories, into my routine.

I'm a very all-or-nothing person, so either I'm working out, eating well and being healthy or I'm the exact opposite. I've worked out two out of the last ten days! haha, so you can imagine what's going on with my eating habits.

So that's a bit about my relationship with food. I have nothing profound to say or any great advice that, if you have a food addiction like me, you haven't heard before. Exercise is my key and I find that if I'm doing it most of the week everything will work out.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming. On Tuesday we had our first catering due at 7:00 in the morning and the last one a drop off at 6:00pm. We also had a friend coming over for dinner and I wanted to make a very modified version of Bolognese I ran across a few days ago. It interested me because it was supposed to be a "Quick Ragu" and I wasn't going to have much time. I know, the next post for Bolognese was supposed to be the skirt steak version... it is coming I promise. It will be worth the wait.

I made it home early because my beautiful and wonderful wife volunteered to take the dinner catering since I was cooking the dinner, including homemade strawberry gelato, which I will share the recipe for in a few days.

The night was perfection and the dinner and dessert represented exactly what food should be all about. The three of us made dinner together, shared stories, drank wine and laughed. We coaxed the boys out of their lairs to eat dinner and we all enjoyed the results. We then retired to our very large and comfy couch and for the next three hours enjoyed great conversation and some strawberry gelato!

Pasta with Rapid Bolognese Sauce - (serves four)

Ingredients

• 5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 medium-sized carrots, small dice
• 2 medium-sized celery hearts, small dice
• 1 large onion, small dice
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 pound ground pork
• 1/2 pound mortadella, chopped fine (this is the fun part, first time I've used this ingredient)
• 8 to 12 ounces tomato sauce (up to your preference)
• 3 tablespoons fresh Italian parsley
• Freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1 pound rigatoni or mostaccioli pasta

Fill a 6 quart pan 3/4 full of water and bring to boil. This is your pasta boiling water.

Heat oil and butter over medium heat in dutch oven or heavy bottomed pan until hot. Add onion, carrots and celery. Cook until tender and onion is translucent, about nine minutes. Add garlic and cook for one minute.

Stir in pork, tomato paste and mortadella then cook, stirring periodically, until the pinkness is eliminated, about 10 minutes. Stir in tomato sauce and 1 tablespoon of water. Reduce heat to low and cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Salt and pepper to taste and then stir in parsley.

When you are 10 minutes away from the sauce being done, generously salt the boiling water. Add the pasta and cook until tender, per the package instructions. Toss the pasta with the sauce and serve, topped with Parmesan cheese.

Please share your great memories of food, friends and family. I always need to remember that we don't just eat to survive, or to binge, or to satisfy some emotional void, but to enjoy the act of preparing and sharing!

Pasta with Bolognese from mycookingquest

Affectionately Happy,

Barbara Sheehan

I approach almost everyone of my endeavors with a strong desire to be the best. I'm one of those people who is rarely satisfied with my results and I'm usually looking for a better way to do something.

This creates some problems for me regarding the publication of this blog along with many other ventures in my life. Deciding what to cook for dinner is usually the easy part. If I'm doing the cooking everyone else in the house is usually happy and will pretty much take whatever I dish out.

Preparing the food can be a challenge, but as long as Nancy is within shouting distance and the recipe doesn't have anything to do with baking I can usually hit the mark.

Experiencing extreme satisfaction from what I cook, well that's another story. We have a fairly stable ritual at the dinner table, unless one of us is in a terrible mood. We pray, we share stories about the day and then we start critiquing the food. This is something I started and everyone begrudgingly plays along. I always want the truth, the good, the bad, the ugly, but my family likes to go easy on me.

I can tell what Jacob and Randy think by the amount they eat. When they don't go back for seconds or I hear "I'm full" prematurely I don't even need to ask. Jacob, Nancy's son, will usually give me a better description of what he likes or doesn't since he's been around good food all of his life. Randy who grew up with my sub-par cooking will usually eat anything and is happy to have the free food. He is the typical broke UNR college student.

When it comes to Nancy, who is probably just trying to keep the peace and keep me in a good mood, the conversation goes something like this:

Joe - "What do you think? What would you change? I liked it, but I didn't love it."

Nancy - "It was good." This is after she ate half of the plate and is mysteriously "full".

