Savory Gravy for Cornbread / Family Photos

I created this recipe as a way to use up a can of diced stewed tomatoes, and because I've been wanting to try both of the things this sauce evokes: Red-Eye Gravy and Tomato Gravy.  For those who don't know, Tomato Gravy is a rich sauce that traditionally has fresh tomatoes and cream in it, as well as various seasonings, onions, and occasionally bell peppers, that's meant to be served on top of grits, rice, biscuits, or cornbread.  (Sometimes it comes with shrimp in it too.  Delicious.)  Red-Eye Gravy is a thinner, meat fat-based sauce that is served atop biscuits or cornbread, more as a condiment, shall we say.  It's called "Red-Eye" Gravy because the roux is thinned with coffee instead of milk or broth.  So which is my recipe?  Both, neither, and definitely its own thing.  I don't thing either Red-Eye or Tomato Gravy has ham in it.  But I had ham, and ham imparts a tasty flavor, so ham went in it!

Savory Gravy for Cornbread

1 can diced tomatoes
1-2 TB flour
less than 1/4 C. chopped ham-- say 1-2 TB?
cooking oil
1/2 to 1 whole onion, chopped (this depends on your appreciation of onions)
1/4 tsp or so instant coffee granules (or 1-2 TB. of strong brewed coffee would probably work, too)
1 TB. Korean BBQ sauce.  (In my opinion store-bought Korean BBQ sauce cannot be beat for imbibing a certain meaty je ne sais quoi.)

Heat the oil in the bottom of a small saucepan.  When it's hot enough, add in the onions and saute them until they're reasonably soft.  (They'll have more time in the pan, so it's not essential that they're limp.)  Add in the ham and let it sizzle around for a hot minute, then add in the canned tomatoes, juice and all.  Let that simmer at medium to medium-high (depending on your stove-- in other words, super-bubbly but not erupting tomato juice all over your stove top-- which mine totally did) for about 5-8 minutes.  Add in the Korean BBQ sauce and the coffee granules/brewed coffee, stirring so that they're well mixed.  Add in the flour, stirring rapidly to avoid lumps, 2 tsp. at a time until the sauce is the thickness you like it.  Turn the stove down to the low setting and let it simmer and bubble for another 5-10 minutes or so.  Serve in generous helpings over some fresh cornbread.
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I thought I'd pull out the photo album Grandmom put together for me to see if I could find some inspiration there.  I did!  Sort of. 

The first few pages are pictures from my parents' (failed) wedding.  By that I mean that the wedding was successful but the marriage was not.  Interestingly enough, Grandpop looks like he doesn't know what the hell is going on.  Also I note that Grandmom has, with the delicacy of a true archivist, hole-punched straight through the 8x11 deluxe photos to put them in the album.  Go Grandmom.  She has always liked my mom, and I'm sure she likes my dad, (her son), but it gives me a sort of glee to see hole punches through pictures of them looking...well, not to put too fine a point on it...smug.  Or, in my dad's case, like he doesn't know what the hell is going on.  Maybe it's genetic? 

Heading forward a couple of years or so, there's pictures of "(me) 5 days old".  Grandpop definitely looks like he knows what the hell is going on.  He is holding a tiny baby.  He appears to like it.  I appear to like it too, even when the picture shows only a large masculine finger pointing directly at the side of my face (I'm smiling). 

2 months later, my new talent appears to be looking accusingly into the camera. 

A couple of months later and Grandpop has beaten "Meet the Parents" by decades, trying to give a very confused-looking me a bottle while nestling me close to his hairy chest.

Through it all, Grandmom and Grandpop keep appearing, having taken expensive trips several hundred miles away from where they live, all to come see me.  (I was the only grandchild for a long time.  I had some serious cousin envy when my Uncle Ron finally settled down!) 

My cousins and I all learned to like each other eventually, and somewhere there are pictures of us all playing dress-up together.  And, in one memorable instance, me manhandling one of them because of a theatre-related mishap.  What can I say?  I SPENT ALL AFTERNOON WRITING THAT PLAY ABOUT PRINCESSES.  THEY COULD AT LEAST BOTHER TO LEARN THE LINES.  Personally, I would be happy if that picture were never seen by human eyes again.  I wouldn't even mention the incident except that it was so memorable that my cousins also remember the actual event, and continue to tease me about it.  They definitely come from the more laid-back side of the family.  Other, fonder, memories also came from that family trip, just to set the record straight.

Ginger Oat Cake / Grandmom Earns Her Life of Leisure

Ginger Oat Cake

Preheat the oven to 350F.

