Love through the stomach... » Recipes https://www.lovethroughthestomach.com If the way to a love's heart is truly through the stomach, let love commence! Mon, 26 May 2014 20:24:22 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.24 Making sausage https://www.lovethroughthestomach.com/2012/04/making-sausage/ https://www.lovethroughthestomach.com/2012/04/making-sausage/#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:32:36 +0000 http://www.lovethroughthestomach.com/?p=2886 I decided I needed to try to make my own sausages. My wonderful, wonderful butcher has some great sausages, but really, I wanted to give it a try. To add my own flavors, make my own combinations. It was  one of those things I felt the need to try at least once.

Like many of [...]]]>

Frying up some home-made sausages.

I decided I needed to try to make my own sausages. My wonderful, wonderful butcher has some great sausages, but really, I wanted to give it a try. To add my own flavors, make my own combinations. It was  one of those things I felt the need to try at least once.

Add seasoning before grinding, to make it easier to mix all flavors after grinding

Like many of the foods I feel the need to make, this – yet again – proved to be well worth the little bit of extra work.

The sausage casings needs to be washed before use

It doesn’t mean that I stop buy sausages from my butcher. But it does mean that along with the sausages, I might buy some random, cheaper cuts of meat and some pork intestines as well.

Grind the meat at a setting you like. Do you want chunky sausage, or really fine?

Making sausages is fun. It really is. It’s easy too and the finished product is tasty. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Mix and knead the ground meat to make sure all the flavors are well-distributed

Now the pictures you see here and the recipe that follows are a simple pork sausage with some French herbs. But as with most home-made foods, the key is to use your own imagination. To make combinations you think might be tasty. Have fun with it. I sure did!

The sausage stuffer.

There are a few things to take into consideration when making sausages.

You place the entire length of casing over the stuffer, then pull it off as you fill.

First: Make sure that you have a way to get the meat into the casing. A sausage stuffer attachment for a stand mixer is awesome, but any type of funnel should work.

Pull the casing off the stuffer as it's being filled.

Second: Any good butcher makes some of his own sausages. He’ll be able to sell you some casings.

Keep filling the casing into one giant sausage.

Third: Fat equals flavor and moisture. Completely lean sausage will taste terrible, so don’t shy away from fat.

Twist the casing to create individual sausage links.

Pork sausages with french herbs
Author: Valerie
Prep time: 45 mins
Cook time: 15 mins
Total time: 1 hour
Ingredients
  • about 350 grams of lean pork
  • about 150 grams of fatty pork (pork belly)
  • 1 onion
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • a generous amount of herbes de provence
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 pork intestine (or other type of sausage casing)
Instructions
  1. Cut the pork in 1 inch cubes, dice the onion and cut up the garlic, place all in a bowl with a generous amount of herbes de provence and salt and pepper to taste.
  2. Grind the meat together the herbs in a meat grinder. Knead the ground meat to make sure all seasoning and meats are well combined. Add onions and garlic before or after grinding, depending on whether you like larger pieces of onion in there or not.
  3. Wash the sausage casing and place it on a sausage stuffer. Tie a knot on the end of the casing.
  4. Push the meat mixture down the sausage stuffer while moving the casing along with the meat stuffing to create one long sausage.
  5. Once all the meat is inside the casing, twist the sausage at your preferred length to make individual sausage links, then cut off the excess sausage casing.
  6. Cook the sausage like you would do with a store-bought sausage. You can also freeze them.
Notes

You can vary endlessly with the types of seasoning and filling you use. Just make sure you do use a generous amount of fatty meat, so the sausage doesn’t dry out when you cook it.

A bowl of home-made sausage links.

 

]]> https://www.lovethroughthestomach.com/2012/04/making-sausage/feed/ 18 Back to the grill https://www.lovethroughthestomach.com/2012/04/back-to-the-grill/ https://www.lovethroughthestomach.com/2012/04/back-to-the-grill/#comments Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:32:31 +0000 http://www.lovethroughthestomach.com/?p=2872 Way back in September or so, I ran out of gas on my grill. Since it was getting colder and the weather was getting nastier, I kept postponing the refill (or forgetting if that’s what you want to call it…)

When buying all my seeds and soil and stuff for my garden, [...]]]>

Thick, juicy seasoned ribs are ready to be smoked and grilled.

