Spaghetti Sauce

• 2 lb. Ground Beef (cheap)
• 2 lb. Ground Turkey
• 1 lb. Italian Sausage.
• 2 Tbsp. Granulated Garlic (Garlic Powder)
• 4 oz. Mary's Meat Mix
• 4 cups chopped Celery
• 2 cups chopped Onion
• 1/2 cup chopped Green Bell Pepper
• 1 Tbsp. Chopped Garlic.
• 3 Tbsp. Oregano
• 2 Tbsp. Parsley Flakes
• 2 Tbsp. Chili Powder
• 6 Tbsp. Flour.
• 52 oz. (1/2 # 10 can) Whole Tomatoes. (Thoroughly cut up tomatoes.)
• 30 oz. Tomato Sauce
• 30 oz. Tomato Puree
• 18 oz. Tomato Paste
• 1/2 gallon Water
• 2 Tbsp. Salt
• 1 Tbsp. Black Pepper
• 2 Tbsp. Sugar
• 1 Tbsp. Baking Soda
• 8 Bay Leaves. (Leave whole, but crack stem in several places.)

1. Put Beef, Turkey, Italian Sausage, Granulated Garlic and Mary's Meat Mix into large pot (15-20 qt.) on high heat. Chop meat fine, stir, & cook till meat is brown and firm. (NOT CRISP!) Reduce heat to medium. Remove excess fat, leaving about cup fat in pot.
2. Add Celery, Onion, Bell Pepper, Garlic, Oregano, Parsley Flakes and Chili Powder. Cook until Vegetables are tender.
3. Stir in Flour.
4. Add Whole Tomatoes, Tomato Sauce, Tomato Puree, Tomato Paste, water, Salt, Black Pepper, Sugar, Baking Soda and Bay Leaves. Let simmer at least 2 hours.

1 pound ground beef
1 medium chopped onion 1 can Campbell's condensed tomato soup
1 small can tomato sauce
1 tablespoon chopped basil
1 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Spaghetti/vermicelli/whatever cooked pasta to put the finished sauce on.

Brown the beef; when it's all browned, drain off the grease. Add in the chopped onion and put it back on the stove. Add the tomato soup and sauce to the pot; stir all of this together well. Add all of the spices and lower the heat to low; let simmer for 10 minutes.

this recipe for home made spaghetti sauce comes from the ungarretti and cappechi family lines that came over on the Big Boat to start a new life in the Land of Opportunity around 1880-1900.

Ingredients

1 lb. ground beef

1 onion (large white or yellow onion works great)

5-10 cloves of garlic

30 oz can of tomato sauce

15 oz can of chopped tomatoes or whole stewed tomatoes

6-8 oz can of tomato paste

a few palms of italian seasoning

a tablespoon or so of basil (a couple whole basil leaves works better)

a bottle of extra virgin olive oil to be used at random intervals and with much gusto

salt and pepper

any extra veggies you wish to experiment with (celery, black olives, green/red/yellow pepper, parsley, chives, spinach, etc.)

step 1: prep

make sure you have everything to make the stuff. (VERY IMPORTANT!)

dice and chop up the onions and garlic cloves. make sure you peel them first.

prepare any other vegetables you plan on sticking in your experiment.

make sure you still have everything to make the spaghetti. (cats will always steal something. discipline them accordingly)

step 2: cook the stuff

start off by browning the beef (make sure the beef breaks up). drop a few glugs of olive oil in the pan

add the onions and garlic halfway through browning the beef. salt and pepper to taste. maybe more olive oil

once the beef looks done, transfer it to a big pot and add all the tomato stuff. (yup, more olive oil)

if you have any other veggies you wish to add, do so now. (and olive oil)

stir that for a little bit, then add the italian seasoning, more pepper and chopped basil (unless you are using basil leaves)

add some more olive oil (you can never have too much!) and stir it a little more to get stuff evenly distributed.

step 3: wait

go read a book. maybe something by orson scott card or tracy hickman. i really liked dragon wing by tracy hickman and margaret weis. the black company by glen cook was also a good (albeit very fast) read.

let this concoction simmer (LOW HEAT!) for at least an hour in an open pot. check it every once in a while and stir it around. notice how it looks like the the mud pits at yellowstone national park.

an hour like this is minimum, 6 hours is heaven. the longer you cook it, the better it will taste. (make sure your ability to pour olive oil isnt rusty yet)

if you are using whole basil leaves instead of chopped basil, add the leaves about a half hour before you plan to stop cooking the sauce. basil will turn sour if it is cooked too long, this way you get the flavor wiithout the sourness.

