My Favorite Spaghetti Sauce

When I was a kid, I loved the days my mom would cook a noodle dish. Unfortunately, this didn't happen very often. While my dad and I loved noodles and–to a degree–rice, my mom and my brother were potato people when it came to starches. So since my mom was the eminent cook, we had potatoes served with a dish at least once a day. Noodle and rice dishes, however, were extremely rare. So rare, indeed, that I don't even recall what sort of sauce the noodles were served with. Rice was usually served with chicken soup. I think that was pretty much it.

As a student I finally discovered Italian restaurants near the university where I studied that served an incredibly tasty bowl of pasta for a price I could afford. One of my favorite restaurants was called "Roma" and it served both Greek and Italian food. The restaurant is still around, and, as a matter of fact, the last time I went to Germany, we all celebrated my brother's 40th birthday at the place with great food–just the way I remembered it.

In my husband's family, noodles–elevated here to "spaghetti"–were a more favored dish than in my family. So from the start of our marriage, there were automatically days that were designated as "spaghetti sauce" days. Making a tasty sauce to ladle over bland noodles all of a sudden seemed to be the height of good home-cooking. Between the two of us, my husband and I have made a ton of spaghetti sauce recipes, and even though the ingredients have varied, we both agree on one thing: a good spaghetti sauce needs to simmer for a long time over very low heat.

Now this is a busy week for our daughter Emily. It's tech week at the opera with 4 1/2-hour rehearsals every evening, opening night this Friday, and two performances on Saturday. She's very excited to be in an opera and sing on stage, but organizing her regular school-homework-piano life around the rehearsals is going to be challenging. Equally challlenging will be to get dinner on the table on time.

To get us all well-fed through the week, I figured I'd make at least one dish that makes a large amount and keeps well. That way I don't have to cook from scratch every day, and can pull dinner together in a matter of minutes. So today I made spaghetti sauce the way my husband likes it: thick and chunky and full of meat with a depth of flavor that only comes from long simmering over very low heat. It's a recipe that started many years ago with a recipe from an Italian cookbook, but it has undergone so many changes and revisions that it bears no resemblance whatsoever to the original. I can honestly say this is my recipe:

Spaghetti Sauce

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp. butter

1-2 Tbsp. olive oil

1 large carrot, finely chopped

2 stalks celery, finely chopped

1 yellow onion, finely chopped

1 lb. mild Italian sausage (or try hot Italian sausage for a little extra zippy flavor)

3-4 cloves garlic, pressed or minced

1 6-oz. can tomato paste (I know it's a lot–don't be shy!)

1 28-oz. can crushed tomatoes with basil

1 -14-oz. can tomato sauce

1 14-oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained

1-2 tsp. dried basil

1 tsp. dried oregano

salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

1. Heat oil and butter over medium heat in a large, heavy pot, such as a Dutch oven, if you have one. Add the onions, carrots and celery and sauté until all the ingredients are well mixed. Cover pot and let veggies soften for a few minutes until the onions become translucent. Don't forget to stir a few times.

2. Remove cover and turn heat to medium-high and add meat, breaking it up with a spoon. Brown meat until it is no longer pink, stirring from time to time.

3. Add garlic and mix in.

4. Add tomato paste and mix in. Add crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, basil and oregano, a little salt and pepper to taste. Mix ingredients well. If the sauce appears too thick, you may add 1/2 to 1 cup of water at this point.

5. Simmer sauce on very low heat for at least an hour or two, stirring occasionally. It really helps to have a stove with a dedicated simmer setting, but if your stove doesn't have one, use the lowest heat possible on your stove and stir the sauce more often.

Serve this sauce with your favorite pasta. In our family we all like spaghetti with it. Top it with freshly grated Parmesan cheese, or some Romano, which is a little more pungent. To round out the meal, add a simple green salad and a loaf of baguette.

