Episode AH9617: Well, hello and welcome to “At Home” today. We’re so glad that you’re with us. Have you ever thought about the real meaning of love? Everybody has their own opinion or what they feel that it means, and it’s really one of the hardest words to define, because love is a lot of different things to different people. We’re all amazed when we hear stories of a mother who is able to, her child is trapped under a car or in some horrendous position, and she’s able to pick up that car to free her child because her love motivates her to do that. And when you think about love, love is very tolerant, long-suffering. You know, I’ve heard stories of kids who have gone bad, and their mother will stand by them when everybody else turns their back on those children. Grown kids get into drugs, get into burglary, theft, whatever it is, that mother will stand by those children because there’s probably nothing more forceful or powerful, no emotion that is more forceful or powerful than love. And it’s amazing that when we would look at someone who’s done horrible deeds, we’d say, “How in the world, how in the world could anybody love someone like that because of the cruelty or rudeness or whatever it is.” Still, that mother will love that child. Have you ever thought about God’s love? Sometimes we do some things just as nasty to God as that child would do to a mother or to the world. Turn our back on Him, blame Him or accuse Him of things that really God never had anything to do with. It was because of the choices we’ve made, poor choices, bad choices. Then we get into a crisis, we get into a mess, and then we run back to Him and say, “Oh God, help me, oh, help me.” If you’re a person that sits out there and never thinks of God unless you’re in a crisis, I would ask you not to do that. God’s ear is always open to us, but how would you feel if the only time your children talk to you is when they had a big need or they were in a crisis? God’s arms are always open wide to us, and He says, “Come unto me. Come, come on, come unto me,” and He’s forgiving and loving and caring, and that’s what you call love. God’s love. So remember, when someone has done something horrible to you and you feel like, “I can never love them again, I don’t care whatever happens to them,” and you’re getting angry and you’re getting more and more upset, just remember, what if God’s attitude toward us was that way when we screwed things up really bad? Let’s be more tolerant, and let’s remember that God is love. It’s what the Bible says. God is love. Have a little poem I want to read to you, okay? “Where there is love, the heart is light. Where there is love, the day is bright. Where there is love, there is a song to help when things are going wrong, to make all things seem more worthwhile. Where there is love, there’s quiet peace, a tranquil place where turmoils cease. Love changes darkness into light and makes the heart take wingless flight. Oh, blessed are they who walk in love, they also walk with God above. And when man walks with God again, there shall be peace on earth for men.” Well, stay with us now. Here’s our “At Home” Hint, and we’ll be right back to do pastas, all kind of pasta dishes. Stay with us now. Here’s today’s “At Home” Hint. You can avoid cloudiness in iced tea by letting freshly brewed tea cool to room temperature before refrigerating it. If the tea becomes cloudy, pour a little boiling water into it until it clears. If you’ve got a helpful hint, please send it to At Home Hints, CTV, Wall, Pennsylvania, 15148-1499. Well, today on “At Home,” we’re making four different kinds of sauces for pastas, and they’re quick and easy, some of them only take 30 minutes, some don’t even take that long. But I want you to be able to make these quick when you get home and you need a meal for your family. And this first one is a basic marinara sauce, it’s good with meat, and it’s just a plain pasta. And all I’ve done is got some garlic, a lot of garlic in the bottom of my pan with some oil, and I’ve cooked it but not browned it, don’t let it get brown, okay? So we’ve got that going, and now what we’re gonna add to it is, you cook it till it’s cooked but not brown, then we’re gonna add tomatoes. And this is four 16-ounce cans of chopped, cut-up tomatoes. And we’re just gonna put that in there with the garlic. Now, when you do a marinara sauce, something has got to flavor the tomatoes, and that’s why you use a lot of garlic. And this is gonna be, this is a lot, and what you wanna do is just take your potato masher and just mash up the tomatoes just a bit. You could do this before you get it into the pan, or you can do it after. And you see that the oil and that garlic is gonna flavor this. And if you just need something like, you need sauce for something, you don’t want to have a heavy meat flavor or you’re tired of a meat sauce, sometimes we get tired of always having meat in the sauce, and that’s when the marinara