Sunday Dinner Staple: Homemade Sauce

 An early morning trip to the farmer's market (in the rain I might add) helped us choose our menu for dinner.  It started as a quick trip to grab a few veggie essentials, but when we saw how fresh everything looked, we walked away with a few more goodies than we anticipated :)

We quickly found some of the freshest tomatoes ever, just sitting alone in the rain.  We scooped them up, along with some onions, cabbage, and yellow green and purple beans. Then my hubby runs over with the fantastic idea of getting fresh bay scallops, and viola, dinner has been decided.


When we get home, we sift through my many Food Network chef cookbooks trying to decide which recipe we're going to pull from to create a sauce.  

Giada, Ina, we just couldn't choose!

The goal was to whip up something quick around dinner time, but we wanted a plan in mind.  Given that it was a rainy Sunday, and neither of us felt much like leaving the house again (I already had 2 showers that day, thank you rain), we decided to stay in and make a day of cooking.  We quashed the idea to steal a sauce recipe from one of our fav chefs, and made our own!


First, we chopped some sweet yellow onion (about 2 medium) and 10 cloves of garlic...yes, 10.  I enjoy smelling like an old Italian woman- no judgments please.  We tossed them in our pot with a little extra virgin olive oil and simmered them for about 15-20 min, stirring occasionally.  

Evan chopping garlic, not his fingers

Onions Simmering....

Now when making sauce with fresh tomatoes, expect to use a little more tomato paste than normal, as ripe tomatoes will be quite juicy.  We chopped up our tomatoes and tossed them in with the garlic and onions.  We threw in 2 small cans of tomato paste, and all our spices:

Garlic Powder, Italian Seasonings, Salt, Pepper, Parsley, Basil, Onion Powder, and Sugar to cut the acidity of the tomatoes.  This is all to taste; don't be afraid to put a couple extra shakes in there, but just dont open the "pour" sides of the spice bottles! 

 Then comes the best part:

Fresh basil from the garden :)   

Now that all your veggies and spices are simmering nicely together (and smelling delicious!) stir them up real good, and set it on low in a large covered pot.  

NOTE:  We realized about an hour after it had been simmering that we forgot to boil the tomatoes first to remove the skins, and the skin had rolled up into hard little pieces within the sauce.  

Fear not!  We brought out our trusty blender...

Look at that steam!  


and chopped, pulsed, and blended everything into a gorgeous red steaming pot of perfection! :)

So back into the pot it all went, to simmer and bubble for a few more hours.  We tasted it and adjusted the spices a few more times, and after about 4 hours, it was ready to be enjoyed atop some whole wheat fettuccine!

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Now, the second half of our delicious dinner, were those scallops.  Normally, I am NOT a seafood fan, so it was super important that we find a recipe that took away that "fishy" taste.  I scoured recipes from my fav top food network chefs, and found a tasty looking one from Ina Garten (aka The Barefoot Contessa).  View full recipe here...Ina Garten's Scallops Provencal


We made some fresh farmers market asparagus (evoo, salt peppper and oven for 20 min at 400).

Now for the scallops!  We chopped up our shallots, grabbed our white wine, garlic, parsley and flour, and got to dredging our scallops.

They sauteed in their shallots, garlic and sauce for a few minutes.  We learned that scallops are one seafood that doesn't even need to be cooked.  It may taste better, but its better to under cook them than over cook them (they can get quite rubbery) and that in fact, they can be consumed completely raw!  Interesting....though, we chose to cook ours, and they turned out like this:

Scallops Provencal

It had a mild onion taste from the shallots, a creamy taste from the wine and garlic, and  the scallops were fresh and buttery.  So so so delicious!!  The perfect addition to a Sunday Night Dinner :)  And as Ina would say, "everything was beautiful and gorgeous and absolutely perfect!"

Christie's Favorite Tortellini Salad

It was a warm summer night and... I was heating things up in the kitchen!!  Tomorrow is my Godchildren's 2nd birthday party, and I volunteered to make a tortellini salad for 50 people.  Ambitious...or dumb?  Anyway, my husband decided to go out for the night, which left me at home....alone!!  I decided to make a night of it.  
I lit a few candles for mood lighting, 

poured myself a glass of pinot, and got to work.


