A la me! I have a general rule where I should feel the food, imagine the flavours blending, and not using recipes. I tend to suck at following them as I am insubordinate. This recipe (ish) is a staple of mine, and I always have frozen portions of it in my freezer for those really broke weeks where I have to eat spaghetti for nutrition. The great thing about making spaghetti sauce at home is that not only is it really cheap to make, it's also much healthier than the store bought varieties which contain preservatives, excessive salt, and refined sugar. I make a big ish batch and it makes about 10-15 servings, depending on how much I feel like using, and it costs me close to nothing. It's made with food I usually have stockpiled in my cupboard:
2 big ol' cans of tomatoes. I like one crushed, one chopped for different textures
1-2 cans of mushroom slices (these are much cheaper than fresh, and just as good for you)
1 onion. A big one. Nummers.
Garlic. I like to use a whole one, some might only like 2 or 3 cloves.
Home made cheese sauce (with a roux base, or you can use cream cheese, or neither)
Spinach if it's a good day for it at the market. If not, no biggie.
Johnny's Garlic Crap. I will include a picture.
Rosemary and Thyme. In my spices, I have these mixed. Just a couple dashses.
Coarse salt.
Freshly grinded peppercorns.
A pinch of cinnamon
Seedy mustard - a good dollop of it. I recommend this.
This is super ease. Put on a big pot with the tomatoes in it. Caramalize those bad boy onion chunks, whatever thickness you like (I like my sauce chunky as hell). To caramalize is really easy, cook 'em in some fat (I use unsalted butter) until they turn the color and flavor you like. While the onions are cooking, throw some garlic, rosemary, thyme, salt, Johnny's garlic crap, salt, pepper, cinnamon and a big ol' squirt of seedy deli style mustard (the kind with horseradish) into the tomato pot. Once the onions are how you like 'em, throw them into the tomatoes as well. Put a bit more butter into the pan and toss in the mushrooms (it makes no difference if they're fresh or canned, canned ones are cheaper so I like those.) Cook until desired texture and throw them into the pot. Add your cheese sauce or cream cheese (Today I used cream cheese because that's what I have.
Let the sauce simmer and thicken for a good hour on low, it brings all the flavors out and lets it properly mix.
There seems to be an ongoing debate about how to sauce your noodles. Let's start with the noodles. I use multigrain noodles instead of whole wheat noodles. I cook them for a good 10 minutes to really soften those bad boys up, drain, and add a pile of sauce and let it simmer for another 4 or 5 minutes. This really thickens up the sauce and lets the sauce really meld in with the noodles. I find this to be best with a cheesy ish spaghetti sauce.
With only having spent 35 cents today on food that will last me all week (all I needed was the onion) , this is a winning recipe with me. Everything else I have in my cupboard from general grocery shopping (most items such as tomatoes and mushrooms cost about 88 cents a can.) It's very good for you, has no refined sugar and much of the vitamins you need in your diet, along with fiber, grains, and a bit of salt.
