Tuesday Dinners

Step by Step Directions

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add salt to your water if you want to do it like the Italians. You’ll probably need to add more salt than you think, ideally you want to be able to eat the pasta having it only flavored by the water. There’s probably an actual ratio you’re supposed to use, but that’s what Google is for. Everyone’s taste is different.

But wait, aren’t you supposed to throw the pasta against the wall to see if it’s done? No. That doesn’t actually work, get a noodle, break it/bite it in half and see if it’s cooked through (there should be no crunch to the noodle and it should be a constant color throughout).

Next, peel and dice your onion. There’s no real rhyme or reason to which size to choose. I typically try to cut it about the size of the meat I’m cooking with after it’s done cooking. In all honesty the size of the onion after I chop it is pretty dependent on how much I feel like chopping (why the sizes are different in the picture).

Peeling garlic and chopping it is one of my least favorite activities in the kitchen, so I use a microplane (a really small grater) and it makes it a consistent size. You could also just use minced garlic from the jar.

Begin to heat your sausage in a pan, you could cook everything all together at the same time, but I like a little bit of the fat to be rendered so it can soak into the other ingredients. Also, it becomes a lot harder to see the red, uncooked portion of the meat once you add tomatoes.

I used whole tomatoes for this recipe, if you’re in a hurry you can use crushed tomatoes (need less time to cook), or you can use a jarred pasta sauce. But if you’re following along then make sure to break up the tomatoes with whatever you’re cooking with.

Next up is throwing in all your onions, if you’re being fancy now would also be the time to add in any other spices you want. I’m partial to crushed red pepper, but if you’ve got a little herb garden and you want to use it by all means do.

After that has mixed in a little bit it’s time to add in your garlic (the whiter stuff in the middle of the pot).

Why wait to add the garlic? I’m not in the kitchen with you, so you can add it whenever you want. But, the longer garlic cooks for the more the flavor degrades. Think of it like this, would you want to eat a raw bulb of garlic, probably not. You want the flavor to be still be pungent, but you want it to have transferred some of that flavor to the dish.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees (or don’t, fight Big Oven and put it in cold)

Once sausage is browned add garlic, preheat oven to 350 degrees

Start creating your layers, almost like you would a lasagna. Noodles first.

Then your sauce. Really it doesn’t matter because the sauce has so much liquid that it will all mix together pretty well.

Next up is cheese. Go nuts, add some parmesan if you want. Just try to get an even coating from edge to edge (the following picture is not a very good example of this).

Do the same thing again, noodles, sauce, cheese.

Throw it in the oven and bake until the cheese is melted. All your other ingredients should already be cooked so we’re just tying everything together.

Variations

• Swap out the sausage for ground beef
• Double any other ingredient (more cheese, more pasta, etc.)
• Add peppers, spinach, something else green
• Use a premade sauce from a jar
• Use a different kind of cheese or add a second type of cheese on top of the mozzarella
• Add spices to the sauce (oregano, crushed red pepper, basil)

Unsolicited Feedback

• MK: I’m more of a white sauce kind of person.
• KH: Meh.
• AG: At least there was garlic bread with it.