Chain Reaction: Italian Week - Tomato Sauce, Pizza and Lasagne

Sometimes one thing leads to another. I like to have some kind of cooking chain reaction, when the leftovers of a meal come to star in another meal or two or even more. I dreamt of five meals or so. Well, I will be satisfied with less ... for now.
It all started with a tomato sauce. No, not exactly, it started when I found some lovely celery sticks and carrots smiling at me. When celery and carrots smile at a man, the only thing you can do is smile back and ... cook with them.

Meal 1: Pasta with Tomato Sauce (call it vegetarian bolognese, if you like)

Before I go on, I just want to tell you, I couldn't find the photos of the pasta with tomato sauce. Maybe that's because I didn't take any.

I put a large pan with olive oil on medium heat. Then I went about finely chopping two cloves of garlic, an onion, four celery sticks and two large carrots. All the tiny bits of vegetable ... eh, maybe I didn't chop them that fine ... went into the pan in order to be soften. Have patience and enjoy the process.
Next I poured a tin of tomatoes (400 ml) into the pan with some extra water. I better should ave taken two tins or a larger one. That's why I added some fresh tomatoes and a bit of tomato puree later on. Oh, some chopped up red chillies will give the sauce some extra heat, too.
It's important not to forget the seasoning. Good I didn't forget it the same way I forgot the photos and (you will see later) something else.
Anyway, now you want to get the content of the pan boiling and then leave it simmering for 30 minutes.
At this point you check the seasoning again. Better safe than sorry.
Now a splash of red wine vinegar comes in handy and ... you have to make a decision. You could just break up the tomatoes with a spoon or put the whole sauce into a blender and ... let things go. I went with blender. I wasn't in the mood for coarse consistency this time.
Finally I added some chopped up fresh basil.
Cook your pasta according to the package instructions, if you are not doing fresh pasta.
Again, if you don't forget, you could catch up some of the cooking water to add to the sauce.
Whatever the case, have a plate of pasta with the tomato sauce and some parmesan on top. It won't disappoint you.

Of course we have some leftover tomato sauce in order to continue ...

Meal 2: Four-cheese Pizza

I had to do this. It was about time I do a post with pizza again. You can never have too much.
I want some tomato sauce for my pizza before I put the final topping on, no matter what it is. At least that is what I think right now. Well, I can't remember it otherwise right now, I forgot it (with all this forgetting, I reckon I am getting old).

Fine, we already have our tomato sauce for the pizza. What else? Of course, the pizza dough. You can use your favourite pizza dough or have a look here for a recipe.
More? Sure, the four cheeses. I took buffalo mozzarella, gorgonzola, parmesan and a fourth very delicious Italian cheese, which unfortunately I (here it comes again) forgot the name of. The cheese was very creamy and in fact you get the most of that cheese when you eat it just the way it is. Yum!
Once you have all the components read, heat up the oven to 250 °C (unless you have a pizza oven). Roll out your dough and thinly spread on some of that tomato sauce. Then scatter as much of the cheese all over the pizza. Make sure to taste small bits of cheese to survive the time until the food is ready.
If you feel like it, you can finish off the pizza with a splash of olive oil. Since we are having an Italian week here, in fact, you can put a splash of olive oil to anything we are having.
My pizza was ready after 15 minutes ... well, I cut it into pieces ...

... and went for it ...

It was so yummy, I could have had more. Luckily, I already had frozen the remaining pizza dough. In time, that would be meal 4, but until then it is resting in piece.
So, if you love cheese, that's your pizza. At least it's mine. Even now while I am writing this done I am starting to salivate again. Or is this due to the fact I had some of meal 3 ...

Meal 3: Lasagne (do I have to say more)

Still I am doing Italian ... thanks to that lovely tomato sauce. I was so glad I still had that much left over.
Another pan goes onto the oven and again some olive oil is heated up.
I have 500 g of minced pork that needs some browning in the pan. Season with salt and pepper. Watch as the heat does it's job. Add the tomato sauce when the meat is ready. Stir through well and heat the sauce up.
Meanwhile you have a sufficiently large tin (mine was 35 cm x 25 cm) ready. Add some - I told you so - olive oil to the bottom of the tin. then lay out a layer of lasagne sheets.
Oh, we would need some kind of bechamel for the lasagne as well, I reckon. Nah, forget about it. We are doing a cheat version. Mix 200 g of crème fraîche with salt, pepper, a large hand full of grated parmesan and an egg.
Next onto the lasagne sheets goes a half of the minced pork tomato sauce, then half of the bechamel cheat, then some lasagne sheets again, followed by the remaining meat, followed by the remaining bechamel cheat. Well, how does that look?
Obviously something is missing. Ah, here we go, I topped the whole thing with 200 g of grated mozzarella cheese and ... you know.

