Ground pork seasoned spicy style. A can of crushed tomatoes seasoned as well. OTC garlic knots from Aldi.
When I was growing up our mom would ask us if we wanted Italian spaghetti or American spaghetti. The difference was pork versus beef.
Buying spicy sausage has become problematic because why does every brand of Italian sausage contain sugar? Anyway with a well stocked spice cabinet you can turn cheap ground pork into awesomeness.
And seasoning a can of crushed tomatoes offers exactly the same no sugar added return with way more flavor than a jar can provide.
Spicy Italian Sausage
1 pound ground pork.
1/2 teaspoon salt.
1/4 pinch garlic powder.
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper.
2 1/5 teaspoons ground paprika.
1/4 teaspoon anise seed.
1/4 teaspoon fennel seed.
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes.
1 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
- add all to a bowl.
- mix until everything is completely integrated.
- use fresh or freeze 1/4 lb per zip locking snack bag.
The sauce? I don’t have exact measurements on. But it’s mostly the same stuff except the paprika and cayenne. Maybe the amounts are different. But just wing it.
How much pasta? Just half a box. But cook the whole box. Save half of it in a container with 2 tbsp of butter. That will be a meal later this week.
Cost per person: $3
I keep thinking about a light box. But then I remember that I’m cooking dinner, not a photographer. When people start paying me I will consider changing ingredients and changing out the lighting. And trust me, I really want to change out the lighting.
I need a fixture with substantially more lumens and bulbs that offer more defused light. Actually that’s not even correct. I need to put a hole in the ceiling and also install another blight fixture from scratch. Which will be easy once I push the fiberglass insulation in the attic out of the way and install a new junction box and replace some wiring. It’s not the labor it’s the materials. But before that I have to correct some 80 year old wiring issues in the crawlspace that I noticed while replumbing part of my house when the septic tank decided to clog the main house drain.
But not your circus. Not your monkeys. My poverty living. My shoemaker’s kids.