[Sca-cooks] Gawdawful spaghetti sauce- OOP

[Susan Fox]

Saint Phlip wrote:
> Last night, I just made the worst spaghetti sauce I've ever made, and 
> I'm looking for suggestions to improve it. The problem is, that I'm 
> not allowed to use a lot of my usual ingredients, so it wound up 
> pretty bland.
>  
> My usual includes mushrooms, onions, garlic, tomatoes and tomato 
> sauce, and various Italian herbs- Oregano, Bay Leaves, Thyme, salt, 
> pepper, etc, and red wine. Meat is usually variable, either ground 
> beef or sausage.
>  
> Due to household dietary restrictions (and groceries available) I had 
> Italian hot sausage for the meat (WAY too much fennel ion it, which I 
> hate), but no mushrooms, onions, or garlic, because of allergies or 
> other unpleasant physical reactions on the part of my diners. Most 
> green herbs are OK.
>  
> Guys, I'm not kidding you. This was even worse than the time that 
> availability required me to use Spam (shudder) for the meat. Even Mrs 
> Dash didn't help.
>  
> Any suggestions?
>  
Life without garlic or any other alliums.  What a bleak concept. 

Sounds to me like the sausage probably had too much of the stuff that 
the dietary restricted people can't have anyway.  There would be garlic 
inside the sausage, yes?

Spam can be made tolerable if broken up small and cooked well first.  
Pig Fat makes everything better!  Add some pepper and acceptable herbs 
into it,  Maybe a zetz of olive oil and your diners will think it's 
sausage... which come to think of it, it would be.

To brighten the flavor:  tomato paste.  Lemon juice if that's all you 
have.  Maybe verjus?  That would supply a bit of the tangy without a 
vinegar taste nor alcohol, and grape is an acceptably Italian 
ingredient.  To smooth it out:  a smidgen of sugar [US] or cinnamon 
[Europe].

OR... you might head in a non-tomato direction, like Pasta Primavera or 
Fettucini Alfredo.  No garlic, sigh, so add an extra helping of white 
pepper and/or basil.

Bon Appetit, Selene