Peter's Cooking Diary #8

Well I know I had promised that I would be posting again soon, but didn't. I didn't really make anything at all worth noting on here, just random small things. I have been eating a lot of cottage cheese and pineapple, and I did go through a bit of a cold that left me without much of an appetite. Reflecting back on the things I made in this edition have a lot to do with substitutes. If you are not sure if you can substitute something in a recipe, I always search online, if not what you wanted, you can get ideas on other things you can substitute.

This week is the first time I have really baked anything at all, I came across the recipe for this coconut pie one day and thought I should give it a try, it is really simple to make. I ended up substituting brown sugar for the white sugar, and whole wheat flour and baking powder for the self rising flour. I don't know what the regular recipe tastes like, but my version was great with a little whipped cream on top! Recipe can be found here: http://shine.yahoo.com/shine-food/impossibly-easy-coconut-pie-143800186.html

The other main thing that I made this week was my version of meat sauce along with pasta, and my substitute in this dish was using ground turkey instead of beef or pork sausage. I like to use turkey in my meat sauce because it does not weigh down the dish with fat like beef would. I think the turkey does remain filling, and for me at least doesn't leave me wishing it was beef instead.

This is the raw turkey going into the pan, starting to cook. Because turkey is so lean, I added some oil to the pan before the turkey to help with the cooking.

Once the turkey was cooked, I removed it from the pan, and added my onion and garlic to the pan, which is pretty much the base for most of my recipes. I cooked them until the onion was clear and soft.

Once the onions had cooked to my liking, I added the turkey back to the pan to cook them all together for a few minutes

One of my favorite ingredients to add is fresh basil, I also added some dry oregano, and red pepper flake. I use 2 jars of prepared sauce, to 2.5 lbs of turkey. I don't really have a preferred brand for the sauce, but I will get tomato and basil, or tomato and garlic flavors. I just say avoid Ragu as I think it is quite tasteless.

Garlic Break, boiling pasta, and the nearly finished sauce. I usually simmer the sauce with whatever I am adding to it for about an hour before serving. This will allow the flavors to marry a bit, and it will also allow some of the water to cook out of the sauce. I prefer my sauce on the less runny side, so cooking it down a bit is what I do.

This is the final shot of the pasta sauce before serving.