On a unusual solo trip to the grocery store, I found a rarity (rare that is for my Kissimme Florida”mega-mart” chain that caters to tourists more than locals); real pancetta!

Pancetta is an Italian version of bacon. Made from pork belly, pancetta is salt cured but not smoked like most American bacon.  It has a more delicate flavor and is the lead ingredient in Spaghetti Carbonara which I like to call, bacon and eggs.  If you grew up going to one of those “italian” restaurants with a candle in a chianti basket bottle, red checkered table cloth and zero Italian speakers you may think that Fettucini or spaghetti carbonara is made with bacon, cream and peas.  Nope.  If you like eating that (and I do) please do so, just realize that you are eating a highly Americanized version of an Italian dish.

Widely recognized as Roman in origin, there are many theories about the name (roughly translated it means carbon) and the invention of Spaghetti Carbonara.  I tried to find one that involved the mob, Cleopatra or Ceasar but came up empty handed.  After a bit more wine perhaps I’ll invent that version, post it to Wikipedia and see how many blogs it shows up in, but for now I’m content to tell you that this dish has so much flavor and is so easy that if you are not making it your dog should bite you (or something along those lines).  The minute you do start making it, your friends will be inviting themselves over more often.

The main ingredients are Spaghetti (you had that one right); pancetta, Parmesan reggiono (or peccorino romano), eggs and black pepper.  Because this dish has only a few ingredients, each flavor stands out.  Even using the best ingredient in each category this is an inexpensive plate of comfort, try not to skimp.

OK OK I’m windy tonight — I’ll get to the recipe (2 servings)

6 oz dried spaghetti
3 oz diced pancetta
1/2 small white onion diced
1 clove fresh garlic minced
Lots of fresh ground black pepper
1 egg beaten
1 cup freshly grated cheese
reserve one cup of pasta cooking liquid.

Because this comes together quickly make sure you have everything ready to go in the pan before you start.

Put a light “twirl” (or 2 Tablespoons if you prefer) of olive oil in the pan and brown the pancetta.  Add the onions and cook until soft.  While this is working in the pan, cook the pasta according to directions.

Remove skillet from heat; add pasta to the pan with less than a 1/4 of pasta cooking liquid then stir in the egg and cheese.  The heat from pan and pasta will cook the egg and melt the cheese creating your “sauce.”  If it’s too thick for you add a bit more of the pasta water.  Season with black pepper and enjoy.

This goes really nicely with an acidic white wine that doesn’t over power but cuts the fat.  Or a Stella Artois– the whineaux is on a beer bender right now.

Cheers!  I’m off to make butter tarts with Tyler — stay tuned for the details!

A couple weeks ago I received an announcement for the new Silver Spoon Pasta cookbook.  The pitch:

The Silver Spoon, THE SILVER SPOON: PASTA (Phaidon Press; October 12, 2009; $39.95 hardcover) presents a collection of more than 350 authentic and definitive pasta recipes for all fans of this tasty Italian staple. Whereas The Encyclopedia of Pasta is more of an A to Z “history” of pasta, our book shows how to actually prepare the pasta dishes.

I own the original Silver Spoon and it is an amazing reference of Italian recipes.  I was excited to review this book based on my previous experience.

The book is divided into two categories, dry pasta and fresh pasta.  Most of the dry pasta dishes seem to be side dishes more than entrees, which makes sense as pasta is typically one of four courses served in Italy, whereas in the U.S. we tend to order pasta as a main course.

The ingredients in the book were easy to come by.  In the original Silver Spoon cookbook they embraced the notion of waste not want not, and many of the cuts of meat recommended are unavailable or undesirable to the squeamish American palate.  The Silver Spoon Pasta relies on easy to find, commonly appealing ingredients (except for some of the pasta shapes).  The downside is that the recipes became repetitive.

I made two dishes from the book, a angel hair and Gruyere and a baked angel hair pasta mold.  The angel hair and Gruyere turned out very nice and was eaten quickly by my family.  The recipe itself would be no surprise to a frequent cook.  It was written as a vegetarian dish, I added chicken and mushrooms because if I don’t have some meat, I don’t feel like I’ve eaten.  Essentially you made a bechamel sauce and added Gruyere then I topped it with chicken breast sauteed in butter with salt, pepper, roasted garlic and mushrooms.

