SobaAddict70

Wine appears in many recipes for tomato sauce. One example is Marcella Hazan's recipe for bolognese in "Essentials", pages 203-205. I'm pretty sure Artusi's has recipes for tomato sauce that contain wine, but will have to check when I get home. Just sayin'. BTW I never did get around to posting that pic I mentioned above. Maybe this weekend I will.

I usually don't cook from cookbooks. I am really picky about cookbooks. really is probably the wrong word. "EXTREMELY" is big bold neon letters on the Hollywood Hills-kind of picky. I have Artusi's, which I use as a reference work and occasionally for ideas. Marcella's "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking". Lynne Rossetto Kasper's "The Splendid Table". There are a few others, including one of Mario B's which a roommate gave to me when I was ... ahem, less enlightened. Unless it's something I've never made before, I usually don't bother with cookbooks. Some Italian techniques, once you learn one, you can apply it to a wide range of dishes.

Zabaglione. Fruit (oranges, strawberries, melon), macerated in fresh fruit juice with a little sugar. Figs, stuffed with chocolate, almonds and bay leaves. Chestnuts simmered in wine. Cassata.

*shrug* I don't know where you are in Boston, but it doesn't cost much I don't think. Costs something like $2-$3 at Trader Joe's, and I don't even shop there. I like the Silver Spoon book myself, for ideas. There's one that they made that just has pasta recipes.

You can see there's a pattern to most of the ideas that have been presented thus far. The Italian pasta sauce pantry is pretty basic: olive oil, garlic, onions, anchovies, herbs (parsley, mint, oregano, rosemary, basil). tomatoes for tomato-based sauces. cream and butter. wine (either white or red). capers. olives. oil-packed tuna. wine vinegar. To that, I'd add breadcrumbs preferably made from stale bread and fried in olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper. A hit of anchovy if you want, but plain is all right. Use as you would cheese. I haven't even touched slightly more complicated preps, ones that involve fresh vegetables and occasionally, fruit. Things like pasta con le zucchine. Or pasta e piselli. Or pasta e melone. Then, there are meat-based sauces, some of which are not as complicated as you might think.

Almost forgot. There's also olive oil, garlic, fried breadcrumbs and herbs.

If you're able to get fresh clams, you can whip up spaghetti con vongole in minutes. Canned is okay but it's not quite the same. Warm some olive oil in a pot, add a crushed garlic clove and an anchovy fillet. When the anchovy has disintegrated, add the clams and a glug of white wine. The traditional recipe omits the wine but I sometimes include it depending on feel. Cover the pot and turn it down to medium-low. Steam until the clams pop open. Discard any that don't. Strain the liquid in the pot and set the strained liquid aside. Prepare your dried pasta (i.e., bring a pot of lightly salted water to a boil, add your dried pasta and cook until al dente). Transfer the clams to a bowl and shuck them, making sure to reserve the clam juices. You can chop them if you like, or leave them whole. Warm some olive oil in a pan. Add the clams, clam juices and the reserved liquid from when you steamed the clams. Cook for 3-4 minutes over medium heat. Add copious handfuls of chopped Italian parsley. Cook for 1-2 more minutes. Ideally your pasta should be done by now. Drain, reserving 1/4 cup pasta cooking liquid. Add the cooked, drained pasta to the pan with the clams. Toss. If the pasta seems too dry, add a little pasta cooking liquid. How much depends on whether you like the sauce "brothy". Taste for salt and pepper, then serve at once. If you're using canned clams, you could start by making a battuto of chopped garlic, olive oil and chopped Italian parsley. Warm olive oil in a skillet over medium heat, add the garlic and cook until it turns a pale gold, then add the parsley. Cook for 1 more minute, then add your chopped clams and clam juices. The sauce is done when the clams are heated through. Taste for salt and pepper, then combine with the pasta as directed above. For some people, this entire procedure is a "production", but to me, it's pretty simple and takes about 40 minutes from beginning to end. Making bolognese is complicated by comparison. Depends on your point of view I suppose.

