Neighborhood Spaghetti Under Difficult Circumstances

Neighborhood Spaghetti Under Difficult Circumstances

A week ago, I was finally able to return home after being evacuated from the Great Lisle Flood of 2013. I made a reconnaissance of the property and saw that the waters had retreated to the river. I verified that I had electric and heat, and then went back to check out of the hotel.

The neighbors were in a bad situation. The family next to me lost everything. I told them they could move into my house for as long as they needed. I told all the neighbors that I’d cook dinner for whoever could join us.

I spent the day cleaning up my bedroom and my son’s room for the neighbors. I changed the linens and did several loads of laundry.

When it came time to cook dinner for everyone, I noticed that, all of a sudden, I had no gas. I checked the meter and there was a brand new red tag on the shut off. Because the meter was under water, these clowns shut my gas off without telling me. My third load of laundry was tumbling around in cold air. Luckily, I had the heat on all day so the house was warm. It was cold out and would drop below freezing that night. I had to cook dinner for about fifteen people on my little camping stove! Here’s what I did.

5 lb. of good Italian sausage

2 large red bell peppers, cut into strips

1 medium onion, chopped

5 large cloves of garlic, chopped

2 tbs. basil

1 tbs. oregano

1 tsp. ground savory

Olive oil1 cup of red wine

White wine

2 28 oz. cans of San Marzano tomatoes

1 28 oz. can of crushed tomatoes

3 lb. of spaghetti to be cooked and drained

Preparation

This will go faster if you don’t have to do it on a camp stove. What I did was to light a wood fire in my muddy wood-burning grill (the insides were coated with muddy remnants of the flood - The water reached seven feet deep in my backyard). What I did was to place a large stock pot of salted water on the wood fire in the grill to boil. While the water is heating up, put a large cast iron pan on the camp stove and place the sausage in it. Cut the sausage into 2 inch lengths while it cooks. Cook the sausage until it is cooked through.

Place the sausage into a sauce pan and place that on the grill next to the water to keep warm. Put more wood on the fire. Cook the bell pepper and add that to the pot with the sausage. Place a dutch oven on the camp stove and add enough olive oil to coat the bottom. Add the onion, garlic, basil, oregano and savory. Stir and cook that until the onions start to soften. Add the red wine and let that simmer to reduce by half.

Add the first can of San Marzano tomatoes to a blender and then add the onions and garlic and liquid from the dutch oven to the blender. Blend until smooth and return to the dutch oven. Use the blender to coarsely break up the second can of tomatoes and add that to the dutch oven with the can of crushed tomatoes. Rinse the blender and the tomato cans with white wine. Return the dutch oven to the camp stove, add the sausage and peppers to it. Stir and simmer the sauce for a half hour.

By now the sauce should be ready and the water should be boiling on the grill. Place the sauce on the grill near the coals to keep warm and place the water pot on the camp stove. Cook the pasta in the hot water and drain it. Set up to serve the group. If your gas is out too, place another pot of water on the camp stove to heat it so you can do dishes. They’ll be a lot with a group this size.

Serving

Well, I had to break a cardinal rule of mine and serve this dinner without homemade bread. I couldn’t figure out how to do that on my camp stove under the time constraints I faced. No bread. We had spaghetti and sausage, cheese, olives, beer and wine. If I’m not mistaken, everyone had seconds, so I guess my efforts worked out well.