30 - 35 minutes in the oven, which has been heated up to 200 °C, will do. The cheese will turn brownish.
Now you would only need to slice the lasagne up and serve it. Dig in! The lasagne was as delicious as the pizza. Dangerously delicious!

You might get some further ideas and serve a rocket and tomato salad on the side. However, I was satisfied with as it was. After all, I know about all those vegetables hidden in that meal.

When some lovely ingredients smile at you, smile back and get cooking.

Now, what about you, do you have any chain reactions going on in your kitchen? While I don't want to turn this into a blog challenge necessarily, why not share your Food Chain Reaction Stories with us by linking up a post in the comments and ... see what will happen.
Since I also made good use of the leftover tomato sauce, this is a fitting post for Elizabeth's from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary No Waste Food Challenge, which ... what a coincidence ... is hosted by my own self this month.

Chuck Away the Telly ... Have Some Twisted Round Pizza Bread

Right there in the most of the time dark corner sits a piece of equipment, the television set. I got it from work some months - or was it years? - ago and I almost never used it for tuning in into some television programs. Fine, once I connected a free SAT receiver to try to connect to the already installed satellite dish for the house. The receiver broke before the seek run was over. It never recovered.
Sometimes I watch a DVD using the television, but ... I don't really need it. I might as well chuck it away. I never switched it on since I live here.
Do I believe that television broadcasting is entirely evil and good for nothing?
Well ... eh ... um ... eh ... no, not really. A workmate told me how I can watch telly on the Internet ... after all a lot of channels give the opportunity to watch their program online ...
Since then I discovered some nice programs.
For instance, since we are visiting South Africa for Bloggers Around the World, I started watching Masterchef South Africa from 2012 and ... I love it.
Now I would stop talking about television programs and get to some cooking, but ... eh ... just briefly ... the following dish is inspired by Paul Hollywood's Bread, which I watched once. Maybe it was the last show that was running.

I didn't really remember the recipe, but just took up the basic idea. What did I do then?

Burger Builder - 'To the Moon & Back' Rocket Burger

Oh, how lucky we are that some words have different meanings. Do you know this game - we used to play it sometimes in school - where two pupil are explaining two different things, bit by bit of course and the answer to both things is the same word. Ah, maybe then again you don't know.
Fine, let's have a try: the one thing can take you to the moon ... and maybe back as well (ah, I was just listening to that song again) and the other thing is edible. 
You know the solution already? I guess you have cheated. How could you not? After all it was quite obvious from the title of the post that the answer is: rocket. Then I guess we can skip the singing and the lyrics analysis and go directly over to preparing some food, burgers to be precise. Well, to be even more precise: 'To the Moon & Back' Rocket Burgers ...

Let us suppose you have your beef burger patties already ... eh ... ready. Then we ...

We are doomed ... an Invasion is coming ... a Pizza Invasion

Beware! Do not be mislead, there is danger lurking. Something terrifying beyond your imagination. I'm not talking about an invasion of mutated evil killer something. No! It's worse. Be warned and be careful and ... continue reading anyway.
Well, I'm not a fan of such kind of movies anyway. However, what we are talking about might pose a real threat to your possibilities to wear a proper swimsuit or bikini or that sort of beach apparel this summer. That is, of course, if find time during that week or day of summer.
On the other hand ... moderation might help. Decide for yourself!
It's been some time now I last posted something about pizza. So I thought I could go for it again. I've gathered some ... eh ... photos of ... eh ... some pizza I had over the last few weeks. Strangely, they look not much different. One day I might get some lovely ideas on how to take picture of pizza in a nice way.
Basically I want to mention a few toppings I tried. The basic dough and sauce you can find in another post.
Let's get this invasion going.

We start with this meaty version with Leberkäse and onions. You might remember Leberkäse from an older post. Well, anyway, that pizza was alright, but lacked in certain burning abilities. Cannot always have that.

Speaking of burning ... chorizo and chilli might do the trick. At least it always works for me. You might need to be a bit cautious with this one. It might bring you some extra weight. Or will the fire of the chorizo and chilli help burning some undesirable ... eh ... things. We will never know.

