Spaghetti is a meal that can be created in bulk for reasonably cheap and provides you with dinner or lunch for days. Spaghetti is probably the most thought-of thing when people say “pasta,” and for good reason. Spaghetti is awesome, but for it to be awesome you need an awesome sauce. Okay, now that I have caused you all to collectively face-palm, let’s get to cooking!
So to start things off, here’s what you will need:
398 mL tomato sauce
156 mL tomato paste
1 lb extra lean ground beef
½ each red and green peppers
½ Spanish onion
2 sticks celery
Spices to taste
1 tsp oil
Oil a pan and set it to medium. Once heated, start frying off your ground beef; this takes about four to five minutes. You will know the beef is done when it’s no longer the bright red colour and is somewhat brown to grey. While the beef fries, put your sauce and paste into a large pot on medium and heat up the sauce, while adding any desired spices. In this case I used garlic powder, thyme, basil, a little salt, and pepper.
Once the sauce is going, start preparing your veggies. You will want to dice all your veggies up reasonably small: you don’t chew spaghetti sauce! If you are using a white or yellow onion, I recommend frying it off with the beef. Chop up the veggies and put them to one side, as your ground beef should be cooked and ready by now.
Once the ground beef is nicely cooked, drain off any excess oil or fat, and put in to the bubbling sauce (avoid splatter!). Stir it around, coating all of the beef generously, then add all of your veggies, ensuring everything gets coated. At this point you may feel there’s not enough sauce, but have no fear! As the veggies boil down, they add a considerable amount of water to the mix. Bring the sauce back to a bubble, turn it down to a simmer, and let it bubble away.
Spaghetti sauce is one of those things that’s better the longer it cooks, so I recommend letting it simmer for at least an hour if possible, but longer is better. While it simmers, go do homework, occasionally stirring the mix.
When you are ready, grab your favourite noodles (I used standard spaghetti noodles) and boil them. Make sure to follow the directions for the pasta, and check it regularly to not overcook it, because mushy, overcooked noodles are terrible and undercooked is just awful, too.
To maximize your awesome sauce… bah-dum-psh! Anyone? No? Okay. Anyway, to maximize your enjoyment, grab some bread and spread some butter and sprinkle with garlic powder, frying in a pan or toaster oven to make garlic bread.
You should now have enough spaghetti sauce for several meals. Make extra noodles for lunches later, or cook some French fries and have spaghetti sauce and fries for tomorrow.
Good luck with the new semester, all, and good eating!