Marinara Sauce à la Ina Garten

My daughter had made some delicious meatballs, half of which she froze.  Hubby was craving spaghetti and meatballs so she gave them to me.  I had the meatballs, I had a box of spaghetti, but no tomato sauce.  Personally, I am not a fan of jarred sauces (with the exception of Rao's) but I did have a can of whole San Marzano tomatoes so I decided to make the sauce myself.  I settled on Ina Garten's recipe as the simplest and bonus, I already had all the ingredients on hand.  You can certainly make this with "ordinary" canned tomatoes but all the gourmet chefs recommend San Marzano because the tomatoes are grown in volcanic soil in a specific region of Italy and are sweeter and less acidic.  If your tomatoes are too sour, you can always add a pinch of sugar.

 

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 (28-ounce) can of San Marzano tomatoes 

1/4 cup dry red wine  

Salt and pepper to taste

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)

 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped (optional for garnish 

 

Heat olive oil and sauté onion until translucent.  Add garlic and sauté for one minute.

 

Crush tomatoes with your hands and add to pot.  (Careful! They splatter.) Add salt and pepper, oregano and red pepper (if using) and stir to combine.

 

 

Add wine and bring sauce to a gentle simmer. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes, occasionally breaking up the tomatoes with a wooden spoon.

 

Serve with pasta of your choice with or without meatballs.

 

 

 

 

 

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Ina Garten's Boeuf Bourguignon @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: I asked for and received Ina Garten’s Barefoot in Paris for Christmas. Even though we try not to eat too much beef, my first experiment was Boeuf Bourguignon. For this recipe, you will need a pot that can move from the stove pot to the oven. 

Preheat the oven to 250 while you prepare the ingredients.

Ingredients for boeuf bourguignon aka beef stew

Olive oil

8 ounces or so bacon, diced

2 pounds beef chuck, cut in 1 inch pieces

1 pound carrots, sliced diagonally

Two yellow onions, sliced

Salt and pepper

Two cloves garlic

Half a bottle or so dry red wine 

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

All purpose flour

8 ounces whole small white onions

8 ounces mushrooms, cleaned and sliced

Note that some of these proportions are not what Ina Garten uses. But I used what I had. If I make this again, I think a whole pound of the white onions would be wonderful and a pound of the mushrooms as well. But then my favorite part of beef stew has always been the vegetables!

Sauté the bacon in the olive oil until browning. Scoop it out with a slotted spoon and set this aside.

Dry the beef cubes with a paper towel and sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Brown them in the bacon fat and olive oil, trying not to crowd the pot. Remove them to the plate with the bacon.

Sauté the sliced carrots and onions in the same fat for about 8 to 10 minutes until beginning to brown. Add the chopped garlic and sauté for another minute. Return the meat to the pot with the vegetables. Cover with about 2 cups of wine and 2 cups of beef broth. Add the tomato paste and thyme. Bring this mixture to a boil, cover it, bake it in a 250 oven for an hour and 15 minutes.

In another pan, cook the sliced mushrooms and the whole onions in butter until they are beginning to brown and have given up their liquid. Ina Garten suggested adding a tablespoon of salt and 2 teaspoons of pepper. I cut the salt to 1 teaspoon and can’t imagine more wouldn’t taste too salty. Add these to the stew, bring the whole thing to another boil and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes. If the broth does not appear thick enough, smash more butter with a tablespoon or two of flour and stir that in. It will thicken as it cooks.

If possible, refrigerate the stew overnight and warm it the next night when you plan to serve it. Can be served with toasted bread, egg noodles, orzo, etc.

Lucy Burdette writes the Key West food critic mystery series including USA Today bestselling A POISONOUS PALATE and A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS. 

Book 15 in the Key West series, THE MANGO MURDERS, will be in bookstores on August 12!

And the new trade paperback edition of A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS is out now!