The second dish intrigued me because I’d never seen it.  It was a baked angel hair pasta mold.

To make it, I prepared a roux and added some cooking water from the angel hair pasta.  After the sauce thickened, I added three egg yolks and folded in the whipped whites of three eggs.  All of this went into a 9 inch round cake pan and I topped it with my red sauce.  As I mentioned before I can’t have a meal without meat, so I also cooked a rib eye for the three of us to share.  I’ll post that marinade recipe soon because it was YUMMY.

The pasta mold received a ho hum review by the family me included.

I also passed the book along to a friend of mine from Sicily.  He liked it and picked several recipes he wants us to prepare together.  He did comment that he wished there were more photos.

Overall I think this is a good cookbook for a beginner.  The techniques are easy for a home cook and there aren’t many requirements for specialized equipment or tools.  While each pasta shape and origin is described, the information is basic. It would have been nice to have included substitutions to in case you can’t find the pasta they suggest as many of the shapes in the book aren’t commonly stocked in American grocery stores.

I saw it this weekend at Costco for about $22 if you are interested.

Here’s the recipe that they included with the pitch:

RIGATONI WITH MEATBALLS Silver Spoon Pasta

RIGATONI WITH MEATBALLS

Rigatoni con Polpettine

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 1 hour

Serves 4

11 ounces ground meat

1 sprig chopped flat leaf parsley

½ garlic clove, chopped

1 egg, lightly beaten

all-purpose flour, for dusting

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, thinly sliced

1 celery stalk, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

1 sprig chopped small fresh rosemary

1 ¾ cups bottle strained tomatoes

12 ounces rigatoni

1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

salt and pepper

Combine the ground meat, parsley, and garlic in a bowl, then stir in the egg and season with salt and pepper. Shape the mixture into small meatballs, dust with flour, and set aside. Heat the oil in a pan, add the onion, celery, carrot, and rosemary and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Then add the meatballs, and increase the heat to medium. Cook until the meatballs are lightly browned all over, add the bottle strained tomatoes and season with salt. Lower the heat, cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 40 minutes. Cook the rigatoni in a large pan of salted boiling water until al dente, then drain, and tip into the pan with the meatballs. Mix well and heat through for 2 minutes. Transfer to a warm serving dish and sprinkle with the parmesan.

I am so behind on my blogging because of the wine bloggers conference and a very packed work schedule which pays the bills so I can write!  I apologize for the long delay between posts…

I have so many things I want to report from the Wine Bloggers Conference, that will for certain be another post because I want to get it right but I’d really like to thank the Winemakers of Sonoma and Napa County who made the conference an amazing success.  I learned a great deal and had a fabulous time!

At the end of our trip we spent the weekend in San Francisco, my husband’s 17 year old son is moving in with us this weekend, so the idea of quality time appealed to me.  While in San Francisco we stayed at the JW Marriott which was a great hotel with a very service oriented staff.  The location was central to everything we did for the weekend including dinner at Fino’s.

I first visited Fino’s about a year ago on the recommendation of the hotel concierge.  I have to admit, as I approached the place I thought it was a bit suspect.  It’s tucked away in the lobby of the Andrew’s Hotel which is in much need of a make-over.  However on that night I was cold and so I went in, and I am SO happy I did.

North Beach is known as the place to go for Italian food, but this gem of a restaurant makes their own sauces by hand, they make the pasta in-house, the soups are freshly made; (you guessed it) in-house.  And the menu prices are extremely reasonable.

I ordered the minestrone soup which was ordinary.  I think it was too early in the evening and it hadn’t had the opportunity to develop it’s flavors correctly.

For entrees my husband had the Linguine alla Bolognese (Linguine with meat sauce) and I had the Fettuccine con Prosciutto e Funghi (Fettuccine in a light tomato cream sauce with mushrooms and prosciutto)  Both of us loved our entrees and swapped plates halfway through so we could taste each other’s dish.

The highlight of the meal was dessert; Zabaglione with fresh straberries.  Zabaglione is an Italian custard made with egg yolks, sugar, lemon and Madeira wine.  They let me go into the kitchen to see the dish being prepared.  I’ve seen this lots of times on television, but never in person.  Mario the chef made it in a huge copper bowl directly over the burner (instead of a double boiler).  He made it look easy — which is the real trick.  I think I’m going to try it at home with amaretto.