sauce is like an all-purpose sauce to make, because you can add cheese to it, you can add other vegetables, it’s really up to what you do, but this is a good basic one. All right, now, this is gonna cook. We’re gonna add a little bit of salt and pepper, let me get my salt and some pepper. Now, remember tomatoes already have salt in them when they can them, so what you’re gonna wanna do is not add a lot of salt. We need to cut down on, don’t use too much of it, okay? And we’re gonna add our pepper. Here we go. Here’s the pepper. Can add as much or as little as you want. You wanna bring this to a boil, and after it’s boiling, turn it to a simmer and then let it simmer for about 30 minutes. This will make enough sauce. This is about six cups of sauce, that’s what it’s gonna make, and that will be enough for about a pound of pasta, all right? Again, like I said, you can add what you want to to it, you can even add any spices. What I’m gonna do is add some oregano, ’cause I like oregano. And we’ll do a little better than a teaspoon, all right? That will add the flavor. Did you know that one of the best ways if your sauce seems too thin and you don’t have the time for it to thicken up by cooking, add some cheese, like grated Parmesan or grated Romano, and that will thicken up your sauce, all right? So now when this comes up to a boil, we’ll turn it down to a simmer. That’s our marinara. The next one I wanna show you, this one is called zucchini, this is a zucchini and tomato sauce. And what I’ve done here is I’ve just sliced one medium onion in a couple tablespoons of oil, and you cook it, but don’t let it get real brown, all right? Some of this is just a little bit brown, but it will be all right. Then what we’ve done is taken some zucchini. This is like four to five medium-size zucchinis, just like this. And you see this cut, this is called julienne strips. This is the way I like to cut it because I think it goes on the spaghetti, the pasta better. But you don’t even peel it, don’t peel it because that outer skin, it adds some color and it’s good for you, it won’t hurt you. So after this has cooked but not browned, then we’re gonna add our zucchini in there just like that. And we’re gonna let this cook a little bit till it starts to brown up. Make sure that this one’s, let me check my heat on that, that one’s good. This one’s good. The other thing that you’re gonna be adding here will be two cans of the cut-up tomatoes, two 16-ounce cans, and some salt and some pepper, and this one has garlic powder in it. So while that’s cooking, I’m gonna go ahead and do my salt. Again, your tomatoes have salt in it, so don’t go heavy on the salt. And we’re gonna add pepper. And as I always tell you, you are able to add anything you want to. You know, just because we use oregano or we use a certain spice, it doesn’t mean that you have to use that same one. If you don’t like the flavor, add something that you like. Maybe Italian seasoning instead of the oregano, or something like that, substitute whatever your family particularly likes. And this needs to cook, there we go, just until it gets a little tender. It won’t take long because when you julienne strip it like that, then it cooks very quickly, and you know that zucchini has a lot of moisture in it, and that will help to add to the sauce. Now, our marinara has started. It’s not a full boil yet, but it’s getting there. And I’ll tell you, it smells real good. Anything that you use a lot of garlic with is gonna give a good foundation or a good basis for your sauce, and this has a lot. This will thicken up as it cooks, and this one is gonna cook for about 30 to 40 minutes. And you wanna be boiling your pasta, whichever kind of pasta you choose to use with this. You would have that cooking on the stove while this is cooking, and it’ll all get done about the same time, and you have a quick, easy pasta dish for your family for especially when all the vegetables are coming in, anytime of the year that you can get good, fresh vegetables, you wanna include some of these pastas. We thought we would do them without meats to show you that you’re able to cook good pastas without a lot of meat. You don’t have to have chicken or the beef or the veal or the pork or whatever. All right, that’s cooking pretty good. They’re tender, I would probably let this cook just a tiny bit more, but for time’s sake, I’m gonna go on, okay? Now we’ll add our two 16-ounce cans of tomatoes that have been cut up. Gonna add that right in with the zucchini and the onion. Now, there’s no heavy garlic in this one. We have not used the fresh garlic in this one. So what we’re gonna do is add some garlic powder. And we salt and peppered it. And just a little bit of this, just don’t get carried away too much. That’s about, I’d say about a half a teaspoon, let’s do about that. Again, adjust it so that it’s what your family likes. And when this comes up to the boil, we’ll turn it down