Sunday, January 31, 2010

recipes that shouldn't be good but, oh man, they are

So KZ and I had a conversation earlier this week that went something like this:
HEB: Oh man, I made that tomato sauce from Smitten, you know, the one with the canned tomatoes and onion that you throw away and butter, and oh man. I ate one-and-a-half servings and I had to stop myself from having two servings.
KZ: I saw that on smitten and thought, "This can't be good. It has three ingredients."
HEB: Oh man. I want to eat more right now. I mean, it might be my favorite tomato sauce ever. Well, okay. Fresh in the summer is good. But I'm never buying sauce in a jar ever again.
KZ: Wow. I never would have tried it because I would have thought that it was a waste of time to make a sauce that would clearly be bad.
HEB: Oh man.

I've actually made it twice now (single recipe once and double recipe once) and am not yet over the "oh man" phase. Although I will say that I think that the San Marzano tomatoes do make it better than the Shaw's brand ones. And also, don't skimp on the butter like I tried to do in my double recipe. The sauce only has three ingredients (and you throw one of them away). Let it have as much of those ingredients as it calls for.

If you want an "oh man" conversation, the recipe is here.

This one doesn't have just three ingredients, but it inspires similar feelings for me. It's a Fig and Walnut Tapenade over goat cheese on ciabatta.

Nomi made this for our aebleskiver party this year and it was so excellent that I had to make more to bring to my office's holiday party. I generally don't get excited by olives and capers, but, oh man, they are perfect here.

3 comments:

CH said...

I am going to have to give the smitten sauce a try. I have 2 tomato sauce recipes that I am quite fond of, but there's always room for another!

kzwick said...

Hmm. That second thing reminds me that I need to use that yummy vinegar you convinced me to buy.

This was indeed the happy part of our conversation. I guess I'll think about posting the sadder, much much sadder portion at a later date.

Lesson learned, I should not doubt Deb.

Elizabeth said...

KZ, I am concerned....!

I should share an equally simple tomato sauce recipe one of these days. It's more of a summer sauce though, so maybe I'll wait till then. Now I'm hungry!