Home Kitchen Spaghetti al Pomodoro

When the sky is all gloomy-like and it’s done nothing but rain… and rain and rain I like to have what I call “a carb dinner”.

As you can clearly see “carb dinner” consists of a fireside comforting bowl of pasta with breadsticks. Carbalicious if you ask me. Pat picked up our regular breadsticks and of course the infamous garlic-cheese dip while on his way home from work and I made pasta, pomodoro-style.

Pomodoro translates to tomato. So not glamorous. BUT!!! Spaghetti al Pomodoro is typically pretty light and made with fresh ingredients like basil, garlic and tomatoes and then finished off with grated Parm and my personal regular… butter.

I know everyone at the table isn’t into the whole “raw” sauce thing, so I always opt for canned whole San Marzanos. For those who’ve made my lasagna, you know what I’m talking about.

Now of course I couldn’t serve a bowl of meatless pasta to everyone at the table. Oh-no-no that wouldn’t do, so I added cooked, sliced chicken sausages. But pomodoro is traditionally meatless.

Like any good recipe, it starts off with a chopped yellow onion.

And five… yes FIVE medium-sized cloves of garlic. Minced… like to a pulp almost.

Heat a quarter cup {I eyeball it} of EVOO in a deep, 10-inch skillet over medium-low heat. Once that baby is good to go, throw in the diced onion.

Cook for about 6-8 minutes, or until soft and translucent.

Next add the minced garlic to the onions and cook for a minute or two.

Sprinkle in a little crushed red pepper… Ps. I’ve only discovered {thanks to someone at the table} how satisfying red pepper flakes is on pizza. LOOK OUT… I see a post coming at ya!

This is the messy fun part. Over the pan; squeeze, crush and pulverize each and every one of the San Marzano tomatoes in your {impeccably clean} hands. I can only use one hand because the other is holding a camera… but two hands DO work better than one.

Add about a half cup of water to the can, swirl it around to get all the sauce “clingers” and pour it all into the pan.

Season with only a pinch of kosher salt. Remember there’s Parm in the near future and that adds a bit of saltiness in itself. Let this simmer on medium heat for about 20-25 minutes until it has thickened. In the meantime I like to bring a pot of salty water to boil and cook the pasta, as directed on the side of the package of course.

Once the 20 minutes are up, add in the sliced fresh basil…

… and stir. Remove the pan from the heat until the pasta is done.

Return the pan to medium-high heat and pour the pasta juice into the sauce, this will loosen it up.

Add the drained spaghetti noodles…

Parm and butter are next! The butter will give this pasta a luscious creaminess that is a must. So don’t forget ya hear?!

This part is entirely optional. But in everyone at the table… a must.

Who needs bowl? Only gimme a fork.

The Spaghetti al Pomodoro pasta sauce is deliciously light and savory, and simply what we needed to cope with the watery day, the extra sprinkle of cheese helps too.

Ya know you can make this pasta meatless or meat-full, either way…

…carb dinner. Make it happen.