step 4: eat me!

if you need help eating, you shouldnt be using the internet

the best noodles to use are: spaghetti, spagatinni and vermicelli

some form of bread and a tall glass of milk top off a meal fit to feed the hungriest mobsters!

i hope this works out for everyone, i really like cooking spaghetti. maybe one day i will learn about lasagna. mmmm

• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 medium-sized onion
• 1 lb. hamburger
• 2 tbsp. Italian seasonings (oregano, basil, rosemary)
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• 6 oz. tomato paste
• 48 oz. Ground tomatoes
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• salt, pepper

Directions:

• chop garlic and onions and fry them in olive oil. Remove them to a plate.
• Fry the hamburger (until the color has changed) in the same pan and then remove to a plate.
• brown the tomato paste in the same pan- when the tomato paste is brown, add in the garlic, onions and hamburger and add all the other ingreedients as well.
• heat to boiling, then lower to a simmer
• cook 1-2 hours on low heat, stirring often

This recipe will easily serve a family of 4-6 people. You can put it on basically any type of pasta- my favorite is angel hair.

Tips and Tricks from a bonafide (partial) Italian:

• If you're using canned tomatoes, always use the Italian type, not the regular round ones. The quality of your sauce will above all depend on the quality of the tomatoes you use.


• Always add salt at the end of the recipe. Taste the sauce first! As it cooks down, it becomes more concentrated--and the less salt you will probably need.
  
• Most tomato sauces (unless of course they are no-cook) taste best if they have simmered for at least two hours.


• Simmer the sauce on low heat. You'll ruin it if you try to cook it down too quickly.


• Don't go easy on the herbs. Bland sauce is the pits.
  
• Add a bit of sugar to taste. (Yes, sugar.) I know it sounds weird, but it's the secret ingredient, short of adding a teaspoonful of human blood.



Cooking sauce like making love, involves attention to detail, time (the longer the better), patience and a worshipful attitude.

That's why we Italians are the authority on both. :P

"In the window I smelled all the food of San Francisco. Just show me the bluefish spangle on a seafood menu and I'd eat it; let me smell the drawn butter and lobster claws. And oh, that pan-fried chow-mein flavored air that blew into my room from Chinatown, vying with the spaghetti sauces of North Beach, the soft-shell crab of Fisherman's Wharf -- nay, the ribs of Fillmore turning on spits!"
Jack Kerouac," On the Road", 1955

Lometa's Spaghetti Sauce

Fry garlic in olive oil slowly for about 5 minutes. Add hamburger and fry until brown. Add tomatoes and tomato paste, plus two tomato paste cans of water to meat. Add sweet basil, salt and pepper. Taste sauce for bitterness, add sugar if bitter. Add in pork chop or sausage. Simmer 2-3 hours. Stir often to make sure it's not sticking. Remove pork chop or Italian sausage before serving.

Serve over Lometa's Meatballs

Buono Appetito!

A litte history

"In Spain and those hot Regions they use to eate the Apples prepared and boiled with pepper, salt and oyle: but they yeeld very little nourishment to the body, and the same naught and corrupt. Likewise, they doe eate the Apples with oile, vinegre and pepper mixed together for sauce to their meat, even as we in these cold countries doe Mustard."

While Northern Europeans suspected the "wolf peach" was poisonous, it was the Italians who hailed it as pomi d'oro meaning golden apple eventually adopting it into their cooking. The French greeted this love apple or pomme d'amour gastronomically as well aphrodisiacally, yet it wasn't until the 1830s that the tomato was much more than an oddity in England or America. "Today, the tomato is known as the pomodoro in Italy, as the tomate in France, Germany, and Spain, and as the tomaat in Holland," says one expert surrounding the birth and continuing history of this heart-warming plant. The tomato came to America in the late 1700's along with all of these legends. Thomas Jefferson and other venturesome gardeners encouraged its popularity and by 1835, tomatoes were widely eaten.

Trivia

This is how I make my meat sauce. My family and friends seem to love this stuff. It must be pretty good because my brothers actually ask me to make it- and you know if your brother acknowledges that something you make is good, well it must be good!

Basic Ingredients 1 package of ground beef (about 1 pound)

1 jar of spaghetti sauce. Ragu is good, Classico is very good. If you want you can just start with plain old diced tomatoes or plain tomato sauce. Store bought stuff is a good starter though.

