I like to eat. I also like to write. As it turns out, you can combine these two and thus, my blog was born. It so happens that I also like to cook! I think you can see where I'm going with this...

To be honest though, I've actually been thinking about writing an entry or two about cooking for quite some time now. The main problem has always been that it's damn near impossible to cook in a hostel room, so I've been putting off such a blog post till I got home. Well, I'm finally home, so here we are!

I didn't want to start off with something too complicated, so I decided to make some spaghetti for dinner tonight. To make spaghetti the way I make it, you're going to need the following :

1. Half a packet of uncooked spaghetti
2. 2 small cartons of tomato puree (200ml each)
3. a small bottle of olive oil (around 100ml)
4. a few pinches of basil
5. 2 onions
6. 4 cloves of garlic
7. 1 spoon of sugar
8. half a stick of butter
9. 1 capsicum 
10. Parmesan cheese

To start off,  peel your onions and garlic. You also want to dice the onions - I'd advise you use swimming goggles to cover your eyes as onions sting. Slice your capsicum into slices and set them aside for later. Once you're done, heat some olive oil in a non stick pan. Ideally, you'd want to use virgin or extra virgin oil, but you can get by with pomace as well. 

Dice your onions and garlic like this

While you're heating the oil, take a boiling pan (or any pan that can hold a few cups of water) and fill it halfway with water and put it on your stove. Add a bit of salt as well. You're going to add the spaghetti to this once the water is boiling. The amount depends on the pot you're using, but you need enough to keep your spaghetti fully submerged. 

While you're waiting for the water to boil, move back to your oil. Brown your garlic and toss the onions into the pan as well. Keep pushing the onions around to prevent them from burning. They should be nice and translucent before you move onto the next step. Once your onions are translucent, add the 2 cartons of tomato puree. 

Ignore the burnt garlic

Now, ideally, you'd want to use real tomatoes but I was in a bit of a rush and took the easy way out. Add the tomato puree and keep stirring the mixture. After a few minutes of stirring, add the spoon of sugar. I know this sounds counter intuitive, adding su
gar to a main course but stick with me. 

Your sauce should look like this

By now, your water should be boiling. Add the spaghetti, making sure that it's covered entirely by the boiling water. Don't cook them fully, cook them to about 80%. 

In the meantime, add your half stick of butter to the sauce. Let it melt and work it into the sauce evenly - you don't want any butter lumps. This will thicken the sauce and take the edge off the tomatoes. 

Here's where things get slightly unorthodox - once your spaghetti is about 80% done, add the spaghetti to the sauce along with half a cup of the spaghetti water. Mix it in nice and evenly and let the spaghetti finish cooking in the sauce. Most people cook the sauce separately but believe me, this extra step is worth it. 

Finally, add your diced capsicum and let it cook for 5 minutes before turning the heat off.  Truth be told, the capsicum is optional. The only reason it's in this recipe is I found it in the fridge as I was rummaging for ingredients and it was just sitting there all sad and alone. 

This here is our lonely pepper!

Once the heat has been turned off, sprinkle the basil onto your spaghetti and mix it in. To finish it off, shred some parmesan for garnishing and a little bit of salt if you used unsalted butter. 

As for how it came out? This is the first time I've seen my grandpa lick his plate, so I can honestly say it came out quite well. If you have some minced meat on hand, you can brown the meat in the pan at the very beginning before adding the garlic and onions, but at that point, you've just made spaghetti bolognese. 

Let me know if you've got any questions and if you do try this out, let me know how it goes and if you'd like to see more posts where I make something and attempt to write about it, comment/message me! I'd be more than happy to continue with this kind of blog entry!

Forgive the crappy image, this is the only shot I could get  before they finished the spaghetti!