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Oscar night dinner: Spaghetti Western Mac

Posted on February 27, 2011 | 4 comments

Seeing as tonight is the Oscars, I decided to make a movie tribute version of a one-pot family favorite, Western Mac. I got the original recipe in college from the back of a box of macaroni and cheese. I have included both the movie tribute version and the original for your cooking enjoyment.

Spaghetti Western Mac

1/2 lb. Italian sausage
2 boxes mac and cheese (Annie’s Shells & White Cheddar is our favorite)
2-3 tbsp. plain yogurt or sour cream
1 c. spaghetti sauce (more or less to taste)

Brown sausage in 4 qt. pot; set aside in a bowl lined with a paper towel (to absorb excess grease). Fill pot with water and bring to boil; add pasta from box and cook for 8 minutes. Drain pasta and return to pot. Add yogurt/sour cream and stir until pasta is coated; add powdered cheese from package and stir until mixed. Stir in Italian sausage and spaghetti sauce until well mixed, and presto! One-pot Spaghetti Western Mac!

Original Western Mac

1/2 lb hamburger
1 small onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 box Kraft Macaroni and Cheese
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup canned or frozen corn
1 small (6 oz.) can tomato paste
salt and pepper to taste

Brown hamburger in 2 qt. saucepan; add onion and green pepper and saute until onions are soft. Set aside in a bowl lined with a paper towel (to absorb excess grease). Fill pot with water and prepare macaroni and cheese according to package directions. (If using frozen corn, cook it by placing it in the colander and draining the pasta over it.) Stir in corn and meat mixture; add tomato paste and stir until mixed. Season to taste.

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Tagged Annie's Shells & White Cheddar, cooking, corn, green pepper, Italian sausage, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, movies, onion, Oscars, plain yogurt, recipes, sour cream, Spaghetti Western, tomato paste, Western Mac

Meatless spaghetti meat sauce

Posted on August 25, 2010 | 8 comments

I read an article today about a woman looking for ways to make some of her cooking healthier. Her signature lentil soup, for instance, used sausage for flavor and texture, and it took a little ingenuity to come up with an acceptable substitution.

That got me thinking about a discovery I made many years ago when I was trying to reduce the amount of meat (and attendant fat) in the household diet. I was able to substitute lentils and ground poultry for sausage and hamburger in a number of recipes, but spaghetti sauce made with these instead of Italian sausage just tasted, well, anemic. Even if they had the right texture, the flavor wasn’t quite right.

To my immense disappointment, boatloads of garlic didn’t do it, though it did make us all very safe from vampires and people sitting next to us in public places. (I love garlic and generally subscribe to the belief that it’s not possible to have too much in any recipe. I have learned the hard way that not everyone shares my religious leanings on this.) Something was still missing.

Fennel seed (photo from http://www.milescollins.com/wordpress/fresh-fennel-seeds)

I finally found that the one ingredient that separates Italian sausage from all other sausages, mild or hot, is fennel seed. I subsequently determined that adding fennel seed, lightly crushed with my mortar and pestle, made even meatless spaghetti sauce taste like, well, like meat sauce. Hearty and savory and rib-sticking good.

So there you have it: the greatest secret of my kitchen. And if you want to know real joy, grow your own fennel — it’s a beautiful plant (I recommend the bronze foliage variety) and is a preferred larval food for Black Swallowtail butterflies. Just be sure you harvest those seeds; it self-sows freely and sends down deep tap roots.