Here are the recipes for the Friday night dinner!

Marinera sauce

4 15 oz. cans of generic tomato sauce
2 8 oz. can of Contidina tomato paste
2 onions, finely chopped
5 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped
4 teaspoons basil, dried, crushed
4 teaspoons oregano, dried, crushed
3 teaspoons black pepper (roughly)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt (roughly)
2 bay leaves
3/4 cup Australian Merlot wine
3/4 can beef consumme


start by chopping the onion fine, and saute` it and the crushed chopped garlic in olive oil, with a sprinkle of red pepper flakes, salt, pepper and (yellow cap) Mrs. Dash spice blend if you can find it. Add the tomato sauce and other ingredients and simmer, tasting it periodically so that you can adjust the taste. Once you think its done (about 90 minutes or so, depending), let it cool down and store it in the refrigerator. Its best served reheated the next day.

Meatballs

3# hamburger (85% lean)
3 eggs (grade AA large)
3 medium (just bigger than your palm) yellow onions
2 cup Bella bread crumbs (crumbled saltine crackers work too- use less salt then!)
6 shakes Mrs. Dash (yellow cap)
Other spices to taste- I used salt ad black pepper (2 scant tablespoons each)
1/4 cup chives
1/4 cup virgin olive oil

chop the onions fine and mix all of the above by hand in a large bowl. Make 1" balls of the mix and fry til the surface is browned, turning for even browning. Put the browned meatballs in a casserole or other oven-safe pan, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees f. Cook them in the oven for 20-30 minutes, til they're done through.

Other menu items

I'll have french bread to go with the meal, spaghetti (of course) and I have a shaker of Parmesan cheese too. Beverages, once again, are scant- however, most of the wine is left, and we do have some hard cider in the fridge. :)

Also- Plan change! ataramos wants to watch the Olympics, so I'm deferring to that. The movies will be around. :)

A few weeks back me and ataramos had some Food Channel show on, and the episode was on chicken. I saw his recipe, and I thought it looked good... But almost immediately after I forgot whose show it was! However, I DID recall most of the recipe, and with a few suggestions from joshuwain and some experimental improvisation, I came up with something that worked really good. This batch was 5 breasts, but it could easily be used for more.

What you need:

Bowl for the 'brine' mix

Bowl for the buttermilk soak

Pan or bowl for the dredge (and a plastic ziploc bag to mix the dredge up in!)

9x14 cake pan or other appropriate pan

Buttermilk- I used 1/2 quart.

Chicken Breasts (I had 5)

A 50/50 blend of white flour and bread crumbs (I use Bella Plain Toasted)- I used about 3/4 cup of each.
Spices: In the brine I used 4-5 shakes of Mrs. Dash regular, 3 light shakes of cayenne pepper, 4-5 shakes of black pepper, a tablespoon of dried parsley, crushed, and the same amounts of dried basil, rosemary and thyme- 1 teaspoon of dried oregano, crushed was used as well.

In the breading I used similar amounts of spices, most of which kinda got wasted cos I didn't use all of the dredge-mix. Oh well. ;)

Take a mixing bowl and fill it with enough cold water to cover all of the chicken without overflowing. Mix in salt til it tastes good and salty, then add your spices. Put the (boneless, skinless) chicken pieces into this for about a half-hour. At that point take them out, pat them dry and put them into the buttermilk for another 1/2 hour.

When they're done in the buttermilk, take them out and let the excess drip off, then dredge in the flour.bread crumbs/spice mix and fry til browned, turning once to get them evenly done.

Take a cake pan (9x14 or whatever will hold them without crowding) and place the browned-but-still-undercooked chicken into it, then bake in a 325-degree oven for about 22 minutes.

Thats pretty much it. They came out GREAT. :)

I decided that I wanted to make homemade pizza... So I did, almost. What I mean by that is that I used premade crusts- They're pretty good, but joshuwain makes better from scratch. Anyway, you put down the crust, spread a THIN layer of tomato sauce (too much and its just a mess), sprinkle on basil, oregano, salt and pepper to taste, put on your toppings (I used a tiny amount of sharp cheddar, then a LOT of mozzarella, then pepperoni, Italian sausage and mushrooms), and bake at 400 f for about 10 minutes- it varies by oven. I don't do it straight on the oven rack cos that can make a mess. Instead, I put a cookie sheet (flat type) in to preheat, assemble the 'za on another sheet, then slide it into the oven onto the heated sheet.

