Basic tomato sauce (Mario Batali)

This is the first time I’ve made homemade red sauce (homemade with canned tomatoes). So worth the trouble although it is slightly more time consuming than unscrewing a jar…

- 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 Spanish onion, 1/4-inch dice
- 4 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
- 3 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme leaves, or 1 tablespoon dried
- 1/2 medium carrot, finely grated
- 2 (28-ounce) cans peeled whole tomatoes, crushed by hand and juices reserved
- Salt
Tomato Sauce:
In a 3-quart saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until soft and light golden brown, about 8 to 10 minutes. Add the thyme and carrot and cook 5 minutes more, until the carrot is quite soft. Add the tomatoes and juice and bring to a boil, stirring often. Lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes until as thick as hot cereal. Season with salt and serve. This sauce holds 1 week in the refrigerator or up to 6 months in the freezer.
Yield: 4 cups

Sweet Potato Ricotta Shells

 

 

Ok so I use what we call Yams which are sweet potatoes as well (Do you know the difference??? http://www.kitchendaily.com/2011/11/16/sweet-potatoes-vs-yams-is-there-a-difference/ ) I have made these 3-4 times now, and I never have taken a picture…. but I’ll borrow a picture from the blog where I originally found the recipe ( http://squashblossombabies.com/2011/04/01/sweet-potato-ricotta-shells/). This is Morgan’s favorite right now.

- 1 large sweet potato (yam…)

- salt, pepper

- large shell pasta

- 1 cup ricotta

- 1/4 cup parmesan cheese

- 1 clove garlic, minced

- zest from 1 lemon

- 1 tsp chopped fresh sage

Preheat the oven to 415 degrees F. Stab the sweet potato a few times per side and bake whole on a baking sheet for 45-60 min until a fork can be easily inserted on all sides of the sweet potato (or you could peel, chop, oil, salt and pepper the sweet potato and bake for 20 min). While the sweet potato is cooking go ahead and cook your pasta shells.

Remove sweet potato from oven and allow to cool or if you’re like me and have no patience use tongs to peel the skin from the potato and then squash it with a fork. If you have a food processer then you can throw the sweet potatoes in there to be pulverized with the following ingredients, ricotta, parmesan, garlic, lemon zest, sage, salt and pepper to taste. Or if you’re like me you hand mash the sweet potato and throw them in a bowl to be hand mixed.

Fill your shells with the sweet potato mixture and place into a baking dish. Top with with grated parmesan and cover with aluminum foil. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 20 minutes. I cover the dish because otherwise I feel like my shells dry out and become tough. You can uncover it for the last few minutes if you’d like to the cheese to melt nicely.

Finally the best part.

Brown Butter Sage Sauce

- 2 tbsp butter

- about 5 fresh sage leaves, minced (or chopped if you prefer)

- juice from half a lemon

To make the sauce that goes one top of it all melt butter in a saucepan over medium high heat until the butter just begins to brown. Add the minced sage leaves and cook for another 30 seconds. Finally add the lemon juice and remove the saucepan from heat. Drizzle the stuff all over your shells. To be honest… I double this because it really is the best part!