(whisk together)
1 C. all-purpose flour
1/2 C. whole wheat flour
1/2 C. rolled oats (like you would eat for breakfast, also the regular kind, not the "quick" kind)
1/2 tsp. salt
1-1/2 tsp. baking soda

(beat together, in the following order)
1/2 cup oil (I used almond, also to use it up, but canola or some other mild-flavored oil would be fine)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 C. molasses
1/2 C. powdered sugar (or regular granulated sugar, I just used powdered to use it up)
2-3 TB. fresh ginger paste or about 1-1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

Combine the two mixtures, stirring until just thoroughly mixed (ie no clumps of flour or ginger floating about) and then stopping.  (Too much stirring could make the cake tough.)

Grease and flour a medium-sized glass baking dish-- I think mine is 6 inches by 10 inches by 2-3 inches deep-- and pour the batter in, and bake for 30-45 minutes (depending on whether your oven runs hot or not-- mine does) or until the cake passes the toothpick test.  (I will repeat it for thoroughness: stick a toothpick or even a fork or the tip of a knife into the thickest part of your baked good, and if it doesn't have gooey blobs of batter on it, or thick moist crumbs stuck on it-- both signs of varying degrees of not-doneness, but does maybe have a couple of small crumbs on it and is otherwise still clean and dry, then your baked good is done.)  If you like, slice the cake while it's still in the pan and top it with:

Microwave Hot Lemon Sauce, for Those of Us Who Don't Like to Dirty Two Additional Pans for 1 Cup of Sauce or Spend More Time Making the Sauce Than The Cake

(microwave on high, for about 2 minutes)
1/2 C. water

(meanwhile, mix in a small bowl...)
1/2 C. powdered sugar
1 beaten egg
1/4 C. butter

Once the water in the microwave is bubbling hot, remove it and pour it slowly over the sugar mixture, stirring all the while.  Then, put that in the microwave, also on high, for about 3 minutes, removing it every 45 seconds to 1 minute to stir it vigorously with a fork.  Stop microwaving it when it gets thick.  Then, stir in about:

1-2 TB. lemon juice, or, equivalently, the juice of about half a lemon.
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I am enjoying the slow process of cleaning out my cabinets.  I think those around me are also enjoying it!  It works out well for my creative process and for my need to not get diabetes.
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The last time I went to visit Grandmom, she told me the story of how she retired.

Grandmom worked at, I think, the same factory her whole working life.  It was boring, but it was good pay, and Grandmom has always been good at sewing, so it played to her strengths.  Plus, she got to hang out with her friends on lunch and scheduled breaks.  It's New Jersey, which is a union state.  If a union could have negotiated scheduled foot massages, it would have by now.  Unions in the US, to enter onto a tangent, seem to have progressed on the "shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations" plan and, like all who go down that unfavorable road, it is their own fault and nobody else's.  If the unions had just quit at fair working hours and safe working conditions, everybody would still love the unions.  Instead, they got pompous and cocky around the 1970s, much like the overly-coddled son of a bootstrap millionaire, with the predictable results that always follow too much throwing your weight around. 

Anyway, to return to my story.  Grandmom and her unionized friends engaged in much friendly rivalry, like all women in the workplace.  This included the Secret Bird, otherwise known as flipping someone off across the room while pretending to adjust your glasses.  This was mostly before contacts, so almost everyone wore glasses.  Even Grandmom and Aunt Kitty flipped each other off on occasion.  Gotta love it. Amongst all this Secret Bird Flipping and break-taking, my Grandmom became one of the best sewers in the factory, and was entrusted with the trickiest work.  During all of this, the factory changed hands and Grandmom got a new boss.  This new boss did not like fixing his equipment.  You would think this would be an intuitive act in a factory-- to make sure the factory equipment still worked, much like the hiring and retaining of the workers to run said equipment.  However, history is about to prove us wrong. 

Grandmom's specialized sewing machine would break.  She would go tell the boss.  He would, instead of having someone trained in sewing machine repair come fix it, come over himself, pound on it like a Neanderthal trying to invent fire, and leave.  It would work for another few minutes, hours, or days.  Then this process would repeat itself. Did I mention the as-frequent complaints of this same boss about how Grandmom's productivity was subpar? Eventually Grandmom decided to leave.  She did.  The boss came personally to her house to beg her to come back.  She made him swear a solemn oath to fix the machine once and for all.  He made that oath.  Grandmom went back.  The machine wasn't fixed.  So, one day a couple of weeks later, she decided to sneak out in stealth.  Around lunchtime, she collected her personal things and went home claiming to be eating out.  And she never returned!  And she has enjoyed a life of leisure ever since! 