Way back in September or so, I ran out of gas on my grill. Since it was getting colder and the weather was getting nastier, I kept postponing the refill (or forgetting if that’s what you want to call it…)

When buying all my seeds and soil and stuff for my garden, I realized I could buy my refill right there and so next to gardening season, grilling season was opened again as well.

I started out grilling some of the best burgers I’ve ever grilled. Good quality beef with some great seasoning and grated semi-aged farm cheese. It doesn’t get much better than that if you talk burgers. Grilling, however, can always get better when you move on to ribs. I’ve mentioned my ribs on here before. Seasoned with an award winning rub and slowly cooked away from direct heat with some good smoking chips added to the grill.

When mentioning those ribs back them, I also mentioned that the key to awesome ribs, is the removal of the membrane. It allows the flavors to truly seep through, not only the seasoning, but the smoke as well. And the slow grilling makes them fall-of-the-bone delicious. Sure, full on smoking them for 12 hours as they do in great BBQ joints is better. I’m not going to deny that. But if you have a busy life doing it my way will still give you awesome ribs, without having to spend 12 hours.

Removing the membrane from the rib; use a paper towel and just do it!

As soon as you know how it’s done, it really is very easy. You take a regular dinner knife, with a rounded top, and pry it under the  membrane in a corner somewhere. You just need to lift it a little to get a start. Don’t use a very sharp knife, as that’ll just tear the membrane.

Once you have a little starting point, you just pull. The membrane and the ribs will be slippery, so holding the membrane with a paper towel while you pull makes this job a whole lot easier.

Sprinkle on the seasoning, I use 'Team Sweet Mama Kansas City rub'

Once all the membrane is taken off (you might have to do it in pieces, if it rips), you season your ribs on all sides with a good rib rub and let it sit for a short time while you heat up the grill.

Make sure to season on both sides of the ribs.

We’re using indirect heat, so light only 1 half of the grill. Place an aluminum bowl with some smoke chips over the flames. The directions for your smoke chips will be on the bags. Some need to be soaked, some don’t.

Close the lid and let the grill heat up. As soon as you see some smoke escaping, your grill is ready to put the ribs on there.

Make sure you give your ribs a good rub before putting them on the grill, it really helps them soak up the flavor.

Place the ribs on the other side of the grill, the side where there is no fire. Check on them after about half an hour, turn them over and brush them with a solution of vinegar, ketchup and the rib rub. Continue doing so every 20 to 30 minutes until the meat is fully cooked. Depending on the thickness of the ribs this may take between 1 to 2 1/2 hours. If it’s going too slow you may place it closer to the flames (or even on top) after an hour to speed things up.

Make sure the temperature under the hood of your grill is always between 125 and 150 degrees celsius, lower than that and it will actually take forever.

Enjoy your fall off the bone, delicious, awesome smoky ribs.

 

]]> https://www.lovethroughthestomach.com/2012/04/back-to-the-grill/feed/ 1 Guanciale (pasta all’amatriciana) https://www.lovethroughthestomach.com/2011/10/guanciale-pasta-allamatriciana/ https://www.lovethroughthestomach.com/2011/10/guanciale-pasta-allamatriciana/#comments Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:01:01 +0000 http://www.lovethroughthestomach.com/?p=2802 If you’ve ever read this blog before and/or haven’t been hiding under a rock, you know that I love Italian delicacies. Unfortunately with the exception of prosciutto di Parma and Parmigiano and Pecorino, most Italian meats and cheeses are either hard to come by outside of Italy, or extremely expensive. Sure, knock-offs are widely available [...]]]> guanciale

Guanciale, one of Italy's tastiest secrets.

If you’ve ever read this blog before and/or haven’t been hiding under a rock, you know that I love Italian delicacies. Unfortunately with the exception of prosciutto di Parma and Parmigiano and Pecorino, most Italian meats and cheeses are either hard to come by outside of Italy, or extremely expensive. Sure, knock-offs are widely available since Italian food has become immensely popular around the globe, but the true taste of Italy is hard to come by.

One of these delicacies is guanciale. Guanciale translates to ‘little cheeks’, but there’s nothing little about it – not in size, nor in flavor. Guanciale is a cheek though. It’s a pork cheek, cured and generously seasoned with amongst other spices, lots of black pepper. Guanciale looks a little like bacon, the consistency and taste however is much, much more delicate.