Strawberry-Banana-Yogurt Smoothie

I made an excellent breakfast smoothie this morning:

Blend in a blender:

1/2 cup plain, low-fat yogurt

1 fresh banana

6 large strawberries, fresh or frozen

1/2 cup of cranberry water*

This makes about one 16-oz. glass of creamy, pale pink smoothie. Delicious! If the smoothie tastes a little too tart–after all, it all depends on how ripe the banana and how sweet the strawberries are–, you may want to add a little agave nectar or very, very little stevia (sweetleaf) extract. If you're unfamiliar with stevia, please check it out. It's a great and healthy alternative to sugar.

*I make a quart of cranberry water to either sip on its own throughout the day or to use when blending juices and smoothies by mixing 28 oz. of water with 4 oz. of unsweetened cranberry juice.

Kohlrouladen or Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

There is European deli in downtown Minneapolis called Kramarczuk's that sells a vast array of sausages and also serves Eastern European lunch fare in its adjacent restaurant. Almost every Saturday at around 2 p.m. when I pick up Emily at the opera center, I will inevitably hear her ask me if we can eat there. So sometimes we do. Some of our favorite foods at the restaurant are the pirogies and the stuffed cabbage rolls. To me, the cabbage rolls simply taste like my mother's.

Since we've had a couple of cold, rainy days and the grocery stores are still filled with cabbages because they're in season and we just had St. Patrick's Day, I decided it would be fun to try cooking stuffed cabbage rolls, a dish my mom regularly made in the cold weather season, but that I have never tried. The tricky part was to find a recipe that would bring back the exact taste and texture of my mom's Kohlrouladen. Since I don't have her recipe–she never wrote it down, but just made it–my memories had to serve me as a guide to the ingredients and for quantities, techniques and cooking times I consulted other people's recipes.

Frankly, it took me a great deal of time today to make stuffed cabbage rolls because I haven't eaten my mother's dish for a very, very long time, and this was my first-ever attempt at making them. But as I started preparing the cabbage leaves, the memories kept coming forth and soon I had all the information I needed for a recipe. In the end, I had a very tasty dish that was authentic and put me right back into my mom's kitchen. The following recipe is enough to make 4-6 servings and can easily be doubled.

Kohlrouladen or Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

Ingredients:

For the cabbage rolls:

1 large cabbage (white, green or Savoy)

1/2 pound ground beef

1/2 pound ground pork

1 cup diced onion, sautéed in a little olive oil until translucent

1 egg

1/2 cup cooked rice

1 tsp. kosher salt

freshly ground pepper

For the sauce:

1/2-1 cup diced onion

remaining cabbage (after leaves are removed), chopped

kosher salt

olive oil

1/2 cup of dry white wine

1-28 oz. can crushed tomatoes

1 cup water

2 Tbsp. brown sugar

Preparation:

To prepare the cabbage, bring a large pot of water to a boil and cut the core out of the cabbage. Place the whole head into the water and cook for about 5 minutes, just long enough to soften the leaves and make peeling them off easier. Remove the cabbage from the boiling water and gently peel away its leaves. Set the peeled off leaves aside and let dry for stuffing. There should be at least 12 to 18 cabbage leaves. Per cabbage roll I like to take 2-3 leaves, depending on size.

Chop the remaining part of the head of cabbage into small pieces and set aside.

Sauté a cup of finely diced onion in about 2 tsp. olive oil just until the onions become translucent and set aside to cool off a little.

Mix the ground meats, egg, rice, sautéed onion, salt and pepper well until the mixture is nice and homogeneous.

Take 2 or 3 dried cabbage leaves, cut out the tough core stems and layer them on top of each other, so that there are no visible holes. Spoon 2 Tbsp. of the meat mixture onto the bottom part of the cabbage leaves, fold the bottom part over the meat once, then fold in the left and right sides of the leaves and keep rolling upwards. Place the cabbage roll seam-side down on a cookie sheet and continue until all the meat filling and leaves are used up.

For the simmering sauce, heat a little olive oil in a large pot and sauté roughly 1/2 to 1 cup of diced onion and the chopped cabbage until they're translucent and slightly golden and softened. Add the wine, if using, and sauté a bit more. Add the crushed tomatoes, water and brown sugar and mix well. Bring to a boil. Add the stuffed cabbage rolls, seam-side down, turn down the heat and let them simmer on very low heat for about 1 1/2 hours. You may want to check for doneness after about an hour to see if the cabbage is softened enough by pricking it with a fork.