Grandpop retired a few years later and maintained their marital bliss by being faithful to his true loves: gameshows and sports on the television.  At least once a visit Grandmom comments in disgust that all Grandpop does is sit on the couch and watch tv and yet he never gains a pound!  In Grandpop's defense, earlier in his retirement he also: barbequed the best rotisserie chickens ever; maintained the front and back lawns in golf-course-like perfection; vacuumed (including chasing the dog around with it, not out of malice but sheer fur anxiety); drove Grandmom around like a professional chauffeur; and messed around in the basement and the garage with assorted tools.  However, despite Grandpop's diminishing activity over the years, it is true that he still has never really put on weight, despite also having a notorious sweet tooth that can only be satisfied by glasses of Boost! with every meal and cake and coffee every night a couple of hours after dinner.  You know, so there's room.  It's enough to make any woman disgusted.

Fudge Sauce / Determination-Flavored Yogurt

I made this recipe up because of an unfortunate event that has occured in the last few weeks.  Here's the story: several months ago, I went to the store to get some things and discovered yogurt with chocolate on the bottom.  Not fruit.  Not a fruit-based derivative.  Straight up chocolate.  I bought other, more conventional flavors, as well as the chocolate-on-the-bottom with my mind open and my reservations alert and ready.  No need.  It was delicious!  I have, in a back part of my brain, been meaning to go get some more ever since.  However, at some point in the time between when I bought it and when I (recently) returned to that store, the store decided to no longer carry it.  Not that brand.  Not that "style" (oh, yogurt styles...there are now a thousand of them), just that flavor.  I was so upset that I pouted (which, with my strict upbringing, I have only recently learned to do) up at the disappointing and conventional fruit flavors displayed along the top shelf.   And then I put the toe of one foot on the lip of the refrigerator case and hoisted myself to eye level with the yogurts, hoping to find one last chocolate-on-the-bottom hidden in the back.  If my thoughts had been verbalized, they would have gone something like, "I do not care if you have been back there up to and past your expiration date!  Others may not be willing to risk it, but I love you, chocolate-on-the-bottom yogurt!"  After several hopeful seconds of scanning the back of the shelf, I descended from my perch disappointed.  Whether it was the pouting or the climbing, or both, a nearby store patron then chivalrously offered to help me get whatever it was I was trying to get.  Sometimes sharing your feelings with others is healthy!  Especially when people unexpectedly offer to get things off of high shelves for you.

Anyway, I was not one to give up so easy.  I had already, in full public view, climbed on an appliance in the grocery store!  Undeterred, I went home with the idea of recreating the blissfulness of chocolate-on-the-bottom yogurt in my kitchen by basically putting chocolate sauce on the bottom of a reusable cup of yogurt.  And I did.  And this is the chocolate sauce recipe!  I will offer it with some variation options and caveats, since my approach was somewhat unconventional.

Chocolate Sauce for Yogurt

1/2 a Dove bar
2 TB. cocoa powder
2-3 TB. half & half
1-2 tsp. light corn syrup
1-2 tsp. butter

Melt the chocolate over low-medium heat.  Stir in the cocoa powder (it will make a coarse meal).  Add in the butter, which will then melt and help better blend together the cocoa powder and chocolate bar.  Reduce the heat to the lowest setting and stir in the corn syrup and half & half, adding a little more cocoa powder if you want your sauce a little thicker.  Your sauce is done when there are not lumps of cocoa left and the sauce looks smooth and glossy.  Spoon it into a prepared glass jar (a small one-- maybe 4 oz. at the most) and let it cool a couple of minutes before refrigeration.  When you're ready, put 2 spoonfuls of chocolate sauce on the bottom of a reusable container, then fill it to the top with yogurt!  This appears to make about eight 6 oz. yogurt cups-worth of chocolate sauce.

This is how I actually made it, because it's what I had on hand and also because I was too stubborn to break into the half-a-package of legitimate chocolate chips that I also had and hope to use to make a chocolate babka with next week.  It tastes good to me, but if you used probably about 2-3 oz. of semisweet chocolate chips in place of the cocoa powder and Dove bar combo it would probably be creamier, and also more like a milk chocolate sauce than a dark chocolate sauce.

Creamy Carrot Bolognese Sauce / A Fishy Mystery

I want to say again that I am so thankful that I have readers for this blog.  It really gives me a great deal of joy to chronicle my own and others' food adventures here and know that they will be enjoyed and appreciated. 

