Spaghetti...Sunday, October 5, 2014

I KNOW when I say spaghetti that MANY of you will smile when you remember the ANDY GRIFFITH episode where Aunt Bea had left town for a bit and the small town friends invited Andy to have a meal with them, which he PROMPLTY forgot about until he had already eaten.  He went to the first invitation to be fed spaghetti with the SECRET ingredient of OREGANO...he went to another home to eat SPAGHETTI and again, the secret ingredient of oregano was shared and then, the same thing happened.  

Something similar happened when Mother broke her leg, but this time is was VEGETABLE SOUP!  I LOVE that stuff, but I do like to “mix it up” also…I do NOT want to seem ungrateful at all, but I am VERY glad that vegetable soup freezes VERY WELL!!  I would laugh when I got home and Mother would tell me that I needed to run and pick up some food from a friend, and well, you can ONLY imagine what it was…After that, I stopped sending vegetable soup to friends because, it had ALSO been my go-to meal for a friend!

The other night, I was hungry for something and spaghetti had always been my answer to the proverbial question of WHAT AM I GOING TO FIX…it was Mother’s favorite meal.

I LAUGH when I remember a young lady who moved to our community from Florida and how horrified she was that people made lasagna with HAMBURGER meat.  I kindly reminded her that she had moved to an area, although NOW it was extremely diverse, at one time, it was not and let’s be honest, NOT many TRUE ITALIAN descendants live in Springfield, Tennessee!  I explained that I had TRIED making lasagna on several occasions with Italian sausage, but I did NOT like it, and each of us makes things that we like, so IF you don’t like it, don’t eat, BUT BE CAREFUL how you criticize others…FOR ME, I am DISGUISTED to think that people use that HORRID jiffy mix to make cornbread (ick, ick, ick) or who DARE put sugar into the batter when making it in an iron skillet…TO ME, that is WRONG!  ROFL…Yes, there is a time and a place for Corn Light Bread (sweet cornbread), but NEVER in an iron skillet!  BUT then, I reserve the right to NOT eat what I don’t like~~just like everybody else!  ;)

I cheated the other night and used canned spaghetti sauce, AND I even added the sauce STRAIGHT to my noodles~~something that I normally DO NOT DO…Hey, Rachel Ray…I understand that SOMETIMES people think that those who live in the South are not very bright because of our accents, (and well, some are NOT), BUT we DO have enough SENSE to MIX our sauce with the noodles BEFORE we put it in our mouth…For ME, I think it makes a BEAUTIFUL serving to put those white noodles down first and then to place that GORGEOUS Red Spaghetti Sauce over the noodles…NEVER have I witnessed anyone who didn’t KNOW to mix them before eating them!  GEE WHIZ!!!...sigh…

I laughed over the years as I found a hand-written recipe for Spaghetti in Mother’s Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook that she got from her friend, Tubby, on July 7, 1951 (BECAUSE she wrote this in the front of the book), for a wedding gift.  I noticed there was NO OREGANO in it, but instead, Chili Powder…NOW that is interesting, but I think it just speaks to the short amount of time that Spaghetti has been cooked in my area of the country!

My favorite thing to eat with spaghetti is the slow cooked garlic bread that mother would make to go with spaghetti…she would add powered garlic to butter, melt it, spread it across white bread, cut it diagonally and place it in the oven at about 250 and cook it until it was crunchy!  I think I could eat a LOAF of bread this way, but alas, I don’t keep bread much anymore, so I went to my NEW FACEBOOK recipe that I found and have adapted to my taste.

I take a can of the LARGE canned biscuits, cut them into fourths.  I melt about ½ stick of butter with some garlic powder and dredge the pieces of biscuits in the butter and place in a bundt pan…At this point you can sprinkle some Italian seasoning over it and add Parmesan cheese, OR use whatever cheese you have on hand…this batch had fiesta blend and sharp cheddar cheese.  I cooked it for about 30 minutes at 350…just check the biscuits to make sure they are done…YUMMY!!!

While this was the LAZY MAN’S Spaghetti, it was really good and it brought back the memories and joy of making it for mother…I would come home from college on her birthday and cook spaghetti for her birthday meal and then go back home…This shows that she went back to School with me this time…I can’t imagine that I went over a week WITHOUT a car when she took it back home!!  ROFL…

I have been surprised to hear from several people about the dinnerware pattern that I OFTEN use to photograph food.  This is Desert Rose.  It was Mother's pattern that she received when she got married.  We used it EVERYDAY and I keep a bowl and this soup bowl out and use it most every day as a MEMORY of the wonderful household my parents raised...There was always enough LOVE for everybody and it was present in EVERY aspect of our lives!

I LOVE to be surprised and I loved to received unexpected blessings, BUT I also KNOW the joy of doing for others…No, it doesn’t have to be some GRAND gesture…just a small thought is usually enough to put a smile on someone’s face…so TAKE time TODAY and do something for someone else…SHOW someone just how special they are to you…Do it anonymously if you can…THAT is FUN to watch…Go through this day and ENJOY the miracles that are happening all around YOU…Blessings to YOU…~charlotte♥