Spaghetti and Meat Sauce

Both hubby and I agreed that one of the best thing about living in Jersey was the readily available Italian food. God I'm desperate for a good slice of pizza and the thought of a fresh, hot, crispy loaf of chicken parmigiana makes me want to cry. Damn I miss Jersey.

That said, Japan is the land of the breaded-n-deep-fry (katsu, tempura - hello!) so there has got to be a way for me to buy my own unassembled chicken parmigiana. Let's see, I'll have to make my own sauce, buy chicken katsu, bread, and mozzarella. Then assemble them and toast in my little toaster oven. Argh so complicated!!! As for pizza, forget it. I don't have anything to bake it in, and ordering from Pizza Hut or Domino's on this side of the planet is just...pitiful. Not only they're doubled-tripled in price and halved in size, they come with toppings catered to the local tastes, to be gentle. Erhh...sorry, I like my pizza the "usual" way they're made.

So the only thing left that's doable for me is to make some pasta. Funny how I never order spaghetti when I eat out in Jersey. I only make it at home.

Dinner was spaghetti in meat sauce with garlic bread (just store bought bread, butter, garlic powder, and dry parley, all toasted in the mini toaster oven) and instant potato soup ^.^

Here's my recipe for the Meat Sauce.

Ingredients:

- Ground beef, though I prefer ground pork because it makes the sauce sweeter, 1 lb.

- Onions, 2 large or 3 medium, diced

- Tomatoes, 3-4 cans whole tomatoes, though I prefer fresh tomatoes, especially tomatoes on the vine, 12-15 medium, chopped. When I use tomatoes on the vines, I also pick out a clean vine, wash it well, and set it aside to throw in with the sauce. This will result in a very "tomato-y" and fragrant sauce - yum!

- Garlic, 2-3 large cloves, chopped

- Lime or lemon, 1 slice. If the fresh fruit is not available, a few sprits of the bottled juice will work, but be careful to not to use too much since the bottled stuff tends to be stronger.

- Optional: mushrooms. I hate most mushrooms, so I never use any mushrooms in my meat sauce.

Seasonings:

- Salt, 3/4-1 teaspoon. This sounds a lot but you're also making at least 2 meals' worth of meat sauce for 2 people (4+ servings), and that's with hubby inhaling 2 large plates each meal! So really, this recipe will probably yield 6+ servings for those who eat only 1 plate like me. I use sea salt because it tastes less salty than table salt, plus it adds a touch of sweetness to the dish.

- Dark brown sugar, 1/2-3/4 teaspoon. When I use fresh tomatoes, especially tomatoes on the vine, I skip sugar. I made the mistake of adding sugar once with fresh tomatoes and my sauce turned out super sweet. Ooops.

- Black pepper, generous sprinkles

- Dry basil, generous sprinkles

- Dry oregano, generous sprinkles, though don't over do it and avoid using more oregano than basil as it is stronger and will overwhelm the entire dish.

- Optional: crushed pepper, to taste

Steps:

- Brown the meat, and if you want to eat lean, drain the meat of the grease and transfer to a clean bowl.

- Add 1-2 Tablespoons of olive oil (this is the good fat you want to eat!) to pot, quickly brown the garlic.

- Throw in the onions, cook until tender.

- Add the browned meat, then before mixing the meat up with the onions, season with salt (and brown sugar if use), black pepper, basil, oregano, and crushed pepper. Mix well.

- Add chopped or canned tomatoes, mix well. Throw the cleaned vine in here and make sure it's submerged.

- Cook for at least 1 hour until the tomato sauce is smooth. Cooking with fresh tomatoes will take much longer, about 2-2.5 hours since fresh tomatoes will give off tons of water. If you use canned tomatoes the sauce will be ready in just over an hour.

- Squeeze the slice of lime/lemon into the sauce pot and mix well right before serving. I didn't have either the fresh fruit or the bottled juice, so I used the bottled yuzu juice ^.^ And don't forget to remove that vine!