My favorite tortellini salad is a combination of one my mom used to make growing up, something I had at a bbq once and tried desperately to recreate, and my own little twists and tricks.   The dressing is sweet & tangy, there are plenty of veggies, and just enough cheese that starts to get nice and gooey when the tortellini goes in piping hot.  drool.


To make the salad, you will need:

1 lb cheese filled tortellini

1 clove garlic, minced

3 tbsp red wine vinegar

3 tbsp balsamic vinegar

2 tsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp honey

1/3 cup olive oil

1/3 cup vegetable oil

Salt and pepper to taste

¾ cup provolone cheese cubes

3 oz hard pepperoni (optional)

¼ cup sliced black olives

½ cup red bell pepper, diced

1 tbsp red onion, diced

½ cup fresh/frozen peas, thawed

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

1 tsp chopped rosemary

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice


To feed 50 people, I quadrupled the recipe, beginning with 4 lbs of tortellini.  They almost didn't make it into the salad...they're my fave.  The cooking instructions are super simple.  

1.  In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook pasta until al dente (3-5 min for tortellini usually) and drain.

Little tortellinis cooking!

Red Bell Peppers & Red Onion

Chopped Pepperoni, Black Olives, Red Peppers, Onions

2.  In a food processor, combine garlic, red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, mustard and honey. Blend until smooth. With the processor running, add the olive oil and vegetable oil in a thin steady stream. Season with salt and pepper.   (Luckily, we got an a-mazing food processor as a bridal shower gift, but I used to use a hand mixer and it came out just as good).

Our Cuisinart Food Processor doin' its job

3.  In a large bowl, combine the tortellini, cheese, pepperoni, olives, bell pepper, onion, peas, parsley, rosemary and lemon juice. Gently toss and drizzle with vinaigrette to coat. Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately. Best served at room temperature. 

Almost Ready....

My bowl, as a reward for completing this mission :)

........................................wait for it......................................

The finished product, all ready for the party tomorrow!!

Ps:  If you decide to make it and change it up a bit, I would love to

 know what you did, added, substituted, etc!! (or leave a comment 

and let me know what you think about this!) Enjoy :)

Summer Chicken Marinade

Working late hours lately has really made me want to create efficient, quick (and always cheap) meals that I can prepare the night before and then heat up the next day.  So last night at 11pm I decided I was going to cut up chicken and prepare a marinade so I can throw them on the grill when I got home from work the next day.  I wanted something light, summery, but with a little tang to it.  So...my half fried 11pm brain came up with this:


Soy Sauce Ginger and Honey Marinade.



Spices and Chicken Marinade!



While I haven't tried it with any other meats, my spidey senses tell me it would be fantastic on shrimp or pork as well.  And it's soo simple.

 

             INGREDIENTS:

3 large garlic cloves chopped 

1 lb chicken breast
ground white pepper

ginger powder

honey

Kikkoman (low sodium) soy sauce

white sugar (next time I may try it with brown...hmmm)
garlic powder

I made the marindae to taste; I used roughly a half a bottle of soy sauce, 4 tbsp granulated sugar, honey to taste, white pepper to taste, ginger to taste (start slow, its powerful stuff!), 1 tbsp garlic powder.  I mixed that all up with the chopped garlic and kept tasting until everything was perfect. 

Kikkoman Soy Sauce & Garlic Cloves

The white pepper has a very distinctive flavor, and I really prefer it to black pepper.  You need less as its more potent, but its got a kick as well as a warm flavor- very versatile.  I had to stop myself from spoon feeding myself the marinade- it was perfect!!  A hint of asian spices from the ginger & soy sauce, loads of garlic (who doesn't love that?), and a sweet/tangy flavor.  L.o.v.e.

 

Garlic Soy Sauce Ginger Marinade

I threw in the chicken breasts, covered and let them marinate overnight in the fridge.  I opened it up once or twice to stir and make sure all the chicken was soaking up the deliciousness. 

 

When it came time to cook, was ther really any other option than a george foreman grill?  (Unless of course you have a super duper fancy grill on your deck/porch- that would definately be preferable!!)  But, our little grill worked wonders.

                      

                        Look at those babies!!  

Smoky, tangy, salty, sweet.....scrumptious.  Really great for a quick easy summer night when I REFUSE to turn on the oven.  Enjoy.