Around the Kitchen Table - Marinara and Italian Pasta Sauces

Hey everyone, I'm Chef Dennis and welcome to Around the Kitchen Table with my guest host Susan Sarah. How you doing, Susan?

Hi, I'm doing great, Chef. Now I see you, I see you're in your black chef's coat and it looks so great. I don't think you've worn that in a while.

I haven't, you know, I was so, I was having so much fun with the two other ones that I have that I didn't really bring out the black one for a while, but I figured I'd bring it out today. Whenever I make spaghetti sauce, I tend to get a little messy, so I thought this might be the best way to hide the stains.

Well, you know, if you remember last week, I talked a little about black and how black shows off the food. So this is perfect. Look at the red and look at the black. You are looking great. How are you doing?

I'm doing pretty good. It's a beautiful day in Florida. The temperatures— we're expecting a cold snap.

Go ahead, go ahead.

They're talking about 83.

Oh no. Too much. I'm in the 50s here. But you know what? I will tell you something. I put a fire— we had a fire in the fireplace on Saturday. And so that's not okay with that. Yeah, I love the fires. Love fires. So I went out to dinner this weekend, this past weekend. I mean, I ate out a lot this weekend. And this new steak restaurant in our town— we live in a restaurant town. I don't know if I've mentioned that before. There are so many restaurant— actually restaurant destination on Long Island. And so this new one opened up, a steak place, and it was so really slick, very contemporary, violet lights in the bar, and, you know, really very exciting, you know. And the food was terrific. But what was interesting is that, you know, when we left, you know, I just kind of felt— I don't know, kind of left me cold a little bit, you know. I don't know if you— do you have a preference about restaurant decor and how you feel when you go to a restaurant, what you like about restaurants?

I think it's got to fit the kind of restaurant I'm going to, first of all, and I have expectations just that are on my own about what type of restaurant we're going into. I like warm feelings in a restaurant. I'm not big on modern decor. I hate when they have this fast jazzy music playing.

That's what they had. I don't know if it's called trance or techno or what. That's exactly what they had.

Don't like it. I mean, I don't like to listen to it. I certainly don't want to listen to it while I'm eating. In fact, I forget where we were, and I was hysterical. I came out of the bathroom. Lisa goes, "What's the matter?" I said, "Oh my God, the music they got playing in the bathroom is just like you got "You got to go. You got to go. You got to go." Really, they need to play something a little more soothing. To eat, it's got to be either nondescript in the background or soothing. I like earth tones. Again, all these things don't make you eat faster. They make you drag the meal out. Psychological effects are sometimes important, depending on what kind of restaurant that you're having too and how fast they want to turn the tables.

That is very interesting. The other thing is, you know, my perception was, you know, with that type of atmosphere, the techno music and everything, I would think that they are really shooting for that maybe 30s, 40s demographic, maybe early 40s, but I don't know how they're going to do because a lot of those people, if they have— if they— it's a suburban town. If they have kids, they're home, they have to get a sitter, you know, they may not choose that place to eat at when we have 50 restaurants in town. So they're kind of putting— my point is they're kind of putting away the baby boomer, which is a huge segment who go out to eat all the time.

Yep, and it's a segment with money.

Yeah, so it— It's true what you say about, you know, about wanting to feel warm and feel good.

Yeah, I like a relaxed— if I'm going out to dinner, and especially if I'm going to spend a lot of money, I want to be taken care of, and I want to be treated nicely, and I want to feel welcome and warm and comfortable. You know, I forget where we went, and the chairs— I don't know who bought them, but once you sat back in them, you were leaning back and then to eat, you had to kind of scooch, and it wasn't a comfortable chair to do that in, to get towards the front of the chair to eat. So I mean, you have to think about all aspects of your dining experience, and any one component can pretty much blow it for you.

Yeah, that's true. I mean, especially violet lighting and techno music, I don't know. But to feel welcome and warm and comfortable, that, you know, today's marinara sauce, I think that will do it.

So You know, maybe if that was a sushi restaurant, the techno and the lighting might have fit. But, you know, steakhouse, you don't see too many cows in that environment.

