Maybe we should start with roast chicken, no?
Well, this is the day I decided to ask mama to teach me how to cook so that I could have a skill that provides one of life’s great joys to others – making good-tasting, healthy food for friends and family.
Hah, strangers included!
In short, I love to eat, so why not?
Plus, mama feels that most recipes are way too complicated and since she has…er…spent a few years (!) simplifying her creations, she’d like to pass that info on to me, a beginner.
Today mama showed me the tool that no cook should be without (aside from good taste buds and fresh herbs). It is not expensive, and even this old Braun 400-watt wand, which is what mama calls it, does wonders with soups and mayonnaise and sauces and more.
This is mama’s frapper (whizzer, blender, stirrer, whatever you like to call it):
You start with fresh yellow or red tomatoes, about 4-5 cups. Mama uses little yellow cherry tomatoes sometimes but any tomato that tastes good will do.
Put the tomatoes in a pan with one sweet onion, chopped coarse (NOT coarsely!), a good splash of olive oil, a pinch of sugar and a half teaspoon of salt. Cover and let simmer for 20 minutes. Then whiz them up with the magic wand.
That’s IT! Easy, delicious fresh tomato sauce for simply eating as a soup or putting into other soups or using on pasta or for whatever your little heart desires.
You can put the tomato sauce through a sieve to be really frou-frou and serve it as a cold or hot soup with chopped fresh basil as garnish (whatever that is) or a dollop of yogurt or sour cream.
I think I’m going to like these lessons. That took no time at all and I could snooze while the sauce simmered, haha.
Mama might even take requests for recipes you would like since she has over 1000 of her own for you to choose from!
Bon appetit!
The mom does not have one of those whizzer thingys. She is going to ask Santa to bring her one. (She’s been wanting one for awhile now.)
Well, as a novice cook, I can only say that it is more useful even than mama’s food processor, whatever that is.
I make my own homemade sauce too, spaghetti sauce is easy peasy!
Well, be it known that there are about 100 sauces for pasta and this is only a base sauce. With garlic and hot peppers added it is penne all’arrabbiata…angry pasta, very picante and we love it, too. Well, not I, but THEY love it on a cold night. And that one, actually is made with canned crushed tomatoes rather than fresh ones but mama does all kinds of things differently from what is “classic”…Still canned tomatoes must be used for certain sauces, while fresh tomato sauce is used for others. The best one for summer is only raw, chopped tomatoes, basic, garlic, olive oil, crushed toasted almonds and parmesan shavings…..Over hot penne. Num num.
Ooooh – that sounds sooooo good!! And cherry tomatoes – my favorite! She thinks I don’t notice, but she hollows them out (twice a day) and puts 7 drops of “holistic medicine drops” that are supposed to make the little bumps (verrues) go away. They are shrinking! SO, Loulou – I get at least two a day and Mama buys the expensive one so they have more taste. Bet your Mama does too…….
Mama just gets her yellow = sweet ones at Carrefour but now your mama can put the drops in your SOUP and all of you will be healthier, haha.
That looks good 🙂
Very soothing on a cold day and you can add a bit of vegetable or chicken broth to thin it because the whizzer makes it nice and creamy/thick.
Doesn’t appeal to us but Jan says that sounds good.
SO easy, so hot and soothing in cold weather and the only tomatoes around in winter seem to be the little ones.
Roast chicken is ALWAYS a good place to start, especially if you are an obligate carnivore, LouLou !
I agree, Mary, and they are not going to talk me into TOMATO SOUP haha.