This is what I cooked last week for Paul's birthday. This is the second time I'd ever made a homemade Bolognese sauce. The previous time was when I lived with the girls at 480. I had gone home for the weekend and came across the recipe in Oprah magazine, my mom's favorite publication. It was part of an article about seducing your man with food. The author insisted that this bolognese could give you the leverage to make your man do anything. I didn't really need anything to be done, but thought I'd give this magic meal a try.It was one of my first ever ventures into making food from scratch. I was so clueless, I thought you needed to use oil to cook bacon. This resulted in the sauce being greasier than I'm sure it was meant to be, but still pretty tasty.
This time around I used this recipe from allrecipes.com. It was faster than the Oprah recipe, requiring only 1.5 hours of simmering instead of 4. Also, it uses pre-made tomato sauce, instead of the diced tomatoes called for by O. The result? This birthday sauce was more tomatoey, and had a more liquid consistency than the Oprah one. I asked the Birthday boy which one he liked better, and he preferred Oprah's. Good to know!
I poked around the Internet and found the O-riginal recipe, next time I'll stick with what the queen of the world says is best. I think it must be the 4 hours of simmering that make the big difference.
Even though we took home that whole fondant cake my mom made, I still wanted to bake something for Paul to blow candles out off of. Since we had raspberries in the house, I went with this guy I had seen recently on the blog smitten kitchen. It's fast, easy and delicious. The reason mine looks so much darker than the one in the original recipe is I cuz used whole wheat flour instead of white. I actually would recommend making this as a breakfast treat. With the wheat flour especially, it came out tasting like a fruit and grain breakfast bar. Yum!Yesterday, I went to the home inspection for the house. It was actually pretty fun and super informative. I really enjoyed it! I know where my emergency water shut off valve is now. Paul and Ialso signed the purchase and Sale for 152 Pearl street. If everything continues to go smoothly, we will soon be homeowners!
I've never heard of magic Spaghetti Bolognese, but I HAVE heard of Magic Meatloaf, which is supposedly so good it makes a man either say "I love you" for the first time, or propose (I assume depending on where you are in your relationship with him at the time you make the meatloaf). You don't need either of those things, though.
ReplyDeleteHave you set a closing date for your house yet?
We are supposed to close on July 24th. Since we paid first and last on our apartment, we have the whole month of August to make repairs and move in. I'm really relieved about that!
ReplyDeleteCool! I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Unfortunately, house-buying, from what I can tell, is tricky business that doesn't always go well. Here's hoping your process goes super smooth!
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of these magical dishes, only engagement chicken. I think the lesson here is that women's magazines are crazy.
ReplyDeleteI stumbled upon that raspberry cake and I wanted some SO BAD.
ReplyDeleteIf you guys need help with house stuff I really like that kind of thing. Like, hammering, painting, moving things around, etc. I'll be glad to assist in August after I get back from Star Trek convention and before I leave. Yay!