Our waiter was extremely attentive, we were never forgotten about nor were we ever rushed.  After our meal we went up to the bar to watch the action in the tiny kitchen a little longer.

If you are In San Francisco I highly recommend you try Fino — it’s not far at all from Union Square and it’s a meal many visitors miss out on.

Fino Ristorante
624 Post
San Francisco, CA
415-928-2080

I’ve  been struggling with eating lately as  something was upsetting my stomach and I had to go back to the basics.  When my tummy decides not to cooperate with me I go back to soup, it always seems to work for me.  This process has taken about three weeks to figure out the problem.  I started eating canned soup.  It was not long before I could not face another can so I’m making lots of soup again.  First I made a fantastic Tortilla soup – but I ate it too fast to photograph it.  Today I made Minestrone soup and I want to share the recipe with you.

Minestrone soup is arguably the best known Italian soup — loosely translated it means “the big soup.”  Recipes for it are as varied as chefs.  The basics are tomatoes and potatoes (they made their way into the Italian diet in the mid 1500s, before that Italians thought tomatoes were poisonous), onions, zucchini, carrots then you are on your own.  Some people make a completely vegetarian soup, some add meat, some make a thin watery base, others cook the liquid down to a stew like texture,  pasta and beans are optional.  In my case I had some Italian Sausage that I didn’t have plans for so I made “meaty” Minestrone soup. I chose not to put pasta in the soup because Bill doesn’t eat soup so this is mine for the next 4 – 5 days and pasta doesn’t reheat well.  My soup is thin broth, but packed with so much flavor that it’s a meal in a cup.

Click Here for a Printable Recipe

Difficulty: Easy
Cook Time: 30 minutes active 40 minutes simmer

Ingredients:
3 Mild Italian Sausages, Skin Removed
1/2 White Onion Diced
1 Cup Chopped Carrot
1/2 Cup Chopped Celery
1 Cup fresh green beans cut in one-inch pieces
1 zucchini diced
1 28 oz box Pomi diced Italian Tomatoes*
Worcestershire sauce to taste (1 Tablespoon)
1 tsp dried chili pepper
1T chopped garlic
1 cup beef broth
2 cups water
1 T dried oregano
2 fresh sprigs thyme
1 bay leaf
4 fresh basil leaves
handful of fresh parsley diced
1 can kidney beans
Salt and Pepper to taste
Parmesan cheese for garnish

Directions:
Crumble sausage and brown over medium high heat in a large stock pot (4 minutes).  Add Onion, carrot and celery to the pot and cook until soft (3 – 4 minutes).  Add remaining ingredients (excluding  kidney beans and Parmesan Cheese).  Bring to a boil, reduce and simmer for 30 minutes until vegetables are desired texture.  Check for seasoning, add salt and pepper as desired.

Remove bay leaf.

Add kidney beans and heat through.

Yeild: 6 servings

* you can use any diced tomatoes but Pomi are really much better flavor.

I usually have this as my lunch and/or breakfast so I don’t have wine with it.  What would you drink?

This time of year my herb garden goes crazy thanks to lots of rain and lots of sun.  My Basil plants become a small forest if I don’t stay on top of them.  It seems like a terrible waste to  grow the herbs but not use them.  So — I decided to make pesto.

What started out as a quick and simple meal to help me regain control of my herb garden was deemed one of our favorite meals.  I made a fresh basil pesto cream sauce, sauteed chicken in bacon fat, and added some crisp bacon to the plate.  As we’d been out running errands all day I used store bought fresh pasta instead of making my own, but next time I will be making my pasta because this sauce is too good to diminish with store bought pasta.  (that said, the fresh pasta was perfectly fine if you are not a nutcase like me)

At the end of making this, I realized that it was truly a 30 minute meal — with little or no planning.  I can make Rachel Ray meals in 30 minutes, but usually that’s only if I gather and prep the ingredients before I start cooking (and the timer).  In this case I remember looking at the clock and it was 7:03 as I started the pesto in the food processor and 7:27 when I was putting dinner on the plate.  Before that I had only started the pasta water and the pine nuts.

Fettuccine with Pesto Cream:

1 Cup Fresh Basil Leaves
2 Cloves Fresh Garlic grated (If you are using pre-peeled cloves you may want 3)
1/2 Cup pine nuts toasted in olive oil
Pinch Kosher Salt
Fresh Ground Black Pepper
1 cup Grated Parmesan Cheese
3/4 cup olive oil
1 Cup Heavy Cream
1 package fresh fettuccine from the store or 1 pound homemade pasta.

