Rigatoni "Lasagna"

Note: This is a sponsored post for a pasta sauce, but the words and recipe and photos are all mine.

I still remember - vividly - the first time I tasted lasagna. I was about 9 years old, and my mom and I, along with my mom's lady friend, had been invited to dinner at the apartment of a single fellow who happened to own the local grocery store.

He was making lasagna. I'd never heard of it before, but I was pretty much interested in any kind of Italian food. So I was more than happy to be there.

The truth was that mom's friend was the one who was invited to dinner, but it wasn't proper for a lady to visit a man's apartment by herself, so mom and I tagged along. I realize that now. Back then, we were just going to dinner.

I have no recollection of what else was served, but when that lasagna hit my plate with the beautiful layers, I was intrigued. When I took my first bite, I might have heard angels singing. I know I had a second helping. Perhaps a third.

I might have eaten more than any adult at the table, and if I could have figured out a way to run out the door with the leftovers, I might have done that, too. I was in love.

As far as I know, that was mom's first experience with lasagna, too. Although I begged her to make it for us, she never did. I don't know if it was simply too much trouble or if it was that she had no idea how to make it.

But every single time I saw lasagna on a restaurant menu, that's what I ordered. And I knew that when I was old enough, I was going to make lasagna.

Eventually, I did learn how to make lasagna. I tweaked the recipe and I made giant batches, enough to feed entire neighborhoods, because it really was a project. If I was going to make it, I might as well make a whole lot of it. Some to eat, some to freeze.

These days, my lasagna-making is usually reserved for special occasions, but that doesn't mean I've abandoned it entirely. This layered rigatoni dish has the flavors of lasagna, but it's simple. Very simple. And by using jarred Ragu sauce, it takes very little time.

Just look at the layers!

My mom used Ragu Pasta Sauce quite often, and like many other things that I grew up with, I didn't think a whole lot about the history of the product. It was just there. I probably never would have looked it up, but I got the info as part of this sponsorship.

The company was founded by a woman named Assunta Cantisano, who came to the US in 1914 - just a little bit before my mom was born. Later, during the depression, Assunta started selling her home-made tomato sauce to her neighbors, and pretty soon that turned into the company we know as Ragu. By the time I was born, Ragu was everywhere. Even my mom's kitchen.

Back then, there were a lot fewer flavor choices in the Ragu brand. Now there are a lot of different options, including chunky, smooth, meaty, and a whole lot of others. Do you use Ragu? Which ones do you like?

Oh! If you're worried about what's in a jar of sauce, Ragu has no artificial flavors and no HFCS.

Ah, but there's MORE.

There's a contest running on Food.com called Ready. Set. Cook! They're asking you to create new and unique recipes featuring Ragu sauce and using a set list of other ingredients. Go check it out and maybe you can win something. I like it when my readers win stuff!

Rigatoni Lasagna
aka Layered Rigatoni with Cheese

1/2 pound dry rigatoni or similar pasta
1 jar Ragu Super Chunky Mushroom
1 pound ricotta cheese
2 eggs
2 cups shredded mozzarella (or to taste)
Grated parmesan or romano cheese (optional)

Heat the oven to 350 degrees and have an 8- or 9-inch baking dish standing by.

Cook the pasta in boiling salted water until al dente.

While you're cooking the pasta, combine the ricotta and eggs in a small bowl. Mix until well blended.

When the pasta is done, drain the water and stir in the Ragu. (Note: I used to Super Chunky Mushroom because I'm a bit of a mushroom fiend, but this would work equally well with any of the other flavors or varieties.)

Mix until well combined. It might be a little soupy - that's fine, the pasta will absorb some of the sauce as it bakes.

Put half of the sauced pasta in the baking dish. There should be enough to cover the entire bottom of the dish.

Add the ricotta mixture to the baking dish in an even layer. Top with the remaining pasta and sauce.

Sprinkle the cheese on top of the pasta in an even layer. You can add more or less, to taste. If you like, sprinkle some parmesan or romano cheese on top.

Bake the pasta at 350 degrees until the cheese is melted and brown in spots, and the sauce is bubbling around the edges, about 30 minutes.

Remove the baking pan from the oven and place it on a trivet or folded kitchen towel (it's hot!).

Let the pasta rest for 5 minutes or so before serving.

Giveaway is over.

