Sauces, Dips & Marinades

 

 

 

Hummus by Cliff1976 (Ferndale, Michigan, USA)  

Green Tomatillo Salsa by Bike (Issaquah, Washington, USA) 

Red Salsa by Bike (Issaquah, Washington, USA) 

Marinade for Steaks and Salmon by Biamar (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada) 

Good Spaghetti Sauce by Ladybunyip (Middle Park, Victoria, Australia)
Avanta's Tex Mex Dip by Avanta7 (Little Rock, Arkansas, USA)

Fresh Guacamole by Avanta7 (Little Rock, Arkansas, USA)

Basic Tomato Pasta Sauce by Mochagirl (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) 
Aussie Guacamole by Mochagirl (
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia)

Trisha's Unbelievably Easy Dip by annulla (Brooklyn, New York, USA)

 

Cooking resources

Recipe Source (SOAR)

Epicurious


Recipe Link

Cooking Light

The Food Network

All Recipes

The Splendid Table

The Cook's Thesaurus

Better Homes & Gardens

Foodlines

 

Vegetarian cooking

Int'l Vegetarian Union

Low Fat Vegetarian

Cordon Vert

VegSource

Veg Resource Group


Veggie Life


VegWeb

 

Kosher cooking

Kashrut.com

Jewish Food Mailing List

Gourmania

Empire Kosher Poultry

Classic Jewish Food

 

Measurement
conversion


The Metric Kitchen
(American - metric)

The Guild of Food Writers  
(Imperial - metric)

 

Food oddities

Gallery of Regrettable Foods

Weight Watchers Recipe Cards

Cate's Garage Sale Finds


Peeps Research

Fun With Grapes

Pop Tart Blow Torches

The Twinkies Project

The Visible Mars Bar Project

Rude Food (R-Rated)


Weird & Different Recipes

 

 


Why do I keep the pages turning
when I can
smell my
dinner burning? 

 

 


The perfect after-dinner treat?
Curl up with a book
in your favorite seat

 

 


Who says I
can't cook
with my nose
in a book?

 

 


Nourish the body
by eating;
nourish the soul
by reading


 

 
 

 

 

Hummus by Cliff1976 (Ferndale, Michigan, USA)  

"Middle Eastern spread of garlicky goodness. I whipped up a batch using my friend's recipe (his gramps was from Syria), and augmented the garlic and lemon juice quantities a bit. Tastes so good scooped up in a piece of pita bread or on carrot sticks — but all who meet you face-to-face should beware your dragon breath."

One 19 oz. can of chick peas (also called garbanzo beans)
One teaspoon of salt
3 Tablespoons of sesame tahini (ground sesame seeds in olive oil)
4 - 5 cloves of peeled garlic (you can use fresh garlic or minced in jar)
5 Tablespoons of Lemon Juice

1. Drain the chick peas and save the juice.
2. Dump everything else into the blender
3. Start blending and slowly add chick pea juice until you get the viscosity you like (we used about half of the juice we drained).  

Posted in bookcrossing.com Chit-Chat forum on 2/7/2003.

Back to Top

Green Tomatillo Salsa by Bike (Issaquah, Washington, USA) 

"Since I left Texas, I haven't been able to get decent Tex-Mex, which implies really mediocre salsas. I've attempted to recreate red and green salsas with some kick."

10-15 small tomatillos, husks removed & washed
1/4 cup lime juice
Chipotle peppers, seeded (you can also use serrano or plain jalapeno)
1 clove garlic 
1 C vegetable base bouillon
1/2 cup cilantro, roughly chopped
1/2 cup "1015" Onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt

To cook tomatillos,  place on a cookie sheet and cook at 500 degrees for about 15-20 minutes, until they split. Let cool, then puree in a blender with the lime juice, bouillon, garlic and pepper. Add cilantro, and whirl just a little bit. Add remaining ingredients. Let stand for 30 minutes. Serve at room temperature.

Back to Top

Red Salsa by Bike (Issaquah, Washington, USA) 

"Since I left Texas, I haven't been able to get decent Tex-Mex, which implies really mediocre salsas. I've attempted to recreate red and green salsas with some kick."

4 whole large tomatoes, core cut out
6 tomatillos, husks removed and washed
2 - 4 dried chipotle peppers, seeds removed
1 - 2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup lime juice
salt to taste

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Roast the tomatoes and tomatillos on a for 15-20 minutes (The skins will be slightly charred.) Put the tomatillos, chipotles, lime juice, garlic and 1/4C of the cilantro in a blender. Chop very well. Add the tomatoes and blend just enough so the tomatoes are broken into chunks. Stir in the remaining cilantro and add salt to taste.

Back to Top

Marinade for Steaks and Salmon by Biamar (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada) 

1 part red wine
1 part olive oil
1 part soy sauce
1/4 part Worcestershire sauce
1/4 part lemon juice
1 crushed garlic clove
salt & pepper

 

Back to Top

Good Spaghetti Sauce by ladybunyip (Middle Park, Victoria, Australia)

"The secret of good spaghetti sauce is to start off soupy and let it reduce."