My latest adventure is another new take on a recipe from The Northend Italian Cookbook.  (I recently discovered, the 4th edition.  It's not like it was a big secret, I just usually don't take the time to read the dozens of pages of forwards and dedications and introductions and summaries that seem to accompany all published books, including even cookbooks and books of knitting patterns.)  The original recipe was for a Bolognese sauce, which is the authentic version of what we all usually think of when we picture the "meat sauce" part of "spaghetti with meat sauce".  Now, let me state for the record once again that I do not think that eating meat is intrinsically evil, especially if the animal in question was humanely raised and humanely led out of this life so that we could enjoy and benefit from it.  But, I think it is an uncontestable statement to say that we should all probably eat less meat for a variety of reasons, not the least of which because we are making ourselves FAT and are giving ourselves heart conditions and colon cancer.  So, I modified this recipe to be a good "weekday/meat free" alternative, but you could use the meat of your choice in place of the substitute I offer, which is....carrots. 

I know.  I'm a card-carrying member of the nut club in your minds now, right?  Carrots?  Carrots?  Yes, carrots.  "Why carrots?" you may ask.  Because...and here is another personal revelation...I think meat substitutes are nasty.  They start life almost flavorless (not taking into account their own natural flavors, which are usually odd, to say the least) and with a variety of textures to appall.  So I tend to avoid them in my cooking and in my eating.  So, since I've lately been exploring ways of cooking and eating less meat without sacrificing my favorite foods and flavors, I've been exploring vegetable options to replace the texture and role that the meat portion of some of my favorite recipes.  The eggplant experiment in my personal experience, wildly successful.  For further support of eggplant, I offer you this example: I once cooked some fried eggplant for a former boyfriend, who came across it later and ate it, totally unaware, he told me afterwards, that it was not the fish I had meant to cook.  So, with that in mind, I bring you:

Creamy Carrot Bolognese Sauce
4 large carrots, peeled and cubed*
1 small onion, chopped the Italian way (into slivers rather than cubes)
1 28oz (850mL) can ground or crushed tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced
3-4 sprigs fresh parsley, minced
salt and pepper to taste, red pepper flakes or cayenne to taste
2/3 C. white wine (I used the aformentioned muscato)
cooking oil (olive oil, if you have it)
1/2 C. (120 mL)
about 1lb (450g) hot cooked pasta (I actually put it over cooked split peas with flavorful success, but I admit that this is a little more experimental than most people are willing to be when it comes to their Italian staples)

Heat the oil in a saucepot over medium heat.  Add in the carrots and let them sizzle and cook for about 5 minutes.  You can actually chop the rest of the things that need to be chopped while this is happening and cut your total preparation/cooking time down.  Anyhow, after the carrots have had their time in the saucepot hot tub alone, toss in the onions and garlic and let them sizzle with the carrots for another 2-3 minutes.  Add in the wine.  Let it reduce, another 2-3 minutes.  Add in the crushed tomatoes, parsley, and the seasonings.  My canned tomatoes came with some added salt, so I actually didn't put in any additional salt at all and that was just right.  Put the cover on the saucepot, reduce the heat to medium-low (a fastish simmer) and let it cook, stirring it every so often, for about 15 minutes.  You can use this time to find your pasta in the cabinet (emphasis find if you live in a place with limited cabinet space in the kitchen) and get it cooked and drained.  At the very end of the cooking time, remove the sauce from the heat and add in the cream, stirring it to blend.  The end!  Serve it over your pasta.  It's good just the way it is, although some parmesan is never amiss with most Italian dishes.  This makes a good bit of sauce.  I made a full batch and set some aside to use for eggplant parmesan.
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*Cubing carrots is not as hard as it sounds.  After you get them peeled, instead of cutting them from end to end into disks, cut each individual carrot into 2-3 sections, making your cuts where the carrot obviously changes sizes as it tapers from the big end to the small end.  Then, cut each section in half.  Cut each half into 3 strips longways.  Holding all the strips together, cut from end to end.  These are not perfect cubes, mind you.  This is not the haute cuisine cordon blue mirepoix carrot cutting method.  This is just the simplest way to get carrots into cube-like pieces.

Parmesan Patties in Onion Cream Sauce

1 lb hot cooked pasta

Patties
1 lb ground turkey
1 C. parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
2 eggs

Mix all together.  (If you want, you can cook all of them with this dish, but what I did was save about 2/3rds of the mixture in the freezer as premade meatballs.  So you may want to double the sauce recipe (or more) if you want to serve all the patties at once.)  Heat 3TB (1/2 a stick of butter) in a large skillet.  Fry the patties on both sides over medium to medium-low heat (so they don't brown too fast and do get cooked all the way through).  Set aside.  DO NOT DISCARD THE BUTTER IN THE PAN.

