what's cooking wednesday: spaghetti with meat sauce

Go ahead. Roll your eyes. Yawn like an anchovy.

Could it get any more boring than this week's What's Cooking Wednesday's spaghetti with meat sauce?

Not too long ago, I would've been rolling my eyes with you.

Far too many a college lunch was spent over a (paper) plate of pasta with meat sauce--and it was horrible. I mean really, really bad. It was so awful that I ended up asking for plain pasta, i.e., without what they called, I swear, "red sauce" which should've been a clue. I loaded up on grated cheese as a topping instead.

So in the opening stages of our relationship, when P suggested that we have spaghetti with meat sauce, I was, how you say, reluctant.

Luckily for my taste buds, I was still trying to be agreeable (girls, remember those days?), so I let him make it.

Wow.

It was that day that I learned to trust P's food judgment.

I'm now a huge fan, and although my favorite type of pasta to serve with this is tagliatelle, here I've done it with spaghetti.

Oh, and I've left the part about how to make the pasta because I know you're all old pros by now and can handle the boiling water and salt routine.

Spaghetti with (Ground) Meat Sauce

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium sweet onion chopped finely
3 cloves garlic, chopped finely
1 fresh peperoncino, chopped
1 lb. ground meat
1/4 cup red wine
28 oz. can peeled tomatoes, coarsely chopped or passed through grinder
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped finely
1/2 teaspoon salt

In a saucepan, add olive oil over medium heat. Sauté onions until translucent (3 to 5 minutes), then add peperoncino and garlic and sauté until the garlic is just starting to turn light brown (about 2 minutes).

Add ground meat, stirring with a wooden spoon. When the meat is lightly browned with little to no pink remaining, add wine. Let wine cook off for about 3-5 minutes.

Lower the heat and add tomatoes. Add parsley and salt, and let cook on low to medium heat for about 35 minutes.

Serve with plenty of grated parmeggiano cheese and more fresh peperoncino if you like it spicy like I do.

A clever reader might have realized that this is extremely similar to the sauce I use in Calabrian stuffed lasagne. Indeed, the only major difference between the two is that I prefer fresh peperoncino (the more the better!) in this sauce--I absolutely love the flavor it adds to the sauce.

Love.

A lot.

I usually don't use it in the lasagne sauce because it gets lost in all the other tasty ingredients anyway.

A final note: be aware that for the most part, the smaller the pepper, the more it'll open your sinuses, so choose accordingly.

Buon appetito!