Unfortunately, I seldom make spaghetti the same way twice. I am forever experimenting and tasting. One thing my dad used to say always comes to mind, “lots of olive oil, makes it better.” You can even make spaghetti and put only olive oil, chopped up fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, and salt on it, and it will taste wonderful.
I have on occasion made sauce from fresh tomatoes, but it takes a long time. It is good to do in the fall when the backyard tomato plants are producing more little red orbs than it is humanly possible for even a large family to consume in the month or so they might last otherwise. Making spaghetti sauce with them is a better alternative than allowing the kids to use them as missiles. (We had some great tomato fights when we were kids, only we had to rinse off outside before mom would let us in the house.)
To make sauce from fresh tomatoes, start by dipping each tomato (one at a time is good) in a pot of boiling water and only leave it a minute or two until the skin is loose. Jab it with a fork to hold it while it is still in the boiling water and use another fork to take the skin off (toss the skin). Don’t touch the tomato with your hands because you want to keep it clean. Now you can either stick the tomato in a plastic freezer bag to be frozen and used later, or place it in a bowl to be used now. If you are using it now to make sauce, cut it up and put it into a large frying pan with some chopped onion and garlic, maybe a tad of olive oil. (You don’t really need the onion and garlic at this point; they can be added later.) Start with only one or two tomatoes; if you add too many at once, they will never thicken into paste (also, if you add a lot of oil at this point, it will interfere with thickening). After the tomatoes start to thicken into a paste, then add one or two more. Eventually you will have a nice sauce consistency, which can then be flavored with olive oil and spices.
For those who just want a good spaghetti dinner, the following is a more step-by-step explanation of what to do.
RECIPE STARTS HERE:
Here are the ingredients in order:
Olive oil
1 or 2 pounds of meat: hamburger or sausage or both or meat balls.
Onion chopped (1 medium, or to taste)
Garlic chopped (3 or 4 cloves, or to taste)
1 can plain unseasoned tomato sauce (I like Hunts)
1 can plain unseasoned tomato paste
1 can plain unseasoned tomatoes (whole or finely chopped)
Oregano
Ground thyme
(basil or rosemary or other seasonings if you want – I usually just use the 2 above)
Salt and pepper
MORE olive oil
(mushrooms, black olives – optional)
AND spaghetti
Grated parmesan cheese
Using a large frying pan, fry the meat in the olive oil with the chopped onion and garlic. Add the tomato sauce, tomato paste, and canned tomato. Then add spices to taste. THEN the trick to make it really taste good is MORE olive oil and let it simmer for as LONG as you can. The longer you simmer it, the more mellow and sweet it becomes. Keep the heat low. (If you don’t have time, you can eat it after only about 15 minutes, but it is better if you cook it an hour or two). Keep it covered so it doesn’t mess up the kitchen and stir it often.
For the pasta: Use your biggest pot. Fill it about half way to 2/3s full water. Add a couple teaspoons of salt. The water needs to come to a FULL BOIL. When you add the pasta to the water, you must stir it. I usually use 2 forks. After the water starts boiling again, start the timer. Spaghetti is better if it isn’t over cooked. Al dente means chewy and that is how you want it. If it is still hard inside, it needs to cook more, you don’t want it under cooked either!
Dump the cooked spaghetti into a colander and drain it. Then immediately dump it back into the empty pot (no water) and add olive oil. Stir it. Then dump it into a serving dish. Put the sauce in a serving bowl as well.
Serve with grated cheese.