Sak

Sak's Chunky Uhsghetti

11.04.09 13:31
Section: Sak
Filed Under: Copyright - CC, Recipes

As a fairly high-energy person, this one is a staple of my existence. Disclaimer¹

Ingredients:

• 1 small-ish Italian zucchini.

• 1 red onion.

• 1 fresh garlic bulb.

• 1 14 ounce can Italian style stewed tomatoes.

I’m talking about the pre-seasoned cans of tomatoes, either whole or diced, doesn’t matter. If they’re whole, you’ll just end up bashing them up into pieces with your cooking implement; if diced it saves you the bashing. If you have a wall of spices, any can of stewed tomatoes will work, but I don’t have such a wall, so I let someone else do that bit of work for me.

• Other spaghetti-savvy vegetables. (See commentary on sauce below.)

• 1 26 ounce can (or about 3 to 3 ^1/2 cups) spaghetti sauce.

This can be any of a million varieties, and regardless how “chunky” they say on the damn jar, they’re never “chunky” enough for me, hence the previously mentioned veggies, which are staple veggies I’ve never found in a jar of Ragu—besides the garlic, but I like insane amounts of garlic, so I go in for extra every time. Depending on what you select for your spaghetti sauce you can alternatively add other vegetables; mushrooms, olives, whatever.

• 1 Pound seasoned ground sausage.

There are some variants to this product prepared by different grocery stores. I sometimes waver between the mild or hot Italian ground sausage, depending on my “spicy” mood. There is another meat department at another grocery that I sometimes visit that sells a fantastic sweet Italian sausage that is simply amazing. I could sit and eat a plate of it without anything else.

• 1 Tbsp. Olive Oil.

• 1 ^1/2 Cups cooked spaghetti.

Preparation:

Mince about 3 or 4 decent sized cloves of the garlic.
Chop up the zucchini. I usually slice it into quarters length-wise, and then chop it.
Chop up anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of the sweet red onion, depending on its size.
Prepare any other vegetables you want to add, such as mushrooms if they need to be chopped. I sometimes also add in some summer squash when its in season, or a small can of chopped black olives.

Brown the ground pork in a skillet and set it aside. I typically drain the extra fat off it while it’s waiting to join the vegetables.

Drain the can of stewed tomatoes to get a bit of the liquid from them, lest your sauce come out too watery. I usually dump the can into a strainer and let it sit in the sink while I’m chopping the vegetables and browning the meat.

In at least a 2 qt. saucepan, drop in a bit of olive oil; not more than a tablespoon or so, just enough for the veggies to slide around and party. After getting the bottom of the pan nice and slick, throw in all the chopped vegetables and the stewed tomatoes. I’ll let this mix simmer on a medium heat for roughly 3 or 4 minutes, depending on how thick the veggies are cut, mixing it all about so that they get to know each other really well. At this point I introduce the sausage and the can of spaghetti sauce, mix it in well with the vegetables and simmer for about 10 minutes.

You know we’re making spaghetti, right? That means you should have also been boiling the water and preparing the noodles. If you haven’t, you now have a bowl of chunky, meaty tomato soup for dinner. I usually do about a cup to a cup and a half of pasta for my personal serving, but you can go with whatever is comfortable for you depending on your appetite.

This mess will prepare about 5 of the servings you see in the attached photograph, though your mileage may vary. Dish up the remainder into some plastic containers, and future dinners for the next week are as easy as boil some noodles and microwave a serving of the sauce.

An alternative serving method that I enjoy involves a copious amount of grated cheese and the microwave to create a sort of baked spaghetti dish. Mix the spaghetti noodles and a serving of the sauce together well and cover with finely grated cheese. Then microwave it for an additional minute or so to form a gooey cap of goodness.

¹ Disclaimer: Much of what I make is cheap and easy bachelor chow, but might also work well if you’re looking for a quick fix lunch or dinner that you don’t want to have to worry too much about details regarding spices and preparation. Though I sometimes fantasize about having all the equipment, spices, and other implements of destruction that are necessary for an elite kitchen experience, I’m a terminally single-dude, so by the time I think about food it’s a little too late to deal with a long prep time. I’m hungry, dammit, and so I want to eat soon. These meals are fairly healthy, however, and can be improved upon depending on whether you can afford nicer ingredients—organics and so forth. I’ve also included measurements for ingredients as a guideline, but I don’t typically measure out my ingredients to specific quantities. Much of what I’ve discovered in these recipes is a result of being hungry, putting stuff into a pan, and noodling around with the measurements over multiple cooking sessions until I get something that works for me.