Sauce
1 large onion, chopped into slivers (ie, stop chopping them one step before you get cubes)
1/2 C. cream
salt and pepper to taste
the rest of the stick of butter

Scrape the browned bits off the bottom of the pan.  Melt the butter in it.  Saute the onions in the pan until they are soft.  Reduce the heat to low.  Add in the cream and stir to mix well.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Pour the sauce over the turkey patties to comingle the flavors --or-- Serve each plate individually with pasta, patties, then a generous helping of sauce.
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This is my own take on a recipe from The Northend Italian Cookbook, "Saporite de Manzo".  I felt it deserved a rename because my version differs in some of the ingredients and quantities and also does NOT have any balsamic vinegar, and therefore probably tastes a lot different.

I really wanted to add some white wine to the sauce-- I had even bought some muscato at the liquor store-- but the cheap corkscrew I bought literally broke off in the bottle.  It was a hot mess.  I had to dig most of the cork out crumb by crumb with: a steak knife, my bare hands, and a long knitting needle.  The rest came out stuck to the bottom of the corkscrew or ended up in my wine.  Ugh.  So, needless to say, my wine-adding plans were scuttled when the corkscrew broke off in my wine bottle, since making a sauce is a time-sensitive operation that doesn't really allow for 30 minutes of cork-mining and I therefore had to set that project aside and finish making my dinner.  If you want to add wine, what you would do is: after you've removed the cooked patties from the cooking pan, add in the wine (about 1/4 C.) and let it bubble and moil about while you scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pan.  Then, once all that's done with, add in the additional butter and continue with the recipe as written.  However, the oniony sauce as it is was pretty good, especially mixed with the flavor of the parmesan cheese in the patties.

When I made my pasta, I actually cooked a half pound of pasta and a half pound of frozen peas together.  I think it was yummy, but you could go with plain pasta, too.

Some Italian Mystery Ingredients, Revealed

This is not a recipe post as such, but a suggestion post.  I recently tried some recipes out of The Northend Italian Cookbook, which Grandmom gave me with high recommendations, and they were delicious.  Now, that cookbook is relatively current, and I feel bad about potentially defrauding the author, Maria DeMino Buonopane, who looks like a very nice woman based on her author photograph on the back.  So, I'm not going to include those exact recipes here.  However, I did discover by trying out those recipes the answers to some culinary mysteries and, since I have been eating those culinary mysteries from Grandmom's kitchen my whole life I don't feel that it's unethical to reproduce those here.

Mystery #1: Why does Grandmom's tomato sauce taste so good, and so different from, jarred sauce?

The first thing that jumps to your mind (as it did to mine) was a matter of freshness, seasoning, and ingredient choice.  However, the ingredients used (and not used) in the pasta sauce I buy are almost identical (as far as I knew) to the homemade variety.  In addition, jarred sauce avoids the metalic taste from traditional canning.  Still, it just wasn't the same.  Through happy accident, I discovered mystery ingredient number 1, and The Northend Italian Cookbook revealed the second mystery ingredient.

Tomato Sauce Mystery Ingredient #1: rendered meat fat.

If you brown your sausages, meatballs, porkchops (yes, porkchops) or whatever meat you plan on putting in your tomato sauce in your sauce pot first, set them aside, and then proceed to make the sauce, your sauce will have this delicious meaty quality.  (You will still need to add some olive oil after you remove the meat from the pan so you can saute your onions and garlic-- just not as much.)  After you've got the sauce looking like a sauce, add the meat back in and cook everything all together the way you would a meat-free sauce-- about 1 hour on a low simmer. 

Tomato Sauce Mystery Ingredient #2: fresh mint!

I haven't tried this in a meat sauce like the one I describe above,  but in a meat-free red sauce, the fresh mint in delicious.  Instead of the pepperiness of fresh basil (also good) you get a milder zip, as well as the sweetening qualities of mint.  I think this is why commercial tomato sauce typically has added sugar.  But it just can't compare.

Mystery #2: When I saute garlic for a dish, it just doesn't have as much garlicky goodness as when Grandmom does it.

Mystery Step: Frizzle the garlic in a ton of oil.  Half-burn it.  We're cooking Italian, right?  If you want less garlic, go eat a taco.  For a sauce I don't know if I would recommend doing it this way.  However, for something that has garlic as a main flavor (for example the broccoli rabe recipe I posted recently), don't be shy on the number of cloves you use, and once you've minced your garlic, heat about 3-5 TB. oil in a pan until it's hot!!!! and then throw in your garlic.  Push it around in the pan a few times to keep it from actually burning, but it should turn a deep golden brown and even puff up a little.  Basically you're deep-frying garlic on a very small scale.  But the result is an oil full of a bold, nutty garlic flavor, perfect for dipping bread in, pouring over fresh cooked greens, or tossing into pasta with some parmesan cheese.

