Comfort Food + Wine

Talya's Comfort Food Plus Wine!! 

Talya Boerner

I  asked Talya Boerner, our great neighbor, friend and regular contributor to our wine blog to periodically write about some of her favorite recipes that include wine. Talya is a great cook and she loves to use wine in her cooking, so this should be a really fun addition to our wine blog! And it meets the requests I have had from many of our readers that we include recipes. So have fun cooking with wine and feel free to send us your cooking with wine recipes and we will include them in a future blog! 

Cheers!
Harold 

Comfort Food + Wine

Spaghetti is one of my comfort foods. When I was a kid we made Chef Boyardee spaghetti from a box. It was efficient – the noodles, sauce and Parmesan cheese were all included.

In the mornings before school, I ate the leftover spaghetti for breakfast. Sometimes cold. Other than grits, I was never much of a breakfast foodie girl.

Now when I make spaghetti sauce I still take the easy route, starting with a jar of whatever is on sale or already in my pantry. This makes a quick flavorful base. I just doctor it up a bit… Then I can say it is homemade.

Meat Sauce with Wine

1 pound of ground sirloin

1 small chopped white onion

2 garlic gloves minced (or 1 teaspoon bottled minced garlic)

½ green bell pepper (optional)

¾ cup dry red wine

1 bottle (26-oz) of your favorite traditional style spaghetti sauce

2/3 cup milk

Salt and pepper to taste

Freshly grated Parmesan

Chopped parsley (optional)

Pasta noodles (spaghetti, angel hair, rigatoni, etc.)

Method

Cook beef over medium-high heat in a large skillet until browned and scrambled. Drain and set aside.

In the same skillet, which is now well oiled from the meat, sauté onion, garlic and bell pepper 2-3 minutes.  Add wine and cook until the liquid almost evaporates. The wine will add moisture and give your dish a rich essence, but take the time to let the liquid evaporate into the veggies. Otherwise, the flavors will not fuse.

Stir in beef and spaghetti sauce. Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Stir in the milk, salt and pepper. Cook 3 minutes until milk is well combined.

Serve over pasta loaded with fresh Parmesan. Sprinkle with parsley. Or not.

And of course, enjoy with a glass of red wine.

I think Chef Boyardee would approve!

Cheers!

Talya

                                  

Be sure to join and follow Talya's very entertaining blog, grace grits and gardening, which is a wonderful read about life and growing up in a small town. You can also follow her each week at the  lakewood.advocatemag.com where she blogs about the history of Munger Place and East Dallas.  

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