This dish is traditionally served in Germany with boiled salt-water potatoes. At our house, everyone really enjoyed my first attempt at Kohlrouladen. Dan, my husband, thought I had a winner and I think my mom would have approved, too. For my part, I have to say that spending a lot of time in the kitchen today to cook stuffed cabbage rolls made a lot of memories come back, happy and also bittersweet. I should probably tell you more about my mom some other time.

Cucumbers in Sour Cream

Today was an incredibly warm and sunny day. It must have been about 60 degrees–abolutely phenomenal! Some people were walking around in shorts and sleeveless tops! After dropping off Emily at the Opera for choir practice, I ended up walking around downtown with the mother of one of her fellow singers and raked up about 5 miles on my pedometer. It was a good walking day. :)

In the evening, Dan felt like grilling, so we got some chicken drumsticks to throw on the grill. As a side dish, I suggested cool cucumber salad, and Dan immediately liked the idea.

Now I remember my mom often making an incredibly tasty cucumber salad in the summertime that was drenched in a delicious, creamy white sour cream sauce. It was usually my job to wash and slice the cucumbers on a mandoline and she mixed the sour cream dressing and folded all ingredients together. I do not have my mom's recipe, but a few years ago, I obtained Dan's mom's recipe and I swear it tastes just like my mom's. Just as Sweden and Germany are not that far from each other, Swedish and German tastes are pretty close, too, I think. In any case, cucumber salad is what I made tonight to accompany Dan's chicken drummies. And here's the cherished recipe:

Grandma Dot's Cucumbers in Sour Cream

Ingredients:

3 medium cucumbers, peeled and thinly sliced (if organic, you can leave the skin on)

1 cup dairy sour cream

1/4 to 1/2 cup chopped green onions (red onion is a nice substitute)

2 Tbsp. white vinegar (white champagne vinegar is delicious, too!)

3/4 tsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preparation:

Thinly slice cucumbers on a mandoline or with a knife and mix with the dressing, comprised of the rest of the ingredients. Mix well and let rest for at least 30 minutes before serving. If you only serve four for dinner, there may be leftovers, but this salad keeps well for at least another day or two.

Mango Grapefruit Juice

Did you know that a large pink grapefruit can yield upwards of eight ounces of juice? If you're lucky you get a lot more than that. I just juiced a large pink grapefruit from Florida with a reamer and got a whopping 12 ounces of juice!

The following juice is a great way to start the day or infuse an afternoon with a little pick-me-up. It's a recipe from Easy Juicing by Nicola Graimes and she called it the…

Marilyn Mango

Ingredients:

1 pink grapefruit, halved

1 large mango, peeled and sliced

Preparation:

Squeeze out all the juice from the grapefruit and blend with the mango slices in a blender. Blended mango gives juices a very smooth and silky texture and I love the creaminess of this blend. Pour the juice into two glasses if you're in a sharing kind of mood and give one glass to the one you love–or guzzle it all down by yourself. :)

Of All Sorts of Pancakes

When I grew up, lunch was the biggest meal of the day, and it was always a warm meal cooked from scratch by my mother. Some lunches were more elaborate than others, but some of the most simple ones were my favorites when coming home from school: Spiegelei auf Brot (fried egg on rye bread), Eierpfannkuchen mit Blaubeersoße (egg pancakes with blueberry sauce), and Kartoffelpfannkuchen mit Apfelmus (potato pancakes with applesauce).

