Category: Cooking

Recipes and culinary stuff, triumphs and tragedies in the kitchen.

Quick-o cheating spaghetti sauce

Quick-o cheating spaghetti sauce

A new recipe that’s become a staple at our place but which is undeniably delicious.

Recipe: Quick-O Spaghetti sauce

Summary: Spice up regular spaghetti sauce

Ingredients

  • 1 onion, chopped, diced or whatevered
  • 1 clove garlic, chopped, diced or whatever
  • [optionally] a dash of Italian seasoning
  • a dollop olive oil
  • a pinch salt
  • Your cheap-o store-bought spaghetti sauce (28 oz.)

Instructions

  1. Chop, dice, slice, or whatever your onion and garlic.
  2. With a suitably-sized saucepan, add a dollop of olive oil, and a pinch of salt. Your dollop should be enough to coat the ingredients but not enough for them to swim in.
  3. Turn the heat to medium/medium-hot.
  4. Add onion and garlic.
  5. Cover and walk away.
  6. Don’t come back until you’re worried (you’ll usually know by the smell.)
  7. Your onions and garlic should be slightly blackened at this point. If not (whimp!) cover and run away until you get worried again. If your onions and garlic are nothing but bits of charred carbon, start over and get worried sooner.
  8. Stir in your cheap-O spaghetti sauce. If you want to try adding a pinch of Italian seasoning, now’s the time. Simmer until your spaghetti noodles are done (you did remember to put the noodles on, right?).
  9. Enjoy! You’ll find this marvelous sweetness to the flavors.

Quick Notes

Good for keeping vampires away.

Variations

You could make your sauce from scratch.
You could add meat with your onions and garlic.
You could also add Soymeat, that works, too.

Cooking time (duration): 20

Number of servings (yield): 4

Meal type: supper

Culinary tradition: USA (General)

My rating: 5 stars: ★★★★★

Microformatting by hRecipe.

Cooking (not necessarily out of this world)

Cooking (not necessarily out of this world)

Hi,

I’ve decided to add a Cooking category. In it, I’ll relate stuff (and recipes) about my culinary exploits (or lack thereof).

Cheers,
Todd

Crepes Cointreau – crepes suzettes flambe’d with Cointreau

Crepes Cointreau – crepes suzettes flambe’d with Cointreau

Recently, my daughter and I have been getting up early and I’ve been making Crepe Suzettes which are marvelously thin pancake-like things.

I experimented the first day with flambe’ing and was astonished. And so, without singing off my eyebrows, I’ve continued to do so and figured I’d share the recipe:

Recipe: Crepes Suzettes Cointreau

Summary: Amazing flambe’ recipe

Ingredients

  • Dry ingredients:
    • 1 cup flour
    • 2 tbl. confectioner’s sugar
    • 1 pinch salt
  • Wet ingredients:
    • 2/3 cup milk
    • 1/3 cup water
    • 1 egg
    • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • Flambe’
    1 ounce or more Cointreau liqueur

Instructions

  1. To flambe’ you’re going to need either a gas stove or some way to light the alcohol.
  2. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix the wet ingredients thoroughly.
  3. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Mix quickly (don’t beat into submission).
  4. Test consistency (I usually add some water to thin it out).
  5. Use butter to grease your skillet, set for a medium heat. Pour about 1/4-1/3 cup batter onto skillet, rolling skillet around to spread batter into a large shape. When the crepe is cooked (no steam rising, surface looks dry), flip with a spatula and continue cooking.
  6. CAREFULLY pour a small amount of Cointreau over the crepe, dripping toward the side but NOT into the flame. Give the alcohol a moment to get warm, that helps it burn in the next step — dip skillet toward flame and set alcohol alight. The trick is to get the Cointreau on and under the crepe to burn.
  7. Remove from skillet, repeat until all batter is gone. Enjoy!
  8. (My daughter puts whip cream on hers, fresh raspberries or strawberries are also recommended.

Quick Notes

You don’t have to flambe’ to get great crepes.

Variations

You can top with many things: fresh fruit, butter, confectioner’s sugar.

I’m tempted to try Grand Mariner for the flambe’ or maybe Irish Mist.

[Update: I tried Kahlua — it doesn’t have enough alcohol to flambe’ on its own but with some Cointreau, it turns out nicely (orange chocolate).]

Preparation time (duration): 10 minutes (max)

Diet type: Vegetarian

Number of servings (yield): 8

Meal type: breakfast

Culinary tradition: French

My rating: 5 stars: ★★★★★

Microformatting by hRecipe.