Salsa de tomate (pasta sauce)

Ingredients

• la carne (beef ribs, chicken, Italian sausage, etc) whatever you have or like
  
• 1 large can of tomato sauce
  
• 1 large can of whole peeled tomatoes
  
• 2 cans of stewed tomatoes
• 2 onions
  
• 2 heads of garlic
  
• 2 large carrots
  
• 1 large green pepper
  
• wine for deglazing the pot (any leftover wine will work here)

Heat a bit of olive oil in a large pot or french oven
Season the meat with salt and pepper and then brown the meat in your pot
Remove the meat from the pot and set it aside

In a blender, put in 1/2 of the onions, carrots, peppers, and garlic with stewed tomatoes, whole peeled tomatoes, and tomato sauce.

In the pot, brown the remaining onions, carrots, garlic, green peppers.

Add wine and deglaze the pot.
Once the alcohol burns off, add the tomato sauce from the blender.
Add your seasonings (bay leaves,oregano, basil,pepper, sugar, and salt as needed).

Add back the meat and let it simmer. Make sure to stir it occasionally (gently) while it is simmering and use the opportunity to taste and see if it needs additional seasoning. Let it simmer for about an hour. Let it continue to simmer until you see the oil rise to the top (the picture below shows my mom's sauce today when the oil rose to the top).

At this point you can use the sauce or continue to let sauce thicken by letting it continue to simmer.

Prior to using remove the meat and set it aside for serving separately

Tip from mom:

• Let the sauce cool completely before dividing it up for freezing for individual uses or before putting it in the refrigerator. If it isn't completely cooled the sauce will taste sour and be ruined.

Next time we are going to try making it in an electric pressure cooker which should speed things up..

Today the sauce accompanied ravioli's and the meat.

Alfajores w dulce de leche and coconut

Ingredients
200 grams of butter (at room temperature)
150 grams of sugar
1 egg + 2 yolks
1 tablespoon of cognac (or any other liquor)
300 grams of corn starch
200 grams of AP Flour (sifted)
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda or Royal
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of vanilla
zest of 1 orange & zest of 1 lemon
dulce de leche
coconut shavings
preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit

Preparation
Mix together the corn starch, flour, baking powder, baking soda and set it aside.


In a mixer on low setting put in butter
gradually add in sugar until fully combined
add in one yolk at a time before adding in the egg
once combined, add in the cognac, vanilla, orange and lemon zest.

Put on the mixer's dough hook, add in the flour mixture and mix until a dough ball forms.

Remove the dough and place it on a surface coated lightly with flour
Sprinkle flour on top of the dough ball
Roll out the dough until it is about 1/4 thick
Sprinkle powder of corn starch over the rolled out dough
Cut into ~1.5 in diameter circles
Continue this process of rolling out and cutting into circles with the unused portions until all the dough is used.

Put the cookies on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and put in the oven for 15 minutes (make sure they do not burn).

Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool

Once they are cold, cover the bottom side of a cookie with dulce de leche and put another cookie on top of the dulce the leche.  Roll the sides into the coconut shavings.  Now you have an alfajor!

Finally, another recipe: Chimichurri

Saturday I finally got around to making chimichurri. It coincided with my month-long craving for meat after giving it up for several months...

Ingredients

2 bunches of parsley

1 head of garlic

crushed red pepper

pepper

extra virgin olive oil

red wine vinegar

salt

oregano

Remove the large stems from the parsley.  The smaller stems that are attached to the leaf are more tender and okay to use.  Finely chop the parsley and garlic. Season to taste with oregano, crushed red pepper, salt and pepper. Add the olive oil and after it has rested a while, add the vinegar.

Put it in the refrigerator for a few hours or until you are ready to serve it. I left mine in over night and then took it to my parents house for a delicious Sunday asado (Argentine BBQ) made by my dad. My parents enjoyed it. Success!

It is delicious with meat, excellent on a choripan, or add it to a sandwich.

It stores in the refrigerator well for a week or two.

Enjoy!

How to make empanada dough (Masa de Hojaldre)

I have watched my mom (pictured in the photos) make this dough my entire life and today she called me to help her make it. My best friend Albert (who is an awesome chef) asked me to write down the recipe for him. So here it is finally with pictures and everything! :)

Today my mom wanted to make a lot of dough in order to freeze it and have it ready for use. She called me saying that she didn't have any left in her freezer (the travesty)  and was really wanting to make empanadas.

This recipe makes 7 rolls of dough and can be made into about 140 empanadas.

Ingredients

• 5 lbs of unbleached flour (plus have extra around to use as needed)
• 2 eggs @ room temperature
• 4 cups of lukewarm water with juice of 1 medium lemon and 1 teaspoon of salt
• box of Maizena (corn starch)
• 2 sticks of margarine
• Crisco

Put the 5 lbs of flour formed into a well on your work surface. Crack the 2 eggs into the center of the well and add 12 tablespoons of Crisco. (shown)

Squish the eggs and Crisco together with your hand and add a little of the water/lemon mixture.  Begin to form the dough incorporating the flour little by little and adding the water/lemon mixture as needed for moisture.  (I didn't get a picture of this part because my hands were full of dough.)  Since this is a lot of dough, we had to divide it in half and each of us kneaded it. The dough will be very soft when finished. 


Divide it into 7 equal pieces (shown together) and cover it with plastic wrap.

Let the dough rest a little while preparing the margarine spread to use once you roll out the first piece. Put the margarine in a bowl and add flour as needed so that it makes a cream. My mom says that the texture is like face cream - I'm guessing ponds!? 


Use a rolling pin to roll out the first piece of dough into a rectangle (almost a square) on your board. It should be fairly thin.



Then spread a thin layer of the creamed margarine onto it. Finish this off by sprinkling a light layer of corn starch over the rolled out dough.  We used a strainer (shown) because we didn't have a sifter.













Roll it starting from the shorter edge very tight (this is the critical piece that takes a lot of practice). You roll it very tight, pulling the roll and compressing it as you roll. I got the hang of it eventually, but I got moved out of the way a lot and shown how its properly done. That's when I took the opportunity to take the picture. :)  I probably should have shot a video too.

When its completely rolled, wrap the roll in plastic wrap (like a burrito) so that air doesn't get in it.

Continue making these rolls with the rest of the pieces of dough using the same process.






We put all of the rolls on a pan, covered them with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator for a day and a half before putting it in the freezer.

Each roll of Masa de Hojaldre should give you roughly 20 empanadas.

Finished!  We cleaned up and sat down to drink Mate and chatted about making dough.  I also learned that my mom was shown how to make Masa de Hojaldre from my Tia Isabel's mom who rolled it out perfectly.

This was indeed an accomplishment for me today.  It was so great to finally learn to make it after only watching for so many years...   I have a lot of practicing to do.