Saturday was Poker night. That means that Jeff was not home for the evening. I called up his sister and she came over, we had a girl's night of spaghetti, wine, playing dominoes, as well as Chutes and Ladders. Well let me tell you, my Dad has this phrase he uses periodically; it's "Butt Numbers". Butt Numbers* are essentially numbers that are pulled out of nowhere, i.e. your butt. My reason for explaining butt numbers is this..... I have created butt number cooking. I'm coining the phrase. Butt. Number. Cooking.
This is generally how I cook. I rarely measure anything, and I tend to add stuff willy-nilly. Essentially I pull the 'recipe' out of nowhere. I'm really just lazy if you really must know. I made spaghetti but didn't measure a dang thing.... If you haven't noticed already I tend to use approximations on my recipes, now you know why. Butt Number Cooking. Of course I wouldn't be telling you about my Butt Number Cooking if it wasn't a success. More often than not I am successful in my cooking endeavors. I think the most important thing to cooking is to correct your seasoning as you go. That means taste it! All during your cooking process taste it and see if it needs salt, or pepper. Correct your seasoning! Of course I wouldn't recommend doing this while browning the meat......
Anywho, the spaghetti turned out quite good. Here's the psuedo recipe:
about 1lb ground beef
1 smallish-mediumish onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can cento peeled plum tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste
1/4 white wine (you could prob use red if you prefer)
1 pkg mushrooms - I think that's 8oz?
a pinch of sugar (to reduce acidity)
chili powder
oregano
basil
thyme
parsley
S&P
Brown the beef, add onions garlic, and mushrooms, spoon off the fat (if you do that sort of thing). Toss in some oregano, the paste, and the plum tomatoes. Crush the tomatoes with your spoon. About this time I tasted the sauce and it mostly tasted like tomatoes, which is fine if that's what you like but I wanted more than just tomato flavor. So while I was dicing veggies for my salad, I tossed in about 1/2 of a bell pepper, some parsley I found in the fridge and probably 1/2 of a stalk of celery (diced of course). More pepper, more oregano, and some water. Oh and don't forget the wine. Then I put the lid on and let it simmer for about an hour. Don't forget the bay leaf like I did. Boil your pasta of choice (I chose spaghetti, duh) once the pasta is al dente toss it with the sauce (add a little pasta water if it is still thick). Serve and enjoy.
*On a side note if you google Butt numbers there is no site that directly defines butt numbers. I thought for sure there would be a definition on urban dictionary or something. Interesting. I shall have to rectify this at some point.
