Sausage Spices Spaghetti Sauce

2 Tablespoons Blackstrap Molasses
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
3 cups V-8 juice
(or a small can of tomato paste and 3 cups water)
1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
3 Tablespoons sugar in the raw
fresh ground black pepper to taste
1 Tablespoon ground sage

1 pound, or a little more, halal ground beef

Begin with the meat, make sure it is not frozen, in fact, meat should always be almost room temperature when you begin cooking it, so it won't get tough while cooking. Brown it a bit more.

1 medium onion, chopped

1 bulb garlic, peeled and sliced

Once the meat is no longer red, add in the chopped onions and sliced garlic.

Add in the Blackstrap molasses and stir. Continue browning the mixture for a couple of minutes. Add all other ingredients, except sage. Sage is better added near the end of cooking. Also, add only 2 cups of the V-8, or water, which ever you are using. Save 1 cup to add later, if you see that you need it.

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper, or more if you like it very spicy

Cover the pot and simmer it for about an hour, stirring occaisionally, to avoid burning the sauce. I simmer it until the chopped onions have disappeared into the sauce, because my husband hates biting into pieces of onion. He loves this sauce, but he does not know what I put in it. Shhhhhh.

1 Tablespoon sage, more if you like a stronger sage flavor

1 or 2 Tablespoons cornstarch, if needed

1 box whole grain spaghetti, cooked according to the instructions on the box

If you think the sauce is thick enough without cornstarch, you can just leave it out. I did not think I need it in this pot, so I did not use it. But I have used it cautiously in the past, 1 Tablespoon full at a time, to avoid over doing it. Stir the sauce again, thoroughly.

Now, mix the sauce with the cooked spaghetti, or just put the plain pasta on a plate and spoon the sauce on top of it. The spaghetti police are not coming for you if you eat the sauce on top. I mix it in, to make sure the sauce lasts as long as the pasta does. Otherwise we tend to run out of sauce and throw away half the pasta because there is no more sauce. To my amazement, even my kids eat this dish.

When I serve this to my husband he always jokes with me, "I was going to divorce you, but because of this food, I changed my mind. I have to keep you because of spaghetti." I just laugh, because he does not know I put chopped onions in it, which he hates to find in his food. Due to my culinary ingenuity he never finds it. Heehee.

My family loves to eat my homemade garlic bread on the side. You can seriously use any of your favorite bread as long as it's sliced. Melt 1/4 cup salted butter with 1/4 cup olive oil. Add 2 to 3 cloves garlic, grated. As soon as you smell the pungent scent of the garlic, turn off the heat. Dip one side of each slice of bread into the garlic and butter mixture. Place the slices on a cookie sheet or baking dish and pop them under the broiler, at about 400 degrees Fahrenheit, until just golden brown. Do not burn the garlic, it will turn bitter, make sure you take it out of the broiler as soon as it is just golden brown. Serve it with this spaghetti recipe.

To complete this meal, have some organic baby greens as a side dish, and your family's favorite salad dressing to top it off.

My Mother's Saffron Noodles

My mother used to make these for us, only she used the home-made, high cholesterol noodles, whereas I am using the lighter, No-Yolk noodles from the grocery store. Technically, you could use any noodle you like, but I like the wide No-Yolk noodles because they are similar in shape and size to the ones that my mother used.

1 12 0z. package wide No-Yolk noodles

1 bunch parsley, stems removed, pulsed in the food processor, or roughly chopped with a knife

1 large pinch saffron fronds

2 to 3 cups water, for boiling the saffron

1 stick butter, browned in a small saucepan

salt

In a small pot, place about 2 to 3 cups of water, 2 tsp. salt, and the saffron and boil it until the water is a deep, rich orange color and some of the water has evaporated, you should have about a cup full left. Remove it from the heat and set it aside.

Boil the noodles according to package instructions, or until aldente texture is achieved, meaning still a little chewy, but almost done.

Pour the saffron water into the noodles and return the noodles to the lowest setting heat. Leave them covered until the saffron water has been absorbed.

Remove from heat, add the sizzling hot browned butter and the parsley and cover again, for about five minutes. Serve warm.

I loooooove these noodles. When I was pregnant I must have eaten a case of noodles this way. Now I have to eat my portion without the butter. *sigh* I spray mine with a little "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" spray, and it tastes good, but not quite as wonderful as it does with the browned butter.

The left-overs are even better the following day, because the saffron flavor permeates the noodles more over night.