When we visited Milan last month I brought back a guanciale. I also brought two different sausages and a piece of speck, 3 different cheeses (large chunks) and 4 kilos of flour home with me, but today I’m writing about the guanciale.

guanciale from a Milanese supermarket

Guanciale is for sale at every supermarket or butcher.

a whole guanciale

One side is heavily seasoned, the other side has the chewy (cleaned) skin.

Guanciale is the meat that’s traditionally used for pasta all’amatriciana and pasta alla carbonara. Or that’s what the internet likes me to believe. I absolutely adore guanciale, there is no way to describe it. If you like bacon (and really, who doesn’t) you’ll like guanciale. It’s better than bacon! And no, that’s not heresy, because really it’s just bacon with even more flavor.

Little strips of guanciale

The guanciale cut up in strips

The first thing I used my guanciale for (I got a whole piece, so it’s quite large) was for a 1-dish-meal version of Pasta all’Amatriciana. I hadn’t had time to buy groceries and my zucchini plant had shed it’s last fruit, I had guanciale, I had tomatoes, I had pasta and I figured it just had to do.
Do it did! The pasta was delicious, the guanciale gave it just the nice little different kick that you wouldn’t have had with bacon or another meat. It was the perfect way to inaugurate the food I’d smuggled* home!

Adding cheese to the pasta dish

Adding cheese into the pan before serving

Pasta all’Amatriciana (with extra veggies)
Recipe Type: main
Author: Valerie/Love through the stomach…
Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: 15 mins
Total time: 20 mins
Serves: 2
This is a variation on the classic pasta all’Amatriciana adding more vegetables to make it a single-course main dish.
Ingredients
  • short pasta (penne, rigatoni, fussilli etc enough for 2 persons)
  • 200 grams of guanciale (substitute bacon if you don’t have guanciale)
  • 1 package of passata di pomodori (strained tomatoes)
  • 1 or 2 small red chilis (to taste)
  • 1 whole clove of garlic, peeled
  • 1 medium zucchini
  • plenty of pecorino or parmigiano cheese
  • olive oil
  • some small fresh tomatoes (optional)
Instructions
  1. Boil the pasta in plenty salted water.
  2. Drizzle a skillet or heavy bottomed frying pan with a little olive oil, then add the guanciale or bacon, the chili(s) and the garlic and cook them on fairly low heat. You want the Guanciale to release some fat and the chili and garlic to release flavor, be careful not to brown them.
  3. Dice the zucchini (remove the watery inner core) and add to pan. Once the garlic is brown, remove it. Depending on the lever of heat you like, you can either remove the chilis as well or leave them in (or cut them up with or without seeds).
  4. Add the passata di pomodori (strained tomatoes) to the pan, enough to make the amount of sauce you like. I use about 2/3 of a cup.
  5. Drain the pasta when al dente, then add to pan with sauce. If you have them, you can now add some diced fresh tomatoes to the pan as well. Mix well, remove from heat, add a generous amount of cheese, stir the cheese in and serve immediately.
finished pasta all'Amatriciana alla valerie

The finished dish, delicious!

*Since I’m within the EU, it obviously wasn’t smuggling, but traveling with 4 kilo’s of white powder and very smelly (garlicy sausages, cheese) in my suitcase, it sortof felt like I did!

]]> https://www.lovethroughthestomach.com/2011/10/guanciale-pasta-allamatriciana/feed/ 5 Roasted tomato sauce https://www.lovethroughthestomach.com/2011/09/roasted-tomato-sauce/ https://www.lovethroughthestomach.com/2011/09/roasted-tomato-sauce/#comments Sun, 11 Sep 2011 20:18:21 +0000 http://www.lovethroughthestomach.com/?p=2637 Summer in Amsterdam lasted about 2 days. Strike that, we had 2 summers this year, both lasting about 1 day. It caused the sad demise of my tomatoes, which I told you about before.

I was able to rescue a small bowl full of half ripe tomatoes and put [...]]]> Summer in Amsterdam lasted about 2 days. Strike that, we had 2 summers this year, both lasting about 1 day. It caused the sad demise of my tomatoes, which I told you about before.

I was able to rescue a small bowl full of half ripe tomatoes and put them in the window sill. Helping them ripen by gaining every tiny little ray of sunlight available. Once they were ripe, I ceased the moment to make my roasted tomato sauce.

Tomatoes and other veggies before they became sauce

Tomatoes and other veggies before they became sauce.

