The Spaghetti Incident

Fact: On any given day I could eat pasta.

There is a preparation that suits my taste in any season. In warm weather, I adore a bright, tart lemon spaghetti liberally sprinkled with fresh basil, olive oil, and salt and pepper. In spring, it's all about farfalle with tuna, celery and cannelini beans. In fall, you can coax me out from under the covers with pumpkin ravioli and a sage-soy butter sauce. Now that it is winter, I find myself incessantly daydreaming about asparagus and mushroom lasagna or steaming bowls of pastini with bits of carrot and frozen peas. But the best is pasta and tomato sauce. In a pinch, there are some decent pre-made red sauces out there. Lucini for one, has received my star of approval.

But most days, I prefer to make my own. The flavor is always fresher, more pronounced and less sweet...(I just don't think red sauces should be sugary tasting ever!)  Without fail, the smell of garlic browning in extra virgin olive oil always makes someone say, "Mmmm, something smells good!" And the extra minutes spent chopping and stirring, for me, provides an excellent excuse to turn up some music and free-harmonize with whatever's playing. By free, I am referring to those notes that are either too high or too low that occur mid-song—maybe during the chorus—and make you realize you have to change what you were doing and suddenly impersonate Minnie Mouse (see A-Ha) or a car engine (see Barry White).

Anyway, I was in the mood to do all of these things the other night and following is my recipe for Mangia Monday Spaghetti with Fake Sausage

Ingredients

Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3 cloves of garlic, peeled, mashed with the flat end of a knife, then thinly sliced
1 white onion, diced
2 cans of organic diced tomatoes
1 small can of tomato paste
Garlic Powder
Dried Oregano
Salt and Pepper
Your preferred brand of whole wheat spaghetti
Two handfuls of your preferred vegetarian sausage (the crumbly kind, not the links kind)

Method:

Drizzle olive oil in the bottom of a medium-sized sauce pan over medium heat. Move around to coat. Toss in sliced garlic and cook, stirring until lightly browned. Toss in diced onion and cook, until translucent. Pour in both cans of diced tomatoes and scrape in can of tomato paste. Fill tomato paste can with water and pour that in as well. Combine throughly with rest of the ingredients. While sauce simmers, add garlic powder, oregano, salt and pepper to taste. Lower heat to and cover pot with lid to reduce sauce while you prepare the rest of the meal.

Fill another pot 3/4 with water, salt heavily and bring to a boil. Add pasta and cook according to directions, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a separate small pan, brown your fake sausage in small clumps. After five minutes, combine it with the tomato sauce.

Once the pasta has been cooked and drained, plate it and douse with the chunky sauce. (I like to put a little bit on the plate first, so the pasta feels welcomed.) Sprinkle with grated Parmesan if your heart so desires and you want to make me jealous.

(Also, if you are so inclined and have extra produce laying around, as we did, you can throw some green and yellow wax beans in the microwave for 4 minutes still inside of their plastic bag, punctured with a fork. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper. Serve it on the side and feel like a real health nut.)

Comments

[Tim H]

Totally going to try it myself.
Have you attempted to make the pasta with it?