BologNO Sauce

Recipe: Bolognese Sauce
Source: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/05/ryans-bolognese-sauce/
Time: 1 hour (includes 30 minute cook time)
Ease: 4
Taste: 4
Leftover Value: 2 (I have some in the freezer, so we'll see what that's like when I brave thawing it and using it)
Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Down the Drain!

I hate when a recipe looks so wonderful....

and turns out to be crap.

I'm sorry to use such strong language here.  

But that's how I felt.

And I'm a girl who says what she feels.*

*It is one of my greatest downfalls.

Usually Pioneer Woman doesn't do me wrong, but this recipe was a major downer to a highly productive snow day stuck inside.  

The beginning step of frying carrots and onions together was pretty much my everyday clothing choice color combination, so I was a little partial to its beauty.

Then I wondered how on earth carrots equated to tomato sauce, but they had worked so well in my tomato soup, that I pushed all doubt aside and trusted them to work for bolognese sauce.*

*This was my first mistake.

Foolish, foolish girl.  I know.

My second mistake was that I trusted wine to make everything better.  

I thought the technique of making a 'well' for adding ingredients, while picturesque for my bazillion ridiculous shots, was simply a fancy way to add ingredients.  Pretty much any ingredient that was added needed to be added into a well.  Perhaps I will learn one day the importance of such a technique, if there even is one.

At the tomato point, I still believed in the dream that was the deliciousness of this recipe.  I still couldn't see how anything containing ground beef + wine + tomatoes could possibly go wrong.

I closed the lid to let the mixture simmer and crossed my fingers, hoping that the magic sauce fairy would transform what I was already sensing to be a down the drain recipe into something indescribably delicious.

It certainly wasn't indescribable.  It was, in a word, bland.  It was a lot of effort for a watery sauce which lacked seasoning and that 'wow!' factor that all sauces should hold.

Persimmon Bread

Recipe: Persimmon Bread

Source: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/persimmon-bread#

Time: 2 hours*

Ease: 7

Taste: 10

Leftover Value: 10

Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Keep it in the Strainer!

*The recipe says three hours, but this is only if you include the complete cooling time.  With the initial 20 minutes of cooling, the time does not exceed 2 hours and 20 minutes.

My husband's uncle, Gordon, always makes me look at food through a completely different perspective.  He is one hundred percently the definition of a minimalist where food is concerned.  He is a wild supporter of fruits and veggies, and down plays the importance of extravagant seasonings on anything he eats.  We only see him two or three times a year since he lives in the sunnier and warmer side of America, but when I see him I know for certain I will learn something new and have a good time.

On Christmas, as we were relaxing between opening presents and waiting for dinner, Gordon walked around offering everyone a piece of persimmon bread made from persimmons grown on his property back home.  I had never heard of a persimmon before, but wouldn't refuse trying something new and delicious looking.

After first bite, I knew this was certainly something I needed in my life.  Despite never having met a real live persimmon before, I jotted 'persimmon bread' down in my rolling list of things to research and write about.  

These are persimmons:

Wait a minute.  One of these things is not like the other.  Can you spot it?

Since I had only eaten persimmon bread, and not actually seen the fruit itself, finding my way around chopping one up was the largest ordeal in this recipe.  A persimmon is ripe when it is orange all around.  I had one or two that still had a little green so I set them aside to have another day sliced in a salad.

I should have taken a picture of the massacre that followed lopping off the tops of the persimmons, but at that point in this recipe I was persimmoned out.  This picture is extremely deceiving, but the process of "scooping persimmon flesh from the skins" as the recipes states, is ridiculously time consuming and not to mention, down right difficult.

Zesting a orange, however, is simple.

Using orange or lemon zest always intrigues and baffles me at the same time.  I would never want to eat an orange peel, yet somehow, the essence of that peel can add a bounty of flavor to a recipe.

I had my fingers crossed that when I pureed the persimmons they would actually puree.  Somewhere during the battle of chopping and  "scooping the flesh" I began to give up hope that this recipe would turn out as delicious as Gordon's had been.  

Especially when I realized I was a little under a quarter cup short of the needed persimmon puree.

Since I had applesauce on hand, I added that to level off my cup and in the end no one was the wiser.

