How to Make My Mum's Spaghetti

Ever since I was a child there was one meal that I adored above all others, my mum's spaghetti. There was nothing better than walking home from school after it had snowed a few inches, opening the door to my house and walking in only to have the entire house permeated with the fragrances of tomato, beef, vegetables, and spices. I have never found spaghetti that is as good as my mum's, I know what you are thinking, I only say this because its my mum's. I can tell you that I have actually looked, I have tried canned spaghetti sauce, fancy Italian restaurants, multiple recipes from food network, and none quite match the sheer bliss of the spaghetti sauce my mother makes. I'm not saying it's the very best, but I think if you give it a try you more than likely won't be disappointed. In this article I am going to go through the process of preparing a classic style spaghetti dinner.

To start off we will need all the hardware. We will need a medium sized skillet, one large wooden spatula (I prefer bamboo), a can opener, a butcher knife, a large cutting board, a colander, and lastly a crock-pot. Now that we have our hardware we need to gather the ingredients. First gather the meat and vegetables, we will require one pound of ground beef, one quart of canned tomatoes, one eight ounce can of tomato sauce, one six ounce can of tomato paste, one large white onion, and two cups of button mushrooms. Now we will need the following spices, one teaspoon garlic powder, one teaspoon onion powder, one heaping teaspoon of minced garlic, half teaspoon dried oregano, half teaspoon dried basil, half teaspoon dried parsley, crushed red pepper, salt, and black pepper. Later on we will need dried spaghetti, a loaf of French bread, two cups of salted butter, half a cup of garlic and herb powder, a bread knife, a large pot, and a roll of aluminum foil.

Now that we have everything we will need, we can start the preparations. Place the medium skillet on the burner with the size comparable with your skillet, turn the heat up to medium high. At this point we will want to put the ground beef in the skillet, if your ground beef is frozen you may want to defrost it so as not to burn the outside and making the cooking time longer. As the skillet reaches its full temperature use the wooden spatula to chop the ground beef into bite size pieces and brown until no pink can be found in the center of the larger bits. After the ground beef is browned remove from the heat and turn the burner off. Set the colander onto a large plate and carefully dump the ground beef into it then set it aside.

It's time to chop our onion, place the cutting board on the counter, hold it firmly and carefully use the butcher knife to cut off the ends with stem and roots, once those are detached user your fingers to loosen and pull away a few of the outer layers. Once those are removed you can throw them away. Now we can cut up the meat of the onion, my family usually roughly chops it so that it is in fairly large pieces. With our mushrooms, depending on their size id recommend chopping the end off of each stem then either just cutting them in half or fourths. When finished cutting up the veggies go ahead and place them in the crock-pot. The next step is to open the canned tomatoes, the tomato sauce, and the tomato paste. Once they are open dump them into the crock-pot, be sure not to drain the canned tomatoes, the juice is crucial to the sauce. And finally the parts that gives our sauce a bouquet of flavors to the crock-pot of ingredients. add the one-teaspoon garlic powder, one-teaspoon onion powder, one heaping teaspoon of minced garlic, half teaspoon dried oregano, half teaspoon dried basil, and a half teaspoon dried parsley. These last three are added to taste, it completely depends on how spicy you like your spaghetti sauce. Crushed red pepper, salt, and black pepper. Now grab the colander of ground beef we browned, now that most of the grease has been strained out dump the beef into the pot as well, stir it all together with the spatula, put on the lid, and let it cook for five to six hours on low heat.

During the last hour of cooking the sauce we need to prepare the rest of the meal starting with the bread. In a bowl mix the two cups of butter and the garlic and herb powder (this can usually be bought pretty cheap at most super markets). After we have our seasoned butter, place the loaf of French bread on the cutting board, user a bread knife to cut into one inch thick slices. Liberally spread the seasoned butter on one side of each slice of bread, making sure that each buttered slice is facing the same way so that when we put back into a loaf and bake it the butter will spread to each unbuttered side. Our bred is buttered and back in loaf form, place the French bread on a sheet of aluminum foil that is four inches longer than each end of our loaf, pull the foil up over the sides and roll the top down so that it doesn't come undone. The bread should look like its in a metal tube now, gently flatten the ends of the foil and roll them up close to the bread so its nicely sealed and set it aside while we preheat the oven to three hundred fifty degrees. These next steps should be done in the last twenty to thirty minutes. Fill the large pot two thirds of the way up with water, salt it to taste and place it on the oven over high heat until boiling. Add the dried spaghetti to the boiling water and stir until its all covered, stir it occasionally. Take our French bread and place it on the center rack of the oven. Once pasta is softened move the colander over the sink and carefully pour the pasta into it, gently shake out the excess water. Removed the bread from the over and set on counter to cool slightly. Place a good helping of pasta on a plate and remove the lid from the spaghetti sauce, stir it again and liberally spoon it over the pasta. Carefully unroll one of the ends of the foil from the bread, be cautious of steam, and set a slice or two of garlic bread next to your pile of pasta. Now you have a hot home made meal that will fill even the hungriest of men. This meal also goes great with green salads, wine, or for lunch the next day.