meaty spaghetti sauce

so, i've been wanting to me a little more inventive with my cooking lately. not to crazy, but just actually using recipes for grilling and cooking. yeah, i know, crazy. anyway, i was thinking about making spaghetti & sauce for a meal, so i started poking around the 'net and found this one at cooks.com:

2 lbs. hamburger
1 lb. bacon
1 onion (medium)
4 cans reg size tomato soup
1 can contadina tomato paste w/ italian seasonings
dash worcestershire sauce
dash white vinegar
Cut bacon into bite size pieces. Chop up onion. Fry onion and bacon
together until onion is tender and bacon is cooked thoroughly. Drain.
Brown hamburger. Drain.
Mix all remaining ingredients together with onion/bacon mixture and
hamburger.

it looked interesting, but i decided to bastardize it and make it my own. here's approximately what i did:

1/4-1/3 lb of fresh bacon from butcher
onion powder to taste

1/2 lb ground turkey
1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
1 tsp of garlic

1 can of campbells tomato soup
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 can of tomato paste
dash of worcestershire sauce
salt, pepper & basil to taste

i followed the prep directions pretty much in the original order. the ingredients above are grouped how i put them in.

the sauce as it finished cooking



some wheat spaghetti that i prepared



the finished product with a bit of grated parmesan



i'm pretty happy how well it turned out. honestly, as the sauce got hot and i was tasting it in its final stages i kinda just wanted to eat sauce. the flavors came together rather well, and i liked the ratio of sauce and diced tomato - i'm not a big fan of big tomato chunks. surprisingly, the bacon almost disappears in this mix and isn't a heavy hitter in the overall flavor, but when you bite in a chunk as your going it's a nice surprise.

pork new york dinner

i've told you before about the pork new york steak. well, i made one tonight for dinner.

after thawing the pork out, i made a rub that mainly consisted of crushed black pepper and garlic, with a little bit of sea salt. i would tell you measurements, but i really don't have a clue on the pepper or salt. i do know i used 1 tsp of the pre-crushed garlic. i also added a small amount of olive oil to flavor and coat the meat. after seasoning the meat, i let it sit for a bit so the flavor could take hold a bit before cooking.



while the meat seasoned i cooked some black eyed peas. i grew up eating these little deals, along with things like fried okra and other southern dishes. i admit, i have yet to make okra right. it generally comes out way too oily and soggy. maybe i'll get it some day. anyhow, i was just doing black eyed peas as a side tonight. while they were finishing up i broiled the pork for about 9 minutes, flipping at 3 & 6 minutes. after cooking, i let it rest on the plate for 2 minutes and then plated the black eyed peas.



so, how did it taste? pretty good. i was happy with the peas, and overall i thought the pork new york was decent. it wasn't great, and i think it could've used something to give it a little more kick. but, i still enjoyed my meal

eatin & sleepin

some of you may have heard of the phenomenon. here's a cookbook for you.