Spaghetti and Garlic Bread

Beverages: Red wine, Corona

Soundtrack: Fiction Family

I heart Italian food. 

Truly, madly, deeply.

This is a wonderful spaghetti sauce that is easy to make (no stewing of tomatoes and no difficult seasoning) and is scrumptious.

We usually serve this with Jake's amazing garlic bread and it always hits the spot.

Here are the ingredients you'll need for both:

Start off with your favorite beverage. Tonight it was Yellow Tail's Shiraz and Corona. We're really spendy. Can't you tell? ***NOTE*** Save some wine for the sauce. Thanks.

Melt a tablespoon of butter in a pot.

Then chop up a half of a red onion and two green onions and put them in the melted butter. Do this on a low heat. I usually do this part on 3 of 10. I like to cook my onions low and slow. It draws out all sorts of delicious flavors while mellowing the harsh onion-ness.

Let the onions simmer for a while. It will probably take about 10 minutes.

Go entertain yourself by cutting up some sun-dried tomatoes. I used about 4 or 5 here.

Here are your onions, now sufficiently translucent and mouth-watering:

Add your tomatoes and 1 teaspoon of minced garlic. Use 2 cloves if you have the fresh stuff.

Stir mixture gently.

Give these flavors a chance to mingle. The key to this dish is combining your flavors. This step is where the magic happens. Let it have another five minutes on the low heat, stirring occasionally.

Remove this mixture to a separate bowl.

Yay, beef! If I'm honest, raw meat grosses me out a little bit. I deal with it when I have to, but when Jake's around, I give him the opportunity to flex his culinary muscles. This next section is brought to you by Jake's culinary muscles. And his real ones. Which are also nice. Very nice.

Turn your heat to medium-high.

Put the beef in the pot with all the leftover flavored goodness form the onion mixture. Sprinkle it with some garlic salt and some seasoned salt. Don't go crazy. This is just enough to give the meat a little bit of flavor.

Take time to scoop out all the fat.

You know you want to.

All the healthy kids are doing it.

Turn the heat back down to 3 and put your onion mixture back into the pot with the strained beef.

(Technically you could just leave the onions in the pot and cook the beef in a frying pan, but then you would have to wash your original pot and said frying pan, and I'm not really into that sort of thing.)

Add your tomato sauce. (Forgive the ghost thumb.)

Also, add 1/2 teaspoon of Italian seasoning. If you don't have Italian seasoning, put in 1/4 teaspoon of oregano and 1/4 basil. If you have fresh herbs, I hate you a little bit because I don't.

Then the skies open, the angels sing, and it is time for you to add your red wine.

I know this will sound weird, especially after than angelic voices of the last step, but throw in 1 scant teaspoon of white sugar.

Trust me, my child.

Mama Nay would not steer you wrong.

There is more magic happening here than you know. Let your sauce simmer. I usually don't let it simmer for less than 30 minutes. You can even do it for up to 2 hours. Just make sure when you simmer that the heat is on 2 or lower. The goal is simmering, not scalding.

Stir as the spirit leads. Season as desired.  Sample as much as you can get away with.

While the wonderful flavors in the sauce are making themselves more wonderful, slice some bread. We like to use fresh french bread.

Either brush the bread with olive oil OR spread butter on the bread.

Put a thin layer of garlic salt on the oiled bread. Be sure you don't over-salt here. That makes for a lame eating experience later. I know from experience.

You're really going for a dusting here.

Sprinkle some cheese on top of those puppies. We did mozzarella and fresh-grated parmesan on these. Feel free to do either or.

Side note--do you see those two pieces of bread with holes in the middle? It must have risen that way at the bakery. Yeast is such a funny creature. Oh, but such a delicious creature.

That's another blog for another time, though.

Once they're dressed and ready, pop them under your broiler.

(We use tin foil for easy clean-up. Sorry, never promised to be environmentally friendly.)

Be sure you watch these like a hawk.

Cliche? Yes. Kidding? No.

They usually don't take more than 5-6 minutes to get all brown, bubbly, and delicious.

Pull them out when they look like this:

Make some Spaghetti. (I probably should have told you this before you started the bread.  Please forgive. Or serve the bread as an appetizer.)

Pull it out when they are nice and al-dente and whap them on a plate.

Whap is my mother's phrase. Can't help thinking it sometimes when it's hot noodles hit the plate. It just feels like the appropriate thing to say.

Whap.

Pile on the sauce and the cheese and finish the plate off with some of your garlic bread.

This goes wonderfully with a huge crunchy Caesar salad. Sadly, we had no Caesar dressing and this is not the type of blog that requires you to cut up anchovies.

I promise you, I will never make you cut up anchovies.

Enjoy!

Spaghetti and Meat Sauce:

1 tbsp butter

1/2 red onion, diced

2 green onions, diced

1 tsp minced garlic

4 or 5 chopped sun-dried tomatoes

3/4 to 1 lb ground beef

garlic salt

seasoned salt

1/2 tsp if Italian seasoning

1 scant tsp white sugar 

1 8oz jar of tomato sauce (mushroom is best)

1/2 cup of red wine

Melt butter in a pot. Dice red onion, green onion, and sun dried tomatoes. Sauté onions in butter over a low heat until they are transparent. Add garlic and sun dried tomatoes. Sauté for several more minutes. Remove to separate bowl.

Turn heat on pot up to medium-high and cook beef with a dusting of garlic and seasoned salt. Drain accordingly. Add the onion mixture, Italian seasoning, tomato sauce, red wine, and white sugar.

Allow sauce to simmer for at least 30 minutes on low heat.

Cook spaghetti.

Pour sauce over the spaghetti and serve.

Garlic Bread:

Desired slices of bread

olive oil/butter

garlic salt

mozzarella and/or parmesan cheese

Slice desired amount of bread. Brush on olive oil or spread on butter. Place slices of bread on a baking sheet.

SPARINGLY dust the bread with garlic salt.

Sprinkle on cheese.

Place in broiler for 5-6 minutes or until the cheese is golden brown and bubbling.

Remove from oven and enjoy!