Pete joking around in his kitchen on East 18th Street
Pete's Famous Bizarre Tomato Sauce
1 can crushed tomatoes
1 large can tomato sauce
3 small cans tomato paste
Water - use the empty cans of paste fill 3 times
5 large garlic cloves
1 T of Cinnamon
1 t of Nutmeg
1/2 cup of sugar
Lots of Pepper
Sprinkling of Salt
And a dash of anything green he could find in the cabinet
Mix together. Cook for 1 hour and serve with spaghetti and meatballs.
Now, I think you see in the recipe that he put Cinnamon and Nutmeg in the sauce. He LOVED this. Everyone else would gag. He would bring his "Special Pot of Sauce" to family functions where he would eat a huge helping of it. To be nice, we'd all put a meatball and sauce on our plates and kid him about "what special and unusual ingredients were in the sauce."
He would say "I made it the way I like it" and we'd giggle behind his back. Pete's sister, Nancy would push the tomato sauce on unsuspecting guests - figuring inlaws and friends of the family who were invited wouldn't utter how awful the sauce was -- they'd either eat it or quietly throw it away hoping that no one would notice. Then after Nancy got rid of the sauce, she'd announce to Peter, "Wow, it's all gone. Too bad I didn't get a chance to eat it." Then she'd grimace and make a kissing gesture up to God.
Wolf Moon Video 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEUSGEkij80
ROFLMAO!!! My dad cooked like this!!(Who the hell puts green beans in Goulash???) EWWWWW!!! So I totally understand the fear of eating something Pete would cook!! Nutmeg and cinnamon in spagetti sauce would totally make me gag. Thank you for the early morning laughter!! xo
ReplyDeleteHow did Peter decide to put cinnamon and nutmeg in tomato sauce. Must have been experimenting with what ever he had in the cupboard. The weirdest thing I've tried is ice cream and tomato sauce..yuck! Mixing weird foods is always a fun game when you are looking after a bunch of kids. I wish I could have made Peter my Apple Crumble with cinnamon and nutmeg.
ReplyDeleteDarcie, love this song but so many people think Wolf Moon is about menstruation and it isn't.
LOL. This had me doubled over laughing. Too funny. The mere thought of Peter with his hair in pony tail, wearing an apron, chopping and dicing made me smile. But I guess this recipe was more about can-opening, pouring and creative mixing, which is fine really, and obviously the way to great culinary breakthroughs, like the dreaded Famous Bizarre sauce. :D
ReplyDeleteI hope you made a mental record of the faces pulled by your family friends and guests when first trying Peter's tomato tour-de-force. You guys are really so funny. thanks for sharing.
WOW, did he come up with that recipe before or after he drank the bleach!!! Lol. (-)
ReplyDeleteLMFAO..WOW..This is awesome and so hilarious i can't stop laughing...omg!! This story has made my day so much better!! I will have to try this recipe out for my kids they would probably like it and let me tell ya they eat some funky concoctions. My husband and our kids like to eat can spaghetti with a can of hash and ya mix it together and heat it up ;{ I could not began to tell you what it looks like ...Well it looks like.. barf/poop! But they love it. Thank you for sharing :) Brigett thank you for sharing your story as well that is so funny and your right about the beans in the goulash..Ewwww ..lol
ReplyDeleteHilarious story - LOL „all gone - I didn’t get a chance to taste it“ – what a pity ;-)
ReplyDeleteBut at least no one can say that Pete didn’t try his best & cooked with love even if it tasted strange ;-) It reminds me also on my very first try of a tomato sauce with meat balls and spaghetti – well it was more like a tomato soup with spaghetti and meat balls ;-) and it ended up with a big chaos in the kitchen but ever since then I cook them quite well with the proper ingredients ;-)
Thanks for posting this ‘interesting recipe’ (nutmeg & cinnamon - great ) & I love the pic of Pete in the kitchen – looks like he had the same problems as I since with my height of 5.8 ft common kitchen furniture is always too low & therefore it causes problems with my back so I understand that washing the dishes was not one of Pete’s favorite things to do ;-) thinking about the posting of Marie from 4/26/11. Dishwashers are a great invention ;-)
Much love & respect to you all
-Sabine-
As a woman of Italian heritage, I must say at sauce sounds awful! Cinnamon and nutmeg are great for apple pies, but sauce? Um....no. It goes to show you can't be a genius in every aspect of life....lol.