500 g (1 pound in old money) lean mince
1 stick celery, finely sliced
1 medium onion finely diced
clove garlic, finely chopped
a couple of rashers of bacon, diced
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoon plain flour
1/3 cup white wine (or water)
grated nutmeg
black pepper
salt to taste
1 tin tomato puree (or the equivalent in fresh tomatoes, skinned and whizzed)
4 cups chicken stock
2 Tablespoons tomato paste

Lightly fry the onion, garlic and celery in the olive oil. Then brown the meat. Add the flour, then the wine. Turn up the heat and evaporate liquid. Then add remaining ingredients. Simmer gently uncovered for at least an hour, stirring occasionally to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom. It starts off very liquid, but reduces to a lovely intensely flavoured sludge.

Note: You can vary this by adding half an orange and a cinnamon stick while the sauce is simmering; obviously you fish them out at the end.

Posted in bookcrossing.com Chit-Chat forum on 11/12/2003

 

Back to Top


Avanta's Tex Mex Dip by Avanta7 (Little Rock, Arkansas, USA)

1 16 oz can refried beans, plain or spicy
1 cup sour cream
1 package taco seasoning mix
1 cup prepared or fresh guacamole (recipe to follow)
1 cup grated sharp cheddar
1 medium tomato or 2 Roma tomatoes, diced
1 small can sliced or chopped black olives
3 scallions (green onions), chopped, including the green stems


Stir the taco seasoning mix into the sour cream. Set aside. In a deep dish pie pan or a quiche dish, cover the bottom of the dish with the refried beans to the depth of about 1/4-3/8 of an inch. Cover the beans with a layer of guacamole. Cover the guacamole with a layer of sour cream mixture. Be careful not to blend the layers. (Depending on the size of your dish, you may have beans, sour cream or guacamole left over.) Cover the sour cream mixture with the shredded cheese. Sprinkle the top of the cheese with diced tomatoes, chopped scallions and sliced/chopped olives. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. Serve with plain tortilla chips.

Back to Top


Fresh Guacamole by Avanta7 (Little Rock, Arkansas, USA)

"This dip recipe is so familiar to me that I don't actually measure, so all ingredient amounts are approximations. Hope you like!"

2 or 3 ripe avocados (3 if they're small)
1/2 tsp Garlic powder (or to taste)
1/2 tsp Salt (or to taste)
1/4 tsp ground Black pepper (or to taste)
1/4 tsp ground Cayenne pepper (or to taste)
1 Tbs fresh lemon juice
Peel avocados and remove pits. In small bowl, mash avocados and lemon juice until smooth and well blended. Add garlic powder, salt, and peppers. Mix well. Adjust seasoning to taste. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Back to Top

 


Basic Tomato Pasta Sauce by Mochagirl (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia)

"The best thing about this recipe is all the extra things you can do with it. The only thing that's really essential is the tomato ... but without the other things I've put in under essential it'd be pretty boring. Also, I would never make this without herbs but I know many people who don't like to use them so much."

Essential ingredients
1-2 tins tomatoes
Onion
Garlic
Salt, pepper
Olive oil

Optional ingredients
Herbs (whatever you feel like, e.g. basil, rosemary, oregano, all work well)
Tomato paste/puree (thickens it up a little)
Olives
Mushrooms
Capsicum (bell peppers or just peppers in America, I think)
Chili
Paprika
Anything else you might care to add.

Fry onion and garlic in olive oil (med heat) until onion is clear. Add tomatoes and a little water if you want it to take more time (the flavours blend better that way but if you are in a hurry don't add the water). If you have added whole tomatoes, mash them up a bit. Add anything else that you are adding, season to taste. Simmer gently until it's an appropriate consistency.

I use much the same recipe to make salsa and let it get REALLY thick, for pasta sauce it can be anything from pretty thick to pretty sloppy, it depends on how much of a hurry I'm in). I usually stick the pasta on once the sauce is about halfway to where I want it.  

Note: If you're a meat-eater, you can also add bacon, in which case you would fry it with the onions.

Back to Top

 


Aussie Guacamole by Mochagirl (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia)

"Ok, so I'm an Aussie and we've been paid out for our versions of Mexican many times ... having said that, I've been told by many that my guacamole is the best they've tasted so I figured I'd share it." 

Essential ingredients:
Avocado (ripe, not over-ripe)
Squeeze of lemon juice
Garlic, very finely chopped (depending on your tastes)
Salt, pepper
Dash of tomato paste
Sour cream  

Optional ingredients:
Extra of any of the above
Onion (finely chopped)
Paprika

Chop the garlic very finely. Stick it in a bowl with the avocado, mash the avocado with a fork. Add lemon juice and tomato paste and mix. Now for the sour cream: the trick is, not too much. So I add one large teaspoonful and mix it all up, then decide if I need any more. Salt and pepper to taste. If you want it really smooth and un-lumpy, stick it in a blender/food processor.

Back to Top

 


Trisha's Unbelievably Easy Dip by annulla (Brooklyn, New York, USA)

"Trisha Baker gave me this recipe. Amazingly simple and good."

1 cup salsa
1 cup sour cream

Stir the salsa and sour cream together and chill for at least an hour to let the flavors blend and mellow. Serve at room temperature. That's it! 

Back to Top

 

 

 


Wren's Crossing

 

Bookcrossing

 
Copyright © 2004 TexasWren. All rights reserved.
Designed by annulla
Revised: February 16, 2004