Lately, I've been doing a lot of cooking at home, frankly because I'm broke. And because I'm broke, I haven't been able to get all of the traditional ingredients necessary for the dinners I've wanted to make. So, instead, I've been pulling some pretty damn good sauces out of my proverbial ars.
Tricks I've come up with:
- Use fennel bulb in lieu of onion. It gives an unexpected tang to a dish and is a great compliment to mushrooms and left over lamb tartar. (don't ask where I got that, but I had it and I wanted iot.) ;-)
- If you don't have heavy cream to make a cream sauce, use either sour cream or crème fraiche and milk. Again, the sourness of the cream really adds a great punch to the sauce and there's really no need to add any kind of acid to make it pop.
- Won ton wrappers make great ravioli... well, good enough. The wrappers are a bit thin for my taste, but if you have left over pieces of cheese, veggies or just a little bit of meat, you can easily make a filling by blending some or all of the above and plopping it between two won ton wrappers. Vyola! You've got pasta!
- Brown butter makes it better!! If you really don't have anything in your fridge to add to your spaghetti, but you want something yummy, brown up some butter! I like to add some sage or rosemary to it to give it some herbatiousness.
If you have a question for a recipe, or would like me to expand on any of these ideas to help you with your next dinner in, drop me a line.
My obsessions with food and France have led me to this. It's not my fault.