What about some fish. Putting some tuna on a pizza ... no big deal, anyone can do that. Therefore I decided to add some salmon and and some anchovy fillets as well. That was a pizza I enjoyed, too, although it wasn't burning hot.

More to come. If I tell you were the idea came from, you might think it's fish again, but ... alright, start at the beginning. This one I topped with the leftover sauce from the Tonno di Nonna Fangitta, though, without the tonno.

It isn't over yet. This now is the overly cheesy version, not just mozzarella, but also some Gouda and French Camembert. I would have added even more cheese, but hey ... was I supposed to call it Quintuple Cheese Pizza. I guess triple cheese will do ... for now. For just the minute I mention this I feel the challenge coming up on me to really try this quintuple something. Funny what this writing is doing to my brain.

Pizza invasion, yes, some more ... this time with pieces of merguez sausages in the sauce.
Now all that talking about pizza made me hungry.
I hoped you enjoyed the invasion in some way. Now, if you would have a few slices of each of those pizzas, that would pose a real threat to your bikini figure something hopes or ... alternatively ... to your wardrobe, which would need replacement due to shortage of material at certain spots of your body. Go, figure it out for yourself.
However, what do you like to throw on your pizza?

Go for it ... Mushroom-Tomato Bucatini with Rocket and Mozzarella

Time is flowing away. What else should it do anyway? After all we don't want to be trapped in a kind of space time continuum sort of thing. The key, though, is to use your time wisely. You have every minute only once. You don't want to regret anything, do you? However, if you have to, no worries ... time goes on anyway. Well, then, I keep trying to use my time in a good and nice and wise way ...
So in the spirit of the lately announced Bloggers Around the World - Italy, I go for it and I might even do it again. Therefore I start things easily. Mushrooms always go ... eh tomato sauce, too.

I also was able to get hold of some rocket, so it's only natural for it to make it's appearance in the following Mushroom-Tomato Bucatini with Rocket and Mozzarella.

What we need:
All we need is love ... eh ... sorry, I was supposed to give the ingredients, but cooking with love won't hurt either.
Splash of olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
Few leaves of basil
400 ml tinned tomatoes
Splash of red wine vinegar
300 g mushrooms, chopped up into small pieces according to your desire
500 g Bucatini (or other pasta)
150 g mini Mozzarella balls (or pieces of mozzarella)
50 g rocket
Salt and pepper

What we do:
Heat up some olive oil in a large pan. Toss in the garlic and slightly fry the slices. Add the leaves of basil just briefly before you are ready to pour in the tomatoes and some extra liquid. Bring it to the boil and let it all simmer for 30 minutes before you start crushing the tomatoes - poor fellas.
Give the sauce a splash of red wine vinegar and unload your chopped mushrooms in the pan. Take a lovely (suppose so) wooden spoon and give it a gentle (cooking with love) mix up.
Have a look onto your watch. For sure you agree to boil the pasta, don't you?
What are you waiting for then? Go for it and cook the pasta ... drain it and add it to the Mushroom-Tomato sauce and ... yes ... mix it well.
All done - so you can plate up. Place some rocket leaves over your pasta and some mini Mozzarella balls as well. Drizzle a bit of olive oil over it and ... there you go. La vita e bella! 

Somehow I have the feeling I have something more in mind for Bloggers Around the World. Anyway, what do you have in mind?
Just go for it then!

Oscars Aftermath - Green Chilli and Chicken Pizza with Serrano Ham

Oh what a night!!!
Well, if I would know what happened, I could tell you ...
... right, I do know ... and ... it wasn't really that serious.
I'm going to tell you anyway. But where to start?!

Fine, my last post. Do you remember? I mentioned a few things about the 85th Academy Award in LA. No, I don't want to go over it all again. As the date for it was approaching, though and don't having anything to do at all the next day, I decided, I could have a try and watch it.
No big deal ... when you don't live too many time zones away from it. Therefore I had quite some time to kill before it would all start. Why not have some food? Still that would not suffice for all the time.
Nevertheless, I voted to go for homemade pizza ... again?! I had it already the week before.

Somehow, it seems to be a way to deal with leftovers ... just make some nice pizza dough and top it with whatever you have left from other meals. Really? No, not really, but kind of!

First of all to the pizza dough that I ended up with and keep on making again and again.

