Let's make UV's spaghetti sauce
Posted: Sep 9th, '09, 11:02
Well, having been on a totally liquid diet administered thru a feeding tube for over a year, being able to start eating solid food is a pretty big deal....I still can't eat some things like bread and red meat, but getting better all the time....they used the radiation equivalent of a Hiroshima A-Bomb killing the cancer in my throat, so that left a little collateral damage that is healing sorta slow....so my cooking right now is geared to stuff I can swallow easy and no red pepper.....actually real coonass food uses next to no red pepper - only the fake cajun food loads up the red pepper to hide the lack of care in overall prep.....so let's make some spaghetti sauce that will feed about 12.
Take a big iron skillet that we are gonna use to saute' down most of our ingredients. Melt a stick and a half of real salted butter and an equal volume of extra virgin olive oil. Add two bunches of chopped green onion, four heads (yep, 4 or more) of chopped fresh garlic, and two chopped stalks of celery. Squeeze in the juice of a big lemon - or two little ones, then chop the lemon peel fine (yep the peel) and add that to the saute'. You can add some chopped bell pepper if you like it, but I hate the damned stuff, gives me gas for a week just smelling it.
Saute' the veggies down adding some white wine as you go, then add a pound of sliced mushrooms and continue to saute' until the mushrooms have shrunk up a good bit. Now pour your saute' into a big pot and keep simmering very slowly. Now cut up two pounds of mild smoked sausage into tiny chunks and saute' with a stick of salted real butter and some olive oil in your iron skillet until nice and brown, then add to the pot. Now dice up real small some pork chops you have trimmed the fat off of...say a half dozen, and saute' them down in your iron skillet with a half stick of butter and a little olive oil (we are up to 3 sticks of butter now) until the pork is brown and add to the pot. Now add a couple of cups of white (or red if you like) wine to the pot and simmer the whole she-bang for hours....you are trying to cook the sausage and pork down to next to nothing, a thick sauce. As it cooks down, add liquid and cook down some more....wine...plain water, or beef or chicken stock is fine.
I prefer mine without tomato, but the Bride now and then talks me into adding a 16 oz. jar of tomato sauce and its okay. I made some Sat. for a party we were having at the camp Sunday nite and used andoulle sausage instead of the pork chops in addition to the smoked sausage, but its pretty had to get outside of Louisiana. Serve over angel hair pasta or just plan ole spaghetti with some grated parm cheeese on the side.....remember, spaghetti expands like crazy so take out as much as you think you will cook and put half of it back....I boil mine in salty water (I use sea salt for cooking, much better flavor) for 12 minutes, drain and spray with cold water to keep it from sticking together.
Sunday nite we had a good bit of both sauce and spaghetti left over and mixed it up in a casserole dish and froze it to eat another day.
The sauce is pretty much an all day affair, but a great diversion while watching football and drinking...once you get it all in the pot and just simmering you are out of the woods on screwing it up so it does not take much watching after that.
Finally, note that there is no seasoning at all....its real easy to add salt and pepper at the table but damn hard to take out.....
y'all enjoy.
UV
Take a big iron skillet that we are gonna use to saute' down most of our ingredients. Melt a stick and a half of real salted butter and an equal volume of extra virgin olive oil. Add two bunches of chopped green onion, four heads (yep, 4 or more) of chopped fresh garlic, and two chopped stalks of celery. Squeeze in the juice of a big lemon - or two little ones, then chop the lemon peel fine (yep the peel) and add that to the saute'. You can add some chopped bell pepper if you like it, but I hate the damned stuff, gives me gas for a week just smelling it.
Saute' the veggies down adding some white wine as you go, then add a pound of sliced mushrooms and continue to saute' until the mushrooms have shrunk up a good bit. Now pour your saute' into a big pot and keep simmering very slowly. Now cut up two pounds of mild smoked sausage into tiny chunks and saute' with a stick of salted real butter and some olive oil in your iron skillet until nice and brown, then add to the pot. Now dice up real small some pork chops you have trimmed the fat off of...say a half dozen, and saute' them down in your iron skillet with a half stick of butter and a little olive oil (we are up to 3 sticks of butter now) until the pork is brown and add to the pot. Now add a couple of cups of white (or red if you like) wine to the pot and simmer the whole she-bang for hours....you are trying to cook the sausage and pork down to next to nothing, a thick sauce. As it cooks down, add liquid and cook down some more....wine...plain water, or beef or chicken stock is fine.
I prefer mine without tomato, but the Bride now and then talks me into adding a 16 oz. jar of tomato sauce and its okay. I made some Sat. for a party we were having at the camp Sunday nite and used andoulle sausage instead of the pork chops in addition to the smoked sausage, but its pretty had to get outside of Louisiana. Serve over angel hair pasta or just plan ole spaghetti with some grated parm cheeese on the side.....remember, spaghetti expands like crazy so take out as much as you think you will cook and put half of it back....I boil mine in salty water (I use sea salt for cooking, much better flavor) for 12 minutes, drain and spray with cold water to keep it from sticking together.
Sunday nite we had a good bit of both sauce and spaghetti left over and mixed it up in a casserole dish and froze it to eat another day.
The sauce is pretty much an all day affair, but a great diversion while watching football and drinking...once you get it all in the pot and just simmering you are out of the woods on screwing it up so it does not take much watching after that.
Finally, note that there is no seasoning at all....its real easy to add salt and pepper at the table but damn hard to take out.....
y'all enjoy.
UV