Presto indeed

Restrictions necessitate creativity. I guess the more familiar saying is “necessity is the mother of invention,” but I like my version better. Where would we be without our ability to make something great out of almost nothing? This is true for all art forms and, as I have discovered, cooking is no exception. Perhaps we could expand the maxim: laziness causes restrictions. Or, winter blahs nets fewer shopping trips which causes restrictions and thus necessitates creativity. Oi, my aching brain.

There are mitigating factors when it comes to cooking, the most obvious being hunger and available materials. I love to cook, experimenting with new flavours and ingredients, but as I have said before, sometimes I'm just too hungry to perform acts of culinary greatness. Or so I think. The wonder of cooking is that our common restrictions—nothing in the fridge, exhaustion, etc.—often produce miraculous (or if you prefer a less sensational adjective, unexpected) results.

Lately, I have been encouraged by the almost too enthusiastic Italian-Canadian David Rocco in his cookbook David Rocco's Dolce Vita. He corroborates my claim by pronouncing in his introduction that magic (or in his parlance, “alchemy”) is the method in cooking. Make your food and pay attention to the process. “Suddenly,” he writes, “you've created alchemy using the most ordinary ingredients.”

This morning I made his recipe for uova in purgatorio, or “eggs in purgatory,” a dish I had often made for myself before I had his book, though using a far more complicated method. I would make mine as you would œufs en cocotte, using warmed buttered ramekins submerged in a bain marie and baked to perfection in the oven, replacing the cream for tomato sauce. (The French, it seems, complicate everything.) In the crisp snap of fall last October, I must have made this three times a week. Now, deep in the fatigue of winter, this method is too involved. My head hurts just to think of performing the many steps to complete the recipe. Rocco to the rescue. In his version, simmer a 1/2 cup or so of tomato sauce in a pan, crack in the eggs, add some grated cheese, cover and turn off the heat. In about 5 minutes you have beautiful eggs poached in sauce. Presto.

My tomato sauce, another super-fast concoction, is also inspired from his book. It's another non recipe: too simple to require one of those annoying list of ingredients that make my eyes glaze over and my hand turn the page. Smash a clove of garlic and add it to a saucepan with about 3 Tbsp of olive oil. Wait for it to sizzle, then add one 26-oz. can of plum tomatoes, undrained. Crush up the tomatoes a bit with a utensil. Add any herbs of your choosing, fresh or dried (oregano, basil, parsley, bay leaf...). Bring to a boil and then simmer for at least five minutes, or the time it takes you to prepare whatever it is you're serving the sauce with (cooked pasta, meatballs, fried eggplant, sausages, etc.). Season to taste with salt and pepper. What could be easier?

I have other such instant discoveries I will be sharing with you over the next few days. In the meantime, do you have any fast food inspirations to share with me?

A note about canned tomatoes
ONLY BUY SAN MARZANO TOMATOES. This is the great secret of Italian tomato sauce. Mama Rosa told me so (though I had heard it years before by the owner of Positano). San Marzano tomatoes are D.O.P. certified in Italy, grown and packed in the traditional manner. They are more expensive than standard canned tomatoes (usually around $4/26-oz.), but they are worth it. I'm not a food snob per se, but in the case of canned tomatoes, there really is one kind. Since it’s a non-perishable, I don't mind buying something I know won't go to waste before I have a chance to eat it. After all, we would spend $3 minimum on a jar of prepared tomato sauce, something that invariably sits half-eaten and rotting at the back of the fridge. Trust me: You won't be able to resist eating your own sauce made with San Marzano tomatoes with everything. Several brands (Unico, Pastene and others) offer San Marzano tomatoes in their canned tomato family. I buy mine packaged by Pastene in yellow-labeled tins at Loblaws.

News about storing fresh parsley!
In the photo above, you can see a bunch of beautiful, fresh parsley leaves filling the top of the frame. Would you believe that bunch has been sitting in a vase on my counter for a week? No joke! I have taken to arranging my parsley in a drinking glass or small vase when I bring it home from the grocery store, putting a half-inch or so of water at the bottom of the jar to keep the ends moist and replacing the water every few days. I'm so happy I made this discovery. It’s pretty and such a time-saver: One less thing to pull out of the fridge when I'm cooking! If you try this, I guarantee you'll be adding fresh chopped parsley to every dish you make.