I got an email from my Dad today that said I should call him to discuss the spaghetti recipe, since he was “alone in the North and menaced by snow.”

Did I mention my Dad is a writer?  He’s also alone and menaced by snow quite a bit, which is this winter’s code for “Call your father.” My Mom works primarily from the house, but is on call during the evenings, which means she gets called out to various places a lot and gives my Dad plenty of time to think up new codes. My favorite is still one from after a trip to the zoo when I told him I had a big enough purse to smuggle a penguin out in. That message was “Put down the penguin and call your father!”

Anyway, I was talking about spaghetti. According to my Dad, this is actually my Grandma’s spaghetti recipe, not his. The only thing he doesn’t do is to add the sugar. I never remembered that part, so I haven’t ever added it either. This is more like a method than a recipe too. We tend not to measure. And it needs to cook for at least 6-8 hours. I made it once in 4 and it wasn’t the same. (I make this in the crockpot a lot, but I don’t think Dad approves of that method.)

We are not Italian in any way, shape, or form.  My Dad’s side is Norwegian and my Mom’s side is Finnish. I think my Grandma got the recipe from her Italian neighbors at some point. I’ve listed what I generally use, but really it can be flexible.

So without further ado, my interpretation of the family spaghetti method!

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef, 1 medium onion-chopped, 3-4 cloves garlic-sliced, 1 can mushrooms or fresh mushrooms, 2 stalks celery-sliced, 1 chopped red or yellow bell pepper, 3-4 cans diced tomatoes, 1 can whole tomatoes, 1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar, basil, oregano, parsley, salt and pepper, and garlic powder to taste.

Brown the ground beef halfway, drain if necessary, and add the garlic and onions. If using the slow cooker, add the ground beef mixture and the other ingredients and let cook for 6-8 hours. The slow cooker makes it a little more juicy than stovetop.

For the stove, pretty much the same thing applies. After you’ve drained the meat, add it back to the pan and add everything else and let cook on low for 6-8 hours. Keep it covered for a few hours and if it looks like it is too juicy towards the end, take the lid off and turn up the heat to medium.

In my family we always used the leftovers for lasagna the next day. I accidentally trained the Husband to expect it this way too, so now I’m not allowed to just make spaghetti without getting sad looks and heavy sighs. So since we had spaghetti yesterday, we had lasagna tonight and I got brave and made homemade pasta sheets. Although it sounds funny, I ended up making pasta sheets because I was too lazy to put on real pants (not pjs) and go to the store. It seemed easier to make them, since I have made pasta a few times before.

No pictures of tonight’s sheets, as it’s a bit impossible to take pictures while rolling pasta dough through the Kitchenaid Pasta attachment. I do have pics of another batch of pasta though so you can see what it looks like. It’s pretty fun and actually easy, just a little time consuming. I thought I had made it too thin, but it was delicious in the lasagna and cooked up perfectly with no par-boiling. I will definitely make this again and am already plotting what to do with the rest of the pasta dough.

No crafts this weekend. I need to get back to my sewing machine in the later part of the week. I hope you enjoy the spaghetti method and pasta pictures though and stick around for crafty pictures later.