Yum

Hunter's Chicken (Pollo alla Cacciatora)

So this is how my life works. As I was going to bed, I realized that I hadn't dragged anything out of the freezer to thaw for dinner, and I pondered what I might make for dinner the next day.

I knew I had chicken thighs in the freezer, and I remembered seeing a chicken recipe in one of the piles of cookbooks I'd recently bookmarked.

So, first thing I did (well, after coffee, actually) I pulled the chicken out. Later, I went hunting for the cookbook. The recipe obviously wasn't in the cookie book or the pie book or the bakery book or the mug meal cookbook or ... hmmm ... which one? I knew I saw it somewhere.

Finally, I picked up Extra Virgin by Gabriele Corcos and Debi Mazar. I paged through the bookmarks. Not the potato and pepper stew, not pork loin, not the pasta ... and then I saw the Hunter's Chicken. That was it!

As I perused the ingredients, I realized that I had (sort of) everything I needed. The recipe called for 12 pieces of chicken including white and dark meat. I had six chicken thighs. The recipe called for anchovy filets, and I had anchovy paste. The recipe called for garlic cloves and I had Dorot frozen crushed garlic cubes. The recipe called for red onion, carrot, and celery. Okay, I had those.

But then it called for Sangiovese red wine. I had red wine, but not that one in particular. I used a red blend from Chateau La Paws. The recipe called for chopped fresh Roma or plum tomatoes. I had canned tomato products. The recipe called for black pitted olives. I had Lindsay Naturals green olives (they taste like black olives, but they're green). The recipe called for fresh bay leaves, but I had dry bay leaves sent to me by my friend Charles Turnipseed.

And while we're naming brands, I just happened to notice that I was using Hunt's canned tomato products for a recipe called Hunter's Chicken. On a side note, one of my favorite canned tomato products is the Petite Diced. I can't explain exactly what it is, but they taste fresher and they also tend to hold their shape better when they're used in cooked recipes, so you keep the texture.

So, after reading the recipe and checking my available ingredients I realized that I might as well make my own version of the recipe. Not a big deal, because I'd made Chicken Cacciatore many times, so I knew what it was supposed to be like, and I decided to keep the "bones" of the Extra Virgin recipe. My changes weren't all about substituting ingredients, though. Once I decided to wander off on my own, I also changed the amount of most of the ingredients. Some were small changes and some were much more substantial.

In the end, it worked. Possibly better than other versions of Chicken Cacciatore I'd made before. I served with rotini pasta to take advantage of the sauce - and I cooked it in a new way. Yup, a new way for cooking dried pasta. Whoda thunkit?

And, by the way, when my brain isn't fully engaged, I'm quite likely to call this recipe Kitchen Cacciatore. Which makes no sense at all.

Hunter's Chicken (Chicken Cacciatore)
Inspired by Extra Virgin by Gabriele Corcos and Debi Mazar

1 tablespoon olive oil
6 chicken thighs
Salt and pepper (to taste)
1 teaspoon anchovy paste
2 cubes Dorot garlic (or 2 garlic cloves, minced or crushed)
1 red onion, peeled and diced
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1 celery stalk, diced
1 cup red wine (I used Chateau La Paws red blend)
1 14.5-ounce can petite diced tomatoes
1 8-ounce can tomato sauce
1 6-ounce net weight can Lindsay Naturals pitted green olives (you can use black olives), drained
2 dry bay leaves

In a large skillet or Dutch oven, heat the olive oil on medium heat. Salt and pepper the chicken on all sides. Add the chicken to the pan, skin-side down, and cook until golden brown. Flip and cook on the other side. Remove the chicken from the pan while you continue cooking.

Add the anchovy paste and garlic cubes and cook, stirring, until the garlic cubes have thawed in the pan and the mixture is fragrant. You don't want the garlic to get more than very lightly browned, because a few seconds more could result in burned garlic.

Add the onion, carrot and celery and cook until the onions look translucent and the vegetables are all beginning to soften.

Add the wine and cook at a vigorous simmer until the alcohol scent is gone. You want it to smell winey, but not like alcohol. It will reduce while you're doing this.

Add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, and olives. Stir to combine.

Nestle the chicken into the sauce and add any liquid that came out of the chicken while it was resting. Nestle the bay leaves into the sauce - you'll be removing them before serving, so adding them last makes them easy to fish out.