ReplyDeleteHi Darcie--
ReplyDeleteThanks for this--this brought a big grin to my face. :) I am a HUGE cinnamon and nutmeg fan. There's a spice cake I make and I always double the amount of cinnamon and nutmeg that the recipe calls for. I don't have all the ingredients I need, but I will be doing some shopping. I have to try this to see for myself what it tastes like. I'll keep you posted.
Love & Gratitude--Patty P
I'm italian too....you had me with the recipe until the nutmeg and cinnamon. up until then it was a normal Italian sauce. Peter was a jokster I see that in your stories. Must have been so wonderful to be in his presence. This larger than life man, talented, funny, goodlooking, a brother, son, uncle, cousin who made his mark in a big big way. How do you handle it all? I know it's hard. I know you miss him so much. Please keep telling us these sweet stories and showing us pictures. I look forward to each one. Thank you all so much. Peter is smiling down from heaven right now I see him. We miss you Peter.
ReplyDeleteLooks like I'm making spaghetti sauce for dinner!! ;) love it!!
ReplyDeletelol I used to use cinnamon in mine also(just a dash-I learned that cinnamon lowers blood sugar but not by much) but now I leave it out and kept the nutmeg(again I only use a dash of it). Sounds like way too much pepper...yikes!-Jess
ReplyDeleteOk, I have to admit,, I have actually added cinnamon and nutmeg to my tomato sauce. Along with basil, parsley and sweet onions! Ya, no one eats it when I make it in my family either. But they're not nice about like you guys! Thats pretty awesome to know I'm not the only one who likes it that way! lol!
ReplyDeleteoh I have to share something else in this story..lol..my parents would make a version of spaghetti sauce that would taste sweet and bitter,.it was pretty bad..lol...my brother and I would have to put alot of parmmessan? parmmesan?errr crap lol....ya know ya getting old when ya cant remember how to spell a word..lol. anyways we'd have to put alot of that on it to be able to eat it..lol. till my mom got tired of having to cook the sauce and started buying the jar sauce at the store. was alot better then..lol. sorry mom and dad..still love ya anyways.lol.
ReplyDeleteLOL!!! The photo is priceless and that recipe sounds meant for disaster. Are you sure it wasn't just some Machiavellian ploy to either get all of the spaghetti or garner a supply of better food from members of the family who were more kitchen-savvy?! Seems like the family got some excellent prank-time in with that. Ack!!!
ReplyDeleteStandard heights of counters and sinks in labs and kitchens do not tend to favor the tall, but wow, that's extra bad.
I'm still hoping for the recipe for Pete's extra-stealable oatmeal cookies, and not the ones in the 'special tin'!
oh and ya cant forget about the olive oil...thats what I cook whatever meat in and combine it all in with the sauce..makes it a bit more Italian that way...to me it does anyways. I use the extra virgin olive oil. lol..wondering if Peter would have had a thought or joke about that or not...lol. hmmmmmmmm.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds lousy but thanks for the receipe. i think i will try it. i wonder if i will get the runs or throw up? either way i know i will feel closer to you guys.
ReplyDeleteSugar & Spice : just like Peter!
ReplyDeleteI'm actually very curious to try this sauce. It sounds horrendous, in a way. But, we must give him credit, considering the tomato is technically a fruit, and he treated it as such with the liberal use of cinnamon and nutmeg...Hrmm, or maybe he was thinking of making Swedish meatballs and somehow cross-bred the recipes. =)
ReplyDelete~ L.
this story is funny!!! just a week or so ago i made clam chowder,i accidently put cinnamon and lots of it into it,instead of celery salt. damn these old eyes.I tried to scoop most of it out but could only get so much out. yuck.it wasent very good to say the least.my father used to put sugar into his tomato sauce to get rid of the acid. where Peter was of polish decent did he ever make or have any traditional polish food?my grandmother made the best stuffed cabbage and peirogies .and the kielbalsa from the polish deli, the best ever.
