How do you cook.....?

[lisarea]

OK, fine. Just to be very clear with you people, I am NOT Italian. I don't have Italian grandparents or whatever to tell me these things, so I am completely on my own and am now making my very own invention. Thing is, if it turns out terrible, your fault. If it turns out great, then I win and I will become famous as the inventor of the pasta sauce that is way better than the stupid boring old Italian kind, and whenever I do media appearances as that, I am going to specifically call each and every one of you out by name as the people who tried to keep me down.

It has carrots, onion, garlic, a li'l Serrano pepper, various Italian herbs, red wine, a package of used oxtail which I got because it was on sale and they had NO pork bones at all, and one Costco of crushed canned tomatoes.

Anyways, it's simmering on the stove as we speak, so I'll let you know which of the previous two fates (to blame for bad sauce, or the enemies of good sauce) the many racists of are having visited upon them.

[Crumb]

crushed canned tomatoes.

Do you remove the bits of crushed can or leave those in?

[lisarea]

I'm hoping that the Yoo Hoo and fruit rollups will dissolve the jagged pieces of metal, but I guess if there are still shards, I'll pretend I meant to do that and change the name of my sauce to "Janet and Livius Drusus' Authentical Crunchy Italian Gravy-Sausu."

[Janet]

I cannot that Chairman Kaga reference enough. I though my sister and I were the only ones who said Gravy-Sausu all the time.

[lisarea]

Oh, I will forever love and cherish the Thanksgiving episode of Iron Chef, but I didn't have a good way to spell that until I copied it offa you. I LEARNED IT BY WATCHING YOU, ALRIGHT?

Progress report: I am on the right track. After a few hours of slow simmering, the sauce started to take on the quality I was looking for, so I think the long-cooking is key. I did forget to put parmesan rind in until the last hour or two, so next time, I'm going to remember that. And the oxtail worked well, but I'm going to keep my eye out for pork neckbones too. Pork makes the most sense.

I was also thinking something weird: You know how green beans turn into completely different vegetables when they're overcooked? They get sort of gray and mushy and gross, but they also develop this totally new kind of flavor? I want a little bit more of that. So I'm thinking what if I put a cheesecloth bag of green beans in there along with the carrots and onions and stuff to impart that into the sauce and then take them out?* I wish there were a better word than umami, but that's what I mean, so I have to say it. I'm sorry.

I'm also going to make twice as much next time, because it cooked down a lot, and I only ended up with three little pint jars for freezing after what got et and a reasonable amount for leftovers. The goal is to end up with a fair amount of this so that I can make spaghetti and meatballs just as a normal dinner instead of having to take all day.

* I'm not going to lie--I am PARTLY saying this to prompt outrage and force someone to cough up suggestions--but I'm thinking about actually doing it too.

[LadyShea]

I looked up "slow cooked tomato sauce" and all the Italians said what you're doing. You're on the right track

[lisarea]

What.

It never occurred to me to search for slow cooked tomato sauce. I was looking for all kinds of crazy stuff like gravy and Italian Sunday and lists of ingredients and grandmother and nonna and things like that.

I never searched for slow cooked tomato sauce. That's exactly the type of thing I was looking for and not finding.

[BrotherMan]

WHY DO YOU TWO ALWAYS HAVE TO IGHT ABOUT THINGS? CAN'T YOU SEE YOU'RE TEARING THIS ORUM APART!?

[Atehequa]

For a second season the large state facility where I'm employed is allowing another controlled hunt to thin out an over population of whitetail deer which roam the wooded and maintained areas of our grounds. Only bows and crossbows can be used. Early yesterday evening I fell a fine fat doe with my old Browning Nomad recurve bow and homemade turkey feather fletched cedar shaft broad head arrow. I field dressed it yesterday evening and butchered it early this morning. We'll be cutting it even thinner to make venison jerky.

It's marinaded in a dab of liquid smoke, teriyaki sauce, honey along with mead, black and red pepper then put into our dehydrators for about 18 hours.

Sweet meat, it almost like candy. Venison is healthier than beef or pork.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by BrotherMan

WHY DO YOU TWO ALWAYS HAVE TO IGHT ABOUT THINGS? CAN'T YOU SEE YOU'RE TEARING THIS ORUM APART!?

