How To Make A Spaghetti Dinner

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How To Make A Spaghetti Dinner

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Tom Papoutsis

tpapoutsis@embarqmail.com

Tom Papoutsis is a “Firehouse Chef” that currently holds the rank of Lieutenant with the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department. Tom’s experience in the Fire Service spans over 30 years, 20 of which have been with Fairfax County. The bulk of his firehouse culinary expertise has been practiced during his tenure there. He was a national finalist in the 2004 Tabasco Cook & Ladder Competition finishing in the top 10 of the nations Firehouse Chef’s, and traveled to New York City to compete in a cook off with his peers. He has also been placed on the “charity” auction block several times to prepare meals for the highest bidder.

Tom likes to specialize in Italian and Greek cuisine being of the same heritage, but also enjoys preparing Asian and of course “Good Ole American” foods as well. He concentrates on entrées but also has a few hors d’oeuvres and dessert specialties as well, such as his versions of Bruschetta and Amaretto Cheesecake. For the past year he has been studying the practice of making homemade Italian deli meats and sausages. Tom’s motto: “It’s just cooking, not rocket science, take a chance…you might like it!”

Residing in Chambersburg, PA with his wife JoAnn, twins Jonathan & Katie and “Buddy” their Golden Retriever. Tom enjoys cycling, hunting, fishing, woodworking, raising his children and helping form today’s youth while volunteering with son Jonathan’s Cub Scout pack.

How To Make A Spaghetti Dinner

Chef Tom Papoutsis demonstrates how to make spaghetti sauce and pasta with sausage for a complete meal.

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Tags:

Spaghetti

Noodles

Pasta

Sauce

Italian

Sausage

How To Make A Spaghetti Dinner

Ingredients

2 pounds of pasta
1 tablespoon of salt
Olive oil

Tomato sauce:
28 to 32 ounces of tomato puree
2 teaspoons basil
1/2 teaspoon of oregano
1/2 teaspoon of rosemary
1/4 teaspoon of thyme
Strasbourg sausage
1 or 2 spoonfuls of Romano cheese

Instructions

1. Start cooking the tomato puree in a pot at low heat. Add basil, oregano, rosemary and thyme and stir lightly. Turn up the heat and cook for half an hour to an hour and then leave it on a low heat to simmer. Put in Italian sausage and let it simmer and cook all day. Spoon the grease off the top of the sauce.

2. Spoon the sausage out of the sauce and set it aside to serve on the side when the spaghetti is finished. Put a little Romano cheese in the pasta sauce and sitr it in.

3. Fill a pot 2/3 of the way with water. When it has almost boiled add salt and olive oil and drop the pasta in. Stir until the pasta no longer sticks together. Let it cook for approximately 9 minutes.

4. Drain the pasta, then put some pasta sauce in the bottom of the bowl. Place the pasta in the bowl and put the rest of the sauce on top. Mix them together. Plate and serve the spaghetti.

Transcripts

Tom Papoutsis: Hi, I am Tom Papoutsis. We are going to be making a spaghetti dinner and we are going to start out by making some pasta sauce. I have got tomato puree in this pot.

I am going to start out with two teaspoons of sweat basil, half a tea spoon of oregano, half to one teaspoon or rosemary and a quarter teaspoon thyme and I am just going to stir it very lightly just to incorporate those spices, start cooking it on low heat.

Now what we are going to do now is we are going to add our sausage. We are just going to drop these in, kind of push them down, this is going to get covered, we have got it on low heat so we are going to let it sit and simmer for rest of the day.

Okay, our sauce has been cooking for a couple of hours now. Now we are going to go around and we are going to try to spoon off as mush as grease as we can. Spaghetti sauce is actually completed, I am going to take about a tablespoon of salt, a little bit of olive oil in there, a nice big bunch of pasta. Now what I am going to do is I am going to move this pasta around a little bit.

Do not just put it in a walk away from, but this pasta is done. I want to take my pasta over. We are going to actually drain it through the colander. I am going to put some sauce in the bottom of this bowl, put it in there, I am going to put some more pasta sauce on here.

And there it is. This is how we make pasta, serve it with some sausage and maybe put a little extra sauce on top, there you have it, spaghetti in homemade sauce.

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