ReplyDeleteI have another story to share on this subject..lol..one time my mom tried this wheat bread recipe and it called for a certain amount of yeast in it...well she put a bit too much in it so when it started to rise it kept rising and rising till it went over the bowl it was in and was bubbling a bit too.lol. well an hour or so later she had many bowls of this bread rising..and ran out of counter space so she had to put a bowl or so in the bathroom tub..lol and when it finally quit rising she baked all those loaves which turned out real dry and tasted awful...like a bitter wheat bread...she tried to get us to eat it by making texas toast out of it but it didnt work...lol and when she couldnt get rid of all the loaves she broke some into crumbs and threw it out for the birds cause she thought maybe the birds or squirrels would eat it...and they didnt even touch it..lol. so it basically became soil food...lol. was a lesson very learned that day.even though my mom has her moments we still love her. anyways thought Id share..hope thats ok.hey ya know in our family we have a family cookbook that has recipes in it from family members along with stories about the family and family history in it.maybe you all should give that a thought too with your family and put the families and Peters recipes in it along with stories about it. my Aunt Jean did that she was my dads sister and we lost her to uterine cancer last year. it has some pretty good family recipes in there with some good family stories along with family history.anyways..just a thought.
ReplyDeleteyou all take good care over there and stay safe too.
Hi Darcie/Pat, et al--
ReplyDeleteMade Peter's Tomato Sauce today. Followed the recipe you gave here. For my 'dash of green' it was either a handful of chopped green M&Ms or some parsley. You'll be happy to know I used a combo of parsley, sage and thyme. (I can feel you all breathing a sigh of relief!). I have to say...either there's something wrong with my taste buds, or I'm stranger than I thought---but this is really good!! When I first put the cinnamon in I thought it would never mix in with everything else. It was like "Have some sauce with your cinnamon." But it eventually mixed in. When I tasted it the first thing I noticed was the garlic, and then the sweet, but there was nothing over-powering about it. I couldn't even taste the cinnamon. I'll be putting this in the freezer for future use. :)
Thanks for this!
Love & Gratitude--Patty P
Just looking at the ingredients list made my stomach hurt!
ReplyDeleteMy dad and I always use nutmeg when making spaghetti sauce! I thought this part was just fine. However, I'm not sure about the cinnamon... seems like an awful lot in there. An awful lot of sugar, too! But what concerns me most about this recipe is... where's the red wine??? Every good spaghetti sauce needs at least a little bit of red wine!
ReplyDeleteWow! I guess that's another thing we have in common. I actually made my own spaghetti sauce one night because I HAD TO. I started the noodles and then realized I didn't have the spaghetti sauce!! So... I made my own with whatever I had on hand which was tomato soup, a can of diced tomatoes (seasoned w/ garlic, basil & oregano), chopped green onions, small can of mushrooms, pepper and ....CINNAMON. lol!! I've heard that it helps your blood sugar and metabolism too, so I figured it wouldn't hurt. It didn't smell so great after I mixed it all together so I was thinking to myself 'I bet this is gonna taste like ...for use of a better word- POO', but it was pretty good. I've been doing it the same since that night and no ones complained. ...yet. Lol! ~Holly
ReplyDeleteThought of this post during another mad-scientist kitchen moment this evening. Invented 'Bird of Paradise Stew' made from chicken, turkey, mango, pinapple, onion, garlic, soy sauce, and a touch of butter, served over rigatoni pasta. Still pondering its success level, trying to muster the courage to try Pete's recipe.
ReplyDeleteIt can't be any weirder than the teen growth-spurt sandwiches I devoured years ago made from turkey, sliced egg, peanut butter, real maple syrup, lettuce, tomato, onion, paprika, mayo, and blueberries on sourdough bread, washed down with two large glasses of milk and an apple. That recipe/formula produced a 4" height increase in one year. One would think Pete's tomato sauce wouldn't be frightening after that, but no. I still haven't had the courage to try it. LOL!
To the Ratajczyk Family, Being of half Italian (other half Hungarian and Spanish) heritage yes, Pete's sauce at first didn't seem like it would be good. Until I tried it. It was different, but considering I do like nutmeg and cinnamon it wasn't that bad. It was actually better in the morning when I had a bowl of it on linguini for breakfast. So now it is known in my house as Pete Steele Breakfast Pasta. I think Pete would have loved my pumpkin pie as it had a high content of nutmeg, cinnamon, and clove, with a little apple pie ice cream. The girlfriend hates it, but it is good for sweet spice lovers. Respectfully and Missing Pete, Frank
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