Skip to main content

Spaghetti's meat sauce

 Spaghetti's meat sauce recipe

¼ to ½ sweet onion, chopped

1 sweet bell pepper, chopped

1 lb. ground beef

2 14.5-oz. cans diced tomatoes

1 8-oz. can tomato sauce

1 6-oz. can tomato paste

2 cloves garlic, crushed or minced

2 Tbsp Italian herbs, extra oregano

½ tsp. cinnamon

A pinch of sugar; salt & pepper

Cook the onion and green pepper in olive oil until soft and fragrant; scoop out and set aside. Brown the ground beef in the fragrant oil left in the cast iron; drain off the fat. Return onion & pepper to the pan; add tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, a spoonful of crushed garlic. Stir. Sprinkle herbs over the top of the sauce. Stir. Sprinkle the cinnamon over the top of the sauce. Stir & add a pinch of sugar. (The sugar takes the edge off the acid in the tomatoes as well as counterbalancing the cinnamon.) Salt & pepper to taste. Simmer while your spaghetti noodles are cooking in salted water. Sprinkle freshly grated good parmesan cheese over the top if desired. Serve with spaghetti noodles and garlic bread and a crunchy green salad. 

Notes: Wesley started this recipe in 1987 or so; I added the vegetables & Italian herbs, then the cinnamon and sugar at some point. 



I have to admit, this is a really good topping for pasta. It isn't the least bit authentic or Italian, but it is tasty.

I read recently that Italian food never uses both onion and garlic in the same recipe. You can have onion, but no garlic. And you can have garlic, but no onion.

Clearly, I am not of Italian descent. 

So many notes here -- make sure you don't add the garlic until there's already a swimming pool of diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and tomato paste. Garlic burns insanely quickly, and then it becomes very bitter and unpleasant. Be gentle to your garlic; let it hang out in a hot tub of tomato goodness.

Never use the "parmesan cheese" in the famous green lid canisters on the dry pasta aisle. They put wood pulp in that stuff to stabilize it and to make it safe for a long shelf life. And then the stuff doesn't melt nicely into your dishes. It gloops and glops into terrible piles of gross cheese-type substances riddled with wood pulp. Ugh. 

I'm a great proponent for saving money and using generic things for your cooking, but when it comes to parmesan cheese, I'm sorry, but it's much wiser to buy the good stuff that goes bad more quickly. At least parmesan is easily frozen. Buy it in bulk from Costco and freeze most of it. Freezing won't hurt it at all, and real parmesan is worth the trouble. Seriously.

And a lot of people believe that you should sprinkle the parmesan on the naked pasta before you spoon the sauce over the top. It melts into the pasta that way. I've done it both ways, and the only opinion I can endorse is: Please use parmesan cheese if you like it.

Buon appetito! Oh, wait, that's right, this isn't authentic Italian cuisine. Ahem. Y'all come and get it!

That's better.

Here are some pictures from the process of making my crazy spaghetti sauce:





Comments

  1. erik98122September 6, 2020 at 7:58 PM

    I fully agree on Parmesan cheese! It’s worth every extra penny to go with the good stuff. Even more so if you can splurge on the longer aged Parmesan! My dream is to buy one of the huge wheels! I love to make the traditional long simmering Sunday “gravy”. If I’m really pulling out all stops I will put in a couple of short ribs and a touch of really good balsamic.

    ReplyDelete
  2. erik98122September 6, 2020 at 8:04 PM

    I’m going to try out the dash of cinnamon. Ive never heard of that one in a Italian sauce before. I love Moroccan food and they they use it a lot. It adds that little touch of something that makes the dishes more interesting

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

Cranberry Sauce  12 oz. fresh cranberries, washed and drained 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar 1/4 to 1/3 cup water 1 1/2 cinnamon sticks 1/2 tsp ground allspice 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg The zest and juice of one small-to-medium orange Pick through the cranberries carefully to remove the squishy/bad ones. Rinse and drain. Combine cranberries, sugar, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon sticks, and water in a medium pot. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat. Reduce to simmer; cook for 5 to 7 minutes. Add the orange juice and zest, then allow the sauce to cool before serving at room temperature. Refrigerate leftovers; sauce will be good for 10-12 days. I never even liked cranberry sauce until I tried this recipe. Neither did my husband. My mother-in-law used to send us searching for an orange cranberry relish at grocery stores all over Knoxville -- I only found it twice, but when I did find it, I bought her three containers of it.  This recipe is so good, I cannot imagine having Thanksgiv...
2 comments
Read more

Easy Everyday Steak with Even Easier Steak Sauce

Easy Steaks with Even Easier Steak Sauce 4 modest steaks*, 6-7 oz. each, 1 to 1.5" thick 2 green onions, thinly sliced, whites and greens separated 3 Tbsp ketchup 1 Tbsp brown sugar 2 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce 2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce 1 Tbsp wine vinegar (sherry, white wine, red wine, etc.) Salt & pepper Olive oil Remove the steaks from the refrigerator 30-40 minutes before you plan to cook them. (So if you started baked potatoes 20 minutes ago, now is the time to take the steaks out.) Dry them off with paper towels -- gently, use a patting motion -- and salt and pepper them liberally. Set them aside while they come up to temp.  Maybe now is a good time to slice up the green onions and measure the other stuff. When the steaks are at room temperature, combine the ingredients for the sauce (whites of the onions, ketchup, brown sugar, soy sauce, Worcerstershire, wine vinegar, and a pinch of salt and pepper) in a bowl or measuring cup. (I use my Pyrex measuring cups a lot. They...
3 comments
Read more

Lumpy Chicken Salad

Lumpy Chicken Salad 2 to 2.5 cups cooled rotisserie chicken, pulled off the bone and chopped into 1/2" dice 3/4 cup light mayonnaise 3 to 4 Tbsp Dijon mustard 2 to 3 Tbsp light Italian dressing 1/2 cup small diced celery 1/3 cup red grapes halved (quartered if they're very big) 1/4 to 1/3 cup chopped pecans 1/3 cup Honeycrisp apple, peeled and 1/2" diced scant 1/4 cup green onion, greens sliced diagonally Salt & pepper to taste Optional: diced red pepper, dill pickle relish Combine the ingredients, chill for 2-3 hours, serve. Delicious and easy! My friend Erik reminded me today that it's too dang hot to cook in the kitchen right now, and he is absolutely right. When July takes over the Cruddy Little Kitchen, I take the toaster oven outside to the porch for anything that needs to be baked. I run an ugly orange extension cord out there and use electric tape to try to make sure nothing gets electrocuted if a thunderstorm blows the rain sideways toward the toaster ove...
2 comments
Read more