So, the Powers That Bedevil have changed their minds and taken away my new job mere hours after giving it to me. It doesn’t make me like them any better.
ellen (Cher?) did you sip on a glass of wine while jacuzziing (it’s a word!)? I’m not sure, but I think that’s what you’re supposed to do. I don’t feel as if I have jacuzzed (it is to a word!) unless I sip on a glass of wine whilst soaking.
welby, HAH! You have inspired me. I want to get ACBG some plastic flowers and a Big Mac [sup]TM[/sup] and tell him I’m trying to seduce him. It’s been a while since I made a real romantic gesture like that.
Ya know, in the world according to Dante (not the doper Dante, he’s cool!) everybody winds up in hell. That was a deep thought. I hope my head does not start hurting.
Howdy MMPers, I don’t think I’ve posted in one of these before, but seeing the word "gravy’ draws me like a raccoon to garbage. Then I open it up and it’s not really about gravy at all, but pasta sauce!
But the reason I’m posting is that I really do have a great trick for gravy, the brown kind that all normal people are talking about when they say ‘gravy’.
Here’s the trick. When you’re just about done roasting your Meat Of Choice, take a medium size saucepan and make a nice golden brown roux in it. For those that need a refresher, that’s just an equal mix of flour and butter heated slowly.
Remove the Meat Of Choice from the roasting pan and deglaze it with just a little bit of white wine and then add your stock. Get it nice and hot and then pour it into the saucepan with the roux while whisking. You will have the richest, most velvety gravy, and no lumps.
If you like lumpy gravy, pretend you didn’t read any of that.
Have a great monday!
Thanks for all the sauce recipies! We’re having a spaghetti tailgate party on Saturday at the hockey game, and I signed up to bring sauce. Of course, after I had signed up I realized that I was going on the bus trip to Jacksonville for the game on Friday, which means I’ll have to make the sauce either on Wednesday or Thursday before the game and freeze it. Oh well - it tastes better a couple of days later.
Last Thursday was the Cottonmouths annual “Tip a Snake” banquet benefitting the Children’s Miracle Network. We have a nice sit-down dinner with the players waiting tables for tips. You want silverware to eat with? Tip. You want your chair back after you went to smoke a cig.? Tip. Leave your camera on the table? Search for the player who has it around his neck and tip. I even had to tip to get my glasses back! This year one of the door prizes was a gold and silver bracelet with two snakes heads on it. I won it! I was so suprised - I don’t win anything very often. I also got a team-autographed hockey stick at the silent auction and only spent about $100 over my ticket price. We had a lot of fun, and raised about $75,000 for CMN.
My grandfather informs me that his mother called her sauce “gravy.” They lived in Moosic, PA at the tme, FWIW. If you’re interested, here is her recipe, which I do in one day as opposed to half a week, and without the meat, which I usually add in when I heat it up for individual meals.
Just back from errands. Happened to find some baby portobellos on sale, and since I had a frozen chunk o’ ground beef, I’ll be making sketty sauce today. The bag o’beef is currently floating in a bowl of water to defrost. I’ve also got some eggs boiling so’s I can make some egg salad. And we’ve got leftover chicken, so I’ll be making some chicken salad for my sweetie, since he’ll be on his own for lunches the next coupla days.
Mango may well be a Hoosier thing, although I don’t recall hearing it when I was in college. Then again, I eat neither bell peppers nor mangoes, so it doesn’t really affect me.
I’ve got a load of clothes in the dryer - they didn’t dry while I was out and about, so I had to run them again. It was a pretty big load of heavy stuff - like sweats and socks and a pair of jeans. As soon as it’s done, I’ve got folding to do.
Oh yeah, I do know how to enjoy my days off, don’t I?
Okay, people. WTF.
I am Italian. My parents were born in New York. I have never from ANY family member heard the term “gravy” applied to spaghetti sauce.
Maybe that’s why they moved out here to California. Exiled.
I am completely distraught. GRAVY ISN’T SPAGHETTI SAUCE. I WON’T HAVE IT IT!!!
Howdy Augie and Cave welcome to the MMP. Those are your nicknames. We already have a Rue. Is Roux our Rue’s French cousin? French evil twin? All good gravy starts with a roux. I’m sure Rue would rather eat gravy than be part of it though. Or maybe not. Maybe Rue wants to be a roux, though he’d have to be made out of flour and butter to be a roux. Plus sometimes Rue has dog poop on his hands and I don’t think we’d want dog poop in a roux.
