OMGSNAX!

an OMGSNAX! special edition

ok, i’ve made this dish more times than i can count (hence “special edition,” duh), but it’s too good & too easy to not pass along. i learned the recipe from this girl i used to know named anna, who was my closest friend for years & years, & she made it for me & my family when she came to st louis from brooklyn to visit. i’ve since made it for various gatherings, most often when i know there’ll be lots of hungry boys around b/c, even doubled, the recipe’s a breeze. (it’s also a good show-off recipe, b/c you make the sauce from scratch (kinda) but it’s nearly imposible to get wrong.)

(& it smells really good, too.)

i think my hands-down favorite ziti occasion was the night my friend phil’s band (ResistAll) was playing mississippi nights (a pretty decent-sized venue on the landing in downtown stl). i commandeered his kitchen that afternoon & simmered the sauce all evening & popped the finished ziti in the oven right before i left to pick up my two junior high boyfriends (these kids i met through work who dug good rock’n'roll &, you know, somehow i managed to convince their respective moms that i was responsible enough to take them to the show) — & when i got back, we ALL ate mounds of ziti, sitting at the table in the orange dining room or on the floor in the living room & being loud, me & phil & joe & john & will & robby & cody & diamond, yes, & it was pretty much exactly how you’re imagining it only a billion times bigger, like ROCKSTARS.

i’m making it tonight b/c daniel doesn’t get out of class till 10pm & will likely be gnawing his arm off by the time he gets here, & me? i’ve got all the time in the world while i sit here printing CDs for I Like the Future and the Future Likes Me.

INGREDIENTS
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, diced
2 14-ounce cans crushed tomatoes
2 14-ounce cans diced tomatoes
2 6-ounce cans tomato paste
1 cup water
2 teaspoons oregano
2 teaspoons basil
2 tablespoons parsley
salt to taste
sugar to taste
1 14-ounce box ziti (or any other small tubular noodle)
16 ounces mozzarella cheese

METHOD
anna says: “sautée the onions until they are almost translucent, then add the garlic. sautée until garlic is GOLD, not BROWN! if it gets brown, it’s already starting to burn!!”

remove from heat & add one can of crushed tomatoes for every can of diced tomatoes. (generally two cans of each should be sufficient.) add 1/2 cup of water & one small can of tomato paste for every two cans of tomatoes [we’re using four cans, so that’s one cup of water & two cans of tomato paste]. add salt, basil, parsley, & oregano. anna says: “if you want your sauce to taste more like pizza sauce, add more oregano. if you like really sweet sauce, add a teaspoon of sugar for every two cans of tomatoes.”

cook on medium-low heat & stir every couple of minutes to keep the sauce from sticking to the bottom & sides. cook the sauce until it’s the thickness you want, but remember: if you’re using the sauce for something that is going to be baked later on (ziti, eggplant, etc.), you want it a bit watery. in fact, if it seems thick, & you’re going to bake it, feel free to add more water.

meanwhile, cook the pasta according to the directions on the box, drain, & set aside. grate the cheese. about an hour before you want to eat, preheat the oven to 375, & in a 9×13 baking pan, start layering: a layer of sauce first, then pasta, then more sauce, then cheese, then pasta, then sauce, then cheese. (anna told me that the reason you put sauce down first is so that the bottom layer of pasta doesn’t get dried out.) cover with foil & bake for about half an hour covered & then maybe ten or fifteen minutes uncovered (so the cheese on the top layer gets bubbly). serve to people while saying things like, “eat, pappa! no one likes a skinny santa!”

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
ok, the recipe is basically a proportional recipe. & i do it from memory. so, you know, there are times where i get the proportions wrong. sometimes i forget the tomato paste. sometimes i use whole peeled tomatoes instead of crushed tomatoes b/c i can’t remember what i’m supposed to get at the store. i’m pretty sure i’ve used two onions on more than one occasion. but you know what? it’s pretty much always delicious.

oh look, another gratuitous onion shot!

is it wrong that i sometimes buy Red Gold brand b/c i like the packaging?

my biggest deviation is in seasoning the sauce. i just need more. i tend to eyeball it now, but i think it’s safe to say that i double the basil & add an extra teaspoon of oregano. & did i mention the sugar? b/c i happen to like a very sweet sauce, so i’ll tell you what: two teaspoons of sugar? totally not gonna cut it. it’s safe to say i add maybe a quarter of a cup before i’m satisfied with the taste of it, although the sweet basil i’ve been using lately has helped tremendously.

cooking sauce

alton brown would pretty much shoot me for not using enough water

&, of course, lately there’s the issue of the cheese. anna said that only fresh buffalo mozzarella will do, but ok! first of all, i haven’t been able to find that at the store in MONTHS (wtf dierbergs!), & second of all, NO GRATER. i totally thought my mom was gonna get me one for my birthday, but then i remembered that all official gift-giving holidays for 2005/2006 have been covered by the new mattress i got this past summer, which, fair enough. (oh, except she totally got me these super-sweet flour & sugar cannisters, &, like, some DVDs, go mom!) so, ok, i can’t exactly use fresh cheese if i don’t have anything with which to grate it, so i just got shredded cheese & a little part of me died, but since it was only a little part, i’ll pull through.