Toast pine nuts in olive oil over medium heat on stove top.  Let them brown but not burn.  A word of caution, they very quickly transition from toasted to burned so this is not the time to multitask.  It takes about 4 -6 minutes total and you’ll want to toss them so they cook evenly.  Start them in a cold pan with cold olive oil; this way the oil is also infused with the pine nut flavor.  After toasting remove them from the pan and put them on a plate to cool.

Put Basil leaves in food processor, use a micro plane or garlic press to mince the garlic.  [This is one time I don't like to trust the food processor -- this is essentially a raw sauce so you don't want to get a large chunk of garlic.]  Add the Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper and pulse the food processor a few times to mix everything up, add the pine nuts and pulse food processor to mix.  Scrape the sides of the bowl, and replace lid, turn food processor on and stream in olive oil until the sauce starts to come together. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as needed.  (Note, the cream and the pasta will mute the flavor some so a tiny bit extra salt is a good idea)

In a shallow saute pan heat the cream over medium low heat and reduce by a third.  Let it cool a bit  while you make the chicken.

Sauteed Chicken:

4 strips thick cut smoked bacon or pancetta
4 bone-in skin on Chicken Thighs
Salt and pepper to taste
Splash white wine.

In a large saute pan render bacon until crispy over medium high heat, remove from the pan and drain over paper towels. Reserve fat in pan.

Pat chicken dry and season on both sides.  Put chicken in the hot pan skin side down and cook until deeply browned, about 8 minutes per side, Temperature near the bone should register 155 – 160 degrees. Remove from pan and drain.

Meanwhile cook Fettuccine according to package directions drain and return to stock pot.

Combine the pesto paste with warm cream (if you do this while the cream is hot you’ll turn the basil black — it’s fine to eat but not as pretty).  Toss with pasta in the stock pot.

We had a tempranillo with this.  The wine was a lighter representation of the wine, dry with berry cherry and vanilla flavors.  Not a lot of earth but nice acidity that cut the richness of the pasta cream sauce.

Friday night our favorite restaurant, Café D’Antonio in Celebration hosted a wine dinner and Angels Share Wine provided the wines. Angel’s Share Wine is a distributor that focuses on boutique wineries in the Napa area, in this case they selected California wines made in the Italian style.

The dinner was an incredible 4 course meal, Chef Sergio outdid himself. Each course was paired with a wine.

First Course – Insalata di Finocchio

Arugula topped with fresh fennel, red onion, tangerine pulp and finished with tangerine dressing served with a 2006 Crawford Wine Company “Highlander” Sauvignon Blanc.

The wine was poured before the food was served, giving us all a chance to taste the wine on its own. It retails for about $23 and this was the one wine we all agreed we liked (we had a group of six ranging in wine tastes from the serious collector to the Fish Eye Fan Club). On its own the wine was a great summer glass, light in color and fragrance we all picked up on fruit and acid, it was smooth and enjoyable. The wine representative told us we tasted pineapple, but we disagreed. When paired with the salad this wine came to life, the spice of the arugula and sweet of the tangerine was a perfect compliment.

Second Course – Tonno alla Griglia

Fresh Tuna Loin encrusted with fresh cracked pepper, grilled over oak blocks served with caramelized apples paired with a 2007 Bocatta Wine Chardonnay from their Stag’s Leap vineyard. The wine was from Mark Harold and aged in French Oak barrels.

Again, the wine came first and alone. The difference was this time we did not like it at all. The first taste and smell was of alcohol and hit the back of our mouth with an unwelcome bite. Considering they went to the significant expense of aging the wine in French Oak, it was completely lacking in that “Oakey, buttery yum” that I love about Chardonnay.

The tuna was our favorite course of the night. Chef Sergio gave us excellent cuts of fish and the scent of oak from the grill was still on the fish when it came to the table. I personally never would have put the apples with the fish but I truly loved the combination. Each dish was superb on its own, but when combined in a single mouthful the flavor exploded. The wine did come together with the food, but Napa Chardonnay’s typically make my heart sing, especially the Stag’s Leap vineyards. At a retail price of $32 I didn’t hate it, but I found it disappointing and there are better values out there for sure.