Cave that sauce recipe sounds nummy. I’ma give it a try next time I’m in the moood to make pasta sauce.
Hi everybody!
Welcome, Augie! (Everybody gets a nickname in the MMP.) I’m Rebo. That furry guy over there is Swampy, and there’s FCM over there making sketti gravy in the kitchen. Thanks for the brown gravy recipe. My brown gravy never does come out right. My cream gravy is great, though. And I cheat and make sketti sauce with jarred sauce, but I doctor the hell out of it.
I’ts been a busy weekend with nothing getting accomplished. Well, except laundry and stuff. I got the new King book Cell and I’ve been sucked into another universe. Where cell phones turn people into zombies! Ha! It’s pretty good.
I’m trying to make valances, but I can’t sew. I’m a designer/draftsman so I made the “blueprints” - but I can’t even iron a straight line. I’m going out today and get some tailors’ chalk. That may help. I bought “practice” material. too. I only have the one curtain for material for the valances.
I’m making King Ranch Chicken tonight. The house smells yummy with the smell of simmering chicken.
I’ve heard of green peppers being called mangoes in Ohio. I’ve also heard of sketti sauce being called gravy - from Rachel Ray (my hero!) on Food Network. She’s from upstate New York, and her daddy’s Eye-talian.
It was a long weekend. Two teenagers at home with lots of attitude, my 21 year old daughter has finally deigned to talk to me again, in order to tell me she’s joining the Coast Guard, my 23 year old daughter is having marriage problems and is coming down for the weekend, and then there is my husband. Anyone recall that he’s a commercial fisherman? Well, he left December 28th for the Bering Sea cod fishery, when that closed the skipper moved to the south side (of the Alutian Chain into the Gulf of Alaska) and while that fishery is due to close within a week or two, his (opilio) crab skipper is going to be headed out west (the Bering Sea) in a week or so for that fishery, so my husband will be home in time to do a couple of halibut trips, then segue into the salmon season, and then it’ll be time for red (king) crab out west, so I am not going to see him until November. Considering he worked this schedual last year, and then did boat work up to a few days before taking off in December, well, I miss him. So do the kids. It’s a bit of a bummer, but with fish prices down and fuel prices up, well, he’s got to beat the water to make our living. I knew he was a fisherman when I married him, so I guess I shouldn’t complain. I just miss him a lot.
He did send me a gorgeous bent wood, carved and inlaid, made in Russia heart shaped box for Valentine’s day, complete with a super corny but sweet love poem he had written to me inside it. He’s such a sweet guy!
The ravens have been calling continually for the last week, they have such a magical call. They must have stolen the sun again, I sure wish they would bring it back, there is snow on the ground this morning, with more in the forcast. The eagles are doing their pre-mating flights, and screaming as they fly by my window. They cruise by so closely I am able to see the yellow of their eyes. Big birds!
There was a bear killed last week, he was a three year old who had become a garbage and livestock (mostly chickens) bear, and was becoming too bold. I hate it when a bear is killed, but when they lose their fear it becomes a dangerous situation. He was given many opportunities to move on, but the pickings were just too easy. The guy who’s chickens the bear had been feeding on finally had enough when the bear finished off the last of the chickens The law allows deadly force in cases of defense of life and property, poor old lazy bear.
As for gravy, well, I make a mean pan of gravy, as well as an awesome pasta sauce! My oldest daughter’s father was half Italian, so the gravy reference didn’t throw me, but I do refer to it as a sauce. BTW, my gravy is never lumpy unless it’s either the sausage or giblet variety. Gramma taught me the secrets of gravy making when I was knee high to a grasshopper, and I have passed the skill to daughter #1. Daughter #2 isn’t interested in cooking, Daughter #3 is learning the basics and isn’t advanced enough for gravy making, and The Son is not too far beyond microwaving yet!
Probably the most fun I had was ordering my seed catalogs, do you know there is a new purple carrot variety for this year? Apparently it stays purple after cooking, as long as it’s not overcooked. It has a yellow interior, and you can bet the farm I am growing some of those this year!
swampbear you may have a pool, a hot tub and a whirlppol bath, and a killer grill, but I have a smokehouse and a banya! You may be the king of the backyard toys, but I am the princess of cool Alaskan yard accoutrement’s!