so that’s the other deviation. but i do have to side with anna & say that fresh buffalo mozzarella is pretty much the only way to go. like, if buffalo mozz is Empire Strikes Back, regular shredded mozz is that part in Episode III where anakin gets his sith name & you’re like, but wait, WHERE did “vader” come from, b/c for all we know, dude could’ve picked Darth Spatula & that’s that, like, there’s no REASONING for it, b/c SRSLY, WTF EVER. that’s how much worse it is. like, it doesn’t even get to be Episode III in toto, which would be bad enough but which has the kick-ass yoda fighting scene — oh no, it’s just the dumbest part of the dumbest movie EVER. like, dumber than Highlander II: The Quickening, & that movie didn’t even make any sense!

& now, two more pretty pictures:

“raw”

cooked!

 

 

“Baked Ziti” from anna

so i have to be honest: the first time i had indian food, i did so b/c of the tv show Red Dwarf. i went to House of India on delmar with joyce (& probably theresa), &, like lister on the show, i ordered a vindaloo. b/c i knew nothing else about what to order. at. all.

i don’t remember much of the vindaloo; what i remember is that whatever joyce got was WAY better. & so over the years, i sort of sporadically ate at House of India & never really found exactly what it was i wanted — till one evening maybe nine months after i stopped eating meat, i went with my new friend phil & let him order for me. he got chana masala & palak paneer, & i’m not kidding when i say it was some of the best stuff i’d ever had — mostly vegetables i thought i couldn’t stand, combined exquisitely.

since then, i’ve tried on a couple different occasions to recreate the chana masala dish, usually failing pretty miserably at coming up with a correct combination of spices. one time i made a dish that was incredibly spicy & totally without flavor (yes, it’s possible), & one time i made a dish that was bland & a little salty, & so tonight i made my third chana masala attempt, thanks to an emailed recipe from my friend shelly.

INGREDIENTS
1/2 to 1 onion
1 to 2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil or butter
3 large/4 medium tomatoes, chopped, or 2 large cans diced tomatoes with half juice reserved
2 cans chickpeas, drained
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 heaping teaspoon cumin
1 heaping teaspoon coriander
1 heaping teaspoon ginger
1 tablespoon yellow mustard seed
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cloves
2 dried bay leaves
salt & pepper to taste

(* instead of coriander, cinnamon, & cloves, you can use 1 teaspoon garam masala)

METHOD
heat olive oil & add mustard seed — cover immediately until mustard seeds stop popping. add garlic & onions to sautée until soft & transparent. add spices (except bay leaves) until the mixture resembles a sauce/gravy (this sounds SO southern of me, but i swear, it’s not). add tomatoes & bay leaves. let simmer over medium heat for five minutes. add both cans of garbanzo beans. let simmer for another 10 minutes at least. remove bay leaves before serving. i usually set mine on med-low for about 25 to 45 minutes so the beans can get softer. i always serve it over basmati rice, but i know a lot of people just eat it plain.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
so a couple things maybe went wrong here:

(1) i got powdered mustard seed. like, specifically. like, daniel picked out whole mustard seeds & i said, oh no, i need dried powdered mustard seed. but maybe not?

onions & spices

(2) i think the fact that i didn’t use whole mustard seeds made the whole thing a little bit drier. as in, maybe there wasn’t enough oil? there definitely wasn’t any kind of gravy thing going on, i can say that much.

i feel like everything i cook has tons of onions

(3) caroline measured the rest of the spices, & it’s possible that she accidentally halved everything. but we couldn’t figure it out for sure, so maybe not. also, we definitely used garam masala instead of coriander, cinnamon, & cloves, & maybe that was a mistake?

that being said, it smelled right. it really did. i’m pretty sure this is the exact spice combination i wanted. maybe minus a little of the cumin, but that’s totally personal preference.

but you know what? it didn’t taste quite right. i believe brett said, “it wasn’t that bad.” i don’t know — what i SHOULD’VE done was emailed/texted/called shelly to clarify a few points, but instead i muddled through & didn’t do it right & it just wasn’t what i was hoping for. which seemed to be the consensus: it was pretty good, but not good enough. i feel bummed — b/c i really thought shelly’s recipe was finally going to be the one! i think maybe it was a combination of sloppy direction-following on my part (& caroline’s) & high expectations.

adding chickpeas

simmering

i feel like that’s pretty much the OMGSNAX! trend thus far — food that is right in theory but falls short in practice. maybe i’m too ambitious.

the finished dish

 

 

“Karma Cleansing Channa Masala” from shelly