I usually try to make a batch large enough to last me through winter. This time the sauce won’t go that far, but at least it’ll last me a little while. Since I hardly ever use it as is, I can stretch it quite far. The fact that it’s so concentrated, and roasted, makes it versatile and easy and healthy enough for a quick weeknight meal, but flavorful and special enough to also use in a special dinner. I’ve been known to add broth to it and make a very tasty tomato soup. My 4 year old cousin who despises vegetables or healthy food in general was happy to eat many bites of pasta with this sauce because it really is that good (and to the unsuspected viewer doesn’t look like it’s almost 100 percent vegetable!)

I loved making this sauce with veggies from my garden. Despite the fact that it isn’t much, I know I’ve put them to good use. And every time this fall and winter, when I eat sauce, I will remember the fact that I actually grew food myself. That really is something too, at least for a city girl like me.

vegetables in casserole dish, ready to be roasted

Vegetables in the casserole dish, ready to be roasted.

Needless to say, I love making this sauce. I freeze it into ice cubes -sauce cubes – and add it to whatever sauce or dish I’m making which can benefit from the taste of home-made roasted tomato sauce.

I’ve made many variations of this sauce over time. Sometimes I add carrots, Sometimes regular onions. The only constant really are the tomatoes. The other constant is that it’ll be the best sauce you’ve ever tasted!

vegetables in casserole dish, after about 45 minutes of roasting

Vegetables in casserole dish, after about 45 minutes of roasting.

Roasted tomato sauce
Author: Valerie / Love through the stomach…
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 1 hour 50 mins
Total time: 2 hours
Ingredients
  • 12-15 tomatoes, nice and ripe
  • 1 orange bell pepper
  • 2 chili peppers
  • 1 head of garlic
  • 5 or 6 scallions
  • olive oil
  • salt
  • fresh herbs
Instructions
  1. Cut all the vegetables into large chunks and place them in a casserole dish. Drizzle with olive oil, add a little salt and place in a hot oven (350F/175C), stir/turn vegetables over after about 45 minutes. Once the vegetables are all nice and very soft add the fresh herbs and place back in the oven for about 30 minutes.
  2. Once the vegetables are done, process them through a food mill into a fairly thick sauce.
  3. Let the sauce cool down and divide it into ice cube trays or small freezer safe bowls and freeze the sauce for later use.
  4. Use the sauce as is or add it to some ground beef or to some plain strained tomatoes for a variation in sauce.
Notes

Don’t worry if the vegetables get fairly dark, that’s all extra taste! Make sure they don’t fully burn though, if it goes too fast, lower the heat of your oven.
If you use a KitchenAid food mill (attached to a stand mixer) take the scraps through the mill at least once again or until the scraps are completely dry, the sauce will be even more concentrated and have more flavor!
Below are pictures of the process from removing the vegetables from the oven to the final product, sauce in cubes and dry scraps of seeds and skins to be discarded.

Roasted vegetables done and ready to be processed into sauce.

Roasted vegetables done and ready to be processed into sauce.

 

roasted tomato sauce processing through the food mill

The roasted vegetables going through the food mill to become sauce.

Sauce in ice cube tray to be frozen

Roasted tomato sauce put in a cutesy ice cube tray to be frozen for later use.

What's left after processing the roasted tomato sauce

After putting the roasted vegetables through the KitchenAid food mill and re-processing the discarded scraps, this little dry heap of skins and seeds is what's left to toss.

]]> https://www.lovethroughthestomach.com/2011/09/roasted-tomato-sauce/feed/ 3 The 7 links project https://www.lovethroughthestomach.com/2011/09/my-blog-revisited-the-7-links-project/ https://www.lovethroughthestomach.com/2011/09/my-blog-revisited-the-7-links-project/#comments Thu, 08 Sep 2011 15:15:26 +0000 http://www.lovethroughthestomach.com/?p=2620 Whenever I need a recipe or food idea, I usually look up a blog. Often that will be other peoples blogs. Whenever I know that I’ve written a post about something myself, I will look it up on my own blog though. So when Simone of Jungle Frog Cooking asked [...]]]> My blog revisited

Whenever I need a recipe or food idea, I usually look up a blog. Often that will be other peoples blogs. Whenever I know that I’ve written a post about something myself, I will look it up on my own blog though. So when Simone of Jungle Frog Cooking asked me to join in the 7 links project, I got excited. A post looking back on my own favorite posts. Looking back onto the posts that deserve a little extra attention.

