Italian Kick

I seem to be on an Italian kick, probably because I adore Italian food but also because I have a long coil of Italian sausage to use up. We made a boatload of that kind since everyone loves it so much.

I made spaghetti sauce. Nothing unusual, really, except subbing in the spicy Italian sausage for the usual ground round in my recipe. I made a huge batch, part of which we ate one evening for dinner. I froze the rest in two square plastic treasure chests that will emerge later in the year when I don't feel like cooking.

My sauce is easy to make: all you do is sizzle the crumbled sausage meat (I slit the casing to release the contents - probably 1.5 pounds) in olive oil, then add chopped onions, shallots, garlic, mushrooms, a big can of crushed tomatoes, a smaller can of chopped tomatoes, a couple of cups of red wine, three or four bay leaves and a big handful of herbes de Provence. Sometimes, I add black olives and/or artichoke hearts, as well. While that bubbles on a low flame for an hour or two, you are free to do something else.

If you are a person of titanic self control, you can stop there and save the sauce for the next day. It will be even better if you wait. I promise.

In any case, when the sauce has filled your house with irresistible smells, start the pasta water. When the pasta is ready, spoon a little of the sauce into the bottom of your pasta bowl or plate, such that the drained pasta goes into a puddle of sauce before covering it with another big spoonful - you want every bit of that pasta to be coated. Be generous - Italians are.

At table, grate a little fresh Parmesan cheese over the mound and, picking up fork and spoon, twirl your way into spaghetti nirvana.

On Top Of Spaghetti

When I was a bus-riding school kid, sometimes we would burst into song, usually on the way home - kids are like that. Typically, the song was some silly ditty about the number of bottles of beer on the wall (counting down from 100 - drove the bus drivers to drink) but occasionally, it was this, sung to the tune of "On Top Of Old Smokey":

On top of spaghetti

All covered with cheese

I lost my poor meatball

When somebody sneezed.

Now, I find that some enterprising soul has actually put the whole of the lyrics on the web. I don't think I knew all the words until now.

Anyway, I was reminded of that song the other night when I made spaghetti and, finding that my ParmReg had grown a fine crop of fuzz, decided to substitute ricotta salata instead. It was good, salty but good. It won't replace ParmReg in our universe but it made a nice change of pace and it brought back a silly memory and a smile - spaghetti is like that.

Courting Spaghetti

Back when God was a child and I was dating my first husband, I offered to make dinner for him - his choice of menu. He chose spaghetti and I assented readily. I had never actually made spaghetti (or much of anything else, for that matter), you understand, but I wanted to impress him so I called my pal Meredith, who made the best spaghetti on earth, and asked her for the recipe. He was duly impressed; I'm not sure I ever confessed to my treachery in 25 years of marriage.

I have continued to make the same spaghetti recipe all my life. When I feel a hankering for it coming on, I don't even have to go to my recipe box any longer - I know it more or less by heart. This time, however, I did think I'd change it up a little, so I used half mild Italian sausage instead of all ground beef (I'll use spicy next time - you couldn't really taste the sausage) and I didn't have any ripe olives in the house, so I left them out.

The rest of the recipe is so simple that it's not really even a recipe. You just brown the meat crumbles thoroughly in olive oil in a deep pot, then remove them to a plate and soften garlic mince (you decide how much - I used about a tablespoon or two) and a chopped large onion in the rendered fat from the meat (You can pour off some if you have too much fat or add some olive oil if your meat was very lean). I set the aromatics aside afterward, too, while I brown about six large mushrooms, sliced, in the same pot. The idea is that each ingredient adds it's caramelized flavor to the pot but you don't crowd the components so they brown nicely.

Once all are browned, pile them back into the pot, add a big can of chopped tomatoes, a small (14oz) can of tomato sauce, a big glug of red wine (I used merlot since I had an open bottle in the fridge - about a cup and a half or two cups), a healthy pinch each of thyme and basil, and a big handful of chopped fresh parsley. You can also add a bay leaf or two, if you are so inclined. Now comes the "secret" ingredient - cinnamon. Meredith has always added cinnamon to her sauce; this time, I subbed in about two heaping teaspoons of ground allspice instead.

