The Easiest Tomato Sauce for Pasta

Cover of Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

This next entry in my favorite recipes comes from Marcella Hazan‘s excellent cookbook, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. If you love Italian food, this is the only Italian cookbook you need, in my opinion. I have made many of the pasta sauces, and they were all great. Unfortunately, I’ve cut way back on the pasta I’m eating these days.

My husband declared this tomato sauce with onion and butter to be one of the best pasta sauces he’d ever tasted. It is superbly simple to make, even easier than my go-to tomato sauce. This sauce has a light, subtle flavor that tastes best on hearty but bland filled pastas, like potato gnocchi and cheese ravioli, but is also very good on spaghetti.

I suggest using pureed tomatoes, but you can also use canned whole tomatoes and crush them with the back of a spoon while the sauce is cooking. This will result in a “chunkier” tomato sauce, though. Bionaturae is my favorite brand of bottled strained tomatoes.

Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter

• 1 bottle strained tomatoes(24 oz.) or 2 cups fresh tomatoes, pureed
• 5 tbsp. butter
• 1 med. onion, peeled and cut in half
• Salt
• 1½ pounds pasta
• Parmesan cheese

Put the tomato sauce, butter, onion and salt in a saucepan. Cook, uncovered, at a slow but steady simmer for 45 minutes, stirring from time to time. Discard the onion before tossing with the pasta. Leftover sauce may be frozen without the onion.

 

Italian Sausage Soup

It is raining today, and actually feels like fall is coming, so here is a warming soup that is quick and easy enough for a weeknight meal. This is another entry in my favorite recipes series. This soup comes from Sara Foster’s cookbook, Sara Foster’s Casual Cooking.

Italian Sausage Soup

• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 lb. Italian sausage
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 1 14.5-ounce can chopped tomatoes with their juices
• 1 15-ounce can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• Salt and pepper
• 4 cups spinach, cabbage, or other greens, washed and trimmed
• 4 basil leaves, thinly sliced

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high. Cut open the sausage casings and squeeze the meat into the skillet, discarding the casings. Add the onion and saute 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sausage is light brown all over and the onion is tender and translucent. Drain the fat from the skillet. Add the stock, tomatoes and beans. Season to taste and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 8-10 minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in the greens and basil.

Quick and Easy Weeknight Frittata

Happy new year! As is the tradition on this blog, at the start of every year, I try to revitalize things around here and motivate myself to post more. I am especially motivated this year because recently I have been getting a lot of visitors and wonderful comments, which has inspired me. I love hearing your ideas, and they do motivate me to get into the kitchen, so keep them coming.

This year, I’m going to focus on posting what I most like to cook: simple, easy recipes with a focus on healthy eating and seasonal ingredients. I will try to post at least one favorite recipe a week, plus tips and tricks as I pick them up.

My favorite recipe for this week is the frittata. A frittata is an Italian omelet. It’s flat and usually thicker than a French-style omelet, with a lot more stuff in it. Making a frittata is a good way to use up those odds and ends of vegetables and cheese that might otherwise get thrown away. You can even throw in leftover pasta, if you like.

I make a frittata about once a week. It fulfills all my requirements for a fast weeknight meal. I can usually make it with the ingredients I have on hand, so a trip to the grocery store isn’t required. It cooks in less than 30 minutes. Often, it can be made without meat, as we try to eat a vegetarian meal at least two or three times weekly. And the leftovers keep beautifully. They are good reheated for breakfast the next day or even cold in a sandwich.

I have tried a lot of frittata recipes from a different cookbooks, and I have gradually worked out a technique that produces good results every time.