Cover the pot, turn the heat to low, and cook until the chicken is tender - about 50 minutes. Since you're working with dark meat, it can stand to be cooked longer with no ill effects, so if you need to leave it longer, that's perfectly fine.

Serve hot.

There's a lot of sauce, so it's a good idea to serve this with something to take advantage of that sauce. I suggest pasta, but crusty bread is great, too.

Yum

Pasta Puttanesca

Long, long ago, I worked for a family company that had the bad habit of building its empire by buying similar family companies. Inevitably, we'd acquire one or two family members who were contractually obligated to get a paycheck, but who weren't terribly motivated to work for that paycheck.

Those new pseudo-employees were shuffled around to different departments, in the hope that they'd find something they liked enough that they would do the job, and (fingers crossed) that they'd be capable of doing the job. Or at least they'd cause no great harm.

I worked in outside sales, and one such wunderkind was shoveled into our department, probably because he liked to go out to lunch a lot, and the powers-that-were thought he could at least take customers along for the meal.

I had the un-pleasure of dining with him on several occasions, and whenever he had the chance, he'd order Pasta Puttanesca. Not because he particularly liked it better than other offerings, but because it would allow him to grin creepily and ask everyone at the table, "Do you know what that means?"

He was not Italian, nor did he speak Italian, but he had once asked a waiter what puttanesca meant, and was absolutely delighted that a pasta dish was named after ... well, ladies of the night. And he gleefully shared that knowledge with whoever was dining with him.

The story is that the ladies in question would make this dish because they could make it fast, which allowed them to get back to work quickly. But of course, he didn't care about the story. He just loved translating the name (usually in cruder terms) and gauging the reactions of people at the table, hoping for shock or horror.

Yup, that's the guy you want representing the brand.

Back then, I just rolled my eyes and said yes, I know. These days, I'd probably conspire with a waiter to invent a dish named after men with small noses.

No matter what the name, the dish still holds up as a quick and tasty meal. This version comes from Patsy's Italian Family Cookbook by Sal Scognamillo. Patsy's is an Italian restaurant in New York, and the recipes are what you'd expect from a restaurant serving the classics.

The recipe is actually for Linguine Puttanesca, but I've also had it with spaghetti. Use what you like.

I didn't have the anchovies in oil, but I did have anchovies in a tube. I just eyeballed the amount.

Linguine Puttanesca
Adapted from Patsy's Italian Family Cookbook by Sal Scognamillo

1/4 cup olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 28-ounce can whole plum tomatoes in juice
1/2 cup pitted and coarsely chopped kalamata olives
3 tablespoons drained capers, rinsed
6 anchovies* in oil, drained and finely chopped
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 pound linguine, cooked al dente in boiling salted water
Grated parmesan (or the good stuff), for serving

Get the water boiling and cook the pasta while you're working on the sauce.

Heat the oil and garlic together in a large, deep skilled over medium heat. Stir very often until the garlic is just turning golden. It can burn in an instant. If it does, toss the garlic and oil and start over.

Pour the juices from the tomatoes into the pan, then crush the tomatoes with your hands as you add them. Bring the mixture to a boil, then add the olives, capers, anchovies, and oregano. Reduce the heat to medium-low and let it simmer until it has thickened, about 20 minutes. If the linguine hasn't cooked to al dente by this time, set the sauce aside.

The book suggests draining the pasta, reserving 1/2 cup of pasta water, and adding the sauce to the pasta along with the reserved pasta water. Instead I transferred the pasta to the sauce, then added pasta water. Do whichever you think is easier.

Bring the pasta and sauce to a boil over high heat. Taste and add salt and pepper to taste - you might not need a whole lot of salt since you have olives, capers, and salty pasta water already.

Serve hot with cheese on the side to add as desired.

*I used anchovy paste from a tube and eyeballed the amount.

I received this book from the publisher at no cost to me.

Yum

Egg-in-a-Heart - perfect for Valentine's Day Breakfast

Can I be honest here for a second?

The truth is that my husband and I don't get all hearts-and-flowers for Valentine's Day. Oh, we'll probably exchange silly cards. But no one's going to go out and buy a pink teddy bear stuffed with chocolates, or anything like that.

Because when you've been married since dinosaurs roamed the earth, you don't really need some marketing company to tell you that it's time to be all smoochy.

On the other hand, I might serve something silly, romantic, or sort of funny on a normal, average, random day.

