Super Easy Sauces - Spicy Red & Classic White

     Roy's paternal grandmother was from Nova Scotia, Canada, and she had quite the repertoire of phrases. Whatever the occasion, she seemed to come up with just the right saying.  One that the family still uses today is, "Hunger makes good sauce".  Of course it means that if you are starving - even the plainest food tastes great.  Recently, six of us got to take a sauce class (demonstration) at Caroline's favorite restaurant for her birthday, and I thought about Grandma Yates's little expression. There is no question that the addition of a sauce to a dish really enhances it, but in every day cooking - who has time to mess with a complicated recipe in addition the main entre?  I got the answer to this when Jenn called me up a couple weeks ago around dinner time.  She stated she was so bored of eating a plain chicken breast for dinner and she asked if I had any suggestions. I remembered the quick and easy sauce I use for chicken parmesan that basically involves just opening a can of tomato sauce and heating it up along with a few spices.  She tried it and loved it!  She just poured it over her grilled chicken breast, but I've included the whole chicken parmesan recipe.  I'm also including a recipe for a simple white sauce along with a few additions that will jazz it up.

Super Easy Red Sauce

1 (15oz.) can of tomato sauce  

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)

(1 tablespoon sugar if you prefer a sweeter sauce)

Put all ingredients in a sauce pan, mix them together, and heat it up!

Chicken Parmesan

4 chicken breasts

1 egg

1 tablespoon milk 

3/4 cup bread crumbs (Italian style is nice)

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

3/4 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/4 cup olive or vegetable oil

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

In a small bowl, whisk the egg and milk together.  In a second bowl combine the bread crumbs and the Parmesan cheese.  In a final bowl, mix the flour, oregano, salt, and pepper together.  Rinse the chicken breasts with water and then pat them dry with a paper towel.  One chicken breast at a time, first coat it with the flour, then dip it in the egg, and last coat it with the bread crumb mixture. Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat.  When the oil is hot, place the chicken in the pan and brown each side.

In an oven safe dish, spoon some of the red sauce from the recipe above in order to coat the bottom of the dish.  Place the chicken in the dish and pour the rest of the red sauce over the chicken. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 50 minutes.  Take the pan out of the oven and put 1/4 cup of the mozzarella cheese over each chicken breast.  Return to the oven and continue to bake just until the cheese melts.

Super Easy Classic White Sauce

I'm using whole wheat flour here - that's why it's dark!

3 tablespoons butter or margarine    

3 tablespoons flour

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/4 teaspoon of pepper

1/8 teaspoon of garlic powder

1 1/2 cups milk, warmed in microwave

 

Over low heat, melt the butter in a pan.  Add the rest of the ingredients and whisk together to make a paste.  Cook the paste over medium heat, stirring constantly for about 30 seconds.  Then add the milk, a little at a time, while stirring constantly. Keep stirring and adding the milk until the sauce is thick.

Suggested Uses

                                                                                  

Truffled Cream Corn:   

Add sauce to 10 oz. cooked corn along with

2 teaspoons of truffle oil

 

Creamed Peas or Pearl Onions:

Just add the sauce to 10 0z. of the

 the cooked vegetable

 

Creamed Spinach:

Add sauce to 10 0z. of cooked and

drained spinach along with a pinch of nutmeg and 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese.

Disastrous Macaroons and Delicious Meringues

  

                                                Light as a Cloud Meringues =  Many Sweet Options!

A few weeks ago I was thrilled when Yates Yummies got a milestone hit!  Blogspot has a statistics feature that keeps track of how many times the blog has been looked at.  I can't see who visited this site, but the stats do share the search words that people googled to get here.  Some are pretty amusing.  My all time favorite happens to be, "is eating white chocolate with sangria dangerous?"  Recently the August 5th post, "Jose's Chocolate Dipped Macaroons", started getting an inordinate number of hits.  Out of curiosity I googled the words "Jose" and "Macaroons".  Up came the page with Google's suggested web sites.  All websites but my blog directed people to Jose Marechal and his book Irresistible Macaroons.  It turns out that these multicolored cute little egg-white/ ground almond cookies are supposed to be the new cupcake in the foodie world.  Intrigued, I hit on the Amazon link and ordered the book.  When the book arrived, I decided to give it a whirl.  What a lot of effort and what a disaster it turned out to be!  With all the steps that had to be taken - ground the almonds, make a paste with the nuts, boil water and sugar, incorporate it in with egg whites, etc. - I realized I was out of my league! However, as I was whipping up the egg whites I got a flash from the past.  Several years ago, I was lucky to spend some time with a friend from New Zealand whose husband was briefly working in the U.S.  Her trademark offering at pitch-ins were melt in your mouth meringue cookies. She would top them with whipped cream and sometimes kiwi slices. Once she made a classic Pavlova which is one large round meringue filled with fruit and whipped cream. Quickly, I threw my disastrous macaroons in the trash and dug out the handwritten recipe she gave me. It was so simple and so easy!  I made a batch and had a lot of fun pairing them with different sweet combinations.  My favorite involves the Luscious Lemon Curd recipe given below, especially because it's a great use of the egg yolks not used for the meringues.  I also made some smaller sized meringues to make sandwich cookies with various fillings. Ice cream was a great pairing as well.

Simple Meringues
3 egg whites (set eggs out a couple hours before hand)
3/4 cup of sugar
pinch salt (optional)
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar (makes it a little easier for eggs to whip up)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla (optional)

Follow the steps below:

Place parchment paper on cookie sheet and draw circles the size you prefer for your meringues

Break eggs open and separate whites from yolk by passing yolk back and forth between the shell halves

Beat the eggs, salt, vanilla, and cream of tartar on high until they reach a soft peaks stage

Gradually beat all the sugar in until the mixture is glossy and stiff

Put a tablespoon or two in your drawn circles and spread the mixture flat with the help of a spoon

Bake at 275 degrees in a preheated oven for one hour, then turn the heat off, keep the door closed, till cooled (all night is ok)

Layer with fruit and whipped cream (or Cool Whip!)

or topped with ice cream

As sandwich cookies filled with raspberry jam, Nutella, and orange marmalade

With luscious Lemon Curd - my favorite!

 Luscious Lemon Curd:  In a pan over medium low heat, whisk together the 3 left over egg yolks,  the juice of 2 lemons, and 1/2 cup of sugar.  Then stir constantly with a wooden spoon until the mixture gets thick, being careful never to let it boil.  Take it off the heat and stir in 4 tablespoons butter (I used "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter) until combined.  This is absolutely divine on toast in the morning or as a filling between two layers of a yellow cake frosted with whip cream!