When my mom made potato pancakes, it was a labor of love because it always took a while to prepare: using a box grater, she finely handgrated a bunch of raw, peeled potatoes, mixed them with an egg, a little salt, and fried them in butter–she always used butter for frying–until they were browned and crisp on the outside. They were dense and substantial and served with apple sauce. Try the following recipe and see if you can't be a convert to potato pancakes:

Kartoffelpfannkuchen (Potato Pancakes)

Ingredients:

1 lb. potatoes, peeled and grated

1 large egg (or larger than large egg…:))

1/2 tsp salt

1/4-1/2 grated onion (optional)

butter for frying

Preparation:

Peel and grate potatoes. Add a slightly beaten egg, salt and a little chopped onion, if desired. Mix everything together. Heat butter (or a little oil) in a frying pan and ladle batter into pan. Fry until golden brown on each side and serve with applesauce.

So, these were the pancakes of my childhood–they were definitely lunch fare for me. Now on the very first day I ever woke up in America, my then-future-mother-in-law Dorothy asked me what I wanted for breakfast and asked, "Pancakes?" I responded, kind of confused, "For breakfast?" Little did I know what American pancakes were like. I was soon to find out. Dorothy's pancakes were golden brown, fluffy and light, and often made with Bisquick. She served them with fresh fruit and syrup, a couple of strips of crisp bacon or sausage patties on the side. This was a tasty breakfast and for a number of years my husband and I made pancakes using Bisquick often. But one day, after we had become parents and were trying to feed our toddler for breakfast and didn't have any Bisquick in the house, we discovered that you can actually make pancakes totally from scratch. (Duh!) It was the day we discovered Deborah Madison's recipe for oatmeal pancakes in her book, "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone." This has been our absolute favorite pancake recipe for breakfast ever since. Here it is:

Oatmeal Pancakes

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups rolled oats

2 cups buttermilk

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

2 Tbsp. brown sugar or maple syrup

1/4 cup canola oil

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup flour

1/4 tsp. grated nutmeg

1/2 tsp. baking soda

Preparation:

Stir the oats and buttermilk together and let stand for 20 minutes. Beat the eggs with the vanilla, sugar, and oil, then stir in the soaked oats. Combine the dry ingredients and add them to the oat mixture as well. For each pancake, drop 1/4 cup batter onto a heated griddle or skillet and cook over a medium-low heat until the tops are covered with holes. Turn the cakes over and cook the second side. Because of the moisture in this batter, the cakes need to cook slowly, but turn them only once.

Just for good measure, I should probably throw in a couple more pancake recipes, so that I have all of the recipes we've enjoyed in the past in one neat and tidy location.

Mutti's Eierpfannkuchen (Mom's Egg Pancakes)

Ingredients for approximately 2 (8-in.) pancakes:

1 large or extra large egg

1/2 cup whole milk

1/3 flour

dash of salt

pat of butter

Preparation:

Blend egg, milk, flour and salt together in a bowl. Melt a pat of butter in a small (8-10 in. in diameter) non-stick pan. Ladle batter into the pan and brown pancake on both sides until it has a nice golden color. I personally have always liked Eierpfannkuchen a little bit more on the pale side of golden. To serve, my mom used to sprinkle the pancake with a very small amount of sugar and roll it up. This is heavenly! It always amazes me how something so simple can taste so good.

Variation:

My favorite variation to the plain and simple egg pancake has always been Apfelpfannkuchen, the egg pancake with apples. To make Apfelpfannkuchen, peel and core an apple and slice it thinly. Then, before adding pancake batter to the frying pan, arrange thin slices of apple on the bottom of the pan and sauté lightly to soften the apple. You can get really creative when arranging the apple slices and make pretty patterns. Then add the egg pancake batter and finish browning the pancake as described above. Sprinkle with a little sugar if you like and do not roll it up.

There are more variations to the egg pancake, but I better leave that for another day. :)

The Chocolate-Banana-Flax-Flax

Even though I love smoothies, I've never liked my husband's favorite breakfast smoothie because it's too sweet for my taste. But he loves it for some inexplicable reason. So, for the record, here it is. It's a quick recipe!

Dan's Chocolate-Banana-Flax-Flax

Ingredients:

2 scoops chocolate whey protein powder

1 banana

2 Tbsp. ground flax seeds

1 good and generous squirt of flax oil

1 cup water

Preparation:

Add all the ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth and creamy. Then drink.

Presto, Presto! Pasta Pesto!

