Grandmom's Red Sauce

While my wonderful mother always worked and never spent hours in the kitchen, her mother certainly did. (Mom's food is good, but it's always of the "cooked after work" variety. ie.: Ragu.)


Grandmom is from Brazil and married a delightful Italian man from South Philly after moving to the States. She worked as a nanny a lot (pops is a retired macaroni factory worker - no joke) in her later years and was ALWAYS a spectacular cook.

Everyone's favorite thing about Grandmoms cooking is her sauce. I always told her I wanted it and she always told me she'd gladly share once I had a real kitchen. (She was right, it would have never worked in my 4' x 4' kitchen downtown.)

So there I was, visiting on a day that wasn't a special occasion.
"Grandmom, can I get that sauce recipe."

Sure, as we poured over every cook recipe she ever wrote down. One page caught my eye, since it was X'ed out with the word "Joke" over it. The title was Harlot's something. I read it and didn't find a joke. Either I'm slow or it wasn't a joke and Grandmom's the slow one.
Back to the sauce recipe. 20 minutes later we could not find that darn sauce!
So I grab a pen and paper and try to write as she speaks. As if I was asking her how she brushed her teeth, she could not spit out the details. It must be second nature to toss together the sauce, so she tried her best.

"It HAS to be Cento brand tomatoes" my grandpop kept yelling from the living room.

So here we go, heat oil and onions. add one carrot and one celery stalk and the peeled tomatoes. (She said 2 large cans, the man insisted 3, presumably so I'd invite him over to eat too.) Boil and add tomato paste, the little can. Oh and meatballs, this is where I add the meatballs and just leave it for a while.

Wow, speechless.

I, being the internet savvy youngin, decided that I'd browse the Cento website. Surely they have their own sauce recipe posted somewhere. They did, and it was similar to Grandmom's ramblings so armed with some loose directions and a backup on my laptop, I went.

"It's starting to smell like hers!" I texted excitedly to the boyfriend, who knew he'd be enjoying some good stuff tonight.

Success in the form of Grandmom's sauce!
But why not go for broke? I've never made lasagna either.

Check the internet, see what looks good. I like simple. Cheese, meat, sauce, noodles.
The recipe I used did not pre-boil the noodles and my lesson is that Lasagna does work with uncooked noodles, assuming there is a layer of sauce underneath and one completely covering the top!

My recipe called for way more sauce than I was willing to use of my fresh batch. So I supplemented with store brand meat flavored red sauce for half. Worked like a charm! (Hey, what if I screwed up? I wanted some sauce for proof. And there were meatballs...)

The lasagna turned out fabulous, by the way. And at work with leftovers, I asked the toughest food critic to try it. (He smelled mine and went and ordered lasagna take out for lunch, ate his, then tasted mine.) "I would not lie to you, and yours is a clear winner."

ENJOYed

The Back Drop

On Mondays I cook...
Anyone can cook...
I'm learning to cook...
Mmmm, foood.....

Many people work the 9-5 and I am (was) one of those people until someone decided to have our offices open weekends to serve clients. I now officially work Tuesday through Saturday. Since my significant other and everyone else I know works Mondays, I cook.
And as it turns out, cooking is not all that hard. Or maybe I'm just lucky.

Welcome to my blog, which I hope accurately chronicles my journey to becoming one heck of a cook. Facebook statuses just don't seem long enough to cut it, though former posts include "Timeberland boots go with everything... except burnt, splattered butter" and "Dear Boyfriend, there are onions involved. You will be eating like a King this week."

I find myself to be quite comical, like everyone else on the planet, but you probably will not. I have learned to accept this fact. But if you ever do find yourself chuckling, please comment.

Apple Sauce and Lil' Kim p**sy

On Mondays I cook...

Today I'm making homemade apple sauce and it felt incredibly weird to hear the lyric "Little Kim P**sy, how preposterous is that?" while doing so.
Home made apple sauce, Lil Kim, apple sauce, Lil Kim....

My inspiration for cooking comes from pretty usual places - restaurants, family recipes, seasonal standards, etc. Today's apple sauce idea comes from the boyfriend's mom, which is probably the most common.

"You just fill a pot with enough water to cover the bottom, add sliced apples a boil. Last time I made it, my husband and I were sitting on the porch and I forgot about it. When I came back, it was ready. Then just add in sugar and cinnamon to taste."

My mind was made up - eating apple sauce is easy and making it sounds easy too.
I even found whole bags of red delicious apples on sale for 99 cents at Shop Rite today!

And then I got home... apparently apples are not very easy to peel. But I think most people can figure it out so I'll proceed.

No-measure Ingredients:
Water
Apples
Sugar
Cinnamon

Steps:
1.) Add enough water into a pot to cover the bottom
2.) Toss in as many chopped apples as you'd like to eat
3.) Consult with internet - to cover or not cover pot
4.) Cook over medium heat until boiling, turns out covering is optional
5.) Marvel in the smell once the water boils, cover and continue boiling
6.) Stir occasionally
***Shoot, the water disappeared and I see burnt apples in my future. I just added another cup of water and reduced the heat to a low medium. The apples are getting soft though***

Okay so maybe I can't just boil until it looks like mush.

7.) Mash apples with fork or potato masher, adding a little water if needed
8.) Lower heat and simmer, covered.
9.) Once you're happy with the consistency, add sugar and cinnamon to taste.

ENJOY