spaghetti night

My cooking journey today began with salt pork. I made tomato sauce, stuffed meatballs and had help with some home made Italian bread. But I need to express my love for the tomato sauce that begins with rendering salt pork.

You have to practically mince the salt pork, because if you chop it too thickly it will sautee and the fat will not melt out properly. It's not easy to mince salt pork because it's extremely fatty and it feels like trying to cut through rubber. But with great patience and focus, I minced it.

I tossed it into a large sauce pan and let the fat melt off on medium heat. Salt pork has the most wonderful smell- it's more sophisticated to me than the smell of bacon cooking.

I chopped up the mirepoix- onion, carrot and celery and put it into the pan to sweat in the salt pork fat. The smells were starting to come alive! I loved the combination of celery and pork- a fresh smell on top of a deep savory meaty smell. My stomach was starting to growl.

On top of that went several fresh tomatoes, chicken stock, pork bones, and my sachet filled with bay leaves, peppercorns, garlic and parsley stems. I let all this simmer for hours...pretty much all day until the flavors deepened and the sauce reduced. Before serving, I puréed the sauce and seasoned it to taste! I love the fact that I could smell this sauce cooking all day long. The pork bones made it taste meaty, full and rich. It turned out fresh and delicious- worth the work!

I made stuffed meatballs as well. I combined ground beef, stale French bread crumbs, egg, milk, garlic, red pepper flakes, fresh parsley, salt and fresh Parmesan cheese and rolled the meat into balls. To make them even better, I stuffed each meatball with fresh mozzarella cheese so there was a surprise on the inside and a twist to your traditional boring meatball. So good!

My dad made Italian feather bread that tasted ...so..good.. Especially hot out of the oven and slathered with soft butter.
I'd say that today was a food therapy success. Embarking on a home cooked meal that filled the house with wonderful smells lifted my spirits and my family's spirits- I think they were excited to have dinner cooked for them. Bon appetit!

seasonal depression cure: food.

When it is freezing outside and the sky is grey, it's hard to feel excited about life. This is my confession. I spend a lot of time griping about how much I miss seasons where plants actually grow and I can walk outside with shorts on.  Over the years I've learned that one way to transform my winter blues is through cooking.

If I can bring smells into the kitchen that wake me up...sounds that stimulate my appetite and sights of beautifully colored ingredients in front on me, it doesn't have to feel like winter anymore.

The smell of king cake baking in all the grocery stores in Louisiana is one of my favorite winter pick me ups. Not to mention the ever glorious smell of coffee brewing, and surrounding myself with those people who never feel guilty about drinking it all day...

Tomorrow I am going to cook spaghetti and meatballs for my family. Cooking for them (parents, sister, etc.) is often tricky because we all have different food preferences (that's the nice way of putting it).  But this is a meal that almost everyone loves. I am going to treat the cooking process as a food/blogging experiment and I am going to document my steps with pictures and explanations of the sensory pleasures. Hopefully it will take me outside of the winter blues and into and inspiring, lively place of warm bubbling sauces and smells of an Italian kitchen ... Stay tuned if you need an escape as well.