I guess today's temperature got up to the low 40's–no wonder I felt like spring was just around the corner! Even though the yard outside is still covered in white, I couldn't resist making a dish that would remind us of the vibrant colors and juicy flavors of summer produce and give us a hint of the good food times still to come. The big box of fresh basil in the refrigerator beckoned to be turned into what my younger daughter Melissa used to call, "green spaghetti." So I went to work.

Fresh Basil Pesto

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp. raw sunflower seeds, toasted (a nice substitute for the pignoli I didn't have on hand)

1–4 oz. package of fresh basil, leaves only (about 2 cups of tightly packed basil)

3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 to 1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano–the real stuff!

1 lb. pasta (spaghetti or penne), cooked to al dente perfection

Preparation:

While cooking the pasta, put sunflower seeds, basil, garlic and half of the olive oil in a food processor and chop everything on the pulse setting. Scrape the walls of the food processor bowl, and then let the blade run while gradually adding the rest of the olive oil. When all the ingredients are blended well, remove the pesto–you will have about 1 cup of it–and add at least 1/2 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. If you like cheese a lot, like me, add more to your liking.

Drain pasta when it's done and immediately toss with the prepared pesto in a large bowl. Serve right away with a loaf of crusty baguette and a (green) salad. And maybe a little more cheese on top… Buon appetito!

The Dirty Dozen

Here are the "Dirty Dozen," the list of foods that are highest in pesticide residues, published today on the World's Healthiest Foods Web site. The Web site recommends that these foods should be grown organically if consumed:

Vegetables:
Bell peppers
Lettuce
Celery
Potatoes
Spinach

Fruits:
Peaches
Apples
Nectarines
Strawberries
Cherries
Grapes (imported)
Pears

Get a little boost through juice!

I've mentioned before that I really like my VitaMix blender and use it daily to purée soups, make smoothies, salad dressings, and even juices. Making juices in the blender keeps the whole food intact (well, in a chopped up sort of way) and retains all the fiber the fruit and veggies contain. Sometimes, though, I prefer not to have any fibrous texture in my juice and simply run all the veggies through a juicer. The advantage of juicing is that all the vitamins and minerals in fruit and veggies become readily available to our bodies. When blending juice and vegetables, the juice obviously retains the fiber content, thus slowing down nutrient absorption, which, I suppose, can be a good thing if you want to gradually stabilize your blood sugar. In any case, this morning, I made the most delicious green veggie juice using a juicer and thought I'd share the recipe:

Juice in a juicer:

4 large organic carrots

1 organic cucumber

1 large organic apple (I like Fuji, they're not too sweet and very juicy)

2 leaves organic kale, stalks and all

This makes approximately 16 oz. of great-tasting green juice. Enjoy!

Leek and Potato Soup

Leek and potato soup smells good, tastes good, and is simplicity itself to make.

(Julia Child, Mastering the Art of French Cooking)

It seems to me that we've had a lot of rich meals lately, so when I went to grocery store today and saw really great-looking leeks in the produce section, I knew instantly that I wanted to make a batch of leek-and-potato soup for dinner. Two humble vegetables simmered together…creating wonderful smells in the kitchen and an all-around satisfying meal. I could almost taste it. Yum! I bought three beautiful leeks and started happily chopping away when I arrived back home.

Leek and Potato Soup

Ingredients:

3 large leeks, white parts only, sliced, washed and dried

1 1/2 lbs. potatoes, peeled and diced

2 Tbsp. butter

6 cups water

1 to 1 1/2 tsp. salt

freshly milled pepper

2-4 Tbsp. heavy cream (optional)

chopped fresh parsley (optional)

Preparation:

Melt butter in a soup pot, add leeks and potatoes and cook covered over low heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add 6 cups of water and 1+ tsp. of salt and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for about 30 minutes until the potatoes are soft.

When done, purée the soup in a blender or right in the pot, using a stick blender. Adjust seasonings and stir in a little heavy whipping cream to make the soup a little richer in color and in taste. Top with a sprinkling of freshly chopped parsley when serving. This makes the soup not only look more presentable, but enhances its flavor since potato and parsley always pair nicely.

