I heart Mondays.

Originally uploaded by Bake & Destroy!
“What’s this crap, Cook & Destroy?” you ask? Well, sorta. Except this recipe is for baked spaghetti, or spaghetti cake. Therefore, it’s still baking. In your face!
I’m so busy these days that I don’t get to bake it up shake it up like I used to. I still try to bake something every week end, because it’s the only time I have, but what I’ve really been missing is food. Real, actual food. I’ve been living on bagels and trail mix and energy bars. Tony makes me something late at night when I get home, but I do miss family dinners and homemade tomato sauce that takes all damn day to make.
So yesterday I was home all day with Teno and I decided to bust out one of my favorite cook books, Recipes my Nonna Taught Me by Francena. A few years ago I was at the Festa Pasta Vino with my family when my mom and I saw a little both manned by a very sweet looking older guy. We stopped to see what he was selling, and it was all these hand-made cook books authored by his wife. He was so cute my mom bought two copies and gave one to me. I was vegan then, but I found a lot of the recipes could be altered to fit my diet, and now that I’m vegetarian but no longer vegan it’s even easier to follow these family recipes. I don’t know if you can buy this book online anywhere, but I’ve emailed Francena before at fslyd@aol.com before to ask about some of the recipes and she always responds quickly. So, if you’re interested, try emailing her.
What follows is a hybrid of a recipe from this book and things my grandma has taught me about Italian cooking. I’ll try to denote what advice comes from which lady when I can, but like all family recipes, it gets jumbled together in my memory.

Meatless Sauce

In a large pan mix:

• 15 oz. can tomato sauce
• 12 oz. can tomato paste
• 12 oz water (use the empty paste can)
• pinch salt
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• 1/8 tsp sugar
• 1 Tbs basil*
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 oz can sliced mushrooms

*My grandma adds dry Italian seasoning to taste instead of a measured amount of basil. I use basil and dry seasoning.

Then, in a small skillet, saute 1 medium chopped onion in olive oil and add to sauce.**

Cover and simmer 1 1/2 hours.

**Instead of chopping and cooking onion, my grandma slices a peeled onion almost all the way through, so it’s like a closed flower. Then she adds the whole thing to the sauce and lets it simmer. When it’s done cooking, the onion is very soft and it opens like a lotus flower. You can then break piece off and add them to the sauce if you like onion chunks, or if you’re like me and you like the flavor but not the actual piece of onion, you can toss it.

Francena says to always use a wooden spoon when stirring tomato sauce because the taste of a metal spoon will transfer. She also says you can add crushed tomatoes, sliced Kalamata olives, anchovies, capers and garlic to this recipe. I added garlic-stuffed olives from Trader Joe’s, just sliced.

Baked Spaghetti

Make the meatless sauce.
You can use Morning Star sausage style recipe crumbles if you’re vegetarian, it’s what I always use, or you can use 3/4 lb. ground round and 1/4 lb Italian sausage. Brown the meat, or defrost the Morning Star crumbles in a large pan.
Add the following:

• 1 small chopped onion
• pinch salt
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• 1 Tbs chopped parsley
• 15 oz can diced tomatoes with juice

Simmer for 1 hour.
After simmering, add 2 eggs and 3 Tbs flour.

Cook 1 lb. of spaghetti al dente. Drain, but don’t rinse.
Return pasta to pan you cooked it in and add 1/2 stick butter, 2 eggs and 1 cup meatless sauce.

Grease a 3 qt. glass pan with olive oil and coat with bread crumbs.
Add 1/2 pasta to pan, top with meat mixture and top with remaining pasta.

Bake at 300 degrees for 1 hour.
Loosen sides of pan and turn onto serving platter. Cut pasta into wedges and serve with meatless sauce poured over each slice.

When my grandma cooks spaghetti she boils the pasta in a light bullion to add flavor. She and I agree that pasta like this almost always tastes better on the second day, when everything soaks into the pasta.

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