Butteriest Butter / Great-grandmom Pulls her Tricks

You know that butter you get in a seafood restaurant to dip your crab legs or lobster in?  That butter that is somehow the epitome of butter, and of the concept of butteriness?  Well, today I discovered how to make it.  No, it's not just melted butter.  And no, it's definitely not vegetarian.  But it's great on anything!

1 stick of butter
1 clove of garlic, minced
3 anchovy filets, drained and patted dry (I didn't pat mine, but I guess you could)

Melt the butter in a small saucepan.  Once it's all melted and also stopped foaming for the most part (only a few seconds after it finishes melting), toss in the minced garlic and let it sizzle for a few seconds.  Then, remove the butter from the heat and throw in the anchovy filets.  Mash them up as much as you can, prefereably with a wooden spoon.
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That's it.  I served it over cooked cauliflower today and I couldn't get enough of it.  Not that I dislike cauliflower to begin with.  I am an adult and buy my own groceries, so I don't have to eat cauliflower if I didn't like it.  Which I do, and I did.  But that was some of the most badass cauliflower I've ever eaten.  This sauce was also poured over hot cooked spaghetti or linguine by Great-grandmom Canduci, and while I can't recall ever having it, my mom liked it so much that, despite not even liking anchovies, she still remembers that pasta and how delicious it was.  The secret is that you can't taste the anchovies, at least not in the traditional sense.  They are definitely the "secret ingredient", but the end product is not fishy or even oily.  Just buttery.  So deliciously buttery!

Grand-grandmom Canduci was a card.  I got reminded of some good stories about her when I was putting up the broccoli rabe post, and decided I would share them.

Gardening: see "How to Get a Free Trip to the Grocery Store"

Great-grandmom was a wiley and resourceful old fox and, according to her children, a wiley and resourceful young fox too.  Great-grandmom's method of getting stuff done around the house that she needed to delegate or just didn't want to do herself was to rope the unsuspecting bystander (read: family member) in with a statement something along the lines of "Hey, can you come help me with this?"  Who's to turn down a sweet old Italian lady?  HAH!  Inevitably you would look up from pulling weeds or whatever it was you were "helping her" with and she would be gone!  She even did this to me with the crab grass in her front walk, and she died when I was about 8 years old so I know I must have been a fairly small child at the time.  Wiley indeed!  To pull her tricks even with a little child!  I remember the deep sense of irritation I felt. 

This is also the method Great-grandmom used when, in her later years, she needed a ride to the grocery store.  "Can you give me ride?  Is on the way!" she would ask innocently.  "Of course!" was the only allowable answer-- remember, this is the woman who smacked her own adult sons with the wooden spoon she was cooking with for failing to compliment her cooking.  (FYI: the answer is always "Oh, it is so delicious," to an Italian woman.  Otherwise: smacking.)  So, the driver in question would load up Great-grandmom and drive over the the Acme ("Ack-em-mah") and she would then turn to them and say, innocently, "Oh, can you help me carry groceries?  Is only a few things.  Short trip."  So, the driver would get out of the car (remember, at this point she or he has been promised that it will be "short trip" that is "on the way", meaning the driver still has other business to attend to) and become more and more incredulous as Great-grandmom worked her way through the entire grocery and at least one full cartload.  It's obvious that her victims (read: family members) were truly fooled only a few times.  But what are you going to say to Great-grandmom?  No?  No.  In fact, you beat her at her own game, if you could, by claiming to have a strict appointment that you were running late for, or almost out of gas.  Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

Red Sauce with Crabs

12 small crabs*
olive oil for sauteing
6-8 cloves of garlic
a splash of red wine
Tomato sauce made with: 3 big and 2 little tomatoes, a little sugar, fresh basil to taste, and 2 bay leaves

