Pasta Sauce

I've thrown tinned tomatoes at pasta many a time, adding some kind of herbs/garlic/wine combo to try and make it interesting, but it's always disappointing.

Recently I bought a jar of pasta sauce and it was good. Really good. The little guy gobbled it down and I enjoyed it too. But for a long time I have wanted to try and nail a good homemade version, and last week I finally did. Well, I made a good homemade version, but I'm not sure if I quite nailed it... I would have liked a bit more depth and richness to the flavour, it was a little light and tangy. But it's a good place to start, nothing beats cooking something off like this to bring stronger flavour. You can play around with this recipe as much as you like - barely anything in it is essential.

I read a few recipes and put together some different ideas, starting with one I found on the Taste website. All recipes suggested fresh basil but we're in the wrong season for basil in my garden, so I used dried oregano and fresh parsley. I chose to add a teaspoon of sugar towards the end of cooking as the sauce was very tangy. The sugar added a little depth and softened it a bit, though not as much as I wanted. I almost wondered if it needs a little stock added - call me crazy, but I did come across the idea of adding a mirepoix which is a vegetable base for many stocks and sauces. I may not go this far next time, but I would probably add more tomato paste, and go out of my way to get some really good tinned tomatoes. For now though, feel free to just grab what you have in your pantry. If you have any thoughts on improving this recipe, I would love to hear them.

I wanted a smooth texture, so blitzed it in the blender after cooking.

Pasta Sauce

1 tablespoon oil

1 tablespoon butter

1 onion

1 clove garlic

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 x 400g tins whole plum tomatoes

Splash of wine (red is ideal, white is fine)

1 teaspoon sugar

Salt and pepper

Herbs

Simmer chopped onion and garlic in the oil and butter until softened but not brown.

Add the tomato paste and stir for one minute, then add the tomatoes and wine and simmer for 30 minutes.

Add sugar, salt and pepper and herbs to taste.

PS - an easy meal idea is to chop up some mushroom, capsicum and really fine bits of broccoli and add it to the sauce. You may even want to do this before you freeze it. A great way to get more veg in to kids, if you find that a challenge. I had some of this leftover recently and put it in an omelette for lunch. Yummo!

Sweet Chilli Sauce

I heard on the radio recently that now is the time to buy chillies, so decided now was the time to try making sweet chilli sauce. And this one really was easy-peasy - even more so than the mayonnaise. There is quite a range of recipes out there with more or less ingredients. I went for the most basic but the results were fantastic and I see no reason to mess with it. I love that four simple ingredients can create something better than you can buy, and that it's so easy.

But (I'm sorry there's a but). The challenge is with the chillies. Firstly, you need to find them. I rang Moore Wilsons to check that they had them in (they did), and I needed half of what they had on the shelves. It wouldn't have taken many sweet chilli sauce makers in town to have taken them all. And secondly, they're expensive. I made a small bottle of sauce and it cost me a whopping $7 in chillies. So, much as I would love to make this a regular in my house, it may have to be a rare treat. Give it a go so that you know what you're missing out on, and then we might all be inspired to grow our own chillies. Now there's a topic for another day. 

You'll need a stick blender, food processor or some kind of effective chopper for the chillies.

I used a recipe from taste.com.au but reduced it to one third to make a small bottle and save (quite) a few dollars. Below is the reduced version, it made me 1 cup.

Sweet Chilli Sauce

160g red chillies

1 garlic clove

1 cup white vinegar

1 cup caster sugar

Slice the chillies in half, and remove the seeds & discard from approximately 3/4 of them. Put all the chillies in to the blender, along with the garlic and approximately 1/4 of the vinegar. Process until finely chopped.

Put the chilli mixture in to a pan and add the rest of the vinegar and the sugar. Stir on a low heat for about 5 minutes (until sugar has dissolved), then bring to the boil. Turn down again to a low heat, and simmer for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.

You may like to replace some of the chillies with red capsicum/peppers. I love my sweet chilli on eggs, on cheese and crackers for a 5pm snack, and mixed in with plain yoghurt and chopped fresh mint as a dip.

Mayonnaise

I had a go at making mayonnaise a while ago, with the hope I would one day post about it on my future food blog... Here's what happened:

I love the idea of making cheaper, healthier, tastier versions of food I regularly buy at the supermarket. It's just a question of learning how, and hoping it's not too complicated. And hoping it is cheaper, healthier and tastier!

I've only been a regular buyer of mayonnaise in recent times, as I've discovered it's an essential addition to a hot chicken sandwich - a recent favourite in our household. I quite like to slip it in to a lunchtime salad sandwich too. But a read of the label made me wonder what mayonnaise really is. Knowing that is it egg based, and finding "egg powder" well down a very long list of ingredients made me think I could do better. Egg powder just doesn't sound that tasty, and there are a lot of things on that long list that I bet are not in the homemade version.

So I had a go. I decided to hand whisk rather than just use a beater as it sounded somehow easier to control and appealed to my old fashioned-ness. It was fairly quick but certainly took some muscle. And there it was, a jar of mayonnaise in our fridge, simple as that.

But. Well. The thing is. Well, you see... I didn't really... like it. What a terrible beginning to my new venture. Here I was, being a healthy, wholesome, back-to-basics, home-cooking queen, and, um... I just wanted the stuff in the jar. And funnily enough, the problem was that it tasted too eggy.

I dodged the issue for quite a few days, and hoped my husband would eat it up in his sandwiches (he did). But eventually I decided that this wasn't right, so I had a look at some more recipes and decided I would try again. One recipe suggested white wine vinegar as an alternative to lemon juice and suggested adding WAY more than my original recipe. And that, I realised, had been the problem. As well as it tasting eggy, there wasn't enough tang.  More lemon juice or white wine vinegar would certainly add tang.

So I had a go again. I divided my mayo mixture in half after adding the first 4 ingredients, and added plenty of lemon juice to one and white wine vinegar to the other. The white wine vinegar really gave the tanginess I was after where the lemon juice couldn't quite keep up, and I even added a little more. The added vinegar also turned the mixture from a rather distressing bright yellow to a beautiful, creamy buttery colour, and more importantly, it hid the eggy taste. Phew! I liked it.

Mayonnaise

2 egg yolks

1 tablespoon dijon mustard

Salt and pepper

250ml oil (mildly flavoured, eg canola or groundnut)

2-3 tablespoons white wine vinegar

Whisk egg yolks, mustard and a little salt and pepper together

Slowly add the oil in a thin trickle to begin with, whisking all the time, and continue to add in a steady stream. Continue to whisk for a few seconds after all the oil is incorporated. 

Add the white wine vinegar (or lemon juice), tasting as you go and adding more as you wish.

The Consumer recently tested supermarket bought mayonnaise and they had some interesting comments. The first being, "For a quick salad or a last minute sandwich there's no time to whip up a batch of real mayonnaise. So is there an acceptable version straight out of a jar?" But the verdict was "none of the mayonnaises came anywhere near matching the real thing." So I have to say, whipping up a batch of the real thing is pretty quick and, given the verdict, why wouldn't you?