Third Course – Agnello

Leg of Lamb marinated with garlic, rosemary and extra virgin olive oil then roasted and accompanied by Italian mushroom risotto served with a 2004 Hestan Vineyards “Meyer” Cabernet Sauivgnon.

If we hadn’t been so full by the time the lamb arrived, it may have been our favorite course. Tender, moist and delicate not at all over seasoned and the risotto at Antonio’s is always a treat so it was a lovely pairing. The wine was a big fruity cab, not at all spicy. The nose had quite a bit of alcohol, but also the expected berry and spice. The texture was pure velvet. While I enjoyed it, I’m not convinced that it is worthy of a $58 retail price tag (which puts it on a restaurant wine list at roughly $140 and absolutely not worth that)

Fourth Course – Crespelle di Ciocolato

Chocolate crepe filled with fresh chocolate whipped chocolate cream and finished with a drizzle of blackberry reduction served with a 2006 Charter Oak Winery “Monte Rosso” Zinfindel.

I can’t possibly improve on the description of the dessert, it lived up to its promise, not too sweet and a big chocolate payoff – need I say more.

The wine is made by hand in a 100 year old basket press and the vines are Sonoma old growth (dating to 1880). The care  taken in producing the wine was evident in the glass. It was a dark hearty wine that stood up to the chocolate and blackberry but didn’t overpower it. It was an excellent pairing. Again, I think the wine was a bit overpriced for what it offered, $57 per bottle retail, but this is a wine that could comfortably take you through dinner to dessert and in that sense I wouldn’t be disappointed if I ordered if in a restaurant.

I hope Antonio’s offers another wine dinner. The food was fantastic and I was able to experience wines I would not otherwise have tasted.

The Sauce

This post is dedicated to Tony, a great cook and even better friend who shared his mother’s recipe and methods with me.

Sauce, Gravy, Spaghetti Sauce, Red Sauce, Marinara call it anything you want, just please don’t buy it in a jar. In fact, please join the Society For the Elimination of Sauce in a Jar on Facebook

Does the idea of potted meat gross you out as much as it does me? (it should!) Do you watch the “gourmet” cat food commercial and at the end think “you aren’t fooling me, that’s garbage meat with salt, chemicals and a couple peas thrown in.” If so, you are right! If not, this may be the wrong blog for you. Things that come pre-cooked in jars are made with the cheapest ingredients available, including vegetables you would throw away. Then because the color isn’t right (because the vegetables weren’t good) they add dye. Next they add things to make it taste like sauce, but not herbs and spices; instead they use inexpensive chemicals and sugar. Now here’s the fun part — they charge you MORE for that jar of inferior sauce than you’d ever pay for making it yourself.

I can hear your thoughts. I can see the rigid posture, the wary stare you are giving me. “Fine, it tastes better and it may be a little less expensive, but how long is this going to take and is it really that good?” YES it’s that much better and it won’t take long. Sauce is my Sunday morning activity. It took me 17 minutes to get the ingredients into the pot and walk away. Then another 15 minutes tasting (oh such hard work) and dishing it up for storage. It simmered for 2 hours and made my house smell like heaven in a way no air freshener could. (Is it hard to believe I was the fat kid

Please; make the sauce. You’ll be happy, your family will be happy, the sun will shine, birds will sing all will be right with the world.

Tomatoes

A word about tomatoes. All tomatoes are not created equal. If you are lucky enough to have a garden where your tomatoes actually taste like tomatoes then making sauce is even more fun and you get to use a food mill! For the rest of us, skip the produce aisle. The tasteless “fresh” tomatoes available in the supermarket are picked green, gassed and allowed to turn red in a warehouse (I can’t call that “ripening”) In this case canned tomatoes are superior.

But not all canned tomatoes are created equal. Tomatoes need sun, dry climate and volcanic ash in order to taste good. The one place you find this trifecta of goodness is in Italy. Buy Italian tomatoes, preferably San Marzano. Don’t buy “Italian Style” tomatoes, you are not getting what you pay for in flavor or quality. More of the manipulation by the food marketers … but I digress. In my Publix, Cento Italian Plum tomatoes are available for about $2.60 per 28oz can. Other tomatoes are about $2.00 per 28oz can so we aren’t talking about a huge extra expense by any stretch of the imagination. Recently at Costco, I was able to purchase 100oz cans of Nina brand San Marzano Tomatoes for $3.60 per can (making them less per ounce than the garbage tomatoes in the supermarket).