Joe - "Come on, what did you really thing? What would you do differently?"

Jacob - "Mom, tell him what you really think!"

Nancy - "I liked it. It was fine. I'm just full, I ate a late lunch at the restaurant."

Joe - "Give me a break. What would you change?"

Nancy - "Well I would add more of xyz and I think you should do x."

Hahaha, the running joke at our dinner table is, if the meal needed some work, you have to ask a few times before you can break her down and get a straight answer.

The pictures are probably the hardest part of the equation. I did some photography when I was in my 20s, but nothing to do with food and/or inanimate objects. If you've been reading the blog since I started, or have gone back and checked out some of the older posts, you will notice that the pictures have improved quite a bit.

I started with a Canon Elf, point and shoot, and every photo had lighting problems. I recently purchased a Canon Rebel and built a light box out of a cardboard box and tracing paper which has helped quite a bit. I have a long way to go! Next I need to read the three photography and Photoshop books I ordered from Amazon.

Lastly and rival for the most challenging part is writing the post. My strengths are math, computers, business, sales, etc. I've never been able to write! I'm always jealous of Nancy's blog because she tells such a great story and it leaps off the page. I can verbally tell a great story, but when it comes to putting it on paper, well you know, you've been reading them.

With that said let me move on to Bolognese sauce. There is a connection here. Bolognese was one of the first things I cooked when I started this cooking quest a few years ago and I'm still not happy with the results. I've reviewed and compared 20 or more recipes and have made at least six different versions with some incredible results. We love it in the fall and winter, but it works anytime as far as I'm concerned. Our favorites are with pasta or over polenta. A good lasagna Bolognese is always welcome too.

My plan is present to you three different versions of Bolognese sauce over the next few months. The first version, todays, is a simple adaptation of a Mario Batali recipe. This is the most basic of the bunch. It is super easy to make, super easy to prep and has very little active time. You can get it going and then work out, watch TV, respond to all the emails you left unopened, email your friends about my blog, etc.

Traditionally it is made with tagliatelle and has very small amount of tomato.

Pasta with Bolognese Sauce (serves four to six)

Ingredients:

• 2 medium sized carrots, small dice (1 extra carrot for your dog!)
• 2 medium sized celery hearts, small dice
• 1 large onion, small dice
• 5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 pound ground pork, not lean
• 1 pound lean ground beef, 90% lean
• 4 ounces pancetta, small dice
• 1 cup Chianti Classico or other Italian red wine (If you won't drink it, don't use it)
• 1 cup half and half
• 4 tablespoons tomato paste
• 12 ounces of spaghetti noddles, fettuccine or taglaitelle noddles
  

My dog, Ecko, loves carrots so whenever I have a recipe that includes carrots I always grab an extra one for her. She runs around in circles and then rolls on it and then tosses it up in the air and the finally eats it bit-by-bit.

Heat oil and butter over medium heat in dutch oven or large pot until hot. Add onion, carrots and celery. Cook until tender and onion is translucent. About nine minutes.

Turn heat up to high and add pork, beef and pancetta. Continue to stir and break apart meat into small pieces. Cook only until meat has lost its raw look, but do not brown. You do not want the outside of the meat to crisp or fry. You want the meat to be tender. About eight minutes.

Add wine, tomato paste and half and half. Reduce heat to very low, only enough to maintain a gentle simmer. Cook uncovered, stirring every fifteen minutes or so until the sauce is almost gone, but the meat is still very moist. About 1 1/2 hours. Add salt to taste.

Cook pasta per package instructions. Drain pasta, arrange on plates and cover with Bolognese sauce.

The next version is actually my favorite, but harder to get right. It uses skirt steak and a much more complex method... worth it, but there can be problems. The use of crumbled dried porcini mushrooms adds an incredible taste as well. Stay tuned.

Yesterday, before I even realised it, I'd cleaned a large portion of the kitchen and cooked a gigantic pot of bolognese sauce to freeze in portions.

I'm completely obsessed with the song 'You Are' by Pearl Jam, from the Riot Act album. It sounds amazing live. By Monday, my last.fm page is going to be registering quite a few Pearl Jam hits, mainly for that track.

Now I'm onto Buffy season 7 and the Crowded House best of (which is fantastic).

