Cooking seemed like an interesting thing to tackle, back in the first days of our marriage. I was suffused with the glow of new love, and wanted to prepare my husband a dinner he would never forget. As it turns out, I am the one who will never forget.
I had a day off from work, and I planned to make “homemade” sauce for my beloved. No Ragu from a jar for this devoted wife. My mother in-law had given me her recipe, as my husband always gave it rave reviews. I was planning to make this sauce extra special with the addition of an entire pound of browned chopped meat! Lest you pause here, and say “what’s so special about that?” Let me tell you about our household budget. We were subsisting on “the borrow from Peter to pay Paul system.” We didn’t have two nickels to rub together.
I pulled out my large pot, (received as a shower present, and making its first foray to the stove), and began gently sautéing garlic. I added my 3 cans of plum tomatoes, tomato paste, and the browned chopped meat. I blended in the seasonings stated in the recipe and set the pot on to simmer. Oh I was so proud, how easy was this? Then I tasted my creation……..bleechhh! Obviously I had not followed the directions as carefully as I should have. What I was lovingly cooking tasted like tomato cotton candy. I reviewed the recipe, and with dawning horror realized that instead of a pinch of sugar, I had added the proportions for one of the tomato components. A half cup.
You may say, “Well scrap that, and start over.” On my budget that was a non-starter. How can I fix this I pondered? I had read somewhere that if something is over salted; you dump in a few raw potatoes, and let them absorb the excess. Well if it worked on salt, maybe it would have the same effect on sugar. Into the pot went 3 large peeled spuds. I let this concoction simmer away, allowing the Idaho’s do their thing. It didn’t work, plus now the potatoes had disintegrated into my sauce. You may say, “Well scrap that, and start over.” No, I was not defeated yet. What is the opposite of sweet? Why sour of course! A healthy dose of vinegar was introduced to the mix. Another simmer, another taste, and yuucckkkk, still pretty bad. I plowed through my spice rack (another shower present making its maiden voyage) and began tossing spices Willy Nilly. Still no major improvement on the sauce. As a last ditch effort the Tabasco sauce was pulled off the bench and put into play. Sadly, we were still losing at the half.
I racked my brain for a solution. Then it came to me, I figured a half cup of sugar is to pinch, as a pot of tomatoes is to a vat! (And they say you never use algebra in the real world!) I transferred my concoction to a gigantic lobster pot, (yes, another shower present!) then added 6 large cans of tomato puree. Why would I have so many cans of tomato sauce you might wonder? Haven’t you people ever heard of the Can-Can sale at Shop Rite? It was so cheap, they were practically giving it away, and since I naively fancied myself as a soon to be fabulous cook, I had stocked up. I began stirring this vat with the help of a canoe paddle, as it straddled two burners on my stove top.
Victory was mine! Believe it or not, it didn’t taste half bad. Of course if you wanted to find any meat in the sauce you would need to send in a search and recovery team.
That night over dinner, my new husband remarked on what a great sauce I had made. “You should use this recipe all the time, it’s delicious!” he stated. “I’m glad you like it”, I replied ““I decided to make enough to last 5 years.” “I do have one suggestion, though”, he added,” next time, why don’t you add a little meat?”
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