Gravy's Cooking Thread

Furry

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Koushirou said:
Tried my hand tonight at making my own pasta sauce. Didn’t quite turn out like I expected but it was still quite good!

Coated the bottom of my pot in olive oil, added half a stick of butter, 2 cloves of garlic, then half an onion. Let that go for a few minutes then added a pound and a half of these angel sweet tomatoes I found at the store that I sliced in half and then sloppily hand crushed. Added one green bell pepper and then a couple tablespoons of bacon bits. And then finally crumbled in 6 meatballs, added some basil, parsley and oregano, and then let it simmer for an hour.

I was worried it was going to be too chunky but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I’d honestly considered just switching gears and trying to turn it into a chili, instead. Jesus Christ, though, it didn’t really make that much sauce but the whole damn batch was like 1800 calories or so. Fuuuck.

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Why so much butter in pasta sauce? I make batches of pasta sauce with my garden vegetables all the time. Peel the tomatoes and crush them, then I chop up shallots finely (most people use onions, but my family is retarded about onions). Sauté them in olive oil until they are nicely browned, throw in crushed garlic, and then throw in the tomatoes, and basil. From there I slow cook 1-3 hours uncovered, which will reduce the bitterness. At the end I taste. Usually add a pinch of sugar, and a little bit of high quality fish sauce. I scoop out the basil leaves and a small part of the sauce to blend up a little and add back in.

Things like bacon, meatballs, peppers or any other helper ingredients I’ll leave out if I’m making something intended to store. Those are better added at final assembly, and likewise I generally leave it under salted for the same reason. This will give you a much more versatile base of a sauce. I tend to make a huge amount of it at once.
 
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Khane

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And then sadly come to the realization that your homegrown, garden vegetable pasta sauce has little chance of being as good as using (real) san marzano canned tomatoes.
 
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Khane said:
And then sadly come to the realization that your homegrown, garden vegetable pasta sauce has little chance of being as good as using (real) san marzano canned tomatoes.
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I honestly think mine are better, but I also grow San marzano tomatoes. The best tasting tomatoes I grow are sun gold, but not many of them make it into the sauce.
 
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Gavinmad

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Koushirou said:
Because I don't know what I'm doing.
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4 tbsp is ok, just a little excessive. A quarter-stick would have been enough, or even just 1 tbsp for some flavor since you already had olive oil and it was only half an onion.

Khane said:
And then sadly come to the realization that your homegrown, garden vegetable pasta sauce has little chance of being as good as using (real) san marzano canned tomatoes.
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One of the few times a youtube short has actually been useful, I never would have noticed that most of the cans say 'san marzano STYLE tomatoes' otherwise
 
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Lanx

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Koushirou said:
Tried my hand tonight at making my own pasta sauce. Didn’t quite turn out like I expected but it was still quite good!

Coated the bottom of my pot in olive oil, added half a stick of butter, 2 cloves of garlic, then half an onion. Let that go for a few minutes then added a pound and a half of these angel sweet tomatoes I found at the store that I sliced in half and then sloppily hand crushed. Added one green bell pepper and then a couple tablespoons of bacon bits. And then finally crumbled in 6 meatballs, added some basil, parsley and oregano, and then let it simmer for an hour.

I was worried it was going to be too chunky but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I’d honestly considered just switching gears and trying to turn it into a chili, instead. Jesus Christ, though, it didn’t really make that much sauce but the whole damn batch was like 1800 calories or so. Fuuuck.

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if youre gonna be doing more soups i recommend an immersion blender, anyone will do really, start out at like 15bucks and of course can go mega posh w/ attachments

i can't tell what pot you have, is it teflon lined? if you are going to be using the blender don't drag it across teflon/porcelin surfaces
 
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Dr.Retarded

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Koushirou said:
Tried my hand tonight at making my own pasta sauce. Didn’t quite turn out like I expected but it was still quite good!

Coated the bottom of my pot in olive oil, added half a stick of butter, 2 cloves of garlic, then half an onion. Let that go for a few minutes then added a pound and a half of these angel sweet tomatoes I found at the store that I sliced in half and then sloppily hand crushed. Added one green bell pepper and then a couple tablespoons of bacon bits. And then finally crumbled in 6 meatballs, added some basil, parsley and oregano, and then let it simmer for an hour.

I was worried it was going to be too chunky but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I’d honestly considered just switching gears and trying to turn it into a chili, instead. Jesus Christ, though, it didn’t really make that much sauce but the whole damn batch was like 1800 calories or so. Fuuuck.

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My dude....
Gordon Ramsay GIF by Gordon Ramsay's 24 Hours to Hell and Back

Furry Furry is right in this situation. Don't over complicate it.
 
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Furry

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Dr.Retarded said:
My dude....
Gordon Ramsay GIF by Gordon Ramsay's 24 Hours to Hell and Back's 24 Hours to Hell and Back

Furry Furry is right in this situation. Don't over complicate it.
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Honestly it kinda reminds me of when I started to learn to cook in my early 20s. I was poor without books and YouTube wasn’t a source, so my recipes were often improvised. I made some truly terrible disasters along the way, but I had fun doing it. One I was especially good at failing was I was challenged to come up with a strawberry flavored angel food cake without icing or whipped cream or strawberries to top it. The cake itself had to taste like strawberries. Let me tell you, I know a lot of ways on how not to do that. It was almost a running joke to ask me to make that for family birthdays for a while.
 
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Dr.Retarded

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Furry said:
Honestly it kinda reminds me of when I started to learn to cook in my early 20s. I was poor without books and YouTube wasn’t a source, so my recipes were often improvised. I made some truly terrible disasters along the way, but I had fun doing it. One I was especially good at failing was I was challenged to come up with a strawberry flavored angel food cake without icing or whipped cream or strawberries to top it. The cake itself had to taste like strawberries. Let me tell you, I know a lot of ways on how not to do that. It was almost a running joke to ask me to make that for family birthdays for a while.
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Dude I know what you mean.

I guess going off to college and I really just tried to make stuff that my mom always used to cook when I was growing up. I'm calling ask her what she would do, and she lived close enough by to where I would go back and visit once a month or so, I'll be able to have a meal.

I just really started getting into it.

Apart from cookbooks, and well before YouTube really became a big thing, I used to just watch food Network all the time. I mean if I wasn't watching Farscape or something and I was home, it was Emeril Live or whatever show back in the early days.

I would take bits and pieces of stuff that I would see off of Bobby Flay, Emeril, Mario Batali, or Good Eats, etc.

I had some pretty rough stuff, that's some pretty good hits and I remember some of my buddies being pretty happy with the food I made back then. I think part of it was just being poor college kids and it wasn't a box of macaroni and cheese.

The strawberry angel food cake reminds me of something my grandmother used to make for my mom on her birthdays. She'd make a big angel food cake and then carve out the center, and then whip cream with strawberries or any type of berries, and then fill the trench of the cake. The batter of the cake itself wouldn't be berry flavored but you had all that whipped cream mixed with fresh berries, an angel food is pretty neutral. I guess it was like an angel food Waldorf, or I think that's what she called it.

My grandmother made it for me one time when I was up visiting, and my mom would make it on occasions.
 
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