On a completely unrelated note, do we even have the population to consume that much ecstasy? What's the shelf life of an ecstasy tablet? Surely some of that was meant for New Zealand, Indonesia, PNG, etc. Surely. This years Schoolies is going to be psychotic. There won't be any ekkies to mellow the masses.

Quella toscana è una cucina decisa, che non si tira indietro davanti ai sapori forti. Non c'è da stupirsi che il cibo di strada fiorentino per eccellenza sia il lampredotto, ovvero il quarto stomaco bovino. Lo si può trovare in una decina di chioschi al centro della città e in altri della provincia. La sua preparazione prevede una cottura in brodo di verdure e viene degustato come farcitura di un panino.

«I panini sono bolognesi o rosette. Non si usano più i sèmelli». Sono parole di Beatrice Trambusti, la trippaia che avevo incontrato presso il suo banco in via dell'Ariento, angolo via Sant'Antonino, davanti al mercato di San Lorenzo.
I sèmelli?
«Sì sèmelli. Li chiamavamo anche passerine» sorride un po’ imbarazzata «sa, per il taglio». Nel mio libro in uscita, Cibi di Strada, scoprirete anche l'etimologia della parola.

Sento che un avventore le chiede un panino “sbucciato”. Mi spiega che in questo tipo di panino, il lampredotto viene privato di una sua parte. «Sa, il lampredotto ha una parte frastagliata, che si chiama “gala” e una liscia, sulla quale è attaccata l’altra. Questa seconda si chiama “spannocchia”. È questa che viene eliminata nel panino “sbucciato”, perché si ha l’impressione che sia grassa, ma non lo è». Insomma, è una trovata per fiorentini schizzinosi. «I cinesi, loro sì, non sono schizzinosi. Il lampredotto lo mangiano tutto e del pane mangiano anche la midolla. Invece noi, no». Per chi non lo sapesse, a Firenze la midolla del pane è la mollica.

Quanto costano i panini? (Ricordo che la domanda è di qualche mese fa)
«Lampredotto, 2,50 euro. Bollito, uguale. Lampredotto sbucciato, 2,70 euro. Lampredotto al sugo, cioè con pomodoro e carciofi, 2,70 euro. Trippa alla fiorentina, 2,70 euro».
Allora, facciamo capire ai lettori come avviene un’ordinazione dell’esoterico panino. Come si dice, vorrei un panino al lampredotto o col lampredotto?
«Co’il lampredotto. E io chiedo di rimando: con salsa piccante – che è al peperoncino? Con verde – ovvero salsa verde? Sale e pepe?»
Sale e pepe, dico io.
«Le bagno il cappello? Significa: bagno la parte superiore del panino – che ho già tagliato a metà – nel brodo del lampredotto?»
Sì, grazie, rispondo.

Al banco continuano ad arrivare un sacco di persone. Lavoratori. Giovani e meno giovani. Locali ed extracomunitari. Donne, poche. Sì, una bella fanciulla che accompagna un ragazzo, ma non prende nulla. Gli avventori – sono le 11.30 – accompagnano lo spuntino con birra o coca.
Finalmente il mio panino è pronto, non vedevo l’ora. È buonissimo. A me la trippa piace comunque, ma il lampredotto targato Trambusti è qualcosa di diverso. Molto sapido, riesce ad essere a suo modo anche delicato. La sua ricetta, credo, sia determinante. Brava Beatrice.

Dinner. Comforting dinner. Something I can just throw together in a minute, slide into the oven, and walk away to make myself a cool drink to take into the hot shower. Yes. I said walk away. For an hour. Meaning go relax while the oven cooks your dinner for you.

I can think of nothing more comforting that the knowledge that I have containers of Bolognese sauce in the fridge or freezer to make dinner a snap. I have been a fan of meat sauces since I was a small child, smelling the smells of onions, celery, carrots and garlic sweating away in a big pot. Dinner was an important ritual in my family. My mother had it down to a science. Sauces were frozen, bread was baked, pies were assembled, and all were lovingly stocked into an enormous chest freezer in the basement of our house. Jars of applesauce, jam, pickled beets, tomatoes, peaches and chili sauce lined the cupboard shelves.

