Jan 18 2009
The Spaghetti Doctor Is In
I can cook.
I just don’t do any “real” cooking all that much. I consider “real” cooking to be cooking something that takes more than boiling water or reheating or even steaming.
Making toast? That’s not real cooking.
Making a sandwich? Not cooking.
Grilled cheese sandwich? OK. That counts. It mean, it’s actually something you can ruin. This criterion does not negate my claim that making toast isn’t cooking.
Yes, you can burn toast and ruin it but the same can be said for a Pop Tart and no one considers toasting a Pop Tart cooking.
Well…no one I know.
Now that I think about it, I don’t think I know many people who eat Pop Tarts and the few who do probably don’t go to the trouble of actually popping them into the toaster.
But back to my cooking. I eat simply and what cooking I do for myself is generally steam vegetables. I pair this with some packaged grill chicken.
I’m chatting with a friend and we’re discussing cooking. Like me, he’s single. Like me, he doesn’t spend a lot of time cooking.
I tell him that I have a few “no fail” meals that I can cook and that one of them is “doctored up” spaghetti.
“Doctored up?” he asks.
“I take a jar of spaghetti sauce and ‘doctor it up’” with Italian sausage, fresh garlic, fresh mushrooms, maybe a splash of red wine…let it simmer…usually turns out pretty good.”
“I do that!” he says. “I call mine ‘Kitchen Sink Pasta’.”
I can see that he doesn’t quite consider his Kitchen Sink Pasta ‘cooking’.
In my book Doctored Up Spaghetti or Kitchen Sink Pasta count as cooking. Each involves multiple steps, cooking skills (browning, chopping, boiling, simmering), a vast array of cooking tools (chopping board, knives, spatula/wooden spoon, colander) and more than 1 pot.
You may think differently but it’s my book.
So…how many of you doctor up a jar of spaghetti sauce?
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I also doctor up spaghetti sauce. It does take skill. Not everybody can just throw in a few extra ingredients and have it turn out delicious. You need to know how much of each and what each flavor will add. Trust me, one CAN mess it up and make it completely unappetizing.
One of my no-fail dishes is roasted chicken and garden veggies. I rub fresh herbs on the chicken, brown it, then wrap it and the chopped veggies (tossed in olive oil first) in a tight foil packet and roast for 2-3 hours at 250*F. Perfect. I like to make this for family gatherings at my home because I can pull it out warm and serve right away when we have guests. For more guests, divide them into more foil packets.
Sue: I had a feeling you could cook! Now I’m curious about your no-fail dish – how do you brown the chicken? I mean, is it a whole chicken? I’m all for the no-fail-not-many-steps type of cooking!
I’ve experimented with doctored up spaghetti sauce – have tried different sauces, different types of sausage so I feel it takes some skill, too!
Whoa, I haven’t been here in sometime! I hope that you’ve been well. I noticed the new ads. Or maybe I just had adblocking before? Anyways, I definitely add stuff to a jar of sauce in order to make it taste a little more homemade. Of course, I also do cook most days of the week so I would say that I’m no slouch in the kitchen. I think it’s a good thing.
I have not been able to really doctor up the sauce because I’m still paranoid about eting it with my acid reflux and stuff. I feel so left out now.
Tobasco, dash of pepper, MORE onion, can of chopped tomatoes. KaBOOM …. Speedy Spicy Sketti!!
Now, if they only had noodles that do not need to be boiled
Nah, I just heat the stuff in the jar plain. I figure if I’m going to bother with all that doctoring business, I may as well just make my grandmother’s recipe. I mean even that even THAT is sort of doctoring – he recipe calls for canned tomatoes etc. Not like my mom’s. Her’s is REALLY from scratch – she grows her own tomatoes to make the sauce. Of course if The-Guy’s new veggie garden works out, maybe I’ll have totally from scratch too one day.
I don’t really make spaghetti often enough to worry too much about doctoring anyway. Sort of like I never understood that cake doctor recipes or brownies from a box. I mean, if you’re going to dirty up all those dishes, why not bake from scratch? Sure you might have to throw in a teaspoon of baking soda or something and thus dirty a measuring spoon you didn’t have to with a mix. But I don’t really think of cake from a mix or brownies from a mix as worth all the calories. To me it’s better to have the real thing if you’re going to have to wash your mixing bowl anyway.
BTW when I make something that I don’t really consider cooking, I sometimes say I “assembled” dinner instead of cooked it.
Although in reality I’ve been doing a TON of cooking since moving in with The-Guy & his daughter. Five people eat a LOT!
Egads! What were we talking about bothering with the mistakes in your last post?!?! That reply was full of typos – sorry! :-0
You are so right… It is cooking!
The last time I cooked was with spaghetti sauce. It just doesn’t taste right directly out the jar. You have to throw yourself into it and make it special. And you know that is a lot of work.
I don’t screw with the sauce usually. But, i’m starting with an arrabbiata sauce usually, so it’s already got a little zing to it. sometimes i’ll toss some sausage or meatballs in while it’s heating. for me, safeway’s house brand is pretty darned tasty. what kind of sauce are other people starting with? marinara? something else?
usually though, it’s not spaghetti, but some other shape. like a farfalle, gemeli, fusili, rotini, etc. i’ll cook angel hair if i’m cooking for my father, since he prefers that. favorite name – mostocoli because we’ve nicknamed it “mostly charlie”.
another question is if you time the boil on the pasta? or measure what you toss in the pot with the pasta? i do that all by feel and eye. (about this much salt, that much olive oil, cook until the pasta looks like so, give it a taste if you’re not sure it’s done.)
so, the doctor is in, but I don’t see Lucy.
(i just couldn’t pass up the Peanuts reference.)
Derek: I haven’t changed my ads at all. I just use the same ole Adsense links so who knows what is showing up for you. I’ve had ads on for a while.
Ricardo: That’s too bad about eating tomato sauce and avoiding this massive list of foods!
Speedy!! Boy, you do kick up the temperature on the sauce!
Jill (parts 1 and 2): I like your word, “assembled”! I have had “cake doctor” cakes in that someone will bring in a cake and say they used some basic cake mix and then added whatever. I used to use cake mixes and now feel the same as you – if I’m gonna bake a cake, why not do it from scratch? I’ve baked a few scratch cakes in my time!
No problem on typos!
UT: I have to doctor up spaghetti, in my case, I have to add at least some fresh mushrooms! Doctoring it up never seems like much work but I guess it is what with having to decase the sausage and chop up stuff.
ack: I dunno what other types of sauce people are starting with. I usually mix 2 different jars: a thick and a thin is how I think of it! The Marinara is “thin” – a nice tangy tomato and a meat or bolognese sauce for the “thick.”
I take the boiling time listed on the pasta package and deduct 2 minutes and keep testing from there. So if the boiling time states 10 minutes I check the pasta at 8 and keep checking until it’s “done” – in my case al dente.
Hi Q! – long time no see..
I doctor up some canned tomatoes, and make them into a quickie sauce… I take a can o tomatoes, add a very generous dolop of tomato paste – and then fresh oregano and thyme… also pound the heck out of some fennel seed and put that in… maybe a teaspoon of bashed fennel seed…. voila! a nice splash of red wine, and we’re in business! – works great for pizza, or lasagna, and with some dried red chillies for a little kick, makes a great spaghetti !!
- DR