So it's true. It's true. It's true. So this is good. Now tell us, why did you choose marinara sauce for this?

Well, last week we did the Alfredo sauce, and we were talking about basics and, and doing more basics. And when I would teach French culinary, I always started— after I did cutting and preparing and prepping, we always started with sauces. There are mother sauces that you learn how to make, and from those you can make a lot of different things. When I first met Lisa, and I remember going to her house, I think she had 4 or 5 open jars of spaghetti sauce in her refrigerator. She would never in her wildest dreams ever want that anymore because she knows what it's supposed to taste like now. Yeah, but it's— people have that misconception that it's time-consuming, that it's difficult, that, you know, they don't know what to put in it when it's really a very simple basic sauce. Now granted, you can add all kinds of things to it, you can change the flavors, you can play with it, but a basic marinara sauce is really pretty simple. When we're talking marinara, we're talking under 30 minutes. If that's the kind of sauce you want. I don't always make marinara. Most of the time I make more of what's a red sauce. I cringe at the thought. In Philadelphia, they used to call it gravy.

Right, I know. That makes me crazy.

It almost makes my teeth— like gravy. I'm saying gravy. I'll have gravy with that. Okay, what do you want, turkey or beef? No, no, I want spaghetti sauce. Well, that's not gravy. Okay. And every pasta is not macaroni. Okay, so get over it.

But anyway, I know it's fun. Maybe it's a Northeast thing.

I don't know.

But it's a Northeast thing. I don't know. But I was laughing.

You know, there was, you know, this is the same sauce I have been making for, I hate to think, probably about 40 years. So, you know, it's simple.

Okay.

You need very few ingredients. I have my pot on here, and I'm going to turn the heat on. I'm going to start with a little extra virgin olive oil. Oil is one of the things that you can always add into more later. There are some different kinds of sauces, like you can keep adding oil in until you see it start to separate or see it start to break. At that point, then you've got too much oil. Most of the time you can work it back in. A good olive oil will almost act as a thickener for the sauce a little bit. It will really give it a nice base. So I've got the oil in here and now I'm putting in some onion and some garlic. Okay. You can hear it sizzle already. All you're going to do is you're going to let it get a little translucent.

That doesn't look like so much onion. I think maybe I put too much onion in my—

Well, you know, if like onion. Lisa's not a big fan. A lot of what I do, I cook for Lisa, and she likes onion. It's got to have onion in it. It needs onion in it. It's got to have garlic. But sometimes we do tend to overdo the amount of onion and garlic we put in it, and we're taking away from the flavor, the clean, pure flavors of it. Now here I have the tomatoes. All right, now you can see that they're whole, they're in sauce, they're in a little juice here. Now you can go in here and you can break them up by hand.

Uh-huh.

This is sautéing, I'm going to do this. You can break them up by hand if you want to, but what I have here is— I think I've talked about it or shown— it's an immersion blender. I'm going to shut this off real quick.

Oh, see, that's exactly what I need because I always stick my hands in and I go like this and I'm taking them apart them all apart. I don't know if you guys do that too, if the viewers do that, but you know, I think that's something I've got to get.

Okay, and it's that—

I was just saying how I do stick my hand in there and tear them all apart, and I really need one of those.

Oh, absolutely. I wouldn't know how to operate without one anymore. I mean, they're that easy to use. They make a little smaller ones, but again, now this is all Or if you don't have one, you can use a blender, you can use a food processor. These onions are starting to brown a little. Okay, so let's go back.

Can I ask you a question? Can you put your spoon in the sauce and so, I mean, the tomato so I can see how chunky do you leave them?

Well, it all is a matter of taste.

Okay.

I like chunky.

I do too.

But Lisa likes, here's a whole one, Lisa likes them to be morth puree.

Okay.

But I like a little— All right, so now I'm just going to put these in here.

Oh, and any special brand of tomatoes?

If you're going to go with tomatoes, one of the best brands to use— well, it doesn't have to be a name brand, but it's San Marzano tomatoes.

