Sunday, November 28, 2010

A Primal Sauce

I love finding one new recipe to mix in with the traditional required elements of our Thanksgiving dinner. This year I found a fabulous recipe at Saveur, a website which I strongly recommend to everyone for an outstanding collection of wonderful recipes. The new find was for Broccoli with Sicilian Sauce. I am determined to eat well and save calories so I always look for ways to reduce calories but not at the expense of flavor. This recipe took only a few minor tweaks.

You can find the calorie and nutrition analysis here.

Anyway, the dish was absolutely outstanding and the hit of the dinner. Yes, broccoli was the hit of a Thanksgiving dinner. Ok, not the broccoli, the sauce was so superb we had a great time coming up with other foods you could us it on.

The recipe made quite a bit of sauce so there was a ton of left over. Last night we decided that it must be consumed on ravioli. Again, sublime.

Now, this is a picture of my plate. The husband and son added Sicilian olives both on top of the broccoli and the ravioli as that is what the recipe called for. However, olives are just one of those things that I cannot abide and the sauce truly did not need them no matter what the husband says. Pine nuts would be pretty, but I am trying to drop a few pounds and all they really add are pretty, some crunch, and calories.

Unfortunately, that killed every last scraping of the wondrous sauce. As we concluded this meal conversation again extended to the incredible nature of the sauce and what else it would be wonderful on. Next up will be baked potatoes in Sicilian Sauce. Here's the Recipe for Sicilian Sauce - you put it on whatever you want and let it become one of your primary "go to" sauces.

Ingredients
1/8 t Sea Salt
1/8 t black pepper, fresh ground
3 tbsp. olive oil
1/4 c parsley, finely chopped
2 red onions, medium sized, thinly sliced
1/2 cup red wine, dry wine
2 tbsp. vinegar, red wine
1 tbsp. tomato paste, generous tablespoon
3/4 tsp. dried oregano
1/8 tsp. red pepper flakes
2 tsp garlic, thinly sliced
28 oz. tomatoes, crushed include liquid
1/3 cup seedless raisins
Directions

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add parsley, onions, and salt and pepper as you like, stir often til onions are softened and browned (10 minutes or so).

Add wine, vinegar, tomato paste, oregano, pepper flakes, and garlic and continue cooking stirring occasionally until it reduces a bit to a lovely glaze (about 4-5 minutes).
Stir in the tomatoes with the liquid and bring sauce to a boil. Lower heat to medium low and simmer uncovered stirring every now and then til it thickens a little (about 8-10 minutes).

If everyone likes olives, you can add about 1/3 cup of black Sicilian olives at this point or you can set them on the table for people to add as a topping - ditto with pine nuts.

Stir in the raisins and simmer a minute or so and serve with broccoli, fried cheese, ravioli, baked potatoes, etc.....

A Primal Sicilian Style Sauce
Enjoy slowly and mindfully with family and friends in as many creative ways as you can.

12 comments:

  1. Mmm, yum! I plan to give this a try! Thanks for posting.

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  2. WoW yumbudeumbumdedum.. great pix, too

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  3. Allergic to tomato. Do you know how many recipes have tomato in them? Yeah they are good for you but I can't help my allergy.

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  4. oh, that would be a terrible allergy. I think my next sauce will be tomato free. Will think about it and see what I can come up with that will be awesome without just being another Alfredo.

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  5. Couldn't you make the same recipe using a canned (then crushed) butternut squash. I bet it would be delicious, especially with the raisins.

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  6. I agree that the raisins would be perfect with the squash! You may want to change to white wine. If you make that please let me know!

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  7. This sauce looks amazing, but I don't like raisins. Any other sub?

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  8. I would think that any dried fruit would work - currants (their tiny size might not be as bothersome to you as raisins - which I am not overly fond of either, except when added to cooked foods), and yes, even dates chopped fine might...hmmm. I may have to try that. I think you should definitely add pine nuts. Or even slivered almonds. Hope you find a way to make it special and yours.

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  9. Sun dried tomatoes-

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  10. how did that work? I don't think I would have thought of that. :D

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  11. What is the nutritional information? How much does this make?

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  12. Never mind, I just found it

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