Clean the crabs and saute them with the garlic in a little olive oil.  Add in the rest of the ingredients and cook until done.**
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*This reminds me of the time Grandmom and I decided to eat crabs since I was up there and Grandmom therefore had justification for buying them.  We both love seafood.  Grandpop does not.  Or rather, he didn't before their marriage, went through a 20-year period where he did like it after being tricked into eating it, much the same way he learned to appreciate rabbit, and then in recent years has returned to his original seafood-hating state.  So we went to the grocery store to purchase some crabs, which in New Jersey is not a difficult thing to do.  But lo and behold!  That day, there were no large, luscious Alaskan crab legs or Snow crab legs for us to take home and boil up with a hint of Old Bay and dunk in hot melted butter.  No.  The only crabs to be gotten in the midst of the summer were little blue crabs.  So we bought them, and took them home, and made this sauce with them, which we ate on top of linguine.  The funny part is that you have to understand that when this recipe says "clean the crabs" it doesn't mean "take all the meat out of the shells"-- it just means "run them bad boys under some water so you don't eat sand and crab poop."  So the crabs should be, and were, in shell.  Hard shells.  And they were little crabs.  So, we started out with a serving platter piled high, I mean high, with tiny cooked crabs, and we, seafood lovers that we are, and stubborn people that we are, commenced to eating them.  When we conceded that we were done, two and a half hours later, we had made it about 3/4ths of the way down, sucking every tiny claw to its very core along the way.  Grandpop had left the table after finishing his non-seafood alternative about a half-hour into the crab festival muttering something about how we were eating too much.  But, as anybody who has ever tried to eat a tiny crab can tell you, there ain't a lot of meat in them tiny crabs.  I think we got more calories from the linguine.  But it was a delicious and messy experience and, honestly, that's what eating crabs should be.

**"Until done."  Possibly the two most obscure words in the English language.  It assumes so much of the recipe reader, like that they know what done is, what it looks like, and about how long it takes to get there.  In this case, you should have a nice saucy tomato sauce (not cooked salsa), and your crabs should be safe to consume without fear of horrible digestive consequences.  So at least 30 minutes on medium-low (think "simmer").  Maybe an hour.  An added benefit to making this sauce is that you have deliciously crabby red sauce left long after you finish off your tiny crabs, which you can soak into good Italian bread (the sauce, not the tiny crabs) or coat more luxurious pasta with.  A good pasta sauce should go a long way.

White Spaghetti with Chicken

1-1/2 to 2 lbs chicken, defatted and cut into pieces
5-6 garlic cloves, sliced
1 large onion, chopped
olive oil for cooking
1/4 C. red wine
parsley and salt and pepper to taste
1-2 pototoes, cubed
1 1/2 C. frozen peas
1 lb spaghetti, cooked

In hot oil, fry the chicken pieces just a little bit-- don't let them get brown.  Then add in the onion, garlic, parsley, and potatoes.  Add in the red wine and let everything simmer uncovered for about 10 minutes.  Add in 4-5 glasses* of water-- enough to cover the chicken-- and the package of frozen peas.  Let it simmer until there is enough sauce for the spaghetti.  (Note from 4/89-- "Too much water.")
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Mystery Ingredient solved: it was a quantifiable amount of peas.  There is still no direction on spaghetti, but I'm guessing that is due to the cooking style of Great-grandmom, which basically dictated that you put in as much spaghetti as you have people to feed, and they'll eat it and like it!

Okay, first things first.  There is a mystery ingredient that I need to get with my cousin Judi to clarify what it is.  It may be spaghetti, since it's not (as far as I can tell) mentioned in this recipe other than in the title.  The 1 lb is my thought on how much spaghetti you would need to go with this sauce.

*I'm not sure if Great-grandmom Canduci was talking about her juice glasses (6 oz.) or water tumblers (12-16oz.)  Either way, it's a lot of water.  Based on the rest of the recipe, what I would do is get to the point where you would be adding in the water and peas, and add in the peas first.  Then, stir everything around in the pot so it's in an even layer on the bottom, with chicken pieces and onions and the like peeking up amongst the peas.  Then I would add in enough water to just go over the top of the peas and proceed as directed.

Experimental Stateside Loco Moco / I Can't Find My Spatula

1/2 tsp. Old Bay seasoning
1/4 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 C. seafood stock
1 TB. tomato paste
1 C. canned tomato sauce
1 TB. thickener of your choice (cornstarch or flour)
1 tsp. sugar

1 C. cooked pearled barley (or rice, for authenticity)*
2 boca patties**
2 fried eggs

Bring the stock to a simmer in a skillet.  Add in the tomato paste and stir to blend.  Add in spices.  Add in tomato sauce, sugar, and thickener, whisking after each addition.  Pour sauce over the barley/rice, eggs, and patties.

Look, it's steaming hot!  Yum...