Yes.

And they are from Italy. They're from around Mount Vesuvius, I think, Pompeii, in that area. It's a lower acid tomato. Lisa had a lot of problems with acid reflux and stuff from tomato sauce, and I started using these, and she has no problems with it.

Okay.

Yeah, it's a great tomato.

That's what I buy, too.

And, you know, it depends where you are, what you get. I get Cento. I have some number 10 cans. Oh, wow. Okay, because Chef hates opening up cans. This way he opens up two of these. I actually have a pot of sauce on the stove back there.

Wow, two of those, that's a lot. Now, now what about tomato paste? You don't use tomato paste?

No paste. And these are the size that I used for this, and I would use two. But no, I don't use paste. You can, but I don't need it. This is gonna cook Now, this is marinara, so let me finish making this real quick and we'll talk a little bit more.

Sure.

But I mean, this is it. You have the garlic, the onion, the tomato in here. Now I'm going to add some salt. You can always re-season it, so don't get a heavy hand when you first do it. Some black pepper. Then I use, and people sometimes go wild when you tell them you do it,, but I use a little bit of sugar.

Yeah, I've done that too over the years.

Not a lot, but just a little bit to take just a little of the bitterness off of it. Yeah. And I always say it tastes better. People get crazy on it. Like I would tell my girls, they say, "Oh no, I don't use sugar, just put it in." You're not going to kill anybody with it, that's for sure, and it is going to improve the flavor. And going back, the philosophy is that sugar Sugar and salt are both flavor enhancers. When you think of it that way, sugar will change the flavors and enhance the flavor of a product the same way salt does. It just takes it in a different direction. Both of them enhance the flavor.

Maybe they cancel each other out. Maybe you don't need either of them.

No, you need them. It will be flat. Then I use some fresh basil.

Oh, you put the basil in at this point?

Yep, I put everything in right now. I want the basil to cook into it, and I use probably more basil than you would think you need.

No, I use— I'm a big believer in a lot of basil.

I like basil. Yeah, I like to see it. My biggest disappointment when I go and get sauce out is if I don't see a piece of green in it, I know it's not going to be good. So this is it, that's marinara sauce, and it's done in about— you're going to let it come to temperature, come up about 100— you see it bubbling now— come up to about 180 degrees, and it would be ready to go.

Wow.

That's all there is to marinara. Marinara is a fresh tomato sauce, and it's going to have a bright, vibrant color. Marinara, and you probably know this, but marinara came from the Italian mariner.

Oh. From where?

From being on a ship, because this is what they would cook when the ships went out.

Oh my goodness!

And they made a sauce, and it had to be quick, and it was made in about half an hour, and it was made fresh. So marinara came from that, and it was a sauce that they made on the ship. Now the important thing with marinara is that it's a very fresh-tasting sauce. So it's cooked basically just enough. It's not overcooked. It's not on the stove for 3 or 4 hours, which the pot I have back there will be on for 3 or 4 hours because I like it to be more of a tomato sauce.

Well, that's something I wanted to talk to you about, was length of time. Sometimes you— I've seen recipes where you cook it for a couple of hours, you know, and And so now, so what happens when you cook it for a long time versus—

Well, it's not a right fresh sauce. It goes from being this lively, colorful red sauce with fresh flavors, tomatoes, to being more of a cooked rich sauce with a darker color. And a more robust intensity to it, and it's gonna have more flavor, and it's gonna really— it's really gonna be good, a good red sauce to use if you were making a baked pasta product, if you were making sauce, if you were using it even just as a base for spaghetti. You know, it just has— it's a more flavorful sauce. Basically, this is all it takes. It's done in almost the time that it would take to cook the pasta, almost. You can make it in the sauté pan if you only want to make up a little bit. You can make up a small can of sauce, enough for what you're eating.

There's no reason, there's really no reason not to make your own.