It's like that around here.

So while this might be something you'd make for Valentine's Day, it's just as likely that we ate this last Tuesday afternoon, for no reason at all. Okay, maybe because I was recipe testing. But still...

The recipe starts off with corn tortillas. You can get all rustic and make your own, but you can buy decent corn tortillas these days, and you might even have locally-made tortillas nearby. By the way, I tried this with flour tortillas, and the corn ones worked out much better. And, many corn tortillas are gluten-free, so that's a plus.

Once you've secured a supply of corn tortillas, you need a large heart-shaped cookie cutter or heart-shaped biscuit cutter. In a pinch, I guess you could free-form cut hearts out of the tortillas with a knife, but at this time of year, you'll probably find the cutters you need at the grocery store, in the aisle that's decorated in pink and red.

Choose a pan to fry the tortillas to crisp them. Choose carefully, because it determines how much oil you'll use. You only need about 1/4 inch of oil in the bottom of the pan, so a larger pan will use more oil.

On the other hand, a very large pan will allow you to fry more tortillas at once. So here's the deal. If you can't fit three tortillas in the pan without overlapping, you might as well use a smaller pan and fry them one at a time. Yes, it will take longer. But in theory, you're not making these for the whole neighborhood.

This recipe is similar to migas, which is eggs fried with tortilla chips, and it's also similar to all the egg dishes simmered in tomato sauce or salsa, like eggs in purgatory. But it's cuter. And romantic. Awwwww...

Egg-in-a-Heart

Vegetable oil, for frying the tortillas, as needed
Corn tortillas - 1-2 per person
Eggs - 1 for each tortilla
Marinara sauce (or salsa, if you prefer) about 1/4 cup per tortilla (Plus more for serving, if desired)

Heat the oil in the pan until it's hot enough to fry the tortillas. How do you know? You dip the edge of a tortilla in the oil, and if it bubbles like mad, it's ready to fry.

Meanwhile, use the heart-shaped cutter to cut a heart from the center of each tortilla you will use.

Fry the tortillas and the heart cut-outs in the oil, flipping as needed, until they're golden brown and crisp. They will warp and get bubbles in them as they fry - that's fine. It makes each one unique.

Let the fried tortilla drain on paper towels as they cool, to catch the grease that clings.

You can make the chips well in advance - several days is fine. If you make them in advance, make extra. They're good for snacking.

When you're ready to make the hearts, put a small pat of butter in the center of a frying pan and heat on medium. You want the butter to cover about the same diameter as the heart cutout, but it doesn't need to be exact.

Dollop the marinara (or salsa) in a ring around the butter. This creates a barrier so the egg won't spread quite as far. Place one of the tortilla rings on top of your marinara so the buttered area is in the middle of the heart.

Break an egg into the heart-shaped hole in the center of the tortilla.

Cover the pan and cook until the white of the egg is set and there's a white film covering the yolk. If you have a glass lid, you can watch the process, otherwise you'll need to peek occasionally, which slows down the cooking process as you lose the steam when you lift the lid. So don't keep peeking!

The yolk will still be runny when that film has formed on the egg. If you like a firmer yolk, keep cooking until the egg is done to your liking.

Use a large spatula to slide under the egg and tortilla and lift both at the same time, onto a plate. Add more sauce (or salsa) around the outside of the tortilla, if you prefer.

Serve hot with the heart-shaped cutouts (and extra rings, if you like.)

Happy Valentine's Day.

Yum

Simple Tomato Sauce

I have to admit that my attention has been rather scattered lately. I was working like mad in November and December, with barely time to breathe ... then I took some planned time off. Then some un-planned time. Then I decided to re-arrange my pantry and kitchen.

And now there are things hanging in various states of completion. Every once in a while, I think, gee, I need to use that stuff in a recipe. Or I'm putting a gadget away and I think, "I ought to review this."

Or I re-arrange some random stuff and a cookbook called  Dairy Made Easy falls out of the middle of the pile.

Hmmm.

There was a bookmark sticking out. I vaguely remembered wanting to try the recipe, but for the life of me, I don't recall where I got the book. It might have come from the publisher, but maybe I bought it. Maybe someone gave it to me. Maybe it ... spontaneously transported itself to my "to-do" pile.

In any case, I decided that since I had bookmarked that particular recipe, I might as well make it right away. I mean, I had almost all of the ingredients, and I had a good substitute for the one I didn't have.