Ina Garten’s Macaroons for Mother's Day @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: While we were in California last month, my niece made macaroons for a Passover seder. I only got to taste a little corner of one, but it was incredible! "Ina Garten's recipe" she told me. She did not tell me that she made most of the recipe into a pie shell for Key lime pie. Wowser, I can't wait to try that. Or how about chocolate cream pie? Or banana cream? The possibilities are endless. Meanwhile, here's Ina's perfect recipe for cookies that are very sweet and delicious, and elegant too. I think they'd be welcome at any Mother's day brunch...

Ingredients

14 ounces sweetened flaked coconut 

14 ounces sweetened condensed milk 

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 

2 extra large egg whites, at room temperature 

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 325.

Mix together the coconut, milk, and vanilla in a large bowl.

Beat the egg whites with the salt separately until stiff.

Fold the egg whites into the coconut mixture, careful not to over mix.

Drop by the dollop on to cookie sheets covered with parchment paper.

Bake for about 25 minutes until beginning to brown on tops.

This first time out, I made them for Easter...

Lucy Burdette writes the Key West food critic mysteries. #11, A SCONE OF CONTENTION, will be in bookstores near you on August 10. Follow Lucy on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter...

And if you are a Netgalley reviewer, Scone is available now!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies With Cranberries and Salty Tops #mysteries #cookies @AbbottMysteries

By Victoria Abbott aka Mary Jane and Victoria Maffini

Our story begins on a bleak January day with a storm swirling. There was not much chance to venture out to the store, even once the plow came. So very many stories start out that way, but this tale stars heroic and delicious cookies and so you readers may anticipate a happy ending. 

I love and I mean LOVE The Barefoot Contessa’s cookbooks and own most of them. As a rule, I don’t make changes to them.  Ina Garten gives us tasty and beautifully presented recipes that are not impossible to do.  I had been planning to make these very fabulous Salty Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies from her Make It Ahead cookbook, to take to lunch at our cousins’ new home the next day.  But we hardy Canucks had been advised to stay off the roads because of the storm (many accidents!) and I didn’t have Fleur de sel or bittersweet chocolate. 

So I had no choice but to make a few changes to the recipe or go without cookies the next morning.  You know, by this point I had my heart set on them.  With a bit of improvising, we were all very happy with the results.  Under the circumstances, we think the Contessa would forgive us!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies With Cranberries and Salty Tops

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
¾ cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1¾ cups unbleached white flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1¼ cups old-fashioned oats (NOT INSTANT)
¾ pound (12 ounces)  semi-sweet chocolate.  We used Baker’s because that’s what we had.

5/8 cup dried cranberries (We love dried cranberries, so added a bit to the original)
Pink Himalayan salt or other special sea salt 

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line 4 sheet pans with parchment paper. Or two and then freeze or wait to bake the rest.  We only have three pans, so used two at a time.  

Chop the chocolate into nice chunks.

 
Beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar in mixer on medium speed for 3 minutes, until light and fluffy. 

Scrape down the bowl with a spatula. Add the vanilla, then the eggs, one at a time. Scrape down the bowl again. 

Meanwhile, sift the flour, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl. Mix in the oats. Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter-sugar mixture (low speed on mixer or by hand) Don’t over beat it! Stir in the chopped chocolate and cranberries until the dough is well mixed. 

With a 1¾-inch ice cream scoop (or two spoons), scoop round balls of dough onto the prepared sheet pans. 

 Keep them well apart as the cookies spread when baking. (SEE OUTTAKES BELOW!) Our second batch was spaced further apart than the ones shown here. Sprinkle lightly with the Himalayan or sea salt.  For those of you who can't have much or any extra salt, take heart. These are great cookies without the extra salt too.

 Bake for 13 minutes, until nicely browned.  You may have to experiment with timing. Our oven seemed to take longer and one batch took fourteen minutes. The original recipe said twelve. 

We took Ina’s advice and kept some of the ‘balls’ in the fridge, in well-sealed plastic bags. We waited a couple of days before we baked them.  We froze a few of the baked ones and they ‘performed’ very well after freezing. According to the recipe you can freeze them baked or unbaked. They do smell great baking, so next time we’ll freeze some of the balls. 

