We always have some containers of red sauce in the freezer for just these kind of nights. Michael cooks up a dozen tins of tomatoes with an assortment of other ingredients and then whizzes it all up. Over the years he's perfected the recipe so that we always have great tasting red sauce at our fingertips. As a consequence, I have lost the taste for jarred pasta sauces. Maybe that's a bit snobbish but there you go. I know what's in my red sauce (well, Michael does) and I know that there's nothing bad hidden in it.
I don't know if I've mentioned the sauce we put on our salads? We make a few variations of a vinaigrette. Growing up we had vinaigrette on everything, from lettuce and tomato salads to cold leftover vegies and meat. In our house everything had a sauce and most of the time it was vinaigrette. So I've taken on some of that tradition and always have vinaigrette on our lettuce and garden salads. In fact, I really don't like the Australian tradition of serving a big bowl of mixed salad vegetables dry as a bone. I need a sauce!!
One of my mum's favorites was carrot salad, which was just grated carrots, vinaigrette and parsley. That's what I made tonight as well as the lettuce and fennel salad. There are countless ways of making vinaigrette and of course it should be made to your taste, but here's how I make it:
In the bottom of your salad bowl put some salt and pepper, finely chopped garlic and hot English mustard. This is very important for us as we love the flavour it gives. Using a different type of mustard like Dijon or American changes the taste of the sauce dramatically. Add some cider vinegar and mix together well. Finally add olive oil to taste. The usual proportions of vinegar to oil are 1:4 or 1:3 but we like it vinegar strong so tend to put about 1:2!
What did you have for dinner tonight?
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