While the title, Dairy Made Easy, sounds like it might be a book about dairy products, it's actually about cooking kosher - and in this case, dairy-containing dishes rather than meat-containing dishes. But you don't need to be keeping kosher for this book to be appealing - it's great for meatless meals any old time.

And let's face it, there are plenty of dishes we serve that are naturally meatless. Or that are side dishes to meat. Because if you're not keeping kosher, you could do that, too.

The dish I chose was a simple tomato sauce for pasta, with richness from butter rather than meat.

This was a really fast sauce - done in the time it took to boil the water and cook the pasta - and it's a blank canvas for adding other flavors. Next time, I might add fresh basil at the end. Or dried oregano at the beginning.

Instead of the garlic cloves (I used my last cloves for another recipe) I used Mezzetta Garlic Spread. I used my last couple cloves of garlic for another recipe, and didn't want to use garlic powder. The Mezzetta spread is milder than fresh garlic, but it's still got good garlic flavor.

Classic Spaghetti with Buttery Tomato Sauce
Adapted from Dairy Made Easy by Leah Schapira and Victoria Dwek

1 pound dry spaghetti
5 tablespoons butter, divived
2 garlic cloves crushed (I used a garlic spread)
2 cups fresh diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
Pinch of sugar
Parmesan cheese, for sprinkling (optional)

Start the water boiling for the pasta and cook it while you're working on the sauce

Melt 4 tablespoons of the butter in a saute pan and add the garlic and cook for a minute to soften it, stirring constantly. You don't want it to brown because the next step is burning, so if it starts browning, take it off the heat..

Add the tomatoes and salt and cook for another 4 minutes, stirring as needed.

Add the the tomato sauce and sugar. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring once in a while.

Add the pasta to the sauce and stir to combine.

Serve hot, Sprinkle with cheese, if desired.

Yum

Neil Anderson's Bolognese of August from Adventures in Comfort Food

When I agreed to participate in a blog tour for a book with "comfort food" in the title, a number of things came to mind. Pasta with a tomato sauce was high on the list. So when I saw this recipe for bolognese, I knew I had to try it.

This isn't typically how I make tomato sauce for pasta, but then again, I'm not Italian. When I went to the store for supplies, there was no veal to be found except for some tiny chops that cost more than my mortgage. The butcher said they stopped carrying the ground veal because of quality issues.

There was also a celery shortage, but I averted that disaster by buying celery sticks that were cleverly hidden in the prepped-foods area, along with must-haves like pineapple chunks and asparagus packed with lemon slices.

As for the veal, there was nothing I could do except buy something else. I briefly pondered using ground turkey or chicken, but then decided to use beef. So that's what I used here. If you can find veal, then by all means, use it. But beef worked just fine, if that's holding you back.

The one thing I quibble with here is the serving size. This might feed 3-4 people if they're all teenagers or athletes, but around here a half-pound box of dry pasta is good for 4-6 servings. Then again, we probably don't eat as much as the average person. So take my thoughts with a grain or two of salt.

The intro to the recipe said:
Neil Anderson was the second chef I ever hired. He came into the restaurant one day, turned to the waitress and said, “I want to work here.” We took him on. During Neil’s first summer, I told him we were going to make Bolognese sauce.

“Right," said Neil. "We are making Bolognese, and you are going to go sweat over it." He was not incorrect that heavy, long-cooked meat sauces are not entirely appropriate for the dog days, but I am contrary. Neil is now a professor of languages somewhere, and every summer we make this out of season in his honor.

This is our version of a traditional Bolognese: a meat sauce flavored with a bit of  tomato. It is not the red sauce with meat that sometimes gets called by the same name. Through long cooking, the meats gain a velvety texture and a flavor so addictive that you won’t be able to stop eating it, no matter what the weather.

Look for more bloggers posting more recipes from the book, including: FAB Bowl of Meet, Steak Bomb, Wontons from Space  Deconstructed Nachos,  Woo-Tang Clam, Fish Hash,  Vacation in your Mouth, Jerry Fries, and Steak House.

Did I mention that some of the recipe names are quirky? Why, yes they are.

