Dinner and dessert. Valentines Day weekend I decided to go all Italian and make a whole bunch of awesomeness.
Homemade Spaghetti Sauce
*Recipe from my mamma via a sweet old Italian man.
Steam, in extra virgin olive oil, in a Dutch oven until tinder: 1 medium onion chopped, 1 green pepper chopped, 2 tbsp of minced garlic.
Meanwhile, brown and drain fat from 2 lbs. ground chuck, then add to ingredients in Dutch oven. Also add 1 qt. tomato juice, 3 12oz cans tomato paste, 1 28oz can crushed tomatoes, 1 cap full cider vinegar, stir.
Then sprinkle basil leaves, parsley (and whatever other spices smell good) to cover entire surface of sauce.
Add 1/2-3/4 cup sugar (I left it out this time around).
Throw in a little salt and pepper.
1 cup of red wine.
Stir well and simmer for about 1 hour.
Tiramisu
* This amazing recipe brought to you by Global Table Adventure
Ingredients:
4 eggs, separated
1/3 cup caster sugar
3, 8oz tubs marscapone cheese
40-60 lady fingers (Can be found in the bakery section. I could only find the soft kind though.)
2 tsp dark cocoa powder
For dipping liquid:
2 cups water
3 tbsp instant espresso
3 tbsp rum
Now lets get crackin!
First, mix up the instant espresso with warm water and rum in a small bowl.
Next, divide the egg whites and yolks into 2 separate bowls (the larger being for the yolks). Whip up the egg whites with half the sugar, until it looks like a soft cloud.
Then–without washing the beaters, mix the rest of the sugar with softened marscapone and egg yolks. Softening the marscapone makes it whip smoother.
Next, fold the whipped egg whites into the marscapone mixture.
Once it’s light and fluffy, take your trifle bowl and being layering tiramisu.
First, put a layer of the whipped marscapone mixture into the bottom of your bowl.
Then, add a layer of lady fingers. Each lady finger gets dipped into the coffee mixture before going onto the tiramisu. Now, I didnt want the tiramisu to be squishy so I sparingly dipped the lady fingers in the coffee mixture. In hindsight, I’d dip them a little more to bring in the coffee flavor more. I just wouldn’t immerse the lady fingers in the coffee mixture.
In order to make the lady fingers show up on the outside of the glass bowl, be sure to smush them against the glass, sealing the layer. Keep alternating between cookie and marscapone layers. Fill the whole bowl and end with a marscapone layer. Polish off the top with a dusting of unsweetened cocoa powder.
Refrigerate overnight to let the flavors develop.
NOTE:
I could not for the life of me (and 3 different grocery store stops) find marscapone cheese.
So here’s how to make your own.
1 8oz package cream cheese
1/4 c heavy whipping cream
2 1/2 tbsp sour cream
Mix well.
I would let the cream cheese soften before you mix it all together. The recipe I got this from said not to substitute low fat cream cheese or sour cream. For the Tiramisu recipe, I doubled this recipe to get the 3 8oz tubs of marscapone cheese that the Tiramisu called for.
Hope you enjoy this as much as I and everyone I shared this with did! ♥ B
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