Tomato Cream Pasta Sauce

How the heck do you make a blob look good?!

Anyway…this was a spur of the moment “I-need-food-and-crave-something-sweet-yet-sour-and-savory”. It’s simple, deliciously satisfying and I am now sharing it with you, ugly, blobby pic or not.

It’s all about the sauce so I’m not getting into the meatballs which you can see (if you squint very intently) contributing to the blobbiness of the blob. I needed something a little more substantial than plain old pasta, even as good a sauce as this …. I need meat! Besides, gotta replace whatever I lost after this morning’s tough workout. Now I’m nicely padded again ….. sigh.

This was cooked by “feel”, as in, no precise measurements, just by my tastebuds. But I shall attempt to give you the amounts …. just an estimate. Taste as you go along. 

INGREDIENTS

250g tomato puree

1 large onion

4 -5 large cloves garlic

about 2 tbs grated parmesan cheese

salt & sugar, to taste 

200g cream

oil

butter

Chopped herbs

METHOD

Chop onion and garlic.

Heat oil and butter.

Saute chopped onion and garlic.

Pour in tomato paste.

Stir and simmer gently for a few minutes. 

Add parmesan. 

Taste and add salt and sugar as needed. (I’d used about 1/2 tsp salt and about 1 tbs sugar - this depends on how salty the parmesan is. So, tasting the sauce after adding the parmesan is important).

Remove from heat and cool a little before stirring in the cream.

Serve with prepared pasta of choice and a sprinkling of freshly chopped herbs …. and meatballs, if you prefer. 

Guest Post: Homemade Ricotta

Hey everyone!  
Shannon's blog-sitting for me while I'm caught up with one crisis after another. (I can't wait for this year to end ... seriously). 

If you haven't met her by now, hop over to her mostly gluten-free blog, JustAsDelish ... totally healthy and inspiring and get acquainted with one of the sweetest people I've met. 
She's also the reason behind my falling in love with quinoa! And she recently came out runner-up in the Nutriplus baking competition with her fancy mushroom quiche! I can tell you she'd had a better year than I did. Yay for her! 

So, enjoy reading her wonderful post, get inspired and run off to your kitchens and try your hand at making homemade ricotta. 

Here she is ....


Hello, all you Ping's Pickings readers! I'm Shannon from JustAsDelish.com. A gazillion thanks to Ping for asking to me guest post on her fabulous blog. As this is my 1st guest post, I was pretty nervous when she asked. I'm very honoured to do so but I was undecided on which recipe to share because she's such a fabulous cook & baker. Hmm.. what recipe for Ping?
One of the things I enjoy is making food from scratch.. food that is sold in the jars/cans - like condensed milk, peanut butter, yogurt. If a factory can produce them, there should be a recipe for me to try at home. There's nothing more satisfying to me than making them fresh. So what's more apt than sharing a "made from scratch" recipe - Homemade Ricotta Cheese.
Ricotta is a soft Italian curd cheese, light and creamy with a slightly grainy texture and delicate flavour. Making fresh cheese is easier than you think.  If you know how to make Paneer (Indian Cottage Cheese), the recipe is almost similar with milk & an acid (lemon juice or vinegar). Making ricotta needs 2 extra ingredient - plain yogurt and cream. Adding cream did indeed give an even richer edge. It's also possible to make ricotta with just milk, it will be less indulgent & 'healthier'. 
When I suggest to my friend Tracy to make her own Ricotta cheese for her ravioli, she look at me dumbfounded. Making Spinach & Ricotta Ravioli calls for a large amount of ricotta, and a very good 200g ricotta costs RM30 (USD10). She don't believe me how easy (and cheap) it is until I demonstrated to her. In 10 minutes with very little effort, we have a lovely mound of freshly made, still warm ricotta for the price of 1 liter of milk. We tested 2 batches of ravioli with store-bought & freshly made ricotta, and the ones with homemade ricotta win hands-down!
Homemade ricotta makes a wonderful base for Italian cheesecakes, ravioli fillings, and lasagna. Serving slightly warm ricotta over berries or peaches with a drizzle of honey makes a lovely dessert.
For the upcoming Christmas dinner parties & year end celebration, try serving freshly made ricotta accompanied with some stewed fruit compote or poached fruits. Trust me, your guests will be very impressed.

Homemade Ricotta Cheese
Makes: about 200g Ricotta Cheese

Ingredients:

1 liter whole (full cream) Milk
1/2 cup (125ml) plain Yogurt
1/2 cup (125ml) Cream - Optional
1 teaspoon vinegar (or lemon juice)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Instruction:

1. In a large pot, bring the milk, yogurt, cream (if using), and salt to a soft boil. 
2. Add in vinegar (or lemon juice) and boil for 1-2 two minutes, or until the milk curdled.
3. Meanwhile, line a strainer with a few layers of cheesecloth and set it over a deep bowl/pot.
4. Pour the milk mixture into the strainer and let drain for 15 minutes. Gather the cheesecloth around the curds and squeeze gently to extract any excess liquid. And you have warm fresh ricotta 

Note: 
* Homemade ricotta is best served slightly warm, or keep it refrigerated for up to three days, if desired.