Whenever the mood struck, or company dropped in, my job was to retrieve a pie, a loaf of butter-topped bread or a jar of tomato sauce so we could share a meal. This, I thought at the time, was genious. I experienced my first taste of joy when I pulled a steaming hot apple pie from the oven, to the applause of our dinner companions the Maniacco's. My mother never told them she and her friend Molly had spent the week picking, peeling, slicing, rolling and crimping 50 pies, 25 for each freezer. She let me take all the credit. I think I was eight.

This habit of having something ready, having stores, having the beginnings of a meal stashed away resonated in me. Thus I take great pleasure in starting a simmering pot of soup. Some to eat right away, some to share and some to freeze for a night of "no time to make dinner".

This night I came home, having spent the previous weekend trying out yet another recipe for our family fave, Bolognese sauce. You see Italian food is close to my heart, and being married to a man who is half Sicilian makes for a life forged over a pot of simmering meat sauce. This particular recipe came from Anne Burrell, whose show is on Food Network. I did not see this episode, but my husband says I would really like her. I guess she gestures a LOT and talks really fast. Sounds like my kind of girl. Anyway, the recipe isn't on their site anymore, but I remember what I did, and I remember what I changed. She really likes salt, and following her method resulted in a very salty sauce, so I had to fix it.

This version is super yum, freezes well, and tastes soul satisfying even when it's the dead heat of summer outside.

Lasagna Bolognese

3 pounds ground chuck

2 large onions, peeled

3 carrots, peeled

2 ribs celery

3 cloves garlic

3 cups red wine

1 can tomato paste

3 fresh bay leaves

6 fresh thyme stems

Kosher salt

Fresh pepper

Water

6 tablespoons butter

4 tablespoons olive oil

Preheat a dutch oven over medium heat and add the butter and olive oil. Place the celery, onions, carrots and garlic in a food processor, and pulse until chopped fine. Add to the pot. Season with salt and peppr, about 1 teaspoon each. Cook down until soft and starting to really get brown. Remove to a bowl. Add the meat to the pot, season with 1 teaspoon each salt and pepper, and brown it all very well. Add the veggies and tomato paste. Brown well. Add the red wine, bay leaves and thyme and simmer till evaporated, stirring as it cooks. Add enough water to cover and simmer till it is absorbed. Keep adding water like this for about three hours. You will need to add water about every half hour to forty five minutes. When the sauce is thick and brown, taste it and add more salt and pepper if you need to. Cool in several small containers. Put some in the fridge, some in the freezer.

Next day (or when you will cook)...

Basic White Sauce (this will take 15 minutes)

Heat a saucepan over medium heat. Add a stick of butter and 1/2 a cup of flour. Stir until the butter melts and the flour forms a thick paste. Cook a few minutes until a nutty smell hits the air. Remove from heat. Microwave a quart of whole milk in a glass measuring cup for three minutes or until scalding. Return the pot to medium heat and slowly add the milk, whisking fast to erase the lumps. Keep whisking and adding the milk until all the milk is in the pot. Season with 1/2 a teaspoon of salt. Keep stirring until the sauce thickens to the contistency of heavy cream. Remove from heat.

The lasagna part....

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grab a big bowl and fill it with really, really hot water. Grab a package of no boil lasagna noodles. These will be smaller and thinner than cooked noodles. Grab a glass casserole or roasting pan for the lasagna. Doesn't matter what size. You can use the whole box or half the box. A whole box serves about 10 people. You do what you need to do. Maybe make two, one for the freezer....

Cover the bottom of the pan with some meat sauce, about half a cup. Slip four noodles into the water and let them sit in there about a minute. Cover the bottom of the pan with the noodles. Break them if you have to. Then cover with a layer of meat sauce. Leave the noodles showing through. Repeat with more noodles. Cover with white sauce. Keep alternating, finishing with meat sauce on top. If you have some cheese you can cover the top with some slices. I used fresh mozzerella here. Cover with plastic wrap, then foil, and bake for an hour. Remove the wraps and bake another 10 minutes until the cheese is brown and bubbly. Let sit 15 minutes before slicing. This is the best the next day too!