Italian tomatoes typically come with basil in the can. I went a little nutty in a quest to find them without the basil because I like to season my own sauce. In the end (read one year and two prescriptions later) I determined that a little basil in a large can is not like buying the diced tomatoes that are mixed with peppers or garlic (which are always over seasoned) There’s very little basil flavor imparted in the sauce. I remove the gross basil when I open the can and add fresh from my garden.

THE SAUCE
Olive oil to coat the pan
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 large white onion, sliced
4 carrots, peeled and chopped to 1/2 inch
8 – 10 whole cloves garlic *See Note
1T dried oregano
2 280z cans Italian Tomatoes
1/2 jar roasted red peppers (optional)
6T fresh chopped Italian parsley
6T fresh chopped basil
Generous dash Worcestershire sauce (measuring I’m going to say 4T but I don’t measure)
Kosher salt to taste (at least 3T)
Fresh ground black pepper

Heat the pan over medium high. Put the pepper flakes into the cold oil. When they start to “dance” in the pan you know your oil is hot. Add the onions and carrots. Cook until the onions are getting some color and the carrots start to soften; — about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and oregeno. Cook 3 – 4 minutes longer taking care to soften but not burn the garlic.

Add tomatoes and remaining ingredients to the pan. Bring to a simmer and let cook for at least 20 minutes cooking

longer won’t hurt. Taste for seasoning. Stir to break down the tomatoes, you are just breaking them up, this isn’t about consistency.

Let it simmer 20 minutes longer and taste it. At this point nobody knows what I’ll do, sometimes I decide we need a splash of wine, sometimes I put some beef broth in, sometimes hot sauce. It’s always hard to know, but exercise caution here. The Culinary Institute of America would likely cringe to hear me say this, but this is a “mother sauce.” Make it taste good, but don’t over flavor the sauce or it will lose its versatility — more about that later.

Now that you are happy with the taste; here comes the fun part! You need to blend the sauce. For this volume, a stick blender doesn’t work well (if you make a double batch a stick blender will work great and you won’t have to transfer the sauce). You’ll likely have to blend in batches, I filled the blender twice. After the first batch pour the pureed sauce into a bowl and add the remaining sauce from the pot. Then put it all back in the pot and stir and taste for seasoning again.

Now let it simmer another 20 – 40 minutes until it’s at the thickness you want. Allow the sauce to cool and transfer to storage containers. I use 32oz containers that our local Chinese take-out place uses, I just wash and reuse them. This sauce freezes really well. I can’t tell you how long it will last in the freezer because I think our record is 3 weeks. All you have to do is take it out of the freezer in the morning and warm it.

*Note on garlic. I was feeling a little lazy so I bought the pre- peeled garlic in a jar. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s not as potent as fresh garlic. I typically double the amount of garlic I’m adding to a recipe if it’s the pre-peeled kind. If you put that much fresh garlic into the sauce you would absolutely not have any vampires around!

Mother Sauce – I use this sauce as a base. Reheat and add a splash of vodka and cream — Penne alla Vodka. Brown some pork and beef, add a dash of cream at the end, Bologanese sauce, heat on the stove top and reduce it a bit — pizza sauce. Add some croutons, maybe a splash of broth or cream, you’ll have fantastic tomato basil soup.

This recipe is a framework. If you like the flavored sauces at the store you can add those flavorings in the intensity you like. I never make this with roasted red peppers, but I had some around so I put them in. I liked it so much it may become a regular feature of the sauce. Try roasting the garlic before you add it to the sauce. (Just take a head of garlic, cut the top off, drizzle olive oil, wrap it in foil and put it in the oven when you are baking something else. It needs aobut 45 minutes at 350) I wouldn’t put mushrooms in the base, if you like mushrooms in your sauce, sautee them, then add the sauce and reheat but they won’t freeze very well. Mushrooms have such a high water content that freezing them changes the texture.

Tell me how you like this recipe! We like this best with plain old red table wine. The food is so good that we don’t even try to be fancy with the wine. Cloud Line Pinot Noir is our “Fancy” choice, about $20 per bottle.

Ciao!
The Whineaux!

Go Wine in the kitchen! You can cook and wine and eat like royalty without paying the restaurant!