1. Start with a 10-inch nonstick oven-safe pan (i.e., one with a metal handle, rather than plastic). Pour in a little olive oil and heat the pan over medium. In the meantime, prepare the vegetable filling. Chop up any vegetables you like. For this week’s frittata, I used red onion and spinach. Leftover cooked vegetables are perfectly fine. You could also throw in some cooked meat, if you have any, like bacon or sausage.
2. Once the pan is warm, add the chopped vegetables and let them cook until tender or wilted. For onions and spinach, this only takes about 5 minutes. Firmer vegetables will take longer. Pre-cooked vegetables only have to be warmed through.
3. While the vegetables are cooking, beat 5 eggs with some salt, pepper and 1-2 cloves of garlic, minced. Once the vegetables are ready, spread them out in the pan and pour the eggs over the top. Turn on the broiler. As the eggs are cooking, lift up the edges with a spatula and let the uncooked egg run to the sides of the pan. You want the eggs to be almost set but still a bit liquid on the top. It may be necessary to turn down the heat to keep the bottom from browning too much.
4. When the eggs are almost set, remove the pan from the heat and sprinkle the top with grated cheese. For the frittata this week, I used mozzarella, because that’s what I had. You can do without cheese, but I always add it. It makes the frittata more satisfying, in my opinion.
5. Transfer the pan under the broiler and cook until the top is puffy and the cheese is melting and starting to brown. This should take no more than a few minutes. Take it out, cut it into slices and serve with toast.

Note: You don’t have to broil the frittata during the last step. Rather, you can put it into a 350-degree oven and let it finish more slowly. This works fine, but the frittata doesn’t get as puffy and browned, which I prefer. We call it egg pizza!

Leftovers keep for 3 days or so. Try a frittata sandwich for lunch the next day with slices of cold frittata between crusty bread.

Related articles

• Five Meals (simplycooking.wordpress.com)
• Adding Flavor to Simple Recipes (simplycooking.wordpress.com)

Is There Pesto in Your Freezer?

Here are some awesome tips for pesto that I learned from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. These tips are especially useful for pre-made, frozen pesto, which you may be trotting out this time of year.

First, stir in a couple of spoonfuls of pasta cooking water. This helps loosen up your pesto and makes it adhere better to the pasta.

Second, add a pat or two of softened butter. Heaven!

Panzanella, or Bread Salad

I’m sorry things have been so quiet around here. (Can you hear the crickets?) Life has left little time for blogging this summer, and I haven’t done a whole lot of creative cooking either. But I have completed a couple of challenges that I have yet to blog about. I’m hoping to get all caught up and then start a new round of challenges in the fall.

One recent challenge was seasonally appropriate: to make a cold dinner that was also satisfying. For this challenge, I wanted to use something from our garden, which means tomatoes. Naturally, I thought of one of my favorite salads: panzanella, or bread salad. Not only is this a great dish for enjoying dead ripe tomatoes, but it’s also handy for using up stale bread. The juices from the tomatoes soak into the bread and give it new life.

To make this dish an entree, I added leftover grilled chicken and cannellini beans, along with an assortment of vegetables. They combined to create a satisfying, hearty dish for a hot summer night. The inspiration for the basic recipe comes from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan.

Main-Course Panzanella

Yields: 4 servings

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Trim the bread of its crust and cut into smallish squares to make approximately 2 cups bread cubes. Toast the cubes in the oven until browned and dried out, about 10 minutes. Put the cubes in a large bowl. Puree 1 ripe tomato in a food mill over the bowl. Toss the tomato puree with the bread, add some salt, and let it sit for 15 minutes or more.

In a food processor, combine 1 peeled garlic clove, 1 teaspoon anchovy paste* and 1 tablespoon capers,drained. Puree. Combine thoroughly with ¼ cup olive oil, 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar and salt to taste. Set aside.

Meanwhile, prepare the salad ingredients:

• Dice 2 ripe tomatoes.
• Dice 1 yellow or red bell pepper.
• Peel and dice 1 cucumber.
• Thinly slice ½ red or sweet onion.
• Thinly slice 1 breast leftover cooked chicken (preferably roasted or grilled).
• Drain and rinse 1 cup cooked cannellini beans.

Combine everything in the serving bowl with plenty of freshly ground pepper, and toss thoroughly.

*I prefer anchovy paste (it comes in a little tube) to actual anchovies because I don’t cook with anchovies often, and then I only use a little at a time. A tube of anchovy paste seems to last me a good long while. You may substitute 2-3 anchovy fillets, if you like.

Happy Anniversary! A Simple Italian Meal

This past Sunday was our wedding anniversary (six great years!). We held our wedding at a charming Italian restaurant in downtown Raleigh, NC, called Caffe Luna. The main reason we chose Caffe Luna was because we love their food. They feature simple but delicious Italian cuisine that changes according to the seasons. I’ve always had a great meal there.