Ingredients (makes for more than one person can eat):
500 g flour (100-200 g semolina flour and 300-400 g strong baking flour)
Pinch of salt
300 ml warm water
7 g dried yeast
5 tbs olive oil
1 tbs honey

Method:
Put the flour and the salt into a large bowl, while you give all the other ingredients into a different bowl. Wait for about 10 minutes.
Then pour the yeast water bit by bit into the flour while you bring it all together with a fork. Once all the water is in, get yourself some flour on your hands and go and knead the dough.
Wash your hands with warm water and while you are at it soak a clean kitchen towel with water as well and put the cloth over the bowl with the dough. Let it rise for at least one hour.

That gives you enough time to devote to a tomato sauce.

Ingredients (it might be even to much for that dough):
Splash of olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, slices
About 10 basil leaves
400 g tinned tomatoes
200 ml water
Salt, pepper
Splash of red wine vinegar

Method: 
Heat up the oil in a pan at low heat. Toss in the slices of garlic.
When you have the wonderful odour of garlic going all over your kitchen, toss in the basil leaves as well. Oh, that's even better.
Now pour in the tinned tomatoes and the water. Don't harm the tomatoes. Bring it to the boil and reduce to simmer again. Let it simmer for about 30 minutes. Then you can crush the tomatoes and if you don't want to put your sauce into a liquidizer afterwards, do it properly.
Leave simmering for a further 15 minutes and season with salt and pepper.
Finally turn off the heat and add the splash of red wine vinegar. Sauce is ready!

Pizza is not ready!
The dough should make for three reasonable sized pizzas.
Hm, as it seems, this all is a at least a bit of work. Well, the evening before I did just an easy thing: quick tapas ...

But back to the pizza now, although those tapas might not be totally unrelated. You will see at least three of the above food items again later on.
It's time to heat up the oven as much as possible. I managed about 250 °C.
One part of the pizza dough received some more kneading and then rolling up to a kind of round object.
We have to get to the pizza topping somehow. You might guess that the chicken and chickpeas will end up on the pizza. I thought about it ... yes, really ... but as you have seen I especially prepared a tomato sauce for it.
Therefore I just went for the chicken.
First of all, spread some of the tomato sauce on the blank pizza. Add some stripes of ready chicken breast. Some slices of green chillies (see above - tapas plate) on it, too. Don't bother with getting rid of the seeds from the chillies. We need some mozzarella as well and maybe some more basil leaves. Nice! OK, a few small splashes of olive oil might be even nicer.
16 more minutes and the pizza is ready ... that is if you don't forget to put it into the oven for the aforementioned 16 minutes ... delicious!

Fine, only four more hours to go until the start of the Oscar night ... well, that is of you like to watch people walking on the red carpet and hear some thoughts about fashion ... just hypothetical.
At a time then, when most, if not all of my neighbours finally had gone to bed, the actual show started ... after watching it, now I at least now, what movies I might still have a look at or ... which ones not. It was interesting to watch the show, while I have never done so before, because the constellation of circumstances hadn't been towards favourable the years past.

"At the end of the day you're another day older!"

I went to bed at a time I usually get up and ... had some more pizza for breakfast ...

Right, time wise that couldn't be classed as breakfast considering that it was lunch time by then. At this point it happened to be the case, I already had run out of mozzarella.
Of course, I would never allow it to run out of cheese completely. After all there was still some manchego left I didn't use for the tapas plate and while already at it, why not use some serrano ham on top of the pizza just as it was coming from the oven ...

I can only say so much ... it was even more delicious than the day before. 
As a conclusion I guess I won't be doing pizza again this week. In fact. So far I didn't feel like doing much cooking so far this week. Still, that won't be the last you have seen of that serrano ...

Gemelli pasta vegetariana al forno

You know what? I eat every day and not just once. Well, there is nothing special about that. Most do. So I really don't need to mention it. However, I don't eat every day the same, not even every week according to some kind of schedule. I know, some do that and the same dishes come reappearing week after week.
That doesn't need to be! Our planet is full of so many lovely ingredients. Those can be combined in various ways. Let's take just 10 ingredients. How many different dishes could you do with them? Let me know!
Now we like to focus on pasta, there is such a great variety. Here now something I came up with today. I didn't even need to do some extra shopping to get it done. It was all there already. Besides that, some things had to be used anyway ...