Let's say, see, I made enough here. Chef, I'm only 2 people. This is too much sauce. Freeze 2 number 10 cans. Now that will freeze about 7 or 8 meals for me, plus usually one we eat when we make it. So then I've got them in the freezer, and now when I come home, instead of making sauce, all I got to do is pull one out of the freezer and cook it down. Now Lisa also likes sausage in hers, and a lot of people will tell you, you know, their grandmother's always put pork bones in there. Depending upon what flavors you like, you could have sautéed a little sausage in here. You could have roasted some pork bones and thrown them in or let them cook, simmer in the bottom of the pan, then put your onions and garlic in and sauté them up, and then put the tomatoes in. Let it simmer. Let it steep. Leave it on the stove for hours and let it really build those unique flavors, those wonderful flavors.

Would you use any other herbs? Just as an update, just—

Parsley would be about the only other thing I would put in there.

Okay, so something like thyme, you wouldn't do that?

Not in a classic spaghetti sauce. If I'm building a different kind of sauce and I wanted to have some unique properties, then I may change the seasoning. A lot of people have put oregano in there., but oregano, unless it's some kind of a specific oreganato dish that you're making, people always connotate oregano with pizza. You lose that kind of flavor. If you want to put some marjoram in, which is like a weaker oregano, that's okay, but it really doesn't need it. I'm saying this is all you need. This is like a restaurant-quality sauce. It's that simple. Sometimes we think we put too many things in it, and we overthink the process when all it is— grab a jar of ragu next time you're at the grocery store and see how many different ingredients are in there. We have tomatoes, olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh basil, and sugar. That's all that's in it. I hate to think about how many different things they throw in this.

Can you tell me something? How does this differ from, say, a pizza sauce that you might make?

A pizza sauce wouldn't be cooked. A pizza sauce, you're going to use a really heavy concentration of tomatoes. You're going to look for something that we used to call a 6:1 or a 7:1 ratio, and that's a crushed tomato that is going to be really, really heavy. And devoid of almost any liquid other than the tomato. That's going to be the difference. Then you mix your spices into that raw tomato product, your oregano, your basil, salt, pepper, and then that's used as your pizza sauce. It's that simple. You just need a real heavy crushed tomato. You don't have to buy pizza sauce, but it's not cooked ahead of time. It's cooked on the pizza.

Okay, okay, though I didn't know that because I think I've cooked it and put it on.

You don't have to cook it. So that's done there, and I'm going to throw this pan on. I just moved that over the stove to let it sit, and we're going to start another pan here, and I'm going to make sauce.

I think it froze for a minute. I didn't hear what you said.

I'm going to make a vegetable sauce.

It's one of my favorites.

So, and actually, I'm going to— I would put some more garlic in here, but I didn't chop any for this. So I will always start with garlic, but I don't have it. I'm going to throw some onions in here.

Now you start with— you put onions and garlic in together?

Yes.

Okay.

I always put them in together.

So when you say start with garlic, You follow with onions.

Yeah, I would have put it in together with the onion. Okay. I would have put in the chopped garlic. The sauces that I'm going to use is going to have some garlic in it, so I'm not going to be as worried about it. But generally, usually I always start any kind of a sauce that I'm making that's a red sauce, even if I'm using something I already have, I'll start it with garlic just because I can.

You know what else I have made many times? I've made a ratatouille.

Yes.

But especially in the summer, toward the end of the summer, and I mean, I love ratatouille. In fact, you should make it so I can look, I can see your version. But sometimes I've added tomato sauce into that and put that on pasta, which is so good.

Well, when I used to, when I first started making ratatouille, when I learned to make it at first, I started, you know, it's eggplant, it's zucchini, it's onions, it's peppers, and cans of tomatoes, and it cooks down into this lovely mush.

That's right.

Rich, delicious flavors. Well, we were in, um, where were we? We were in the South of France, and I forget where exactly we were, where the Pope used to be, and they served us a ratatouille but it was roasted, and the flavors were just mind-blowing.

Wow.

Ever since then, you know, Lisa doesn't want it any other way. You get so many different unique flavors from it. He uses fennel, eggplant, zucchini, whole cloves of garlic, onions, and really get some amazing flavors.

