Homebound Day #20: Red Sauce

Holy moly. We are heading into our 4th week of sheltering in place. I finally had to risk it and run out for milk for the Spud. I figured I'd pick up a few essentials, as well, since I'd be out. We didn't have any masks available, so I had to improvise.

And I figured maybe I could rob a train on the way home. 

I decided to stay close to home and hit the Dollar General in town. Milk was $3.69 a gallon, which was horrifying. Milk, creamer, cheese, orange juice and a few other staples set me back nearly $75. Granted, the store was mercifully devoid of people and within a mile of my house. With my adventure out of the way, I whipped up a batch of red sauce, and added some meatballs, rib bones, and Italian sausages. We served it up over some ravioli with some home made giardiniera. 

Just like you'd get at Olive Garden, but good!

Whenever we make this sauce, we have plenty of leftovers, which is intentional. The Spud loves the meatballs and the sauce is versatile. The next day we had The Wife's Eggplant Parmesan with the sauce. Today we took the leftover Italian sausage and made grinders with pepper jack cheese and giardiniera. 

Just like Portillo's, but totally not!

During this time, we worked through the last of the turkey pasta we made with our "Thanksgiving" leftovers. We also have been enjoying a tray of chocolate chip peanut butter bars for our treats. I was saddened to see that I'm working through my supply of bottom shelf bourbon faster than I'd like. I will have to console myself with vodka, gin, scotch, and rum. 

I don't know when this will all be done. As I've mentioned before, I think the school year is done for. It will likely be online learning for the rest of the year. I am at least encouraged by the fact that we were able to go nearly four weeks without needing to go to the store, and were it not for milk, we'd probably last another 2-3 weeks. 

Stay Safe!

My Father's Lasagna

     My Dad was always fun to watch in the kitchen. He never used a printed recipe. He just sort of played it loose and fast and hoped for the best. One of his classics was lasagna. For whatever reason, he never used crumbled Italian sausage. Ever. It was always the links. In lasagna, he'd just slice it up and layer it in there. It was so good. He never actually taught me the recipe. I learned it by watching him, then tinkering with things until it was just right. It's not a terribly labor intensive recipe, but you need to be careful to not overcook the pasta before layering it. If you do, it's going to be a real bitch to work with. Try it and tell me it's not a great lasagna. Seriously, don't do that. I don't want your criticism.

My Father's Lasagna

Ingredients

• 1 box lasagna noodles
• 1 pound Italian sausage links(sweet or hot, doesn't matter)
• sliced pepperoni
• 1 lb ricotta cheese
• 8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
• pasta sauce of your choosing (we used home made from our Meatballs and Red Sauce recipe)

Directions

1. Brown the sausage and slice into 1/2" rounds. Set aside.
2. Cook the pasta a couple minutes less than the directions on the package.
3. Take a 9x13 Pyrex baking dish and spray it with nonstick cooking spray. Lay three noodles down the length of the pan, slightly overlapping.
4. Drop twelve tablespoons of ricotta at equal intervals (4 dollops on each noodle)
5.  Lay a slice of sausage on each dollop of ricotta. Cover with a thin layer of the shredded mozzarella. Spoon a thin layer of sauce over the entire layer.
6. Lay down another layer of pasta and another 12 dollops of ricotta. Instead of sausage, this time put down pepperoni. Put down another thin layer of mozzarella and a layer of sauce.
7. Repeat step 5.
8. Lay down a final layer of pasta. Over this, thinly spread a layer of ricotta. Lay alternating sausage and pepperoni over the top. Add a final layer of sauce. Finish with a healthy layer of mozzarella. 
9. Bake at 375F (190C, Gasmark 5) for 40-45 minutes or until the top is golden brown and bubble. Remove from oven and let sit for 10 minutes or so to let everything set up.

UPDATE: Here's the video for the recipe!

Good Times!

Mushroom and Chive Ravioli

     The Wife is somewhat predictable about certain things. If I ask what movie she wants to watch, it's always Pride and Prejudice or Ghostbusters. If she's going to read a book, likely it will be about the English royalty. If she's going to watch TV, it's going to be a baseball game. When it comes to food, it's pasta. Left to her own devices, it will be mac & cheese. If I'm cooking, it's pasta with red sauce and meatballs. I always tremble at that request because it is Labor Intensive. It's borderline P.I.T.A. However, she is wonderful and I love her very much, so I will indulge her. Plus, I really like pasta and meatballs, too. I already have a good red sauce and meatballs recipe I use, so I just needed to come up with a pasta. She loves ravioli and she loves mushrooms, so I threw together a filling for some ravioli for her. The end result was 54 delicious ravioli. Fortunately, they freeze really well. Just lay them on sheets of waxed paper with a dusting of flour! The basic pasta recipe came out of the KitchenAid pasta roller instructions. The filling is all mine. I hope you like it as much as much as we did! As always, notes are in blue.