By the way, when using organic potatoes, I sometimes leave the skin on. The flavor and look of the soup will be more rustic. The soup can be completed with a salad and a loaf of crusty bread.

Treats for Kids and Dogs

March 1! Ah, spring is – almost – in the air. I say "almost" because we just had a mother lode of fresh snow a few days ago, so no good-byes to hat hair and heavy boots quite yet. However, there's something about this time of year that makes me want to clear out all the clutter and cobwebs and get the house spring clean. Cleaning clutter is what I had planned for the afternoon, but I'm procrastinating by cooking a few new things in the kitchen. It's just more fun to cook than clean!

Two chicken dishes are on the burner right now: My daughter Emily has asked for a long time when I would make another batch of chicken satay, so she can take some to school for lunch, and I've always wanted to try making all-natural jerky as treats for our dogs, the buddies. So I started marinating chicken strips for a new recipe of chicken satay and started poaching one chicken breast to be cut into small strips and turned into jerky. It is important to precook poultry before drying it into jerky because the temperature of the dehydrator will not go above 155˚F, too low to kill salmonella.

All-natural Chicken Jerky:

Bring water to a boil and add skinless, boneless chicken breast. Simmer the chicken for about 10-15 minutes, depending on the thickness of the chicken breast. Remove chicken from poaching liquid and slice about 1/4-inch thick. Pat chicken slices dry and arrange on a dehydrator tray. Put into a dehydrator at 155˚F for about 4 hours to retain some "give" and chewiness. There are no flavorings whatsoever involved, just the meat, to avoid adding anything that would not be healthy for the dogs to consume.

But now on to the recipe for chicken satay. Usually, when I make this for the kids, I just sprinkle a little paprika on the chicken strips and sauté them in a little olive oil and serve them with a simple peanut sauce for dipping. Today I found a recipe for chicken satay by Tyler Florence on FoodNetwork that sounds a little more sophisticated and "adult," but still seems easy to prepare. Here is my slightly adapted version based on what I had in the fridge:

Chicken Satay:

Marinade:

1 cup low-fat plain yogurt

1 tsp. freshly grated ginger

2-3 cloves garlic, pressed

1 Tbsp. curry powder

1-1 1/2 lbs skinless, boneless chicken breast, sliced

Mix ingredients for the marinade (it will be very thick, actually) and pour over thinly sliced chicken breast, about 1/4 inch thick. Make sure to cover all chicken strips from all sides. Cover and let marinade for about two hours.

Preparation:

Heat a very small amount of oil with a high flash point in a non-stick pan and add the marinated chicken strips. I decided not to skewer the strips, but just sauté them without. This works fine for our family. Sauté strips 3-5 minutes on each side, until the meat is seared and looks lightly browned.

Peanut Dipping Sauce:

Combine:

1/2 cup all-natural peanut butter

2 Tbsp. tamari or shoyu (Japanese-style soy sauce)

1 tsp. red chili sauce

1 Tbsp. brown sugar

juice of 1/2 lemon

2-3 Tbsp. hot water

Mix all ingredients well and serve as dipping sauce for chicken strips. I will serve this dish with rice and cool cucumber salad.

What I learned from this cooking adventure:

1. Next time I make all-natural jerky for the dogs, I will try to slice the meat into thinner and longer pieces, rather than smaller, thicker pieces like today. Thinner pieces might be less of a choking hazard for little dogs. This is, of course, totally unscientific and not researched at all, just my very personal observation from making jerky and watching a large and a small dog consume the treat. Our little dog, Lenny, incidentally received his nickname "Herr Heimlich" after coughing, gagging and hacking when food got stuck in his throat the first time, and we thought we needed to brush up on our skills to perform the Heimlich maneuver.

2. Although my kids liked eating the chicken satay and peanut dipping sauce, both agreed that it made their lockers at school smell "like a skunk" when they opened it at lunch-time. (And I do always pack an icepack in their lunch boxes to keep things cool…)