And now that's where you can use different herbs. Yes. Herbes de Provence. Oh, chef, I need for you to make that.

Okay, I mean, and that's roasted.

Yeah, I really need to learn that one.

Vegetable that you just put out to, uh, at kind of room temperature. I used to make it for functions because it was so tasty. I, you know, whole grape tomatoes in it, whole cloves of garlic that could roast the onions, and everything kind of keeps its unique flavors. So here we have, you know, I've been putting in, I have some eggplant, some zucchini, I'm going to throw some mushrooms in here.

Oh, so that's a mini ratatouille.

Well, yeah, it is, but it's my, I call it, I used to call it Sicilian sauce, whether for any other name, it's just that's what, you know, reminded me of all the fresh vegetables. Now, it would have bell peppers in here, but Lisa doesn't eat peppers.

Okay.

It's again a fact of mappy. But so this, I'm gonna season it now with a little black pepper, little sea salt.

So you wouldn't be— you're not putting other herbs in there because you're going to because the tomato sauce is the star.

Yes, well, the vegetables are the star, but it's going to be a tomato sauce-based dish. Now, if you don't want to use tomato sauce, very easily just put a little chicken stock in here if you wanted to, or just let them cook with olive oil and serve it over pasta white, like an aglio e olio type of sauce. Now what I am going to put in here too is I'm going to put a little crushed red pepper.

Love it.

Just a little bit of heat in this sauce. It's going to get some olives because I love olives. You can have capers if you wanted.

I'm crazy about capers. I love capers.

They would be wonderful in this. You know, you're almost making like a mini puttanesca.

That looks delicious. Oh my gosh, that really looks great.

And if you could throw some fresh tomatoes in there, I'm going to throw a little basil in now.

Nice.

You could put some spinach in here, artichokes.

Now, would you put something like broccoli rabe in there?

Oh yeah, but it would be cooked.

Okay.

I wouldn't put it in, just put it in because it's going to be really, really tough. So I would cook the broccoli rabe first because otherwise you're going to put it in and you're going to have to cook everything else too long. Because this is basically— you notice I put the eggplant in first because that takes the longest to cook. Then the zucchini followed with the mushrooms and then the olives. Things that take less time to cook, you put in after one ingredient has kind of reached to where it needs to go. Mm-hmm.

And look how healthy that is.

Oh my gosh.

Oh, healthy.

Even if you just like, if you wanted to take some fresh grape tomatoes and throw them in here right now, put it over, serve it over pasta and just drizzle a little more really good olive oil over top of it, that's all you need. Yeah.

Some cheese. It's a great Meatless Monday meal.

Okay, but this is pretty much where it is. Now, I'm I'm just going to throw in a little red sauce.

And you know, it just looks so substantial. I think that's something that would make you full right away. It really looks very filling. Who needs meat?

Now, I'm not putting a lot of red sauce in. I'm just tying it together a little bit. I want to still see the vegetables. That's why I'm saying, you know, if you wanted to, it could very simply be done with just a white sauce. Now, of course, I would hit it with a little bit of cheese before I go to serve it.

Oh, nice!

And we're done. Okay. Wow! Now, that's a nice meal. So if you have marinara in the refrigerator, you know, you could make this with it very simply.

I mean, you could muddy it all up and put some ricotta in there too, right? Oh my gosh!

God, you certainly could.

Who doesn't love that?

Lovely dish with ricotta. Okay, now here's where we're going to go. We have one more sauce for you.

Oh my goodness!

Alright, now I talked last week about making a Rosa sauce. So I'm going to take some of this fresh marinara that I just made and I'm going to put in about 2 cups of marinara.

Now I see why you have those gigantic cans.

Well, it's because, like I said, I don't like opening cans. I used to buy these wonderful jars because I didn't have to do them. And then I'm going to add in some heavy cream. Okay, then I'm going to add in grated cheese. Oh, all right. And this isn't going to heat because it's not the right kind of pan, but I'm going to show you what it's going to mix to. And then I would just put this on the stove for a little while and let it get nice and hot and maybe reduce just a little bit.

