By Rachel Hergett EBS COLUMNIST
These days, I feel like I am constantly busy. There are never enough hours in the day to complete all the tasks plus take care of myself and put food on the table.
Maybe you’re luckier than I, or you have found some secret to slowing down in this fast-paced world. Or maybe you’re in the exact same boat and the world is making you dizzy, swirling around you like dollars in one of those air chambers that you’re frantically trying to snatch out of the air.
For times like these—all times, really—there is one dish that reigns supreme. Tonight, I am making spaghetti.
To be clear, I am 0% Italian. I do not claim to be able to cook Italian food with any sort of authority, though those who can forever have my heart. Mmmmm, carbs.
Spaghetti in this case is a very Americanized version of an Italian pasta. Top some noodles with a red sauce and you’re good to go. This is the spaghetti of church lunches and team dinners. It does require a base of spaghetti noodles, so it gets to keep its name.
Everyone seems to make spaghetti differently and some are much better than others, but most seem to have a place. I have no problems with spaghetti-type frozen dinners or cafeteria spaghetti. But there are exceptions. Once upon a time, my grandma Dora had planned spaghetti as a meal, and I watched as she went to the cupboard in search of spices, pulling out a packet of taco seasoning. Hard pass. From then on, I offered to make the sauce every time I visited.
Spaghetti was a thing in our house. When I was a kid, the very first meal I cooked on my own was a spaghetti pie. I used my mom’s sauce recipe—which we’ll get to in a bit—and then somehow crafted a “crust” from noodles baked with an egg mixture to hold them in place. Spaghetti is a comfort meal for both me and my mom. She found a way to make it her own. And did I mention it’s delicious?
So how do I make spaghetti? While there are many recipes that are best from scratch, here, I cheat. By the time all is said and done, no one would ever know how it begins. But here’s the secret: My spaghetti starts with a jar of sauce. Really, any jar will work. Growing up, Prego was the jarred sauce of choice. It’s still pretty dang good. Now, I tend to go for sauces with less sodium and as few ingredients as possible. The beauty of a red sauce is in the melding of these ingredients. You want the tomatoes cooked down to give maximum flavor, and you want that flavor infused with garlic and herbs and maybe some olive oil. Choosing a ready-made sauce gives you that flavor as a base.
First things first, put a pot of water on to boil for your noodles. Then to the sauce. My sauce is a meat sauce, so I start there, browning about a pound of hamburger in a pan with garlic and onion, salt and pepper. Once that’s mostly cooked, add in your jar of sauce. If you’re a mushroom person, uncooked sliced mushrooms can be thrown in, or other vegetables if you prefer. My mom, for example, now adds canned mushrooms instead of raw mushrooms.
Next, amp up the spices. Add more garlic, dried thyme, oregano, basil and/or rosemary than you think you need. It’s very hard to go overboard here.
Finally, pour in a cup of red wine of choice. This is the key. Red wine adds a richness that is unmatched in any other red sauce. Add more if you want. Treat yourself.
It should take less than 10 minutes to throw all this in a pot, enough time for your noodle water to boil. Cook the spaghetti noodles according to the package and simmer the sauce until the alcohol is cooked out of the wine and it’s ready for a bed of noodles.
Even if I make garlic bread and a salad to round out the meal, the whole thing takes less than a half hour and has the ability to feed a crew. I make spaghetti for comfort, for ease and simply because I love it. I can’t think of any meal better for our busy world.
Rachel Hergett is a foodie and cook from Montana. She is arts editor emeritus at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle and has written for publications such as Food Network Magazine and Montana Quarterly. Rachel is also the host of the Magic Monday Show on KGLT-FM and teaches at Montana State University.
