Spaghetti Recipe Help

B

BigLeonard

100+ Posts
I'm having a dinner party tonight. I plan on serving Tomato & Mozzarella salads, Spaghetti (Maybe Angel Hair or Linguini), and stuffed garlic bread.

Here's the question:

What are some ways to "spice up" spaghetti so that it's not so ordinary. I make my own sauce so it's not completely ordinary. Still kind of boring though...

By the way, there are some guests who do not eat meat so I cannot simply add sausage. They do eat seafood however.

Suggestions? Anyone have any tried and true recipes to pass along?

Thanks in advance.
 
If you are doing a somewhat traditional red or tomato sauce then may I suggest loading it up with veggies. Esp. given your guests. I put mushrooms in mine as well as zuchinni and also carrots for their sweetness. I dice the carrots pretty small so that you never really get a bite of them, but they just lend flavour. I do leave the zuchinni in pretty big pieces. Wine or beer added also enrich the flavour. Also don't be afraid to throw fennel seed in, this will add another dimension. Just a few suggestions. The recipe linked by the last poster also looks fabulous.
 
It seems odd, but this is the best red sauce ever. It's kind of bbq saucey but it's great. I've put it over every kind of pasta and people usually love it.

2/3 cp vinegar
3 cps tomato juice
1/4 cp brown sugar
3 tblspn mustard (sauce or powder)
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 lg onion diced (white or spanish)
Put the above in a pot and bring to medium, and then back down to low and et simmer for ~45 minutes (or until onions get soft)

Then, throw in the below and you're ready to go.
1/2 cp ketchup
2 tblspn worschester sauce
add 1lb (or more) browned meat (i usually use ground beef, but you can use turkey or shrimp)

I'll sometimes throw some diced portabella mushrooms or oher things in too.
 
I like to add a can of rotel to spaghetti sauce to add a little heat but the same can be done with crushed red pepper. Not sure what you use to flavor your sauce so I don't have any suggestions of spices or herbs because I am assuming you are using some of the common ones like basil and oregano.
 
That sauce doesn't sound like it would taste bad... it just seems that it would be about the consitency of liquid? Am I wrong about that? Doesn't seem to be anything of substance in there.
 
Screw your non-meat eaters.

Brown 1.5 lb ground beef, 2 link's (.5 lb) mild italian sausage, with 1 large onion diced and some minced garlic. While browning add, s & p, and some cayanne.

Add 1 6oz can tomato paste.
Add 3 large cans (28oz?) tomato sauce, crushed tomatos, or whole tomatos crushed by hand.
Add 1 bay leaf, a bunch of basil, a bunch of parsley, s & p, some sugar, and Cayenne.

Let simmer 1-2 hours. Serve over pasta.
 
Sauteed bacon (or pancetta), lots of onion, olive oil, garlic, and about 2 cups of chopped fresh spinach, with a lot of pepper and parmesan on top work well. One of my favorites.

But frankly if you have stuffed garlic bread, I could care less what else you serve.
 
I concur with Gakfoo on this.... he is looking for some vegetarian advice and you people throw in some ideas I am going to try out, but are completely out of the question for him. I don't think he is looking to pull a 'gotcha' that has meat in it on his guests. If you want to do something that has a meat texture you can certainly get some tofu and brown it first before you start to add in the veggies.... browned tofu ain't that bad actually. And as someone who can put away about 2 lbs of steak in a sitting, I don't think that is a sell out statement.
 
mad.gif
Dang, sorry I missed this thread, I was out all day.

This one is so in my wheelhouse. My 2 Externships at CIA ended up being Italian places. Then I worked my entire 14 mths of culinary school in Baton Rouge at a small, neighborhood Italian place to help pay living expenses.

I kept a log for about a week at the BR joint, tracking how many bags of spag I'd cook in a set period.

I'd come in around 3:30-5, and depending on the day of week and how the lunch rush went, I'd average putting on 8-11 2 lbs bags of spag.
 
Everything was awesome. We had tomato and mozzarella salads, stuffed garlic bread, and spaghetti. The sauce was terrific and was made "as I went." The guests said it was definitely the best spaghetti they've ever had and one person said it was possibly the best meal he's ever had.

Thanks for the tips - Next time I'll put bacon in it and show those vegetarians.

PS, Cowpoke: What are some of your tips?
 
I want to know what you put in it even as you made it as you went.... give us all some pointers as to what made it the best your guests ever ate. I always look forward to DallasCowpoke's culinary insights... anchovies... mmmmmmmmmm.
 
Last night I cut up 2 roasted hatch peppers into small pieces and threw them into a very simple(pressed for time) tomato based sauce.

The flavor the hatch peppers brought was great, and quite different from any other spicy sauce I've had before.
 
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