Now, what happens to the cheese when you, when you heat it? You put that much cheese in it, what if you did it a little too much?

No, it's fine. I actually could have used a little bit more. Okay. Now this does— this will be tastier. A little salt in it, a little black pepper. This will be tastier if it is with an older sauce, like the sauce I have on the stove.

Mm-hmm.

It will have a lot more body and flavor.

That's what I was going to ask you about, these sauces held over for a day.

Well, this is what I do. This big pot of sauce that I have on the stove is going to sit in the refrigerator for 3 days, then I'm going to freeze it.

Okay, so that's your secret weapon.

I'm going to let it age. I'm going to let— as it ages, it's also going to thicken a little bit on me. It's going to get more— it's going to have a more thicker quality to it, and it's going to have a more robust flavor because all the seasonings are going to come through and cook through You can eat it right away. It's not going to be as good. It's just like with a soup. It's not going to be as good. It's going to be good the day you serve it, but that next day when you reheat that soup and everything has had a chance to really come together, it's really flavorful.

The flavors intensify. There's really no need to cook the death out of—

Oh, no.

—whole day cooking. You just kind of keep it in the refrigerator and the flavors will develop and intensify. And I would imagine beef tastes even fresher. Well, I do like—

I do like to cook a minimum of 2 hours when I cook. Like now, if we came home, we were hungry, and I didn't have any sauce, I would just take a sauté pan, throw stuff in there, and I would make a real fresh, quick sauce, and it would be fine. It would be as good good. It wouldn't have that real intense tomato flavor, but it would have a nice fresh tomato flavor, and it would be a nice fast quick dinner. It's something I could throw on the stove and be done at the table in half an hour. The other sauce, that's why I say I make a larger portion of it, and it's just as simple. You can make it on a day when you're watching— if you're home and your husband's watching games, or like I'm watching games, I'll throw it on on a Sunday usually and let it cook while I'm watching football all day. Okay. Half time, I cook some pasta, we eat, and I go back for the rest of the game. But like I said, it's going to go in the refrigerator. It's going to sit. It's going to age. It can go up to 5 days if you want to push it. 1 day is the bare minimum. Give it at least a day before you freeze it. Wow. It can be in containers. Once it cools— I have these little plastic containers, and I'll set them up, and I'll put them into the refrigerator set up., and then I let them sit in there for 3 days. It depends on how ambitious I am when I do it, or what time of day it gets done. If it's too late at night, it's going in there like that.

Let me ask you, once you— then when you use it again, will you add more basil? No, not usually.

Usually the only thing I add to it is I add a little water because it thickens up. It's cooking. I generally cook it from a frozen state, so it reduces a little bit more as it cooks to defrost. I add a little bit more water to it, and just I toss the pasta in it. I used to— in the old days, you would serve the sauce over top of it. It goes back into the pot after I drain it. I put the sauce in it. I had Lisa's sausages on the side, and I just toss it, and then I serve it and put the sausage on top and garnish it with a little cheese, or if I have some herbs, some parsley or basil cut I can garnish it with that, but usually I don't. It's just generally served.

We sit down and eat. Okay, I think I'm going to make that and then have it, I don't know, maybe later this week.

I mean, this Rosa sauce is very nice, and you'll be surprised at how tasty it is. You can use half-and-half, you can use light cream. Again, this is like a splurge kind of dinner. It's, it's 1 part cream to 2 parts marinara. I mean, it can go in any direction you want. I make a sauce like this, and I actually go 1 part chicken base into it too.

Oh, nice! Chicken stock into it. Yeah.

And then leave— it's like 1 part stock, it's 1 part sauce, and it's 1 part cream. Uh-huh. Thinner kind of a sauce. And then I put prosciutto and peas in it. Ah! And that's really— and, you know, some chunkier tomatoes at that point. And that's really a real nice, light, very quick sauce to make.

Yeah, yeah, no, that's great. And then is that something— I mean, given the cream and the cheese and everything, can you freeze that? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, this will freeze well. You know, it may, it may get a little— on the defrost, the, the ice crystals are going to change the consistency of it a little bit, and then you may need to add a little water. Generally, before I put anything else into it, I'll just put a little water into it and see if the water brings it back.

