MUTUALLY ATE SPAGHETTI
Pasta is my most beloved food; my mama taught me to boil pasta when I was bout 5 years old. Pasta is god.
This recipe is here for you to help ease the pain of a collapsing civilization, so be sure to use it for good - feed your whole family, feed your unhoused neighbors, feed your coworkers or your friends. As much as it is just a basic spaghetti recipe, it is a damn good one that costs very little to make in bulk. We are at a point in time where every good meal that we have, especially one we share with others is a blessing and a gift, so even the most basic spaghetti recipes are important to pass along. Sometimes I do a fresh tomato sauce that is more on the pricey side, but Mutual Aid Spaghetti is also delicious and easy to make in large batches that can feed many people (hence the name). It can be made with ground beef, ground turkey, meatballs, vegan crumbles, Italian sausage, chicken sausage, or vegetarian with no meat. Green vegetables can be added to make it more nutrient dense, and all the ingredients necessary to flavor it are inexpensive pantry staples.
Do not be afraid to fill some cheap reusable containers with this spaghetti and go around passing them out to people without houses. It is truly the small bits of mutual aid that count, and if you’ve ever been starving before then you know how amazing it is to finally get a plate of hot food. If you have the means, the surplus capital, why not pass it along?
Mutual Aid Spaghetti
Here’s what you need for a batch that makes 12-16 servings:
2 28-ounce cans of pureed (or crushed) tomatoes - approx. $1.79 per can
2 medium yellow or white onions - approx. $0.99 per pound
8-12 cloves of garlic - bulbs are approx. $0.99 per bulb, each bulb has about 10-12 cloves
2 16-ounce boxes of pasta (spaghetti, penne, or farfalle are best) - approx. $1.79 per box
Ground meat or sausage (or meatballs or vegan crumbles, your choice)
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2-3 tablespoons of Italian herb blend OR a mix of dried basil, parsley, thyme
Salt and pepper (to taste)
1 teaspoon of white sugar (optional)
1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar (optional)
Parmesan cheese of some kind (the cheap plastic cans work just fine if you want to be frugal)
(Optional) If you want to make it more nutrient dense, feel free to add some diced zucchini, a bit of kale, or some kind of green vegetable
Steps:
Dice the onions and mince the garlic
Heat up the olive oil in a large stockpot over medium heat
When the oil is hot, add the onions and garlic and stir regularly while they begin to sweat (maybe 7-10 minutes)
Add 1 tablespoon of your herb mix into the pot and stir together with the onions and garlic
If applicable, add your raw ground meat, meatballs or sausage and cook until browned, stirring regularly
Once the meat is nicely browned, pour in the two cans of crushed tomatoes. Keep it at medium heat until the tomatoes start to simmer, then cover and change to low heat
Add the rest of your herb blend
You’re gonna let that simmer and incorporate for about 1 to 1-1/2 hours, covered and on low heat but stirring frequently
For those who have somehow never boiled pasta before:
While the sauce is cooking, begin boiling approximately 8-10 quarts of water in a large pot on high heat
Add bout 2-3 tablespoons of salt to the water (optional but best practice)
When the water gets to a rolling boil, add the two boxes of pasta`
Follow the directions on the box but it takes about 8-12 minutes to cook pasta (depending on which type of pasta you use), stirring regularly
Once pasta is done cooking, drain it but save about 1/2 cup of the starchy pasta water.
After 1 to 1-1/2 hours, the sauce should be thick and not watery, but allow to continue cooking uncovered for a bit longer if it is watery. Taste it - add salt, pepper, sugar, and red wine vinegar to your liking
Best practice is to toss the pasta in with the sauce, add the 1/2 cup of leftover pasta water, and mix together over low heat (it helps the sauce stick to the pasta), but it can also be served separately if you prefer
Top with parmesan cheese and voila!
This recipe is very easy to make and it requires minimal prep time and maintenance; much of it is just putting things on the stove and letting them sit. I recommend purchasing cheap to-go containers from a restaurant supply store, and then using them to serve people in your community.
If you are looking to feed many people, get some of your friends and neighbors who are interested in helping just to pitch in a few bucks each, and this recipe can be made in batches multiple times throughout a day to make sure that as many people as possible are fed.
At the time of writing this, I live in a boarding house in First Hill, Seattle. The house across the street from me is a midway house for people who suffer from mental illness and addiction, and thus the street and neighborhood is a hotbed for people without homes and people in transition from being houseless. There is very little access to quality food in my neighborhood, and this recipe is perfect for feeding a large amount of people who need it for a day. I would recommend for anyone interested in utilizing this recipe for its intended purpose (mutual aid) to find the areas of your city or town that have the least access to hot food and set up a table to hand out to-go containers. Be sure to have a trash can nearby and ask politely that people throw away their trash wherever possible. Although it’s possible that people might just throw their trash on the ground, once all the food is handed out, you can simply go for a walk with a trash bag and pick stuff up. It is very simple things that make a community better, and if people who are on the streets are better taken care of by their communities, they are far more likely to take care of their community as well.
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