We ight because we are both terrible bullies.

[Megatron]

Originally Posted by lisarea

What.

It never occurred to me to search for slow cooked tomato sauce. I was looking for all kinds of crazy stuff like gravy and Italian Sunday and lists of ingredients and grandmother and nonna and things like that.

I never searched for slow cooked tomato sauce. That's exactly the type of thing I was looking for and not finding.

How the fuck do I know something you DON'T. This isn't the lisa pea I know. She knows literally everything and you're a fucking body snatcher. Get out of my lisa pea, RIGHT THE FUCK NOW.

[BrotherMan]

[Crumb]

Originally Posted by Atehequa

It's marinaded in a dab of liquid smoke, teriyaki sauce, honey along with mead, black and red pepper then put into our dehydrators for about 18 hours.

Feel free to send any excess my way.

[livius drusus]

I have a head of napa cabbage. Any suggestions for uses beyond the slaw?

[LadyShea]

Cabbage peirogi?

[erimir]

Kimchi!

[Dingfod]

Deep-fried cabbage rolls.

[livius drusus]

I am extremely burn-prone so I avoid all methods of cooking requiring inches of hot oil. I could just bake or steam rolls, though.

Shea, have you made pierogi? I'm intimidated, but I do have some leftover mashed potatoes so that could work out nicely.

ermir, doesn't kimchi take a long time to ferment?

[LadyShea]

Noodles are tricky, but you can steam them rather than boil. Google it up some, there are tricks and suggestions.

[vremya]

I use napa cabbage in making the filling for potstickers. Which are way easier to make that I thought they'd be.

[livius drusus]

Recipe plz!

[erimir]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

ermir, doesn't kimchi take a long time to ferment?

ermir? Who is this ermir?

Also, yeah, probably. I have no idea of the whole process, it's just a cabbage product that is pretty good. You're probably better off just buying some kimchi. You can use it to make kimchijeon which are pretty easy to make. Apparently frequently uses napa cabbage kimchi specifically.

In Sweden they make cabbage rolls too. They call them kåldolmar (cabbage dolma).

[vremya]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

Recipe plz!

I gotta go digging for it, so it may take a little time. The ingredients were basically ground pork, napa cabbage, ginger, scallions,soy sauce and egg to hold the whole thing together. I used wonton wrappers (the thin ones) because egg roll wrappers came out too doughy.

Once you have your flotilla of dumplings all assembled, you heat up a little oil in a frying pan and brown the dumplings and when they start to stick to the pan you throw some chicken broth in the pan (which is going to bubble up like crazy) and slap the lid on so they can steam.

[livius drusus]

I went with cabbage rolls. Contrary to my usual process, I threw caution to the winds and put a bunch of unmeasured stuff -- hot Italian chicken sausage, bread crumbs from two-day-old rosemary foccacia, parmesan, spices, herbs, purred onion, shallot, garlic, an egg, uncooked barley -- together for the filling.

I found a good tip on the net for softening the cabbage to make it roll-ready. You carve around the core then pop the whole cabbage in a plastic bag in the microwave for 5 minutes. That was enough to make the outer leaves pliable but not mushy and they just fall off the core. When I got to leaves that were still breakable at the base, I renuked the whole thing for another 5.

The central core with leaves that are too small to roll I chopped up and threw into the filling mixture. Then I rolled them up and placed them in rows in the slow cooker atop a layer of broken leaves. They made two layers over which I dolloped signifcant amounts of homemade tomato sauce.

The one napa cabbage turned out to be a little small for the pound of turkey + other things in the filling. I had quite a bit left over which I just finished rolling into loose meatballs, dredging in flour and browning in olive oil. They are now relaxing in the rest of the tomato sauce and I guess I'll serve them together with the rolls. Or maybe I'll save them for sammich tomorrow or something. No because of the raw barley that won't work. Shit. Okay putting them in the slow cooker too.

Math class is hard!

[livius drusus]

Report: I hate them. They produced so much water that the bottom layer boiled and the veins were extremely unappetizing. Rents liked them though.