This is a great sauce for chile rellenos, enchiladas, steak, chicken…or dipping chips. You control the heat, making it as spicy as your taste likes! Unlike salsa, this is a thin, smooth sauce, increasing its versatility with foods.
Category: Recipes
Mustard Caper Sauce
This quick sauce is great for serving over chicken or pork chops. Or salmon. Whatever. It takes just a few minutes to prepare, so you can throw it together while the meat is cooking.
Pesto
Pesto is one of those perfect foods I wish I’d discovered earlier in life. It’s great on pasta, of course, but also kicks basic steamed rice up a notch. And, I love to serve it with salmon. Of course, I could probably eat pesto by the spoonful…
The ingredients for pesto are simple: basil, olive oil, parmesan cheese, garlic, and pine nuts. And you go from there. There is artichoke pesto, herb pesto, red pesto. Humans find ways to mess with this recipe every day — and I love them for it!
Basic Bolognese Sauce
This is, for me, the ultimate Italian sauce. It’s perfect for noodles, for lasagna, for parties. Yes, it takes a long time to make this sauce from scratch, but you can freeze it so it’s ready for quick meals at any time. I love to make this sauce on a Sunday afternoon. The scent permeates house, making everyone hungry, and, truth be told, I’m getting hungry just writing about it!
Modify this recipe to suit your own personal taste, but don’t omit the vegetables. They give depth and body to this sauce.
Red Wine and Balsamic Vinegar Sauce
A basic red wine reduction adds a simple elegance to a dish of beef or lamb. Adding balsamic vinegar to the wine reduction increases the flavor and surprises your guests (one friend, as she walked into the house for a dinner party, sniffed the air with pleasure as she got a whiff of the balsamic vinegar).
[box type=”note” style=”rounded” border=”full”]There is a saying that you should never cook with a wine you won’t drink. Or, please use a decent red wine. So-called “cooking wines” do not work for this sauce.[/box]
Lemon Cream Sauce
This sauce is a quick, tasty way to dress up chicken or fish (such as salmon). It cooks while you’re making the rest of the meal. I like to make extra to have with chicken and rice lunches.
Quick Pickled Carrot Sticks
I started craving pickled carrots after a great chirashi at a Japanese restaurant. A chirashi is, essentially, a dish of sushi rice topped with an assortment of fish. This particular meal came with about four tiny pickled carrots…and, oh, they were good.
So while I was making my own chirashi, I thought “I have carrots, I have time, I want pickled carrots.” And they were so easy. I served them that night, but they keep for about a month in the refrigerator, meaning that lovely pickly flavor keeps building over time.
[box type=”note” style=”rounded” border=”full”]You can use this basic recipe to pickle other kinds of vegetables as well[/box]