All in all, a tasty success!  Here our adorable cousin, Gabi, is taste-testing the results, in a suitably dramatic way.  Like all of us, she was bundled up against the cold.  Brrr! But the cookies helped.

Hope you can also enjoy these special treats on a blustery winter afternoon.  Or any time really.  This afternoon, I'm enjoying mine with a nice cup of hot tea.

Speaking of treats, we're thrilled to see the new cover for our forthcoming fifth book collector mystery, THE HAMMETT HEX!  We'll let you know as soon as it's available for pre-order!

 

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We love the outtakes on movies: so here is an outtake from our first batch of cookies, the ones that were too close together.  They tasted great but would never win a beauty contest.

Have a happy reading January, everyone!

Classic Tabbouleh -- summer's bounty

by Leslie Budewitz

I used to be a good gardener. Then I signed two three-book mystery contracts, the garden flooded two years in a row, and my strawberry bed began to resemble a central Montana hayfield after fifty-mile winds and hail the size of golf balls.

Sigh. 

But this year, I built a new bed and bought two itty bitty cucumber plants. Stuck three tomato starts in pots on the back porch. Bought parsley and thyme, and started basil in egg cartons.

And of course, neglect aside, there is mint. Three varieties. If you’ve ever grown mint, you’re wondering whatever possessed me. In my defense, only one is a planned plant—a lovely, bright green mint called Mojito. (And why, yes, it does make a fine cocktail.) The two unnamed varieties were gifts. (Gardeners are generous with starts. Some have a wicked glint in their eye. In climates like mine, in NW Montana, where herbs won’t survive the winter outside in pots, mint is best planted in large plastic buckets with the bottoms cut out and sunk into the herb bed.)

So, tomatoes, mint, and cukes gave me a craving for tabbouleh. This is basically Ina Garten’s recipe, with a few minor variations. She does a fabulous job with the classics, and this is an easy, yummy example. It’s terrific served on its own or on a bed of sturdy greens, and is a great side dish for kabobs, chicken, or salmon.

Classic Tabbouleh 

1 cup bulghur wheat (we used red bulghur because we had it; red or white will do)
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (2 lemons), scant
1/4 cup olive oil
3 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 cup green onions, white and green parts (1 bunch), chopped
1 cup fresh mint leaves (1 bunch, in the grocery store), chopped
1 cup Italian (flat leaf) parsley (1 bunch, in the grocery store), chopped
1 English cucumber or two green slicing cucumbers, unpeeled, diced
2 cups cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

 Place the bulghur in a large bowl, pour in the boiling water, and add the lemon juice, olive oil, and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Stir. Let sit at room temperature about 1 hour.

Add the onions, mint, parsley, cucumber, tomatoes, 2 teaspoons salt, and the pepper; mix well. Season, to taste, and serve or cover and refrigerate. The flavor will improve if the tabbouleh sits for a few hours.

Serves eight. This recipe keeps nicely in the fridge for 2-3 days, although the salt will draw some liquid off the cucumbers. If it seems like too much to stir in, spoon out as much liquid as you can and stir the rest into the salad.

From the cover of BUTTER OFF DEAD, third in the Food Lovers' Village Mysteries: As the national bestselling Food Lovers’ Village mysteries continue, the merchants of Jewel Bay, Montana try to heat up chilly winter business with a new film festival. But their plans are sent reeling when a dangerous killer dims the lights on a local mover and shaker …

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries and the Spice Shop Mysteries—and the first author to win Agatha Awards for both fiction and nonfiction. She lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat Ruff, a cover model and avid bird-watcher.

Connect with her on her website, on Facebook, or on Twitter.

VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE CELEBRITY CHEF!

Do you have a Favorite
Celebrity Chef?Vote below and hit poll results to see how others have voted. If you don't see your favorite chef in the list below, you can vote "other" and leave a comment here or on my Web site's messsage board at CoffeehouseMystery.com...