For my challenge last weekend, my husband wanted me to make some food we might have had at our wedding. You see, we didn’t actually get to eat much of the lavish buffet Caffe Luna put on for us. We were too busy being bride and groom that we barely sat down. But we heard from everyone else how great the food was, and it certainly looked good.

The problem with this challenge was that I couldn’t recall any specific dishes that were on the buffet. I remembered vaguely a few things — mixed vegetables, smoked salmon, poached salmon — but nothing more specific came to mind. Unfortunately, Caffe Luna’s website is not a big help. While they do have a catering menu online, it’s pretty bare bones: cheese and crackers; marinated chicken; marinated flank steak. That’s as much description as you get. To tell you the truth, I don’t think the menu is set in stone, but is rather based on what’s in season and available, which is how it should be. I remember that the buffet table was groaning with food. There certainly was a lot more than seems to be listed on the website menu.

So I turned to my mainstay for Italian cooking, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan. If you like Italian food and you don’t have this cookbook, you are not cooking the best Italian dishes you could be. Every recipe I have made out of this book has been molto squisito. These recipes are very simple, as good Italian cooking should be. They let the ingredients shine and highlight the flavors with restrained additions, such as olive oil, fresh herbs, wine, salt and pepper.

Unfortunately, because these dishes are so simple, my husband thought I cheated in last weekend’s challenge when I presented him chicken in white wine and lemon and a platter of baked vegetables. But even though the dishes weren’t a challenge to cook, they are a model of restraint, and the results were mouth-watering. They also reflected what I remember of Caffe Luna’s food at our wedding: good food and lots of it, simply prepared, wonderful to eat.

First up, the vegetables. Nothing could be easier. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Select an assortment of seasonal vegetables. I chose Yukon gold potatoes, red peppers, tomatoes and onions, but almost any vegetables will work. Peel the potatoes, peppers and onion. Cut everything into wedges (discarding the seeds and ribs from the peppers). Arrange on a large, oven-proof platter. Drizzle all over with very good olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss gently to make sure everything is well coated. Roast for 25-30 minutes, until the potatoes are browned on the edges and tender. The oil and juices from the vegetables combine in the bottom of the platter to make a delicious sauce, so don’t forget to drizzle the juices over the vegetables before serving.

While the vegetables are cooking, prepare the chicken. You can use bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces or boneless chicken breasts for this recipe, although bone-in chicken will take longer to cook. In a large pan, heat some olive oil and butter over medium-high. Brown the chicken pieces on both sides, about 2-3 minutes per side. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Add to the pan 3 peeled garlic cloves, the minced leaves from one rosemary stalk, salt and pepper. Pour in about ½ cup dry white wine. Partially cover and let cook, turning the chicken pieces once or twice, until the chicken is cooked through. Remove the chicken to a serving pan. The juices remaining in the bottom of the pan should be thickened and browned. Add the juice and zest of 1 lemon. Stir and scrape up any browned bits. Spoon this sauce over the chicken to serve.

Nothing could be simpler. But serve with good, crusty Italian bread, and you’ll have a meal fit for an anniversary celebration.

An Easy Chicken Saltimbocca

This week’s challenge was to make an interesting chicken dish — maybe stuff it with something. I have learned from experience that I don’t like stuffing foods, particularly chicken. Stuffing has always seemed like an overly fussy task to me, and boneless chicken breasts are just not that easy to stuff or roll or otherwise manipulate.

So while I knew I didn’t want to stuff the chicken breasts, I did want to get a lot of different flavors in there. The first dish I thought of when my husband told me the challenge was chicken saltimbocca, which usually combines prosciutto, sage and chicken. I checked my cookbooks and the Internet for saltimbocca recipes and was inspired by a recipe from Outstanding in the Field, which wraps the prosciutto around the chicken. I could slip something flavorful underneath — in this case, mozzarella cheese — and saute the whole bundle.

I used chicken tenders instead of full breasts, because I figured this dish would be rich and we would want smaller portions, and it would be quicker and easier to cook the smaller bundles. (If you use full-sized breasts, you may want to cut them in half and pound them thinner so they will cook faster.) One piece of prosciutto wrapped neatly around the tender, and I secured it and a sage leaf on top with a toothpick, removed before serving. The prosciutto contained the cheese nicely and kept it from oozing all over the saute pan.