and let it go, and it will cook 30 to 40 minutes until it is very, very soft. And that zucchini in there, it’s gonna add a dimension, something real different, like the colors there, the red, that’s kind of the Italian colors, right, red, white, and green? Okay, remember, onions, zucchini, tomatoes, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. That’s the basis for this sauce. Well, I’ve got some others to share with you. We’ll be back in just a moment. Stay with us now. All right, the next one is called broccoli rigatoni. My husband first tasted this in New York City at Little Italy, and he loves broccoli, and so they make a sauce out of it, and it’s so easy. And if your kids don’t like broccoli, try this, because I think this is gonna be a way that they’re gonna enjoy it. We’re gonna take a medium onion, and we’ve put a half a cup of oil, now, that sounds like a lot, but there’s a reason, because this is gonna go into the sauce. There’s half a cup of oil here, and we’re gonna put our medium-sized onion, chopped fine, there. And this one, you have to have your broccoli cooked. What we’ve done was taken the broccoli and used a whole bunch, fresh broccoli, see here, fresh broccoli, and cooked it way down. After you’ve cooked your broccoli, you drain it, and then you put your pasta in the same water and cook it because the two flavors then gives you a broth like this, okay? And you reserve one cup of that broth from the broccoli and the pasta water, all right? Now we’re cooking our onions, and they’re gonna cook just until, not brown, but until they start to cook till they’re transparent. In the bowl, we have our rigatoni. Make sure that this is well drained. And we’re gonna put the rigatoni in our serving bowl just like that. Okay. Next, we’re going to add our broccoli. Good, hot broccoli, cooked just like this. Okay. Ah, it smells so good! And I like the way that looks, that looks taste-tempting to me ’cause I like the broccoli there. Now, these are just about done, but not quite. Okay, now we’re going to take one cup of our reserve liquid, we’re gonna add this. This is actually a little bit more than one cup, but it will be all right. And when the onion are totally cooked through and just start to brown, then you’re gonna wanna add that to our broccoli and pasta mixture. All we need then is some cheese, I tell you, we are in business. So easy, so tasty. This is a good broccoli too, if you’re gonna make something that doesn’t have a gravy like a breaded pork chop or something like that, if you wanted to add that, you could do that, and I’ll tell you what, it would be incredibly good. I mean, just tasty, delicious. Okay, this is just about there. We’re gonna give a stir, look how nice and thick this has gotten, isn’t it beautiful? This is incredible. This is our zucchini and tomato sauce. This is the marinara, everything is getting nice and thick, and that’s what you want it to do. Will be delicious over pastas. We are just about there, okay. Gonna let it cook a little bit more. You know, the different types of pasta that you use, I used to couldn’t understand why people thought it was so important to have all different kinds of pastas because I never thought that the kind of pasta that you used was all that important. I used to think, well, if it’s those little bows or shells, pasta is pasta. But it’s amazing, I’m gonna add some of this just to cool down this oil ’cause I don’t want it to melt on my bowl. But you know, I understand now that the different kinds of pastas, the sauce to a rigatoni, that’s what Paul’s favorite is because he likes the way the sauce lays in the little ridges on the rigatoni, that’s why he thinks that’s the best one, and that’s the one he likes. So, I understand that now. First, I used to think, well, it’s all spaghetti, really, and it’s all macaroni product. Look how delicious this looks. This look good? Mm, mm, mm. Now I need some grated cheese for this. Little salt and pepper. We’re gonna add the salt and pepper here just like that. All right. And here’s our pepper, just to taste, as much as you like or as little as you like, whatever. Okay. There is the broccoli rigatoni. And you just wanna keep mixing it up. Oh, I wish you were here to sit down and have a taste. I think you’d really like this one. A nice, quick, easy way to get the kids, to eat the pasta and to eat the broccoli, all right? Now we’re gonna move on. Let me add a little bit of this cheese here. We’re supposed to add cheese to this, we will now. There we go. Now we’re gonna start the spaghetti with eggplant. You need a big bowl for this. Let me tell you what you do first. You take four cloves of garlic that has been finely chopped and a fourth of a cup of olive oil, and you put it in a skillet. And you let the garlic cook but not brown. You remove the garlic, you leave the oil in there, and then you take your eggplant just like this. Don’t peel it, cut it in circles, just