Finally, I am looking forward to “the best garlic bread” recipe, as I am fairly certain that I hold the secret for that! FairyChatMom I would love your crab soup recipe, we eat a lot of crab, and I need some new ways to prepare it. Oh, and “Dad is great! He gives us chocolate cake!” is a favorite ditty around our house, ya gotta love The Cos!!!
'morning, y’all!
Oops! Missed you there, Cave! Welcome to the Cool Kids’ Club!
I’ll happily share my recipe, but I have to warn you it’s made with Maryland-style steamed blue crabs. I can’t even guess how it would work with other kinds of crabs. On the other hand, it’s yummy with shrimp. I’ll dig it out and post it before the day is done.
Being a language nut, I am forced to go look for mango peppers because I know I’ve heard them called that before, either here in Ohio or near Louisville, KY. See the second definition. Turns out they’re all over the map: In addition to Indiana, they’re called that in parts of Illinois, Missouri, Virginia, Ohio and Wisconsin. There’s even a cite for Vermont.
As for the sauce vs. gravy thing, if you Google gravy spaghetti, you get a lot of results referring to Italian food, including this little explanation of the history of sauce vs. gravy from about.com. One of the results is for a Rachael Ray recipe that is the 30-minute tribute to the “Sunday Gravy and Macaroni” her grandfather used to make. (Sorry scout.
Well, I’ve obtained a couple of storage drawers for the kitchen. I have a little open cart and was tired of stuff getting dusty. It will all eventually be replaced when I re-do the kitchen, but for the moment, it was a cheap way to deal with the problem. Need to do some cleaning up around here, but I think I’m going to go for a walk first. It’s beautiful out. Not even too cold (somewhere under freezing, but sun and no wind…).
On preview, I see about a bazillion people have posted… Hi all!!!
GT
DH is Sicilian in origin, and grew up in Connecticut. It’s gravy all the way.
He’s also dismayed to discover that I make the stuff just as well as anyone in his family, and I’m German. Part of the secret is to toss a barnyard full of meat into it. Leftover bits of potroast, pork roasts, sausage, hamburger, etc, plus raw chicken that cooks in the sauce until it self-shreds. Mushrooms, diced celery, onions, garlic (garlic powder? Pa-tooey!) a bottle of chianti, and park it on the back burner all day long. Turn it off at night and pop the pot into the garage to cool. Next morning, fish out the chicken bones, break up any lumps of meat that haven’t fallen apart yet, and back on the stove to simmer all day again.
Oh, it helps to have a 20-quart stockpot. You just can’t do this in a 4-quart pan.
If you don’t have the culinary hardware, or the time, Contadina puts out a commercial sauce in #10 cans that’s surprisingly good for a canned commercial product. Unfortunately, you have to go to a place like Sysco or Smart & Final to find it.
I’m at work today. Someone’s got to keep the bank running while everyone else is at the Presidents Day sales. Cold in here too - the entire building was shut down over the weekend so they could replace the backup generators, UPS battery systems and do maintenance on the electrical switchgear. Without dozens of laser printers idling and hundreds of PCs running on every floor, there’s a lot of heat that wasn’t made, and the HVAC hasn’t caught up yet.
Hey there wiks! A smokehouse and a banya sound like fun. I wonder if I have enough room… hmmmm… since I’m slowly turning my backyard into a fortress, maybe a smokehouse would be a good idea.
Data point from a lurker: spaghetti sauce is gravy in the Northern California Italian community.
Except for me. I just get ignored.
It squeeked in, Swampy. I played the bump game, and I’m cooling my heels for 2 hours longer. Got a free round trip ticket that I’ll prolly use to bring the Rugrat in for a visit, and first class on both legs today. Life’s rough…
I have something kewl to report. I’m in the scareport now, and my laptop PC is REALLY a laptop, instead of a bellytop.
Aren’t you NCB?
kaiwik, it sounds beautiful where you live. And your husband sounds sweet; too bad he has to be gone so much.
Since I last posted, I emptied the dishwasher and contemplated how to move stuff around. My kitchen will one day have primo storage space. Currently, it’s quite improvised. I added shelves where the basement door used to open (the door is now a tabletop in the basement). It’s a really small kitchen and I’m trying to get every inch of space out of it, but the current design doesn’t make it easy…
Really…I’m off to take a walk now. Seriously. I promise.
GT