Lacking another name, I just called it Gemelli pasta vegetariana al forno. 'Gemelli' is the name of the pasta I used. So if you are going to use a different one, it might be called Orecchiette pasta vegetariana al forno. 
'Vegetariana' is obvious to you, I hope. So if you are putting any kind of meat to it, you have to cancel the vegetariana and ending up with Gemelli pasta al forno or Orecchiette pasta respectively. 
Then we have the 'al forno' left referring to the fact that it is baked in the oven. So, finally, if you are too greedy and don't want to send the dish to the oven you end up with 'Gemelli pasta vegetariana' or 'Orecchiette pasta vegetariana' or even with 'Farfalle pasta vegetariana' and if you put in some meat you have 'Gemelli pasta', 'Orecchiette pasta' or 'Farfalle pasta', which in my opinion would sound simply dull and wouldn't do any good.
On the other hand we could mention some more of the vegetarian ingredients, which could then lead us to ... wait ... that got already a bit far, but maybe you can figure out some other names by looking at ...

 ... the ingredients:
Various splashes of olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
1 yellow bell pepper, cut into small pieces
500 g of tinned tomatoes
250 g cannellini beans
Dried oregano
Salt and pepper
Splash of red wine vinegar
500 g dried Gemelli pasta (you might even want to use Fusilli)
50 g grated Parmesan
125 g mozzarella (one ball)

The Preparation:
Heat up the first splash of olive oil in a large pan. Then gently fry the garlic and onion for about 10 minutes. Enjoy the smell of the garlic!
Now add the bell pepper, tomatoes, beans and a bit of water. Bring it to the boil and let it simmer for about 30 minutes.
That gives you plenty of time to cook the pasta. Prepare them according to the directions of the package, but ... reduce 2 minutes from the mentioned time. Give the pasta some love and attention. Who wouldn't like that ... love and attention! 
Reserve a bit of the cooking water of the pasta.
Season the sauce with salt, pepper and dried oregano according to your taste or for those, whom you are cooking for. Show some consideration! 
By the way, you could also start heating up the oven to 200°C.
It's time to turn off the heat for the sauce. Add a splash of red wine vinegar and grate in the Parmesan. You could also add some of the reserved cooking water, if you have the feeling that things are looking too dry.
Then mix it all together with the pasta. You could do that either in the pan or in your dish you are putting into the oven.
Is everything in the oven-proof dish? Good! Tear the mozzarella ball apart and spread the individual pieces on your pasta. Season with some extra dried oregano on top and sprinkle another splash of olive oil over the pasta and mozzarella. Off it goes to the oven for 30 minutes!

After you have plated up the pasta al forno and are ready to eat it, you could sprinkle yet another splash of olive oil over it ... Enjoy your pasta! What do YOU like to call it?

Just looking at this last photo, I get reminded that I wanted to get some nice white plates. I guess it will work out one day ...

I might even survive a few more days with all my stored items ...

Fair Verona and Mini Mozzarella Penne with Rocket

There are some things in life, where cooking will not help. Situations come up and no matter how much chocolate you have, it will make no difference, the pain will not go away.
Anyway, I couldn't imagine, how chocolate or any other kind of edible thing would have made a difference here:

"Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend."

- Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet, Act 1, Prologue

Well, the scene is set for tragedy. However, we shall not dwell on such thoughts for now.
Just coming back from the scene - fair Verona, Italy - what better could I do than having some pasta.

After all, one has to eat, no matter how you feel ... even if you don't want to at times, you will come back ...
Did I say something? Oh well, why not do some easy pasta. No shopping for the two past weeks, so I have to go with what is in the house. 
That leads us to Mini Mozzarella Penne with Rocket.
Having a pot ready with some olive oil marks the beginning. Finely slice three cloves of garlic and fry them gently in the oil until the fine odour of the garlic starts to rise up from the pot. To make things even more lovely as they start to unfold, we add a handful of freshly picked basil leaves to the pot.
Now we go on to pour in one 400 g tin of tomatoes and fill half the tin with water and put that in as well. Season with salt and pepper according to your taste and needs. Bring the contents of the pot to the boil and let it simmer.
After that we can focus our minds on the pasta. Use a sufficiently large pot to fill with water. Let the water have a lot of salt. Of course you can use a kettle to heat up the water before you put it to the pot.
Once the water is ready you only have to cook your 500g of pasta according to the instructions on the package (it took 12 minutes for me).
After that rinse the pasta whilst you catch up some of the cooking water. Mix this, your pasta, your sauce, and two handful of mini mozzarellas (or how much you like) together.
Plate it up and top with a handful of rocket leaves mixed with some basil leaves. Pour a bit of good olive oil over it and finish with some grated Parmesan.
I leave you now with this and some impressions of fair Verona.

Torre dei Lamberti

Arena di Verona

Romeo & Juliet in progress

Giardini Giusti

Lemon tree

Verona from above

"A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."

THE END

For more Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet have a look here: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.