Mm-hmm. Wow. Well, these are fantastic. These are just, I mean, you know, wonderful meals. One, they just look great.

Very easy to make, like I said, and healthy with the vegetables. You know, I'm actually— I'll make a soup with what I have left. Uh-huh. Or maybe I'll make some more vegetable stock and just sauce and freeze it, and then we'll have that too.

Yeah, there you go. There you go. I think this has been so great, and everyone on the comments stream is just loving it. They love the olives and, you know, just really love everything about it. So this is really a great, you know, great tips. Great tips. I learned quite a bit today on the show.

Well, you know, this is like I said, this is restaurant style. This is how I was taught to make it. The very first time I did make it, and it's traveled with me no matter where I'm at and no matter who I'm cooking for.

Mm-hmm. Now Coach G Moore says, what do you think of dill weed?

Well, Coach, I don't, I don't think— I'm not a big fan of dill, but to me, when I think of dill, I think of fish or chicken. I would never put it in a red sauce, but you know, if it's something you like, and you enjoy the flavors, well then by all means, you know, do it. I would always use fresh and maybe try it as a garnish or try it with the meat and mix it in. But you know, for me it's just, it's a pretty basic, it's classic. I may make another kind of a dish out of it. I mean, I use marinara to make chicken pepperoni that I love. It has a dash of that. Sometimes I'll put a little red sauce into white sauces just to change them up. I mean, you can do so much with it.

Yeah, well, you know, that's the thing, you know, just what you said, basic. You can make those big cans and make the big, you know, the basic sauce, and then, you know, store them in different containers, and then you can mix it up. Then you can mix it up. Then when you take it out again, experiment with different, you know, for example, I love tarragon. It's a little bit of a licorice sort of, which I think a little bit on the sweet side, licorice. I love tarragon. I don't know, to me that could maybe—

You know, you could try it. The one thing that I think I found the freakiest, I made two sauces that somebody taught me one time, and I looked at him and thought he was insane, and he was, but that was a whole other issue. But the one sauce was a sambuca sauce. And I don't like sambuca, but it was mushrooms and it was the bérjol sauce. I think we made that. Yes. Right, and it was mushrooms, sambuca, red sauce, and a good handful of cheese, and it is just really— oh, really, really tasty. And then the other one he made was with an orange liqueur, triple sec, and the triple sec was good, but I think I would have had to find the right vehicle to go with it. It wasn't necessarily good with what I made, so you need that vehicle to serve that sauce with. So if you have a tarragon sauce, you need that vehicle, you know, and you know, thinking about it, that might be something that would be interesting with mussels.

Oh, yeah, it could be. I feel like the tarragon would kind of soften the flavors a little bit. You know, that's kind of what I feel, but so who knows, I'll report back. I'll try it.

You know, it's like you said with the ricotta too, you know, you've got your red sauce, we'll take a half a— take a cup of ricotta instead of the cream and mix it into it. And, you know, and then lots of times that's like the perfect way to make a baked pasta. Yeah, mix it with your noodles, pop it in the oven, cover it with mozzarella cheese, and you're good to go.

I know. I think it's all about having it on hand and ready to go and get those big cans, and then there you go, you have it.

One of the things I do do is I keep a couple separate with no meat in them with just sauce because we like chicken parm. I mean, and really, when you go out for chicken parm, it's going to cost you $14, $12, you know, and to make it is going to be about $3. So, and it's going to be better.

Yeah, no, it's a basic, just like you said.

So, you know, develop a tech, you know, style that works for you, freeze your sauces, and you know, you'll be amazed at how good they are. And how fast and easy dinner becomes, and you'll just keep making them from that point on.

Yeah, well, thank you for this, you know, these beautiful dishes. Very, very interesting.

All right, well, great. I'm glad everyone could come by, and thanks so much for stopping around our kitchen table, and I hope to see you next week.

Yeah, see you. Bye-bye.