Last weekend, on the eve of the glorious return of The Real Housewives of New Jersey (I may or may not have shed real tears when Tre was re-united with her girls.  Shut uppppp, I invested a lot of my life into that whole mess), I was slightly overhung.

SO, as one does, I decided to crack open Skinny Italian again to see what else I could learn from Teresa.  Like Teresa mentions in her cookbook, any skinny Italian worth her salt has to be able to make a nice “sowse.”  I don’t think I have ever made marinara from scratch, which I should probably be ashamed of.  Plus after I stopped vomiting at the basic sauce name (“the quickie” oh god, nooooo), I saw that the marinara was America’s favorite Italian sprite sociopath, Milania Giuidice’s favorite.

First of all, I love that there are so damn many Milania gifs.  Homegirl is like nine years old and is giving Honey Boo Boo a run for her money.  But I honestly figured Teresa’s sowse would have to be straight delicious because Milania would tell her if it were not.

SO first, I made the quickie (again, barf) sauce, which is only three ingrediences and only took fifteen minutes.  I didn’t have crushed tomatoes, only whole peeled, so mine probably wasn’t up to Milania’s standards, but it still turned out pretty good.

The marinara (which Tre helpfully tells us to pronounce CORRECTLY: “mar-ree-NAR-ra”, as she is tired of people pronouncing Italian words incorrectly: pot meetza keetle), like Milania herself, was a little more complicated and labor intensive.  It included red wine, garlic, the quickie sauce, oregano, sliced mushrooms and onion.

Sidenote- Tre has all kinds of weird tips and tricks for being a “skinny” eye-talian throughout the cookbook, but my very favorite was her advice to avoid “stripper foods”- anything that sounds like it could be the name of a stripper- candy, cupcake, cookie.  I am sure Juicy Joe could have added a bunch more suggestions here.

OVERALL, I was very proud of the final dish.  The flavors were good and the sauce just got better in the next few days.

I think I actually (gasp!) will continue to cook from Skinny Italian, something I thought I would NEVER say.  But my love for little lunatic Milania burns brightly, and I can’t wait to see what other shit she says this season.