Watson House Wednesday, #11: Jenn's Spaghetti

Well, life is still crazy busy, and I missed last week, but I wanted to jump back in this week.  :)

Spaghetti is admittedly one of my favorite foods on the planet.  Seriously, before I could even use a fork, I was shoving it into my face.  It's not something that I've made very recently, but it is something I've made often over the years.  It was one of the first things my mother taught me to cook.  Just the smell of those special ingredients being combined is like comfort food kitchen magic to me!

Spaghetti is a food that is variable, versatile, and easily adjustable to taste.  You can use different meats, different herbs, and different additions to the sauce.  After many versions, many experiments, and many years, this is the current favorite version at our house.

Jenn's Spaghetti
1 pound ground beef
4 cloves of garlic (or 2 tsp garlic powder)
1 medium onion
1/2 pound fresh mushrooms
2 tbsp fresh chopped oregano (or 2 tsp dried)
2 tbsp fresh chopped basil (or 2 tsp dried)
1 can (15 oz.) diced tomatoes (drained)
1 small can (8 oz.) tomato sauce
1 can (6 oz.) tomato paste
1 can condensed tomato soup
2-4 tbsp red wine

1 small package spaghetti noodles
2 tbsp olive oil

In a large skillet or saute pan, lightly brown ground beef.  Drain, and return beef to skillet.  Chop garlic, onion, and herbs, wash and slice mushrooms.  Add these to the beef, and cook over medium heat.*  Once the onions and mushrooms have cooked most of the way through, add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, tomato soup, and wine.  Heat through, stirring occasionally, then turn down to simmer.

Cook spaghetti noodles according to package directions, except add the olive oil to the water before adding the noodles.  Once the pasta is cooked and drained, stir the sauce, remove from heat, and serve.  Add a sprinkle of parmesan cheese if you like!

*Since my daughter has developed an aversion to mushrooms, I now saute these with a little olive oil and a sprinkle of garlic.  Then anyone who wants them can add them later, as they like.

Watson House Wednesday, #10: Saffron Rice

After a long hiatus, I’m back!  The holidays were great, but crazy busy.  Life has been the same recently, with birthdays, Valentines, and getting the garden started.  But I have a rainy day, and a rare day when I don’t have to go run errands, so it’s been a good morning to catch up on things!

My recipe this week is something new, but it turned out well, so I wanted to share.  Saffron is a seasoning that I have wanted to try for some time now, but since it’s pretty spendy, I've avoided it thus far.  But Santa decided to leave a small tin of it in my stocking this last Christmas, so I finally got to give it a go!  

I searched and debated over several recipes that include saffron for my first try using this exotic seasoning.  I finally decided to go with something simple, something that wouldn’t have a lot of other flavors obscuring or competing with the flavor of the saffron itself.  So we tried saffron rice, and it’s amazing!  I served it on our game night with chicken curry, but it’s really good even on its own.  I made a double batch, so we had leftovers, to everyone’s delight.  :)

Recipes for saffron rice ranged from very traditional (and kind of complicated), to fairly simple.  After considering several, I based my first attempt on this version.  It’s one of the fairly simple ones.  :)

http://toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/2011/09/saffron-rice/

Of course, me being me, I modified it a little.  So here’s how I made it:

Saffron Rice

2 pinches saffron threads

1 tbsp olive oil (You made need a bit more, depending on your pan.)

1 small to medium yellow onion (around ¾ cup minced)

2 cups jasmine rice

3 ¾ cup soup stock

1 tsp salt

Grind the saffron threads with a mortar and pestle.  (You could use a bowl and the back of a spoon, if you don’t have one.)  Add about ¼ cup hot water, and let it soak for at least 5 minutes to open up the flavor of the spice.  The original recipe says to leave some threads whole, but I forgot or missed this step.

Measure and rinse your rice.  Most recipes call for basmati rice, but I didn’t have any, and jasmine rice seemed to work fine.  Regular white or long-grain rice are not recommended, but they might work, although you’d probably have to cook them longer, and they may require more liquid.

Mince the onion, and put it into a large pot with the olive oil.  I put my onion in the food processor a bit too long, and it ended up rather like onion paste, but it didn’t seem to make much difference.  Saute over medium heat, until the onions begin to caramelize.  Then mix in the rice, and saute for another minute.  Pour all of the saffron liquid evenly over the rice.  Add the stock and salt, then bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 20 minutes, or until all of the liquid is absorbed.  Fluff with a fork, and serve!

The stock I used in this recipe was some turkey stock that we canned after Thanksgiving.  The original recipe says to use chicken stock, or water with an added pinch of salt.  But if you wanted to make it vegetarian, I’m sure a vegetable stock would also be delicious.

Pictured above, this rice made a great meatless meal (except for the stock) with some button mushrooms.  The mushrooms were just sliced, then sauteed with a dash of salt, pepper, and smoked paprika.  Love those Spanish spices!  :)