Read the post below the poll for links to
some of our favorite RECIPES!

and
hotlinks to "rock star"
chef tours (per Wall Street Journal).

Did you know that chef’s are the new rock stars? The Wall Street Journal declared it this week in a huge article. I laughed when I saw it because this is far from news to me. I made this point in fiction two years ago...

In my mystey French Pressed, the twenty-year-old daughter of my amateur sleuth (Clare Cosi) became completely infatuated with a “rock star” chef with whom she was interning--to her detriment since murder was involved.

The real news to me in the Journal article was the fact that these celebrity chefs are now going on live tours, just like rock stars. Click on the chef’s name below for more info. If they have a live appearance coming up, I hot linked to a place where you can find out more and order tickets. And I hope you enjoy my little vision of the Rock Star Chef Family Thanksgiving below...

CLEO'S CELEBRITY CHEF
FAMILY THANKSGIVING

(Just pretend I actually had an ounce of
artistic ability and drew the following
 as a cartoon with little word balloons...)

Alton Brown (tour hotlink)
My brainy big brother“Pass the mashed potatoes, Alton. No, I don't actually need the metric conversion on that...but thanks.”

Guy Fieri (tour hotlink)
My wild and crazy little brother
“Holla, Guy! Did you know Jenn’s husband invented a salsa recipe with tequila? I thought you’d be impressed.”

Paula Deen (tour hotlink)
My funny, adorable auntie
“Oh, boy! Can we fry that too? And have you checked out Riley's baked Garlic Cheese Grits recipe (click here)?"

Tony Bourdain (tour hotlink)
The bad boy neighbor
“Gotta light, baby? You’ve inspired me to take up smoking again. Better yet, how about I mix you up a sexy Raspberry Lemon Drop martini a la Julie Hyzie?”

Emeril Lagasse (tour hotlink) My jolly, loveable uncle“After we go apple picking Saturday, can you show me how to make a brioche? I'll trade you Krista's recipe for Danish Apple Cake."

Rachel RayMy bubbly, adorable sister

“Tomorrow night! Popping popcorn in rosemary oil then drooling over Jason Statham in Transporter 6."

Giada De Laurentiis

My sweet but too-thin fashionista sister.
“I’m in for Black Friday. We’ll shop, dish, have a latte, and workout. But then you better eat something, sweetie, I’m worried about you. I know what you'll love--Avery's "Hungry Girl" bacon shrimp & cheese kabob, under 200 calories.”

Ina Garten
My down-to-earth, knowledgeable older sister
“Super, Ina, one last thing? How long do you braise the beef in red wine?”

Tyler FlorenceThe cute boy next door“Hi Tyler, can I borrow a cup of sugar? And that tagine of lamb you just took out of the oven? Thanks! I'll swap you my own recipe for holiday pernil: Puerto Rican Style Roasted Pork Shoulder.”

Gordon Ramsay
The hot English neighbor
“Thumbs up on the real gravy and Yorkshire pudding, Gordo, but you’ve just got to stop with the farm animal butchery segments.” (And if you’ve never seen this man’s BBC show, The F Word, forget you just read that.)

So who is your favorite rock star chef? Take the poll at the top of the blog and then click to see the results and find out what your fellow Mystery Lovers' Kitchen fans think. If I've missed your favorite chef, just write him (or her) in -- you can add a comment below or hop over to the Message Board at my Web site http://www.coffeehousemystery.com/.



Cheers!

~Cleo Coyle
author of The Coffeehouse Mysteries
To download my latest free recipes or find out more about my nationally bestselling series of culinary mysteries, visit my official Web site: CoffeehouseMystery.com...

www.CoffeehouseMystery.com/
"Where coffee and crime are always brewing..."
A FINAL TIP FROM CLEO:
Sign up at my Web site for my free seasonal E-newsletter and you'll be entered automatically in my weekly FREE COFFEE DRAWINGS-- just a way for me share my latest "Coffee Picks" with my readers and Web site's visitors.