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Now, I am aware that Loco Moco is not a traditional Italian dish.  But neither is homemade toothpaste and you would not believe the number of hits that page has gotten.  However, I recently moved, so I thought: new place, new food!  I have been wanting to try making this for about a month after watching an episode of "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives".  The recipe loosely imparted there involved making a homemade stock that cooks for 3 hours and has kombu and dried shrimp in it.  Maybe if my place were not a wreck, I could find my spatula, and I didn't have to go to work I would have the time and energy to cook a sauce for 3 hours.  But I don't, and I'm guessing you don't either, regardless of whether or not you just moved.  This recipe does need some tweaking for taste and content.  In future I will try some thai fish sauce in there, and/or Worcestershire sauce.  Also, it could be thicker, although I liked it this way too.

*I just like barley, both for its texture and nutritional content.  (It's high in fiber and has some good minerals in it too.)  But rice is what you're supposed to put in and it would be delicious too as a sop for the Loco sauce.

**The original Loco Moco calls for hamburger patties made with diced onion.  The Boca (vegetarian) patties were nasty.  Should I find myself needing a patty in the future I will look up a recipe for a homemade one or reverse engineer one myself.  The best parts of the Moco end of the dish were definitely the egg and the barley.  In the meantime, put some onion in the sauce too-- about 1/4th of a regular-sized onion-- if you don't make your own hamburger patties or use the vegetarian option.  Yes, I know I used vegetarian meat substitute patties in a dish that had fish stock as the main part of the sauce.

Fresh Tomato Sauce

28 oz can crushed tomatoes
28 oz can pureed tomatoes
2-3 whole fresh tomatoes, chopped
1/2 an eggplant, cubed (optional)
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 onion
1/3 lb Italian sausage (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
2 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 TB. olive oil

In a medium soup pot, heat the olive oil and saute the garlic until it begins to be aromatic.  Add in the onions, bell pepper, and eggplant; saute a little longer.  Add in the fresh tomato and bring all to a simmer.  Add in the canned tomatoes (both kinds).  Bring to a simmer.  Add in the sausage.  Cover and cook at a low, low simmer for 1-2 hours, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching.  YUM.

Meatballs

4 slices bread, torn into small pieces
1/2 C. water
2 eggs
1lb ground meat, beef or pork
1.4 C. grated parmesan or romano cheese
2 TB. chopped fresh parsley
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. oregano
dash pepper
tomato sauce of your choice for stewing (3-4 C. worth)

Soak bread in the water for 2-3 minutes.  In a separate bowl, blend together (traditionally using the Italian Knead) the eggs, ground meat, cheese, parsley, and spices.  Then mix in the bread.  Form into balls, then brown in oil in a deep skillet over medium-high heat, then allow to stew for 15-30 minutes in the tomato sauce over medium-low heat.

Strawberry Glaze for Cheesecake

1 C. strawberries
1-1/2 TB. cornstarch
1/2 C. sugar
2 TB. Grand Marnier

Mash the strawberries.  Combine the strawberries, sugar, and cornstarch in a heavy saucepan.  Cook over medium heat until thick.  Add in liqueur.  Cover and chill.  Makes 3/4 cup.

Blueberry Glaze for Cheesecake

Blueberry Glaze for Cheesecake:
1/2 C. fresh blueberries
1/4 C. water
1/4 C. sugar
1/4 C. brandy
1-1/2 TB cornstarch
3 TB. water

Combine blueberries and 1/4 C. water in a heavy saucepan.  Cook over medium heat for 15 minutes.  Sieve and return to saucepan.  Add sugar and brandy.  Cook over medium heat 10 minutes.  Dissolve cornstarch in 3 TB. water, mixing together until smooth.  Then add this into the blueberry mixture and cook until thickened.  Cover and chill.  Makes 1 C.

Fish Sauce for Spaghetti

2 cans of tuna
2 small cans tomato paste--or--1 can tomato puree
chopped onion and garlic to taste (most would probably like 1 onion and 1 clove garlic)

Saute onion and garlic in oil until soft.  Add in tomato paste or puree.  Stir in canned tuna.  Let simmer a few minutes, until heated through and the flavors have had a chance to blend.  Serve over hot pasta.

Red Clam Sauce

1 large onion
3 TB olive oil
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. basil, crumbled
1/2 tsp. salt
2 TB. chopped fresh parsley
2 8oz. cans tomato sauce
2 7-1/2oz cans minced clams

Saute onion in oil till tender.  Stir in oregano, basil, salt, parsley, and tomato sauce.  Drain clams, reserving juice.  Add the juice to the tomato sauce mixture and simmer for 15 minutes.  Remove from the heat.  Stir in the clams.  Heat thoroughly.  Serve with linguine.  Makes about 1 quart.