1 bundle of green onions- chop it up fine, I cut off the tip and just use the white to green white parts

1 large white or yellow onion- chop it up, but big chunks can be good- just make darn sure you've peeled it well enough. Nothing like chunks of tough onion paper befouling your spaghetti sauce! Often I will peel off one good layer as well, just to make sure the onion is pure.

1 package of mushrooms, slice 'em fine or better yet buy them pre-sliced

1 green pepper, gut out the white part and chop it up

1 cubanelle pepper (this is a spicey pepper that you may wish to include- it is a hot pepper, but not too hot I find) They are large thin yellowish peppers

6 or so large carrots chopped up (peeling carrots is highly overrated, I generally don't bother unless there's nasty bits, YMMV)

2 tbsp. of Chopped, Pureed, or similar Garlic- you can finely slice up a clove or so if you want on your own- but just buy the little plastic jars of chopped garlic!

Seasonings that work:

Montreal Steak Spice

Various Garlic Plus type spices

Various spicey, cayenne based spices

Salt and Pepper

Cooking it Basically you start by dummping all of your veggies in a large (and deep) frying pan, with either olive oil, butter, or margerine. If you are on a health kick you can just spray the pan with cooking spray. Cook them just a bit higher then medium- keep them stirred up quite a bit. Once they are done (they will all be soft basically), then you add your ground beef. Brown the ground beef (turn the heat up a bit more and make sure you break up all the clumps of beef, stir everything up fairly frequently until its done). Once the beef is cooked add your sauce and turn the heat down to around low and stir it up every once and awhile. Add more seasoning as required. Serve with your choice of pasta.

Basically this is a veggie stir fry, then you add and brown the beef. I honestly don't know why people like my sauce so much. About the only thing I do different is fully cooking the veggies before even adding the meat- this makes them nice and soft as opposed to crunchy. The carrot thing I got from an old roommate- I thought he was nuts, but the sweetness of the carrots really adds something to the mix! YMMV

Tyrannosaurus's Mama's Spaghetti Sauce with Meatballs

This is my favorite food in the entire world. I pretty much live on pasta--to hell with counting carbs, I say--and this is one of the best sauces I have had. That sounds pretty subjective, considering that this is the recipe my mama uses, but she didn't start making it this way until I was in middle school.

This recipe makes several quarts of sauce (use a big pot) and freezes well. Our family of three makes about four meals with this sauce--and since this is my favorite, one "meal" for me is two large platefuls of pasta and sauce.

Step one: Mmmmeatballs

1. Heat your oven up to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (that's 175 degrees Celsius.)
2. In a large mixing bowl, mix:
   • 1 pound ground beef
   • 1 pound ground pork
   • 1 cup Italian breadcrumbs (Tyrannosaurus's Mama uses Progresso, but that probably doesn't actually matter.)
   • 1 cup of that crappy powdered parmesan
   • 2 tablespoons of garlic powder (I know, it sounds like a lot, but the spices in the meatballs flavor the sauce.)
   • 2 tablespoons onion powder
   • 2 teaspoons salt
   • black pepper to taste
3. If the meatballs seem too dry and won't stick together, VERY SLOWLY add milk until they will hold their shape.
4. Roll meat mixture into 1" balls, then arrange them on a cookie sheet (or a series of cookie sheets.)
5. Bake the meatballs for about 30 minutes.

Okay. So now you have some delicious meatballs. Now what? That's right, tomato sauce.

Step two: tomato sauce

1. Get out a big-ass pot. No, that one is not big enough... a bigger pot. This will almost/barely fit a 12-quart pot, so really, use the big one.
2. Now, the ingredients. Get your can opener out.
   • 3 x 28 ounce cans crushed tomatoes. Mama uses Hunt's or S&W; I doubt that it matters all that much.
   • 1 x 15 ounce can tomato sauce
   • Basil, to taste (I use about 2 tablespoons.)
   • Oregano, to taste (I use about 2 tablespoons.)
   • 1/2 cup powdered parmesan
3. Pour all of the ingredients into your big-ass pot.
4. Turn the heat to medium.
5. Add the meatballs.
6. Cook sauce at least 30 minutes--a couple of hours is ideal, and it's best if you let it sit, covered, overnight.

Now, cook yourself up some pasta. I like spaghetti, Mama likes penne, and Patchy doesn't really care that much. Heat the sauce up, serve it over the pasta, and grate some nice parmigiano reggiano or asiago over it. This goes well with red wine and a nice green salad with balsamic vinaigrette; I also like it with a big glass of ice-cold milk.