Works nice. :)

This last weekend I decided to try and make homemade bread from a so-called easy recipe from the Star-Tribune (Taste section, Thursday, February 15, 2007); It actually worked out pretty good. Most liked it, though both feezlekahn and ataramos commented that it was 'salty'. Not a criticism, just a comment. I found out after the fact that salt acts to inhibit the action of yeast, so I may alter the recipe somewhat to deal with their comment and to improve the rising. Here's the recipe!

What you need:
Large mixing bowl
4 to 6 quart oven-safe container such as a casserole or a dutch oven, with a cover
3 cups flour
1 5/8 cups tepid (warm) water
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1 scant tablespoon salt

What you'll do
In the bowl mix the water, flour, salt and yeats together until well blended; the resulting dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover the bowl and set in a warm (70 degrees fahrenheit) place for 12 to 18 hours to rise. The dough will be ready for the next step when the surface is dotted with bubbles and the gluten (strands that stick to the sides of the bowl) is well-developed.

Lightly flour a worksurface and place the dough on it; sprinkle the dough with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice and let it rest thereafter for 15 minutes. Using just enough flour to keep it from sticking to your hands and the worksurface, gently and quickly shape the dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel or Silpat mat with flour and put the doughball seam-side down into it; dust it with more flour (for the dusting and such you can use corn meal or bran flour), cover with another towel and let it rise for another 2 hours.

At least 30 minutes before the dough is ready preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit and place the 4 to 6 quart container mentioned above in while it preheats. When all is ready take the container out of the oven and put the dough into it; don't worry if it looks messy, it'll sort itself out as it cooks. Cover and put it back into the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover the container at that point and bake for a further 15-30 minutes to brown the crust. When its finished place the loaf upside down on a cooling rack.

That's pretty much it. What I'll be changing is as follows: I'm gonna halve the amount of salt, proof the yeast before adding it to the mix, and I think there has to be a better method than the towel-trick for the second rising. :)

It IS easy, it just takes forever. All credit to the Star-Tribune for this, and specifically staff writer Joyce White.

Here are some of the recipes I'm using for the Xmas party. Feel free to use them if you like! The marinera is a work-in-progress, however- it will need to be tailored to taste.

( Marinera Sauce )

( Meatballs )

( Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Bars )

( Easy Caramel Rolls )

This is fast and easy- Mashed potatos and hamburger gravy. :)

Fry and crumble one pound of lean hamburger with two onions, chopped fine, til the onions clear and the meat browns, seasoning to taste- add one can of cream of (celery, mushroom, whatever you choose) soup and 3/4 can of water, and stir together, simmering til it gets to the consistency you want. as to the Mashed Potatoes- take 1 1/2 average russet potatoes per serving, peel and cube, and boil in salted water til soft, drain the water, add 1/2 stick of unsalted butter per two serving (the butter and milk are approximate- you could substitute cream or buttermilk for the milk or margerine for the butter, too) and 1/4 cup (tops- adjust and don't add too much liquid) milk, and mash to consistency. serve with butter on the potatoes and the gravy over all.

This is, coincidentally, dinner tonight. :)

Well, today I made my second attempt at a spaghetti sauce, sans tons of meat- I think it came out all right, but I think there is something still not quite right... I'll keep working on it. I think perhaps too much basil is part of the issue. Here's the recipe (roughly)

2 29 oz. cans of Contidina tomato sauce
1 8 oz. can of Contidina tomato paste
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped
1 bottle whole button mushrooms
4 teaspoons basil, dried, crushed
4 teaspoons oregano, dried, crushed
12 grinds black pepper
3 teaspoons salt (roughly)
3 bay leaves
3/4 cup Italian red wine
1/3 can beef consumme


start by chopping the onion fine, and sautee it and the crushed chopped garlic in olive oil. Add the tomato sauce and other ingredients and simmer til it looks done. (yah, real detailed!)

any comments and critiques are welcome, as I'm still working on it!

On other subjects, life goes on. I'm considering changing jobs after 14 years- given the liklihood that I'll NOT get a pay raise anytime soon, and the company seems to want to treat their employees as if they were 5th graders... Which I will NOT tolerate. We'll see what happens. And (gasp!) I cleaned the stove and cabinets today- Next, the kitchen floor. :)