Neil Anderson’s Bolognese of August
Recipe from Adventures in Comfort Food: Incredible, Delicious and New Recipes
Used with permission. All rights reserved.Serves 3 to 4

1/2 cup/120 ml olive oil
4 cloves garlic
1/8 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 onion, sliced
1 rib celery, chopped coarsely
1/2 cup/60 g carrot, cut into medium dice
4 oz/113 g ground veal
4 oz/113 g ground pork
1 (28 oz/794 g) can tomatoes
2 tbsp/33 g tomato paste
1/2 cup/118 ml heavy cream
1 lb/454 g dried rigatoni pasta, cooked

Place a 4-quart/4 L nonreactive pot over medium-high heat. Heat the olive oil and add the garlic; fry until the cloves are almost golden, 4 minutes. Add the fennel seeds, count to 3, and drop in the onion, celery and carrot. Sweat the vegetables in the olive oil until they are sweet and the garlic is soft, about 10 minutes. Add the veal and pork, breaking up with a spoon to distribute the meat and vegetables as evenly as you can (you’ll mash it later).

When the meat is cooked (it should take 10 to 12 minutes) add the tomatoes, tomato paste and 1/2 cup/118 ml of water. Turn down the heat to low and simmer for at least an hour, preferably 2. Mash with a potato masher to break everything up until it looks like a sauce.

Add the cream. If you’ll be storing the sauce, wait to add the cream until reheating.

For this dish, I prefer boxed rigatoni (not homemade noodles). Add the cooked noodles to the pot of sauce and stir carefully so that you don’t break any noodles.

Distribute onto plates, pour some red wine and eat.

Chef’s Tip: For foolproof seasoning: Remove a small amount of the sauce and add some salt and pepper until it tastes perfect. Using this as a guide, add salt and pepper by small amounts to the pot until it matches the sample.

Recipe by Kerry Altiero and Katherine Gaudet from Adventures in Comfort Food: Incredible, Delicious and New Recipes from a Unique, Small-Town Restaurant. Printed with permission of Page St. Publishing.

I received the book from the publisher for the purpose of this book tour.

A couple notes on this recipe:

This recipe has a lot of oil - there's 1/2 cup at the beginning, along with the fat from the meats you use. If you're bothered by that amount of fat, the easy way to get rid of it is to refrigerate the finished sauce. The fat will rise to the top and harden a bit, so you can remove as much as you like. Leave at least a little - there's flavor in fat. I left it as is, and once the cream and pasta were added, it just sort of disappeared.

I was a little concerned about the whole garlic cloves - I didn't like the idea of someone eating a whole clove with their pasta, so I hunted them down in the finished sauce and made sure they were smashed. If I make this again, I might dice or slice the garlic thinly rather than leaving it whole. Maybe.

The admonishment about not adding the cream if you're going to reheat has to do with the possibility that the cream could curdle. I have the same problem with a tomato soup I make. The solution is to heat the sauce slowly and gently, and never let it boil. If it does boil, you're doomed. The cream is probably going to curdle. It's still edible, but it's not pretty and it the texture is grainy.

So, if you make the sauce ahead, or if you have leftovers, heat gently to warm it, but don't boil it, and you should be fine.

Yum

It Ain't Summer Yet Tomato Salsa

Sometimes I throw things together in the kitchen, thinking I won't blog about them ... and then later I decide that I'd better save the recipe.

This one came about because I'd been testing a pepper-coring gadget and I ended up with quite few jalapenos that needed a good home. If I had fresh tomatoes, I would have made a fresh salsa, but we're still a few months from having great tomatoes at reasonable prices.

So I turned to my one of my favorite canned tomato products - petite diced tomatoes. I like them better than the regular diced tomatoes, so I usually have a can or two on standby.

I did a demo a while back where I used the canned petite-diced tomatoes as-is in a "fresh" salsa and many people thought they were fresh raw tomatoes. I was pretty surprised at that, but I have to say that they're a better choice than the styrofoam-like out-of-season supermarket tomatoes, either as-is, or in a cooked application.

This salsa is fairly mild, so you can pile it onto tacos or a steak. Or into a quesadilla. I filled an avocado half with it for lunch one day. If you want it spicier, don't remove the jalapeno seeds and ribs, or use hotter peppers.

If I had any bell peppers hanging around, I would have added one or two of those, as well, but this was a clean-the-fridge salsa, rather than a planned one. Which explains the celery. When I was rooting around in the crisper looking for carrots (which I didn't have), I found the remains of a celery heart and decided to add that to the salsa.