Thinly sliced onion, slowly cooked in olive oil for a half hour or more so that it transforms into a rich, golden brown, seasoned with a little salt, pepper and maybe a splash of vinegar to cut the richness. Add a little anchovy and maybe some chopped parsley. That's one sauce I never get tired of. The onions eventually mellow into a supple, luscious sweetness that almost begs to be accompanied by a bowl of pasta. The same trick works with cabbage too. I sometimes begin with some pancetta or guanciale cooked in olive oil, then proceed from there.

thanks Patrick. mm -- awesome stuff, as usual. patrick -- looks good. can you please recommend a book that introduces folks to that kind of cuisine? ================= When I was at Eataly this weekend, I decided that I wanted to make some Bolognese sauce since I had a tub of fettucine in the fridge that needed to be used up. So I decided to get a few things, you might say. You're looking at a pot of Bolognese sauce in the making, using Marcella Hazan's recipe from "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking", pages 203-205. This version is mostly her recipe except for a few deviations. I also used about 1/2 lb. chopped pork and mixed it in with the chopped beef and the battutina (finely chopped celery, celery leaves, carrot and onion cooked in a mixture of olive oil and unsalted butter). The beef is grass-fed beef from Eataly. this pic was shot shortly after I added 1 cup whole milk. Let the milk mixture simmer gently on medium-low heat, then once it has nearly boiled off, add 1 cup dry white wine. Simmer until the wine has evaporated, then add your plum tomatoes. (I subbed a can of crushed San Marzano tomatoes.) There are a couple of additional steps after this -- basically simmering the sauce over low heat while making sure it doesn't dry out too much. At the end, the sauce is done when all of the water has evaporated and the fat has separated from the sauce. Fettucine with Bolognese sauce ETA that I had friended MH on Facebook a while back (inasmuch as one can be a "friend" on that forum, but I digress); anyway, Victor, her husband, left a comment on my wall saying that she would occasionally add pork to the sugo in addition to the beef, and occasionally, crumbled sausage. (She would only use sausage if they were in Italy, probably because of what they were able to procure over there.) So it turns out that my deviation was not much of one after all.

Unquestionably it would have to be anything to do with vegetables. The last time I posted to this thread was in 2011 and I've broadened my experiences since then. Stufato di verdure ("vegetable stew") is probably number one these days. Cavolfiore con pomodoro ("cauliflower with tomato") is a second. Then, there are the salads: insalata di funghi ("fennel and mushroom salad, with Parmgiano-Reggiano cheese") insalata di finocchio e arance ("fennel and orange salad"), insalata di zucchine e pomodoro ("zucchini and tomato salad"). Too many for me to name, but those are just a handful of things I look forward to.

Ann_T: thanks. C. sapidus: great looking fish. Mesclun and radish salad, with buttermilk dressing Dressing: 1 rocambole garlic clove and a pinch of sea salt in a mortar, pounded until a smooth paste, to which was added 1 tablespoon each chopped Italian parsley and tarragon, then transferred to a bowl; to that, add 1 egg yolk, some black pepper, a tablespoon of Meyer lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon white wine vinegar. Stir, then whisk in 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil while pouring in a thin stream. Once the oil is incorporated, whisk in 1/4 cup buttermilk. Taste for salt and pepper, then use as needed. Adapted in part from "The Art of Simple Food II" by Alice Waters, page 41. Spaghetti con vongole e pancetta

Spring lettuce salad, with French breakfast radishes and hard-cooked farm egg Pea and ricotta ravioli, with sage, brown butter and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese The ravioli are from Eataly. The green herbs atop the ravioli are bits of stonecrop, an herb with a slightly astringent taste reminiscent of edible nasturtium flowers. Wild cod, with Jerusalem artichoke velouté, samphire, oyster mushrooms and cremini mushrooms

From USGM: salad greens from Monkshood Nursery little neck clams from Blue Moon Fish a sourdough baguette from Our Daily Bread eggs from Quattro's Game Farm Jerusalem artichokes from Paffenroth Gardens French breakfast radishes (I don't remember which vendor) then: samphire, oyster mushrooms, wild cod, pea and ricotta ravioli, chopped pork, chopped grass-fed beef from Eataly, for a little over $50. and: San Marzano tomatoes and wine from Fairway.

today: littleneck clams, salad greens, Jerusalem artichokes, bread, eggs.

I cook with beer fairly regularly, particularly with seafood and fish. Ommegang Witte goes well with mussels or in a fish stock, in place of wine, for example.

I will confess it took me a while to evolve. I can still be ideologically-driven when I want to be when it comes to food, but I think it's better to let folks decide for themselves. I had a conversation a while ago with a committed militant vegan. I was trying to get him to see that if you want people to approach veganism with an open mind, isn't it better to "show" rather than "tell"? That's when it hit me. Your kumbaya moment for today.