Ingredients:

Large bag of mince
Plenty of bacon
Large tube tomato purée
Pre-prepared pastry (one piece is enough)

Also:

One onion
Few cloves of garlic (4, say)
A little milk
A little white wine
Some herbs, parmesan and crème fraîche to garnish

The basic idea was to make a very rich, simple bolognese with flavour from the bacon. But naturally we added a bit more than that. Start by frying the bacon (little or no oil) in a reasonably-sized pan. Then you can move the bacon to the edges and gently fry the onion and garlic (chopped) in the bacon fat. Next, add the mince and begin to fry. You can add some milk to tenderise the meat. Then the puree - add the whole tube. I wanted to try this instead of chopped tomatoes for a really intense flavour. Finally we added a splash of white wine. The mixture can then be put into the pastry and garnished - we added slices of parmesan and dried oregano/basil. Cook at roughly 200°C until ready. After cooling for a while, serve with crème fraîche. Yummy!

This is thick and hearty and all so "delizioso".

Ragù alla Elisabetta

2-3 Tablespoons olive oil
6 slices proscuitto, finely minced (I use a small food processor processing 3 slices at a time)
1 large onion, chopped
5 small cloves of garlic minced
1 lb. lean ground beef
1/2 lb. ground pork
2-28 ounce cans of tomato puree
2-12 ounce cans of tomato paste
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup of chicken stock
1 tablespoon white sugar-optional
2 teaspoons dried basil
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 large (or 2 small) bay leaf
Good grind of pepper if using fresh or 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper

1. In a large pot (Dutch oven size) heat olive oil over medium heat. Sautee proscuitto, onions and garlic until onions are transparent making sure this mixture does not brown. Place this mixture in a small bowl and set aside.

2. In same pot, brown hamburger and pork, breaking it apart as it cooks to a crumble. Drain off excess fat. Stir in the procuitto mixture, and the rest of the ingredients.

3. Cook and simmer for 2 hours, stirring constantly. Be careful of the plops and splatters. This is a very thick sauce. Use a splatter screen if possible.

Serve over spaghetti or your choice of pasta.

Well, I just hung out with her for 30 minutes and I am smitten.  Not just because she has such an adorable personality but because she has a food knowledge that is (dare I say?) sexy.  I know it is a testament of just how much of a food geek I am but any woman that can take a cut of meat and tell me what part of the cow it came from puts me under her spell.

Burrell’s first menu was rustic, spaghetti Bolognese with a salad of baby arugula, grilled asparagus, and poached egg, nothing technically challenging but dishes whose most crucial aspect is attention to detail.  The humor of this menu is that, as many guys can relate, the first meal that a new girlfriend prepares for us is usually spaghetti.

Thanks to the magic of television the Bolognese was done in half an hour, however Burrell pointed out that it had actually taken four hours.  For many people it seems absurd to spend four hours making spaghetti, but to a true cook it is time well spent.  She went into ample detail on the importance of caramelization on taste, salt as well.  To many it would seem that she used an insane amount of salt but in actuality it was the exact right amount.

For decades salt has had an undeserved bad reputation, not unlike Betty Rizzo from Grease.  Thirty years and millions of dollars have yielded nothing to suggest sodium chloride causes any illness save the occasional kidney stone.  It can aggravate existing conditions like hypertension and cardio-pulmonary disease, but it does not cause them. That is why it is now known as the great salt myth.  Grossly modest health recommendations advocate we ingest no more than 500 mg of sodium a day, but most of us eat roughly 3500 mg.  That’s okay since humans can easily handle up to 35,000 mg per day.

TFN has spent so much airtime trying to appeal to the novice that it seemed they had forgotten that many of us can actually cook.  30 Minute Meals is a fine show for those who want to put together a decent menu quickly and Semi-homemade Cooking is perfect for those who don’t cook but want people to think they can.  Unfortunately neither satisfies on the pure joy of cooking.

Many have complained that lately the TFN line-up has been driven by personalities rather than chefs.  Secrets of a Restaurant Chef fixes that.  It is a show for the advanced cook and it is the show I have been waiting years for.  Anne Burrell is the perfect host seamlessly teaching technique without leaving the beginner lost in the woods, plus she makes me giggle.  I will definitely add it to my favs list on the old DVR.

Dear Anne,

I like you do; you like me? 
__ yes __ no __ maybe (CHECK ONE).

Stuart

Fascinating, isn't it?