The funny thing was that while the salsa was cooking, the celery aroma was pretty strong, but after it was cooked, the celery flavor wasn't prominent, but it did add texture.

This made a bit over a quart of salsa.

It Ain't Summer Yet Salsa

6 jalapenos, cored, seeded, diced
1 1/2 large onions, diced
2 small stalks celery, diced
1 14.5-ounce can petite diced tomatoes
1 8-ounce can tomato sauce
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon Mexican oregano
1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
Red wine vinegar or lime juice (optional, to taste)

You can cut the vegetables to any size you like - but remember that this is a salsa and not a stew where you'd want bite-size pieces.

Put the peppers, onion, celery, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, garlic powder, oregano, and salt into a medium saucepan. If it looks too dry and you're worried about burning things, add about 1/2 cup water. As they cook, the vegetables will release moisture, but you don't want to start off by scorching the bottom of the pot.

Cook on medium, stirring as needed, until the vegetables are thoroughly cooked and the liquid has reduced so you have a thick stew of vegetables with the sauce clinging to them.

Taste for seasoning and add more salt, if needed. If you feel that the sauce should be more tart, add a few tablespoons of red wine vinegar or lime juice and cook for a few minutes more.

Transfer the salsa to storage containers and refrigerate.

Yum

Spaghetti Sauce in the slow cooker

My husband loves spaghetti. How much? Well, while he was in the hospital, I made spaghetti a few times. I'd cook half of a 1-pound box and it would last me at least four meals. AT LEAST. And that's with plain tomato sauce - no meat.

I made that same amount of spaghetti along with a sauce that included 1 pound of meat. And I gotta tell ya - what I had left after one meal wasn't even a full serving. And I wasn't the one who ate the extra. This makes me VERY happy, because Bob needs to pack on some weight, and his stomach needs to stretch.

I'm doing the best I can stuffing him with food.

This sauce was perfect for a day when we had a few other things to do during the day. In the slow cooker, I didn't need to worry about stirring. I used a home made tomato sauce, but if you want to make this, you can certainly use canned sauce.

The giardiniera was purchased, and it's not a spicy version. The brands I buy are Greco or Vienna - I'm sure there are others.

Slow-Cooked Spaghetti Sauce

1 medium onion, medium dice
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound ground beef
2 tablespoons Red & Green dried bell peppers (Penzey's)
1/2 teaspoon wild fennel seeds (from Marx Foods)
1 tablespoon Cantanzaro herbs (Savory Spice Shop)
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1/4 cup mild giardiniera
1 quart tomato sauce

If your slow cooker has a browning setting, you can do all of this in the slow cooker. Otherwise, you can brown the meat and cook the vegetables in a separate pot and add them to the slow cooker. I'll assume your crockpot has a browning setting.

Put the onion, garlic, beef, dried bell peppers, fennel seeds, Cantanzaro herbs, and oregano in the slow cooker. Cook until the beef is cooked through and the onions and garlic are softened. Stir as needed to break up the beef an keep from burning the onion and garlic.

Add the giardiniera and tomato sauce. Set the slow cooker on low and cook for four hours - or as long as you like - a little more or less isn't critical.

This makes enough for 1 pound of pasta. It freezes well if you don't use it all.

Yum

Beef and Rigatoni

I used to be a pasta sauce snob.

I think it started in childhood. My mother - not Italian at all - used to make her own sauce from canned tomatoes, herbs, and whatever.

Then one day she discovered the jarred sauces. At the time, there weren't too many choices. One was immediately deemed awful. The other was okay, if she (as she said) "doped it up." She'd add herbs, garlic, maybe some meat. And she's have sauce.

But then she realized that she was adding the same things she would have added to canned tomatoes - but she was paying more for the jarred sauce. And that was pretty much the end of her affair with jarred sauces. And it certainly affected my perception of them.

I usually make my own sauce, but I've found a few brands that I like well enough to keep on hand for that emergency meal when I don't have the energy for much more than boiling water, dumping in some noodles, and covering it with a sauce. And for the most part, those brands are from small producers. One, in fact, comes from Miller Farms, which is a nearby farm that sells at the local farmer's market.

Dave's Gourmet sauces are also on my "acceptable " list. I haven't tried the complete product line, but I've really like the ones I tried.