It depends. I use regular OO for cooking, and EVOO for finishing. That might be a little bit much though for my audience. I used to never think that until I started blogging. I get around that by just saying "olive oil". If something requires extra-virgin olive oil, then I'll state that in the recipe. There aren't too many instances where that's the case. Again, it's all about giving the reader the power.

I'm really picky about buying them, but I've started to expand my collection again. The Vegetable Literacy pic is technically from September 2013. Other books that I've bought recently are "One Good Dish" and "Heart of an Artichoke", both by David Tanis, and "The Art of Simple Food II" by Alice Waters.

No, it's not just you. There is a reason I don't go to that level of specificity when I post stuff on the blog or here or other fora like Facebook. I figure that if someone wants to use organic whatever it is, he or she can. Would I like to see everyone living/cooking/using organic/sustainable, etc? Sure, I'd be lying if I said I didn't. But I also came to the epiphany that it's up to each individual person to make that kind of decision for him or herself, because people can and do make choices differently. For myself, I tend to use organic/local/sustainable etc., but I'm comfortable with other folks doing things differently. I believe in putting as much power as possible in the hands of the reader. In terms of what gets published to the blog or an online forum like eG or FB, I only care if something will be delicious or if the recipe works, because my content is representative of me. Makes sense?

thanks Kim. I wish it were asparagus season... very quick late night dinner (which is what happens when one is in the office until 11 pm): Pasta with escarole, fennel and sausage Like too many Americans, I used to think that garlic was what defined Italian cooking. Then I woke up. Oh, it's an important ingredient to be sure, but it's not as central as many people seem to think. This began with 1 1/2 onions cooked slowly in olive oil with a little salt and pepper, to which was added some sweet Italian sausage, fennel seed, escarole (that had been previously simmered in lightly salted water, then drained), sea salt, black pepper and a little marsala wine.

Vegetable kofte, basmati rice, garlic pickle and mango lassi. I need to really re-evaluate a couple of carts based on work lunches in the past few days.

I've been thinking about tripe lately. Trippa alla romana sounds great. This continuing spate of wintry weather we've been having is as good an excuse as any to make some.

I made a batch a while ago from the recipe that Deborah Madison gives in "Vegetable Literacy". Might add ramps once they become available. Their sharpness can easily replace the garlic.

From USGM: paneer from Tonjes Farm Dairy sweet Italian sausage from Flying Pigs Farm heirloom carrots from Gorzynski Ornery Farm heirloom potatoes and shallots from Paffenroth Gardens baby mesclun from Windfall Farm salad greens from Monkshood Nursery squid from Blue Moon Fish cremini mushrooms from John D. Madura Farm a sourdough baguette from Our Daily Bread honey from Tremblay Apiaries a curried vegetable turnover from Body & Soul Vegan Bakery pretty sure I'm missing one or two things anyway... from the corner store: milk, frozen spinach, escarole. ETA: the paneer, some of the salad greens/mesclun and spinach were in Saturday's dinner, although I still have some leftover paneer that will be in an app later this week. the squid and some of the potatoes were in last night's dinner. I'll be using the salad greens all week long.

Awesome spread, Norm. Heirloom carrots, with hazelnuts and parsley Carrots -- simmered in lightly salted water, then sautéed in unsalted butter, finished with sea salt, black pepper, Italian parsley and hazelnuts. Squid, with roasted heirloom potatoes, capers and Meyer lemon The potatoes were a variety called Russian Banana, from Paffenroth Gardens' stand at USGM. Potatoes -- peeled, halved lengthwise and quartered, then par-boiled in lightly salted water for 5 minutes; then soaked in an olive oil bath, with a handful of sage leaves for 15 minutes; then seasoned with sea salt and black pepper, and roasted at 375 F for 35 minutes. Squid -- sliced, then sprinkled with a little salt and pepper; was set aside for 5 minutes; then cooked in olive oil with rocambole garlic, anchovy and Italian parsley for 3-4 minutes. Assembly -- combine roasted potatoes and squid in the skillet used to cook the squid. Toss once or twice. Stir in capers, thinly sliced red onion and the juice of half a Meyer lemon. Taste for salt and pepper. Serve. I usually make this with ramps or leeks, but it's equally tasty without.