Perfect Meat Spaghetti Sauce

I recently wrote an article about tips for making the perfect spaghetti sauce with ground beef. I used to make this kind of sauce all the time (I cook mostly Italian dishes) and my sauce is sooooo good. While this kind of sauce is pretty easy to make, there are a few tips that will make it even more luscious.

photo credit: mrjoro

• If you want a low-fat sauce, pre-cook the ground beef and drain it. But realize that by draining the fat, you are removing most of the flavor. It’s true! Ground beef is pretty bland without the savory fat. You can drain MOST of the fat as a nice compromise.
• Use ground chuck, not ground sirloin or ground round. Ground chuck has a bit more fat in it, giving the beef more flavor.
• If you want to leave the fat in the sauce but not have TOO MUCH fat, use a lean beef and do not pre-cook the meat. Instead, shred the ground beef and put it in the tomato sauce and let it cook. Yep, it’s fattier and has more calories, but it’s SOOOOOO good.
• Use only fresh ingredients: fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, fresh garlic, etc.
• Use Roma (plum) tomatoes, not those big round beefsteak tomatoes. Roma are the best tomatoes for sauces, as they are thick and savory. The big beefsteak tomatoes are great for slices on hamburgers, but they are too soupy and flavorless for sauce.
• Pre-cook white onions before you add them to the sauce. When you pre-cook the onions, the heating process caramelizes the onions, drawing out their sweetness and adding flavor.
• Cook the sauce on LOW heat and stir constantly.
• Don’t serve the sauce right away. Allow the sauce to sit in the refrigerator for a day or two, to ripen. This is true for all tomato recipes (especially Manhattan Clam Chowder). For some reason, allowing the sauce to mature for a day or two allows the ingredients to mellow and blend together. Yum.
• Add little touches to the sauce, like freshly grated Parmesan cheese or a drop of Worchestershire sauce. I also add green peppers for color and a little panache.

Italians make the finest foods, don’t you think?! I love Italian cooking and I learned some really good tips growing up in an Italian home. I’m not Italian, though (and I couldn’t even pass as one, not even with some good costume kingdom coupons and a slick disguise). But I can cook like one!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to make some sauce! Manja! Manja!

Homemade Pizza That Tastes Good

I’m not exactly a pizza connoisseur, but I love me a good pizza. I’m terribly spoiled, because I live in Upstate New York, where there are more pizza parlors than people (so it seems). I have tried my hand at making a good homemade pizza, but have failed miserably.

My daughter, however, makes GREAT homemade pizza! OMG this is amazing!!!

We made the crust in the bread machine, a simple white bread dough. We allow it to rise and then we stretch it out in a pan. Allow it to rise again.

I always failed in the next step– from there, I always spread the sauce and cheese and baked it. But the daughter baked the bare dough for just a few minutes before she added the toppings. The crust turned out perfect.

Her toppings are amazing. She used canned pizza sauce (not spaghetti sauce!). She chopped up and cooked frozen meatballs. She used plenty of pepperoni. She steamed fresh broccoli. She slathered on mozzarella cheese (I think she used about 45 ounces of cheese for 4 pizzas!). She spread freshly chopped garlic and plenty of Italian seasoning (dried) herbs. And she baked it all again.

IT WAS MARVELOUS. The pizza was very filling and so delicious. It wasn’t greasy like pizza-parlor pizza, either– the cheese was more like the consistency of egyptian magic cream– smooth and flexible but not oily and runny.

Yeah, it was a lot of work. And yeah, it was expensive. The cheese alone costs $10 per 30-ounce bag. Ouch. Pizza is just an expensive meal, which is so ironic because it was invented as a cheapo means to use up leftovers.

I also think homemade pizza is more healthy. Which gives us another excuse to make it again!

Super Easy Calzones

I don’t know what the difference is, exactly, between calzones and pepperoni rolls. They are shaped differently, but that’s only slightly. They are made with the same kinds of ingredients and bakes the same way… ??