All this bubbles along on the lowest stove setting for a couple of hours with the lid on. If it gets too thick, add some more wine. The resulting sauce is rich and dark with lots of flavor layers, not like the bright red stuff that comes in a jar. It covers the pasta like a lover and the grated ParmReg puts on the finishing touch. Served in a pasta bowl with garlic toasts, it's as seductive a meal as you could ask for.

If you are courting, or just courting favor, try serving her/him a nice bowl of this spaghetti. It gets 'em where they live.

It Starts Early

My sister's granddaughter has begun cooking and, apparently, inventing recipes already at the tender age of ten. Kelly and her Dad, assisted by little sister Milla, made a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting the other day and in a letter from my sister today came this recipe for Spaghetti Tacos handwritten on a paper towel.

To wit:

Spaghetti Tacos

Get taco shells
Get spaghetti w/ meat sauce
Get a BIG spoon
Use the BIG spoon to put the spaghetti into the taco shells
Eat
Burp

It will be interesting to see if this budding foodie continues to invent and tweak her recipes or moves on to other interests. I hope Kelly keeps writing them down - it's a bummer when you've made something yummy and can't recall how you did it, especially something as scrumptious as Spaghetti Tacos!

There was another recipe included for Tapenade but it lacked the specific directions about what to do once one has eaten. Apparently, Tapenade doesn't produce burps.

B'sketti

Okay, here's the recipe:

2-3 Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 large onion leftover from making stuffed tomatoes, chopped
2 cloves garlic that have been in the crisper drawer too long, minced
4 chicken apple sausages leftover from making stuffed zucchini, pinched out of their casings to make meatballs
10 mushrooms in desperate need of eating, not yet slimy but well on the way
1 handfull of ripe olives, pitted
1 medium can tomato sauce
1 medium can chopped tomatoes
3 medium-sized zucchinis from the garden, coarsely chopped
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 generous shaking of dried basil, oregano and thyme
1 blop of leftover tabouli with lots of parsley (or just fresh chopped parsley)
2 cups of leftover red wine that wasn't maybe your favorite but is still great for cooking - not rotgut!
2 portions of linguine noodles, cooked to package directions
1 generous grating of Parmesan cheese

I'll bet you already know what to do but, just in case:

Saute the onion, garlic and mushrooms in a large pot until nicely goldy-soft. Add the sausage in small dabs and cook with the rest until it's nicely browned. Add the rest (except noodles and Parmesan) and simmer together, covered, until it becomes richly brownish-red and scents the whole house with a come-hither invitation (in our house, that takes about 2 hours). Boil the pasta in salted water, drain. Ladle a little sauce in the bottom of your pasta bowl, add some pasta, top with more sauce and sprinkle with Parmesan.

Dig in.

Makes enough for 6 or 8 portions, depending on appetite which equals 2 or 3 days around here. Uses up 2/3 of the stuff in the fridge that might otherwise have gone to waste.

Jamie's Fans

We are Jamie Oliver fans - even My Beloved will watch his show on the food channel with evident pleasure and we have set the VCR to record "Jamie at Home" so we won't miss a single show. We like his insouciant attitude toward cooking while he produces dishes that make our mouths water and wish for smellivision.

On a recent program about peas and broad beans, he made a spaghetti sauce using the contents of Italian sausages squeezed out of their casings for the meatballs and sprinkled the top of the finished dish with fresh, raw green peas, a brilliant (Jamie's favorite word) idea to give lively flavor and crunch to the dish.

When I made it a few days later, I added some homegrown Swiss chard to the sauce, which was a nice addition, but I didn't have any fresh peas on hand. I did have a small handful of snappingly fresh tiny green beans from my garden, so I cut them up and sprinkled them on top. They added color, crunch and a wonderful fresh greenness to the dish, confirming our admiration for Mr. Oliver's ideas.