Both my husband and I loved these. The prosciutto was crispy and infused with sage. The mozzarella was oozy but not messy. And the chicken wasn’t at all boring. I would definitely make this again, and it was so easy that it could be a weeknight dish. We discussed stuffing different things under the prosciutto, such as roasted peppers or spinach. This would be a fun dish to experiment with.

I served this with a hearty Italian-style salad of chopped greens, cabbage, carrots, red pepper, celery and croutons, topped with a mustard vinaigrette.

Chicken Saltimbocca

Prepare 2-3 chicken tenders per person. Salt and pepper each piece of chicken (go easy on the salt, because the prosciutto will also add saltiness). Lay 1 slice of fresh mozzarella on top of each tender. Wrap each tender in 1 slice of prosciutto. Place 1 sage leaf on top and secure with a toothpick.

In a saute pan, heat a generous amount of olive oil over medium-high until shimmering. Lay the chicken pieces in the pan, toothpick side down, and cook until the prosciutto has crisped and the chicken has cooked halfway through, about 5 minutes. Turn over and cook the other side until the chicken is down and the prosciutto is nicely browned.

Remove from the pan to a plate lined with paper towels. Gently remove the toothpicks. The sage leaves should adhere to the prosciutto. Serve immediately.

Italian-style Chopped Salad with Chicken and Parmesan Crostini

Sorry it’s taken me so long to post this. The week has not been off to a great start, thanks to an ice storm that has left me housebound with a semi-sick toddler. Here is the dish I developed to meet my husband’s challenge last week for a satisfying salad that works as a meal.

The verdict:

• Husband: thumbs up! Comments: “delicious,” “flavorful,” “satisfying,” so I guess I scored on all counts.
• Toddler: thumbs down! He didn’t even try the deconstructed version I made for him. Comments: “I don’t like tay-mos,” which is a bold-faced lie, by the way.
• Me: thumbs up! Would I make this again? Definitely!

I love chopped salads, so I decided to start from there, and I went with Italian flavors because Italian is my husband’s favorite cuisine. The salad even has all the colors of the Italian flag: red, green and white. I thought it looked great on the plate. I wanted to combine a lot of textures and bold flavors in the dish, and also to incorporate some protein and bread to make it really satisfying as a meal.

For the base of the salad I used two greens, romaine and butter lettuce, which I sliced into ribbons. I wanted to use baby spinach, but when I got to the store that day, absolutely all of the salad greens were gone. We were scheduled to have an ice storm, so I figured that had to have something to do with it. I’ve heard of runs on milk and bread in the face of adverse weather, but not runs on salad, so I guess people really are eating healthier these days. I grabbed the only lettuce that was left: a head of butter lettuce. Fortunately, it worked out, because my husband loved both the lettuces I used.

The rest of the components suggested themselves: broiled chicken for heft; green beans for crunch; grape tomatoes and picante peppers for acid and brightness; mozzarella cheese for a creamy contrast; and Parmesan crostini fill in for the bread. The recipe follows. Please note that I didn’t measure exact amounts, so use your best judgment if you decide to make it. As written, this recipe feeds 2, but it can be easily doubled or tripled.

Italian-style Chopped Salad

For the chicken:

Place 1 boneless chicken breast in an oven-safe pan. Salt and pepper both sides, and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle the top with grated Parmesan, dried oregano and the zest and juice of ½ lemon.

On the stovetop, cook the chicken uncovered over medium-high heat until it is halfway cooked through. Turn on the broiler and transfer the pan to the oven. Finish cooking the chicken through — the top should be browned and the Parmesan melted — and set aside to cool. Slice thinly.

For the dressing:

Combine in a jar:

• the remaining zest and juice of the lemon
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 4 tablespoons good-quality olive oil
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• ½ teaspoon dried oregano
• ½ teaspoon onion powder
• ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
• salt and pepper

Shake to combine well and set aside. You may have to mix the dressing again just before dressing the salad.

To assemble the salad:

Trim 2 large handfuls green beans and snap in half if the pieces are long. Blanch for a minute or two in boiling water, then transfer to an ice bath.

