Recipes

[VMan]

Versace,

   Your stuffed chicken recipe just made my mouth water... even though I just finished dinner.  I wish I had easier access to a grocery store; damn you, college.

Try it sometime - it's definitely worth a trip to the store.

 

[shoreman1782]

Anyone have a good recipe for fried oysters? I'm mainly concerned with what to buy and how to prepare. My deep fryer should take care of the rest.

 

[chorse123]

Try Epicurious: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes....11&y=13 It's an incredibly useful resource.

 

[oroy38]

This recipe is flexible in the sense that you can use less or more, or even take out certain things depending on whether you like those elements or not.

Spaghetti Sauce: Start this several hours before you plan to eat. Easiest to make in large batches. Will serve 4 or 5 very hungry guys.
Materials-
2 large pots
1 frying pan or skillet

Ingredients-
2 large cans of diced tomatoes
1 bulb of garlic
2-4 branches of rosemary
1-2 red apples
Balsamic Vinegar
Olive Oil
10-15 spicy Italian sausages
2 large white onions (I use white onions, but they can be substituted with any onions of your choice)
Sea Salt
Freshly crushed black pepper
Red Wine
Oregano
2-3 tomatoes
Spaghetti Noodles
Brown Sugar

Procedure-
It's all rather simple. Put a hefty splash of olive oil in one of the large pots and dump both cans of tomatoes into it at a medium/low heat. Stir every couple of minutes to spread the olive oil around and to ensure that nothing burns and sticks to the bottom of the pot.

Get the other large pot on a medium/high heat and put the 3 tomatoes in it and let them roast in there for a pretty long time. Turn them around every so often so that the skin doesn't burn too badly and stick to the pot. Ideally you would stick these on a grill instead, but the oven works pretty well. You can even wrap them in aluminum foil and stick them in the oven at 375* for a while. You'll be coming back to these later.

While that's beginning to heat, get the frying pan on a medium/high heat and throw in a splash of olive oil. Let the pan heat up for a little bit while you chop your onions to your desired consistency. Once the pan is adequately heated, throw in the onions and sautee them until they start to turn light brown. Avoid any burning as much as possible. While they cook, add in a dash of brown sugar here and there to carmelize with the onions. After they're done cooking, put the onions in the pot with the diced tomatoes and pour in as much of the oil as you can. You don't want too much oil in the pan for the next part. By the way, don't forget to turn over those whole tomatoes you have roasting in the other pot!

At this point, your diced tomatoes should be heating up pretty well. Extract a few cloves of garlic (I use 4-5), crush them pretty well, and then just toss the crushed cloves into the pot with the diced tomatoes. The garlic flavor will slowly begin to let itself out and through the sauce. As the same time, strip the rosemary branches and throw the leaves in the pot.

Assuming your pan/skillet is still one the heat, start cooking your Italian sausage. After they're done cooking, slice them up to your desired consistency. I think the recipe works best of you cut them pretty thickly. Once they're done being cooked and cut, toss them into the big pot. By the way, check on those tomatoes!

At this point your sauce should be simmering pretty well. Throw in a splash of balsamic vinegar and another splash of red wine and mix them in.

If you look at your whole tomatoes, they should be getting to the point where the skin is starting to crack in some places and turning a bit brown. You might even hear them whistling from the air escaping. This is good. Let them keep doing that, but keep rotating them to avoid as much burning as possible.

Now would be a good time to start throwing in some salt, pepper, and a few dashes of oregano, and about 2 tablespoons of brown sugar.

As for the apples, this part is really subjective, depending on what role you want the apples to play. If you want them to just blend into the background, then you can throw them in the pot earlier in the cooking process. If you want them to have more presence, wait until just before you serve to throw them in. Just dice it into small little bites.

Now, remember those tomatoes? Once they're pretty well roasted, you're going to throw them in the pot with everything else, and crush them with a potato masher then stir them around.

And that's it as far as any work you have to do. Turn the heat to medium/low and throw a lid on the big pot and leave it cracked so that steam can escape, and turn on the microwave fan to high so that it sucks up the steam. Leave it this way for anywhere from 2-4 hours depending on how thick you like your sauce to be. Keep checking up on it every 20-30 minutes to stir it around and check for consistency. Salt, pepper, and oregano to taste.

For the pasta, just throw it in a pot with boiling water until it reaches your desired softness.

What to drink with this: A hearty recipe like this calls for an equally hearty drink. My personal favorite with any really hearty meal is the Smoked Porter from Stone Brewing Co. Really though, any robust brew will go really well with this recipe. I don't know anything about wine, so you're on your own in that regard!