In the year and a half that I’ve been blogging. there have been enough posts that I remember. Ones that I like to look back to myself. In this post I put them together for you.

My most beautiful post

Sprinkling chocolate over Tiramisu

This was a post very early on in the blog. We had really only just started making photo’s specifically for the blog. As I started sprinkling the chocolate Laurens told me to stop. He started placing his flash elsewhere, moved cutting boards around to reflect the right light and tried to choreograph the photo. When he said okay, I started sprinkling more chocolate over the tiramisu and hoped he got the shot he wanted as I was running out of chocolate. The picture tuned out amazing, or so I think. The Tiramisu was very tasty too. the secret – make it in advance!

My most popular post

A swiss roll ice cream cake - delicious

The one single post that has been getting the most hits ever since it’s been posted – even after moving the whole site to a new domain, is the step-by-step post of a swiss roll ice cream cake I made for Daring Bakers last summer. The challenge was to make everything yourself, from swiss rolls to 2 kinds of ice cream and a sauce. It tuned out to be a lot of work, but very tasty! I haven’t made it again since, but I’m glad to know I have the skills to make such an awesome dessert if I need to!

My most controversial post

 

Grocery store meats, not very appetizing!

In May of 2010 I had just about had it with the terrible quality of the meat sold at our local grocery store. I wrote a long rant about the quality of meats at grocery stores and illustrated it with this not-too-appetizing picture. Since we moved into our new home in October of that same year, I’ve been buying 90 percent of my meats at the butcher. I already knew that the taste and overall quality would be (and indeed is) much better, but in all honesty, it really isn’t that much more expensive either. A rant about the quality of food seems a little controversial though.

My most helpful post

Almost Cinnabons, best home-made cinnamon rolls ever

The best home-made cinnamon rolls in the world, no questions asked!

Cinnamon rolls were my first breakfast-pastry-love. And you can’t go much better than a fresh baked Cinnabon from a mall somewhere. Warm, a little gooey with that wonderful cream cheese icing on top. Yep, I love my cinnamon rolls, and I found/tweaked a recipe that mimics my favorite type pretty much perfectly. Judging from popularity and comments, both on- and offline, I’ve got to say that this is my most helpful post. Also the trick with the ceramic cups to make sure they sit close together seems to be a keeper!

Most surprising success post

A sliced of bread with the pastrami piled on.

I honestly have no idea why this post is so popular in page views. It’s an explanation on Dutch sandwich lunches and a request for a good pastrami recipe. To make my own. Despite the fact that there are a bunch of people who look at the post every single day, no-one has sent me their favorite recipe yet. I guess they just come here to see if I have one.

Post that didn’t get the attention it deserved

Delicious, crispy catuccini. Perfect for soaking in espresso or vin santo.

These beautiful and very tasty cantuccini didn’t get all that much attention and I bet I know why. It was the second post of that day. Posted only a little while after I posted that I screwed up my cantuccini. It was the first time I made cantuccini and I had certain expectations. Halfway through it looked like the cookies didn’t even come close to meeting those expectations. The fact of the matter was, I had just made them a little larger than I thought I did. They turned out to be delicious, and they deserved a LOT of attention. However, they didn’t get it, and that’s just sad!

Post I’m the most proud of

Fresh pasta, hanging to dry before cooking.

This might be the hardest post to choose. There are so many posts I’m proud of. More so, there are so many things I’ve made that I’m proud of. Cooking, grilling, smoking, baking, all kinds of things have been made since I started this blog. I’ve experimented a lot. So what did I choose? I’ll tell you. I chose my very first post. PArtially because I love this picture, and partially because that’s what I should be proudest of. The fact that I dove in and started the blog and gave myself the option, or challenge, to make all those other things I’m proud of. I’ll always cherish that first post, and hope that if you’ve never seen it, you’ll go there and check it out.

 

Now to continue the 7 links project, I have invited 7 other bloggers who’s blogs I’d love to see through their eyes. I can’t wait to see their surprising, favorite and helpful posts! And thanks again Simone, for inviting me! IT was hard, but fun!

Giula of Juls’ Kitchen

Jill of JBean Cuisine

Kelly of Condensed Stew

Marica of Cooking with Marica

Regula of Foodwise

Sara of Cocina para Emancipados

Zita of Zizi Adventures

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