Wash and halve about half the contents of a container of grape tomatoes.

Cut 1 ball of fresh mozzarella into cubes.

Thinly slice a small handful of peperoncini or piquante peppers packed in vinegar.

Thinly slice into ribbons 1 small head romaine lettuce and ½ head butter lettuce. Toss in a bowl with half the dressing.

Place some salad greens on each of two plates. On top arrange the green beans, tomatoes and sliced chicken. Drizzle the remaining dressing over. Scatter the peppers and mozzarella over the top.

The crostini:

Cut 4 thin slices of bread from a French baguette. Place on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Mound freshly grated Parmesan on top. Put under the broiler for 1-2 minutes (watch closely!) until the cheese is melted and the crostini have browned. Serve immediately on the side of the salads.

Pasta with Broccoli and Sausage

This is one of my favorite weeknight meals. It has many things going for it. It’s fast to make. It’s a one-dish meal. It’s adaptable. And I usually have all the ingredients on hand. It’s also very tasty. Try it tonight.

Pasta with Broccoli and Sausage

Yields: About 4 servings.
Time to make: About 40 minutes.

• Salt to taste
• About 1 pound broccoli, cut into florets
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 1 tablespoon chopped garlic, or more to taste
• ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds (optional)
• Freshly ground black pepper
• ¼ to ½ pound Italian sausage, sliced or crumbled
• ½ cup white wine
• ½ pound cut pasta
• ½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Boil the broccoli until crisp-tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Scoop the broccoli out of the water and set it aside.

Put the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Crumble the sausage into the pan, and cook, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, red pepper flakes and fennel seeds if you’re using them, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Continue cooking and stirring for another minute or so. Add the broccoli and wine, and cook, mashing and stirring, 2 or 3 minutes more. Turn the heat to low to keep the sauce warm.

Cook the pasta in the boiling water. Drain it, reserving about a cup of the cooking water. Toss the pasta with the broccoli sauce, along with some of the pasta water to keep the mixture from drying out. Serve immediately, with the Parmesan.

Notes: You can easily substitute cauliflower, broccoli rabe or any green for the broccoli. It is nice to add roasted red pepper or sun-dried tomatoes to this when it’s finished cooking. Cubed mozzarella is another good addition. Simplify this recipe even more by eliminating all ingredients after the red pepper flakes and tossing the broccoli mixture with cooked pasta.

Chicken Parmesan

The latest issue of Fine Cooking had a recipe for quick chicken Parmesan, which I made last Sunday night. It was so delicious that we could not stop devouring it. The main tweak I made to the recipe was to substitute my own tomato sauce for the quick sauce in the recipe. I made the sauce that afternoon, let it simmer for a while to build flavor, then passed it through a food mill to make it smooth. Taking a little extra care with the sauce elevates chicken Parmesan to the sublime, I think.

Chicken Parmesan

Yields: 4 servings

• 2 cups tomato sauce, preferably homemade
• ½ cup flour
• Pepper and salt to taste
• 2 eggs
• 1½ cups panko breadcrumbs
• 4 boneless, skinless chicken cutlets or 8 chicken tenders
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• ¼ cup grated Parmesan
• 4 oz. fresh mozzarella, sliced thinly
• ¼ cup basil leaves, chopped

If the tomato sauce is chunky, pass it through a food mill. Bring the sauce to a simmer.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray it with nonstick cooking spray.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high. Season the chicken with salt. Prepare 3 shallow dishes: the flour mixed with some pepper in the first; the eggs beaten with 1 tablespoon water in the second; and the panko breadcrumbs in the third. Coat each piece of chicken in the flour, shaking off the excess. Then dunk it in the egg, followed by the panko. Brown the chicken in the skillet on both sides until the crumbs are golden, 1-2 minutes per side.

Transfer the chicken to the baking sheet. Spoon some tomato sauce over each piece (you should have sauce left over). Sprinkle Parmesan over each piece, and then top with a slice or two of mozzarella. Bake the chicken until cooked through, 5-7 minutes.

To serve, mix the basil into the remaining sauce. Spoon some more sauce on each plate. Lay the cutlets on top of the sauce. Be sure to serve with some crusty bread for mopping up the extra sauce.