In the Kitchen With Mattie

Tonight was one of those nights that I eat alone, hubby works until late so I usually use these nights to prepare myself something that he doesn’t care for. I spent yesterday making sausage and peppers for him and a batch of meatballs to put in the freezer so tonight I decided to make myself some porcini mushroom sauce and add a few meatballs to it for my dinner alone night.

I happen to love all kinds of mushrooms but hubby detests them in any way, shape or form. Last week Amazon had a special on dried porcini and so I splurged and bought the 4 pack special they offered.  This morning I covered one package with boiling water and let the mushrooms re-hydrate, when they were fully hydrated I chopped them up a bit and proceeded to make this sauce, I have to say it came out great and will be even better tomorrow or the next day.

                                          Porcini Mushroom Sauce

2 ounces of dried porcini mushrooms, cover with boiling water and allow to sit for about 30 minutes, strain thru a fine seive and save the water for the sauce

1   28 ounce can of San Marzano tomatoes, whole, crushed with your hands

2 cloves garlic minced

1/2 small onion finely diced

1/2 cup dry white wine

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper

1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley

olive oil

Heat a 3 quart saucepan over medium heat and when it is hot add about 2-3 tablespoons of good olive oil. Let the oil heat and when it is hot add the finely minced onion, lower the heat if the onion starts to brown and saute it until it softens up. Add the garlic and the crushed red pepper and continue to saute, keep stirring and watch the heat so it doesn’t burn. Add the mushrooms that have been drained and chopped into nice sized pieces, sautee until the bottom of the pan develops some fond, add the wine and scrape up all the browned bits, cook until the wine reduces to about half of the original amount. Add the tomatoes, their liquid and the rest of the seasonings and the strained water from soaking the mushrooms if it isn’t gritty. Lower the heat and half cover the pan and cook the sauce for about 45 minutes, stir once or twice and keep it just above a gentle simmer. After 45 minutes remove the lid and turn the heat up a bit to reduce the sauce to as thick as you prefer it.

This sauce came out great and I will admit I kind of pigged out on it, it was so good that I was eating it with a spoon without any bread or pasta at one point.

Our leftover I am kind of ashamed to say end up in the trash or in the dogs bowls usually. True the dogs really appreciate them but lately I really try to get another meal out of our food around here. I was going to take out the deli slicer and slice the last of the rib roast that I did on the grill into meat for cheesesteaks but the center was still rare enough that I could actually just heat it in a saute pan without drying it out. I also sauteed a load of baby portobello mushrooms to go along with it and I had the last of the pasta salad and hubby had the last of the potato salad. I am proud to say that every bit of the food we made for the fourth of July was eaten and not a bit went to waste!

We had a very nice and quiet Fourth this year. Our son Matt came over and we had a nice BBQ for the three of us. I made enough food for us all to have for the next few days. When the weather is as hot as it has been this past few weeks even I don’t feel like spending all day in the kitchen or out back over a hot grill, so if I am going to cook I will make more than enough to last us a few days.

I went very simple this time with seasonings and all. We had some potato salad, pasta salad, a tossed salad and for meats I made some burgers, hot dogs, a nice rib roast (it came out perfect, and we really gorged ourselves on that), and bone in chicken breasts. I also put some of the shrimp we have in the freezer in a grill pan on the grill.  Matt took enough home to last him a few days so nothing was going to go to waste.

The day was extremely hot and humid and in the early afternoon it started to thunder and lightening and we really thought we would be getting some much needed rain, however it never came until very late that night.

I am late in getting this post up on here because as I was getting ready to put it up the night of the fourth we had a lightening strike that managed to kill my wireless set up. We went to the store and replaced it the next morning but as I am pretty lame when it comes to hooking up these computer things I had no luck in installing it. So it is sitting here in the box and will probably be outdated before I could ever get it to work.

I had asked the guy at Best Buy if it would be over my head to install everything and after asking me a bunch of questions about my ability and the set up I already had here he told me it would be NO problem for me to just follow what was already set up here and it would pretty much install itself. I did as he and the instructions said and after hours and several tries I still couldn’t get it to work. It took me until late last night to finally get my old cable modem going……….it means that I am chained to my desk to be online but the truth is that in the two years since our oldest son visited and set up the wireless network I have never once used my computer anywhere but at my desk, so in fact a wireless set up isn’t something I need.

So long story shorter, we wasted about $75 bucks buying the new equiptment………lesson there, if you don’t need it don’t get it, I am happy with my old way of using my computer even if I am chained to my desk!

Hope everyone had a nice fourth!