* The liquid that is drained out is whey. You can throw it out, or I save it to use in place of milk for my cooking & baking.

Baked Eggs in Pomodoro Sauce

This whole week had been all about feasting ..... not the regular meals we have everyday, but feasting ... big, huge celebratory type meals. 
We had a bloggers meet-up. Feast. 
Then the inlaws had some happy moments and wanted to take us out for a treat. No coffee shop stuff, they said, so it's another fancy restaurant. Feast. 
Then we overdid it at the buka puasa stalls (that's the food stalls operated by muslim folks selling their specialities for the breaking of fast (Iftar) one month before Eid. And never go shopping for food on an empty stomach. I never learn). Feast.
Whoo! That's enough to have me hibernating for the next month. 
So a simple lunch it'll have to be today. Can't imagine putting in anymore rich, spicy, oily, creamy, sweet ..... gosh, that practically covers everything!
I'd bookmarked this from Quay Po Cooks sometime ago. It's perfect for a day like this. Light and easy. Served with some crusty bread .... I'm a happy person!
Thanks, Veronica, for sharing this. I did not have the exact same ingredients at hand, so I tweaked it to what was available in my fridge and pantry.


This was enough for 2 servings.




INGREDIENTS


1 can (411g, dunno why such an odd figure) peeled whole tomatoes
1 tbs oil for sauteing (I used grapeseed)
a few sprigs of thyme, stalks removed
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 large onion, finely diced
3/4 cup grated strong cheddar (or more if you prefer)
2 eggs
salt and black pepper to taste



METHOD


Heat oil and saute garlic and onions. 
When onions are soft, add in tomatoes. Squish them up a little. (Or a lot. I like mine chunky).
Add the thyme, salt and pepper. 
Simmer until reduced into a thick gravy. About 10 mins.
Scoop into 2 ovenproof bowls. (I used 4.5" ramekins)
Sprinkle grated cheese over the top.
Crack an egg onto that and bake at 180˚C for about 10 mins until cheese is melted, golden and egg is cooked but still has a runny yolk.
(Mmmmmm .... I love runny yolk!)


Serve with crusty bread.

Raspberry Ripple Cheese Tart

I did say I couldn't get myself into the mood to cook nor bake at this point of time but things are starting to look up a little. Also there are certainly no shortage of seriously tempting recipes around to get me going.

This was one of many. And I've also not made a cheesecake for the longest time. My family likes the non-baked ones, which is what I usually do (one day, that will get posted ... one day). The baked cheesecakes have always been a little too rich for me.

But when I saw this on Charles' page @ Five Euro Food, I knew I needed to make this and my tummy actually growled in approval! Definitely a good distraction from my worries for the moment. Not only that, the raspberry coulis, I knew, was going to balance out the richness of the cheesecake, so this was going to be a good one!

I called it a tart coz I'd sort of halved the recipe and it fitted perfectly into my flan pan ... and a couple of teeny tartlet tins. If you'd like the full recipe, please visit Charles, check out the English gentleman, ogle at his food and pics and get that idea of "English people eat only jellied eels and fish and chips" out of your head .... what? Nobody thinks that? Only me? Whoops .... (sorry, old chap) ... I forgot about Chicken Tikka Masala :)

(Please don't hate me).

INGREDIENTS

8 digestive biscuits

40g butter

250 g cream cheese

1/3 cup cream

1 tbs plain flour

80 g sugar

1 egg + 1 egg yolk

1/4 cup raspberry coulis (I used frozen berries pureed with 1 tbs lemon juice)

METHOD

Preheat oven to 180˚C

For the base:

Place biscuits in a food processor. Buzz til you get fine crumbs.

Melt the butter in the microwave and stir into the crumbs. (It should resemble wet sand)

Press into the bottom and sides of a shallow pie tin or in this case, I'd used an 8" tart / flan pan.

Bake for 10 minutes.

Remove and cool.

*Note: I made this a second time without baking the crust first and it also worked fine. I'd placed it in the fridge while I made the filling.

For the filling:

* Here you can use a hand/electric whisk. I'd used my food processor again after cleaning it of the crumbs.

Put in the cream cheese, eggs and flour. Buzz to mix evenly. Use a spatula to scrape the sides and bottom if needed.

Add the sugar and cream. Process until smooth.

Pour mixture into cooled crust.

Drizzle the coulis over the top. (I'd used a chopstick to make the streaks)

Bake for about 30 minutes.

Cool and place in refrigerator for a couple of hours to set a little (this was the hardest to do ... the waiting!)

(Don't ask me how long it keeps for, coz this was gone within 24 hours)