in slices. Oh, about an 1/8 of an inch, 1/16 to an 1/8 of an inch. Then you begin to fry it in that oil that’s been flavored with the garlic, and what you get, you do them individually, is eggplants just like this. No breading on it, it’s just been browned. And you drain it between layers of paper toweling. Now, what you have is you’re gonna take your cooked spaghetti just like this. You wanna drain it real, real well. And I like dishes that you can assemble it and then put it on the table, you don’t have to keep adding sauce or finding more and more sauce or whatever, just like this. Cook this ahead, you can drop it in hot water to bring it back. That’s a good idea. You put that in your bowl. Put this here. Then we’re gonna add all of the eggplant that we’ve cooked ahead of time just like this, and put all of those. And this is two eggplants you’re gonna use for a pound of spaghetti. And you can do this ahead of time also. Remember, this is very thin and finely sliced, very thin slices. And the paper towel helps to absorb it. Now what we’re gonna do, we’ve got the spaghetti in there, we’re gonna take a pound of ricotta cheese. Get my other spoon here. One pound of ricotta cheese, and it’s gonna go in, gonna mix this all together. Now, you could use, hold it. Okay, we got ’em all lined up here. These are gonna break apart anyway, so it doesn’t matter. But you wanna mix these together, mix it up. Then we’re gonna add our ricotta, okay? This is another way to get kids to eat eggplant, which is really good for you. And when they’re in season, you buy them, remember, they have to be nice and firm when you buy them. Add the one pound container of ricotta just like that. We’re gonna mix this all together. And we’re gonna add, again, salt and pepper. Don’t get carried away, ’cause some people maybe can’t eat a lot of salt. You know, you could add it at the table, so don’t add so much when you’re making it. And of course, the pepper. All right. Then we’re gonna add some cheese. And I need a bit more than this, but we’ll start just to move it apart, and we’re gonna add more. I would say a good, you need a good heaping half cup at least, or more to taste, whatever. Then we’re gonna mix this together. And this is our eggplant and spaghetti. And I think when that ricotta gets down in there with that hot noodles and the eggplant slices, I think you’re gonna really, really enjoy it. Come on back, we’re gonna have all of the dishes that we prepared today. I’m gonna show you our final shots, so stick with us, but here’s the way you can get the newsletter from today’s program. Stay with us now.
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Well, we’re here at the table with all of the, I’m calling them harvest pastas because they have a lot of fresh vegetables in them. This is the broccoli. Isn’t this wonderful? Broccoli and rigatoni with the cheese on top. In front of it is our marinara sauce that we put on a nice flat noodle. Next to it here is the zucchini and tomato sauce. We put that on the capellini or the angel hair pasta, real fine pasta. And in the front is the eggplant and spaghetti that has a ricotta cheese, and oh my goodness. And there’s not a bit of meat in any of these dishes. We’ve added some garlic bread. We added a nice, little tossed salad and some iced tea with it. And for dessert, how about a scoop of spumoni and a biscotti? What more could you want for a really delicious pasta meal? Any one of these can be made in about a half hour. The one with the eggplant takes a little longer because you have to brown the eggplant, each of the slices, but it’s well worth it. Trust me, it really is. You know, sometimes you tell me when you write for the recipes that you don’t see the number on the screen or you don’t hear it, when you’re requesting it, then just say, “I would like to have the recipes for the program that you did about pastas or about the meatloaf or about,” and we’ll know what you’re talking about. So if you have a difficult time because maybe the reception on your cable system or even just on your antenna isn’t real good, just mention what it was that we were preparing during the program, and we’ll be sure to get the right recipe out to you. Now, don’t forget that’s a self-addressed, stamped business-sized envelope sent to us with a little gift to help us with the cost that we have for printing, and we’ll be sure to get those recipes to you for that program plus the rest of the month’s recipes that go along with it. It’s always a pleasure to be with you. Remember that we really do love you, we care for you because you’re part of our family. It’s not just the people here that make up “At Home,” it’s you sitting right there watching each week, you’re part of our family. Thank you for being there. So until next time, be sure to join us because it just wouldn’t be the same without you. We’ll see you then, bye bye.
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