When I worked in radio, there was a pizzeria across the street. They made the most FABULOUS pepperoni rolls. I used to call them to order one, and have them call me when it was done. Then, I’d put on a long song to play on the air, and run over the the pizzeria to get my roll. It was pretty risky, and one time, the song had JUST ended before I could plug another one in. Whew!

I’ll have to post my own pepperoni roll recipe up sometime. I want to take photos when I do, so stay tuned (in radio lingo).

With all that said, I found a really quick and easy recipe for Calzones that I thought I’d share. The recipe is not mine, it’s from Disney Family Food site. They have some nice, kid-friendly meals there. Here are the calzones:

Calzones

Ingredients

2 loaves frozen bread dough, thawed
1/2 pound sliced ham
1/2 pound sliced hard salami
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup jarred marinara sauce

Directions

1. Roll each loaf of dough into a rectangle about 8 inches by 12 inches.
2. Layer ham and salami down the center of each rolled loaf lengthwise.
3. Top meats with 1 cup shredded mozzarella for each roll.
4. Fold short ends of each loaf in about 1/2 inch and seal. Roll from the long sides and pinch well to seal the entire loaf. You should have 2 long rolls.
5. Bake, seam side down on a greased baking sheet in a 375 degree F oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
6. Cut each roll into 8 slices and serve with marinara for dipping.

So there you have it. I would probably just make my own dough in my bread machine. My bread dough is healthier, anyway, and I’m convinced the olive oil I use instead of veggie oil is soo good for you. I love olive oil! You can use it for a billion things: lamps, skin oil, acne scar removal?, eating, digestive problems, etc. I love the stuff.

Anyway, that’s what I’d do. I’d also probably skip the ham (I don’t like ham) and use pepperoni. But then it would probably make the calzone into a pepperoni roll, don’t ya think?

Well, stay tuned, I’ll be making pepperoni rolls next week.

Chicken Riggies: A Central NY Dish

Central New York is renowned for incredible Italian dishes, due to the influx of immigrants in the late 1800s. I am not Italian, since I was raised in an Italian region by Italians, I cook a lot of Italian foods. (I also talk with my hands :-p ). One such Italian dish in the Utica, NY, area is Chicken Riggies, is a famous and popular local dish. There’s even a Riggie Fest every year, with local restaurants competing for the infamous title of King Riggie or something like that.

It seems that everybody around here has their own variation of Chicken Riggies; this is mine. I originally posted the recipe on my New York Traveler blog, where it went viral and go linked to on Wikipedia. That was cool, like getting a spot on the best paid web directories for free!

Anyway, as with a lot of my cooking, the ingredients are “a little this” and “a little that.” Basically, Chicken Riggies is a chicken, tomato cream, and sherry cream sauce on rigatoni pasta dish. This recipe is completely customizable– add more cream if you want it creamier; add more cherry peppers (so daring you are!) if you want to burn your tongue off; leave out the sherry if you don’t want alcohol. I prefer less cream, less spice, and more tomatoes. Mmmmm/

Chicken Riggies
Feeds an army or 4 to 5 Italians

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 5 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 white onion, chopped
• 3 or 4 hot cherry peppers (from the jar), seeded and chopped (add less or more if you are a glutton for punishment)
• 1 small can tomato paste
• 2 cans (28 oz. or so) diced tomatoes
• 4 leaves freshly chopped basil, or 1 tablespoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 cup sherry (optional; I always add it)
• 4 to 5 chicken breasts cut into bite-size pieces*
• salt to taste
• freshly ground pepper to taste
• 1/2 to 2/3 cup light cream (depending on taste)
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup shredded Mozzarella cheese (optional)
• 2 1-lb. boxes of penne rigati or rigatoni

* You can pre-boil the chicken, or use leftover chicken, or use leftover grilled chicken cubes for extra kick.