That's not to say that the ONLY way I use the sauces is dumped on top of pasta. The great thing about a good jarred pasta sauce is that it makes a great sauce for cooking, too. Because you can add extra things to it, but you've already got all the base flavors you need.

This time, I used to to braise some beef to make a meaty pasta dish. I wanted short ribs, but I couldn't find them. I found a small package of boneless short rib meat, but I wanted some bones for flavor, so I picked up some short little beef back ribs.

This recipe would work with whatever braise-worthy beef you have. Quantities aren't set in stone, either. Make it as beefy (or not beefy) as you like. And as far as the jarred sauce - well, use whatever you like. But use a good one.

Beef with Rigatoni and Tomato Sauce

1 jar Dave's Gourmet Red Heirloom tomato sauce
2 small pieces boneless beef short rib meat
4 beef back ribs (they were about 5 inches long)
1/2 pound rigatoni
Parmesan cheese

Toss the beef into a slow cooker and cover with the sauce. Set the cooker on low and cook until the meat it tender. Not just that you can jab a fork in it, but tender. In my slow cooker, that took about 6 hours - yours might be different.

If you have meat on bones, you can remove the bones now, or wait.

Transfer the meat and sauce to a storage container and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. Overnight is good.

When you're ready to serve, cook the pasta in boiling salted water.

Cut the meat into bite-sized chunks. Heat the meat and sauce in a large-enough pot to accommodate that and the pasta.

When the pasta is cooked almost to your liking, drain it and add it to the sauce. Cook a minute or two longer until the pasta finishes cooking.

Serve hot with a little shower of parmesan cheese on top.

This dish also reheats well, and during storage the pasta absorbs even more of the liquid so the sauce is thicker. Thin it out, if you like, but I think it's just as good with a thicker sauce.

Yum

Chicken with Secret Dipping Sauce

For quite some time, this dipping sauce was talked about on the Slice side of Serious Eats, but the recipe was kept (somewhat) secret. Finally, Diana Horst, known as dhorst on Serious Eats, posted the recipe. Of course I had to make it. Several quarts were handed out as gifts, and I was making a dent in the remaining sauce ... but then I thought, "why not cook with this stuff?"

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. The sauce had peppers, garlic, tomatoes ... why not use it as a cooking sauce?

So I brainstormed a bit. What should I cook in it? A pork shoulder roast sounded good, and beef brisket sounded good. But it's just little ol' me here, and I'd be eating those for a month. I decided that chicken would be work, and since I wanted to cook it in the slow cooker, thighs were a good choice.

I decided to make sort of a stew, with potatoes and green beans along with the chicken. The only error I made was that the beans I bought were a little too mature and tough, so they took a bit more time to cook than I expected. But that's okay. In the end, the beans were tender and very tasty.

SDS Chicken

4 chicken thighs

4 red potatoes, peeled and quartered

1 pound green beans, trimmed

1 pint Secret Dipping Sauce (recipe follows)
Avocado (for garnish)

Place all ingredients in your slow cooker. Set the cooker to low and cook until the chicken and potatoes are cooked through and the green beans are tender - mine took about 5 hours, but slow cookers vary.

The oil from the sauce will separate and rise to the top while cooking. Don't worry about that.

Remove the meat and vegetables when they're done, drain off the excess oil, and serve the sauce with the chicken. You can also cook this a day in advance. When you refrigerate it, the oil will become more solid and it will be easy to remove. Then reheat it and serve.

I thought avocado was the perfect garnish for this dish. A bowl of Secret Dipping Sauce passed at the table would be nice for those who want the extra heat.

Secret Dipping Sauce

By Diana Horst (dhorst)
Makes about 5 quarts of sauce

6 1/2 cups olive oil (just your basic cheap kind--I used Wegmans)
1 cup sliced garlic
1/3 to 1/2 cup pickled Thai chiles (depending on how hot you want it)
4 oz. Asian chili oil
2/3 cup honey
96 oz. crushed tomatoes ( of course I used Sclafani!)
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt

Cook the garlic on medium low in the olive oil until golden ( I used a stock pot). Strain garlic from oil and reserve both. Puree Thai chiles with chili oil in blender--set aside.

In stock pot with olive oil, add tomatoes, honey, salt and pureed Thai chiles in chili oil. Puree mixture with stick blender or puree in batches in blender. Whisk in garlic by hand. Store in mason jars in the fridge. 

Keeps for quite some time--at least 2 months.

Yum