At the start of the recipe, raisins steep in hot water for about 20 minutes in order to plump them up.  I couldn't tell too much of a difference, but I'm sure it was time well spent.

Next time I make this, I think I'll use a scant 1/2 cup of raisins rather than a packed one.  This is only because I'm not too crazy about raisins to start with.  If you like them, then you'll love them in this.

Here was the hardest part, alright, alright, the second hardest to scooping out the persimmon flesh; baking the bread for an hour, then waiting 20 minutes for it to cool in the pan, and then waiting even longer for it to cool completely on a wire rack.

There is a slight possibility that I started slicing before it was completely cooled.

From the looks of it, I didn't do the bread any harm.

I'm positively in love with this bread.  I brought it to work two days in a row for my awesome assistant/co-teacher/confident/partner-in-goofiness/soul sister and she sang my praises and bought me coffee as payment for this bread's utter deliciousness.  

Coffee for persimmon bread?  I'd say that's a fair trade any day!*

*Especially since together they are the definition of wonderful.  

The Most Delicious French Toast(s) Ever

Recipe: French Toast
Source: The Pioneer Woman
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/07/french-toast-with-berry-butter/
Time: 20-30 minutes (longer if you make berry butter)
Ease: 1
Taste: 10
Leftover Value: 8
Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Keep it in the Strainer!

Snow days in New Jersey used to be a day you could stay in your pajamas all day and not feel guilty.  I think that once you pass the (used to be) two built in snow days staying in pajamas and vegging out is no longer allowed.

At least for me it isn't.

The first snow day or the twenty-first (uhh, please---no!), snow days always put me in the mood for making breakfast.  I don't ordinarily get to make a warm breakfast unless I'm serving it for dinner (and it is quite a perfect dinner option, one that should make the dinner calendar* at least every other month).

*More about the dinner calendar to come soon--I promise!

When we were in Baltimore last month, I ordered French toast at this local breakfast joint:

When we discovered that the bakery I wanted to go to didn't open until 11:30 am we scoured Google maps for a decent location for breakfast.  'Simply Marie's' came up highly rated on yelp.com making us hastily choose it in the midst of vicious hunger that was starting to turn me from sweet innocent wife into a frazzle faced Frankenstein.

When we first stepped in, I was a little apprehensive.  This place was a hole in the wall.  There was enough seating for no more than 12 people, and our order was placed standing at the back counter.  Hubby, however, was set on staying, so we ordered our meals and sat down.  I don't know what came over me, but I ordered French toast.  Ordinarily, I stay away from ordering French toast and here is why:  While pancakes, bacon, and eggs are certainly items I can also cook up at home, being that French toast comes from bread already prepared (and typically pre-sliced in a baggie) it seems to be the easiest breakfast item to make and not one for which I should pay.

I don't know what Marie does, perhaps it was the sprinkling of powdered sugar or a special type of homemade bread, but her French toast warmed my soul that day.

It was equally delicious (if not even a tad bit better???) to the French toast that I serve up on a regular basis at home.

Pioneer Woman's French Toast with Berry Butter is out of this world.  If you can make peace with the egg yolks and half and half that are used, you'll love it!  Berry butter is optional, but if you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it.  This Cranberry butter is also insanely delicious.

We also brought home some raisin bread from Baltimore, and I decided it would go perfectly as the bread for French toast (that, and, the lady who sold it to me said it is delicious as French toast).

I'm not ordinarily too keen on raisins.  They get in the way of the good stuff, like swirly cinnamon or melted buttery sugary goodness.  For French toast, the raisins brought in so much sweetness, I almost* didn't need to add syrup.

*Note: Almost.  Never, ever can I live a day in a world with breakfast sans syrup.

I add a little something extra to my French toast that Pioneer Woman doesn't:

Cinnamon and sugar!

After mixing the egg yolks and half and half together, dipping the bread pieces and tossing them on the frying pan, I sprinkle just a little coating of cinnamon and sugar on top.

Before the side facing down has a chance to brown, I flip the bread over and repeat the sprinkling process on the other side.

This is absolutely the best French toast I have ever made.  

Of course, I had to serve it up a la Marie with a little powdered sugar sprinkled on top...

okay....a lot of powdered sugar sprinkled on top.  What better topping could match a snowy day?