This time, I boiled the chicken. Cut the chicken into cubes and toss them in a large wok (or other large pan) with the olive oil, diced onion, and chopped garlic. Cook gently until the onion turns tender.

While that’s cooking, mince a few pickled cherry peppers. I dislike hot dishes, so I only included two peppers for a little excitement. After you’ve chopped them, throw them into your wok, and stir.

Add the tomato paste and the cans of tomatoes; then add the spices. Mmm, I love basil. Stir well.

Allow the sauce to simmer for about 20 minutes. While the sauce is simmering, start boiling the rigatoni pasta.

Back to the tomatoes: After 20 minutes or so, add the sherry if you are using it, and cook for another 10 minutes. Stir frequently and do not allow the tomato sauce to burn– keep the heat a low/medium.

The tomatoes should be done, so remove them from the heat. Add the cream and the Parmesan cheese and lightly stir.

Stir in a handful of mozzarella cheese if you want.

Drain and lightly rinse the rigatoni. Place it into a large dish. Pour the Riggie tomato sauce on the pasta and lightly stir. Garnish with more cheese. It’s a terrific meal all on it’s own, but you can also serve it with a crispy green salad or garlic bread. Soooooo good.

Stuffed Zucchini Boats

Well, as is customary about this time of year, billions of recipes involving zucchini are blasted through the Internet cookbooks, mine included. For some reason, we had a weird occurrence with excessive zucchini this year. No no, I know everyone gets excessive zucchini EVERY year- but the weird thing is that I had the kids plant yellow squash, and what came up were zucchini plants! (I don’t know if the seeds were mislabeled, or the kids were daydreaming about Wii accessories on planting day and got the packages mixed up). SO whereas I planned for TWO zucchini plants and THREE yellow squash plants, what I actually got were ZERO yellow squash and FIVE zucchini plants. *sigh* And only half the gang here like zucchini. *sigh sigh*

Well, here’s a recipe that everyone is forced to eat that everyone enjoys. Stuffed Zucchini! You know, I did not know this was a “real” recipe for the longest time. Here I am, thinking I made it up, and lo and behold I see other people writing about it. Sheesh.

So this recipe is customizable. You can make it Plain Jane Family Fare like I have here, or you can go Puttin’ On the Ritz Fancy by doing things like replacing the mozzarella cheese with provolone slices; or adding things like tarragon or marjoram; or using freshly sliced tomatoes or add some leftover spaghetti sauce instead of the canned tomatoes; whatever floats your boat. And you can slice the zucchini lengthwise to scoop out the pulp, or get really fancy and make cylinders and stuff it in the other direction. It’s very versatile, and you can go hog wild with it.

Stuffed Zucchini
Serves 6
3-6 small or medium-sized zucchini, depending on your family’s tolerance for the veggie
1 pound ground sausage
1 medium Vidalia, white, or red onion
3-4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 28 oz. can petite diced tomatoes
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
1 Tablespoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 cups whole-milk mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan Cheese

Note: Some folks parboil the zucchini before slicing it, but I don’t. I like my zucchini firm.

Cook the ground sausage, add the onion and chopped garlic near the end of the cooking to soften them. Add the tomatoes and cook for 4-5 minutes. In the meantime, prepare your zucchini: slice your zucchini and scoop out the seeds and a little bit of the pulp. You will throw away the seeds, but dice up the pulp to use as an ingredient in the stuffing.

Remove your sausage/onion/garlic/tomato mixture from the stove and let it cool for a few minutes. Add the spices, Parmesan Cheese, the zucchini pulp, and the bread crumbs, and mix well.

Arrange your zucchini “boats” (or cylinders) in a large, lightly-greased casserole dish. Carefully spoon the mix into the boats. Take your mozzarella cheese and sprinkle generously over the boats.

Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes. If you have parboiled the zucchini, bake for less time, about 30 minutes.

Serve with a side dish of boiled elbows and sauce, or a nice green salad and crusty bread. Yum!

Photo courtesy of DallasNews.

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