All-time Favorites

Here's a list of the dishes that we found to be extraordinarily good. We'll update and add to this periodically.

• Tomato Sauce III, Classic Italian, p. 95
• Simplicity itself: tomatoes, butter, an onion cut in half (discarded before serving), a bit of salt, a bit of sugar, simmer for 45 minutes. Divine! This is our all-time favorite pasta sauce.
  
  Why so good? As Anthony Bourdain says, (paraphrasing) "The difference between your sauces and my sauces (the sauces made in restaurants) is... butter. Lots and lots of butter." Case in point: this recipe calls for a stick of butter (1/4 lb.) for 2 lbs. fresh - or 2 cups canned - tomatoes. And I am facinated by the use of an onion just in the simmering of this sauce. It imparts its flavor and then discarded, leaving a vibrant red sauce for any occasion.
  
  
• Rebaked Potatoes, Enchanted Broccoli Forest, p. 227
• Easy, yummy comfort food for cold winter days. We make these twice-baked potatoes regularly and they are fairly quick, as long as you remember to do the 1st baking earlier. We usually will bake the potatoes in our toaster oven the night before while we are preparing (or eating) other things.