August 7, 2014 New Recipe Bob’s Spaghetti with Tomato, meat, and mushroom Sauce

August 7, 2014 New Recipe   Bob’s Spaghetti with Tomato, meat, and mushroom Sauce

We had saved 1 lb. of hamburger meat from the large package of 88% lean hamburger meat we bought at Costco on Sunday to make my favorite spaghetti sauce.

Sauce:

1 lb. of hamburger meat

2 medium onions diced

6 or 7 garlic cloves diced

5 medium tomatoes, diced

1 32 oz. jar or can of tomato sauce (Classico Tomato and Basil or Hunts)

2 large portabella mushrooms, diced

25 to 30 large basil leaves sliced

5 or 6 sprigs of oregano leaves

Optional:  6-7 sweet Italian red peppers and 1 cup of red wine

The first four ingredients are sautéed in succession in a large pot.  I usually heat a bit of olive oil and add the onions first, but tonight I sautéed the meat first without adding any olive oil and used the fat from the meat, which made the sauce less oily and the onions firmer.

Then Suzette added the spaghetti sauce, but suffered an industrial accident, when she hurt her arm trying to twist the lid off the sauce bottle.

Suzette then went to the garden and picked a  basket of oregano and basil sprigs and I chopped and added the basil and oregano and the re-hydrated red peppers and fresh mushrooms.  We had 1 cup of PPI Chianti Superiore, so I added that to give the sauce a bit more liquid, so it would cook faster.  We then let the whole affair simmer covered for ½ hour to an hour and it was ready.

 I fetched a bottle of Niro 2008 Montepuliciano D’Abbruzo from the basement that turned out to be overly tannic and Suzette saw flecks of sediment floating in the wine that put her off.  We decanted it an after about 30 minutes it seemed to settle down and become sweeter and fruitier and less abrasive on the palate.  I think Suzette’s concern with the wine is explained by the fact that the Montepulciano grape is a heavier, darker grape than the thinner lighter Sangiovese grape we are used to drinking in Chianti.  Remember on Italian wine

labels the first name is the grape and the second name is the place where it was produced, so this was a wine made with Montepulciano grapes grown and produced in Abruzzo.  Niro is the winemaker.

Suzette made Tuscan Toast by toasting four large pieces of onion bread and smearing them with her famous anchovy, basil butter.

Suzette heated the bag of PPI Spaghetti and split it between two pasta dishes and ladled sauce on top of the spaghetti and we were ready to eat.   We took our pasta and wine to the gazebo in the garden and admired the newly renovated fountain that shot an arch of water from a ceramic fish into a large giant clam shell that then dripped a small rivulet of water into the pond as we ate.

I had bought Blue Bell Ice Cream at Albertsons on Wednesday, so we ate ice cream later in the evening.

Suzette had vanilla with her rhubarb compote and I had Dutch chocolate with chocolate sauce and Kahlua.

Bon Appétit