I used jarred sauce because after a day of repairing floor joists I was in too much pain to make my own from a can of crushed tomatoes. And I used brass cut die spaghetti because it was already open so this is a bit pricier than normal for what should be a cheaper meal.
Cost per person: $1.76
In case you want a good recipe for sauce:
- One can puréed tomatoes
- One can diced tomatoes
- Spices. This is whatever your taste is, like garlic, onion powder, the seven components of Italian seasoning, white pepper, hot pepper flakes, etc.; I recognize this is kind of “restofthefuckingowl”, but I just have a big Mediterranean mix I keep in a jar.
- Kale leaves, torn
- Crushed sliced almonds (bag of sliced almonds and crushed by hand)
- Sour cream (I used Tofutti vegan sour cream; can’t attest to dairy-based)
- Olive oil
- Diced, sautéed oyster mushrooms
I went about this in a dumb way and only sautéed the oyster mushrooms, but for better flavor, you could sautée with olive oil, crushed garlic, spices, almonds, kale, and oyster mushrooms, then pour the tomatoes and sour cream on top of that once you feel they’re cooked well enough.
I know that’s high-effort compared to jarred, but the flavor is really something. Take out everything but the tomatoes, olive oil, and spices, and you can still have a really good but almost-no-effort sauce.
Looks interesting. My brain kept trying to change that sour cream to cream cheese because every recipe on the internet these days is ruined with cream cheese. But sour cream is good.
labne does that to a dude
I’ve made more than my share of yogurt cheese. It is kinda amazing. But most importantly it doesn’t make the dish taste like cream cheese. Everything with cream cheese tastes like cream cheese. Which is great on a bagel but not in my pasta.
I respect the commitment to cheese!
I had a third of a block of smoked mix that was open and needed to get used up. I’ve already got several more blocks ready to get smoked when the weather is right.
Will you please broil that for like 1 minute?
It was broiled for 5.
Oh, in my broiler it would be burnt to a crisp.
