Bologn-azy

I was inspired by my dear friend and his gurgling, eyes rolled back, rhapsodizing over his wife's meat sauce to try my hand as well. If I lived in Texas I would have invited myself over for a sampling, but since I live miles away (into the hundreds) I was forced to try my hand at it all solo. I opted to make Bolognese sauce. Mostly because I like to say it and partly because it sounded greasy and unctuous and I like that.

Anyway since this was a last minute study evading/forcing (3 hour simmer time) tool I merely did a cursory search on the internet for a recipe. Normally I would have been at the library with 5 cookbooks fstacked in front of me so this was really a step toward a new more laid back me. Back to the topic... Debate a plenty cos it's got milk and wine that gets reduced as some point in the recipe and maybe has a little tomato as well. I settled on the wine reducing after cooking meat before tomato sauce and finishing with the milk. Mostly I did this because of the wikipedia entry and partly because I'm an idiot and reference wikipedia much more often than I should. (thanks to alreadythere for gently pointing this out to me over a pina colada) The food turned out kind of eh.

That may have been because in my research I found a paraphrased Marcella Hazan recipe (lady knows her stuff) and she reduces the milk very early on. I suspected that perhaps this was because the enzymes in the milk helped to soften the meat in the dish, but I got misled by a my grandmother made it this way entry. This morning I went to work to find people reiterating my initial thoughts about the milk. Then I thought. My mother is a great cook (really, and not just in the subjective sense - well, i suppose it's all subjective but maybe you know what i mean) and I have been to plenty of homes where mamas cooking is doughy pancakes or condensed milk marshmallow fluff jello blobs (a horrendous experience). I feel that this is perhaps something that does not improve with age. So I got misled and added the milk too late. This probably affected the texture. Plus I used pork and beef and I definitely felt it could have benefitted from a little veal. Regardless I will be eating this for the next week (or longer).

Valentine Test Kitchen

Lately I reek of failure. Tasted worse than it looks.

Nooooodles

It tastes better than it looks. Fresh Rice Noodles from the not so secret spot on 16th street. Broccoli, Tofu, and Sauce. I'll be eating it for the next week.... yeee haaawwww. I am a child proud of my creation.