Mushroom and Chive Ravioli

Ingredients

• For Filling
• 1 lb. ricotta cheese
• 8 ounces mushrooms, finely chopped (use whatever kind of mushroom you want. We used regular white mushrooms)
• 6-8 whole chives, finely chopped (use both the white and green part)
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• For Ravioli Pasta
• 4 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon water
• 3-1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour (I actually did sift the flour for once!)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

For Filling

1. Heat olive oil in a large pan. Add chive and sautee for 2-3 minutes.
2. Add mushrooms and sautee for another 2-3 minutes.
3. Add Worcestershire sauce and sautee for one more minute. 

   

   Shroomin'!

4. Allow to cool for a few minutes, then put mushroom and chive mixture in a bowl with the ricotta and stir to incorporate.

   

   Now you need to resist the urge to just shovel this by the spoonful into your gaping maw.

For Pasta

1. Place eggs, water, flour and salt in mixing bowl. Add the beater blade, turn to speed 2 and mix for 30 seconds (we're assuming you have a KitchenAid here. If not, just mix by hand at whatever your personal "speed 2" setting would be)
2. Swap the beater blade for the dough hook. Turn to speed 2 and knead for 2 minutes (or if you're not lazy like me, just knead it by hand.)
3. Remove dough from bowl and hand-knead for 1-2 minutes (I actually did this. I am not a total slug.)
4. Divide dough into 4 pieces. Run each through a pasta roller until you his "5" (I'm hoping pasta rollers have universal measurements, because I went to 5 on the KitchenAid pasta roller. I apologize in advance if you end up with tissue paper)

Assembly

1. Take 2 rolled out sheets of pasta. On one, start dropping 1 tablespoon scoops of the filling at even intervals along the dough (Our ravioli ended up being about 2-3/4" across on the average. Use smaller scoops if you want an obscene amount of smaller ravioli.)

   

   Notice the precision spacing between the filling. That's because The Wife did this part.
   I was busy rolling out pasta.

2. Take a basting brush and brush water on the pasta in between the filling. Lay the other sheet of pasta over the top and press down in between the filling, sealing the two sheets and working out any air bubbles.
3. Use a ravioli wheel cutter to cut the pasta into squares (If you already have one of those things that stuffs and seals the ravioli all in one, you probably are way past anything I can offer you and should go to a site where they know what they are doing). If you're using my measurements, you'll end up with about 54 ravioli.
4. Cook like them you would any other ravioli. 

Those are the steady hands of a neurosurgeon.
Or an English teacher.
Good times!

Three Pork Meat Sauce (Tre Sugo Di Maiale)

     We recently bought into a share of an organically grown pig. The result was over 20 pounds of fine pork products. We decided the way to celebrate was by making a meat sauce with our go-to red sauce recipe. The result was delicious. We used ground pork, bacon and a neck bone. I used to watch my dad make sauce with neck bones and had never tried it myself. I'm glad I did. Thanks dad! Naming it wasn't hard. It's a sauce with three kinds of pork! I decided to throw in the Google Translate Italian version of the name. I think it literally comes out as just "Three Pork Sauce." Regardless, you can't go wrong throwing this over a bowl of your favorite pasta! As always, any notes are in blue.

Three Pork Meat Sauce
(Tre Sugo Di Maiale)

Ingredients

• 1 quart prepared pasta sauce (it will add a bunch of cooking time to prep, but I suggest using this red sauce recipe)
• 1 quart canned whole tomatoes, undrained
• 1 pound ground pork
• 1 pork neck bone
• 6 ounces bacon, diced
• 1/2 large sweet onion, finely chopped
• 1 stalk celery, finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Directions

1. In a large Dutch oven, heat oil. Cook neck bone 3-5 minutes on each side, until browned. Remove and set aside. Add bacon, onion and celery. Cook over medium heat until bacon is crisp. Drain excess oil (don't just throw it away! Strain it into a jar for later use. I always have bacon grease in the fridge for all sorts of uses). 

   

   I could probably stop right here and still be happy with the meal.

2. Turn heat to high. Deglaze the Dutch oven using the red wine vinegar. (Make sure to scrape up all the brown stuff off the bottom; you don't want to waste that extra flavor!) Bring heat to low.
3. In a separate pan, cook ground pork until browned. Drain excess grease.
4. Add ground pork and neckbone to Dutch oven. Add all remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce to a low simmer. Simmer with the lid off for at least one hour (the longer you simmer, the thicker the sauce will get. I let mine go for about two hours. Just stop simmering when it hits the desired consistency).

Good times!