TITM (Throw It Together Meal)

In the most recent Girl’s Night In Newsletter (my favorite weekly newsletter that you can subscribe to here) they mentioned the importance of having a go-to throw it together meal (TITM). This is a meal that you know how to make by heart, can shop for without thinking, and can easily throw together on a weeknight. Ideally it’s a meal that tastes great and doesn’t take too long to make because the entire point is that it takes some of the stress out of your day. As I was reading the newsletter I started to think that I should have a TITM…and then I realized that I already do! So I’m going to share my TITM here–it’s spaghetti with a homemade tomato sauce loaded with veggies and sausage. This is the first thing I really learned how to cook since it’s also my dad’s TITM.

Since this is a TITM the ingredients list is going to be kind of weird but I’ll try to indicate what is absolutely necessary and what is…less necessary.

Ingredients

Spaghetti
1 can tomato paste
1 can stewed tomatoes (don’t get the kind that have other stuff added to it)
1/2 – 1 onion
Garlic
Spices
Italian sausage (I like hot Italian sausage, but you do you)
Any veggies you have in your fridge–I usually do the following:
Bell peppers
Carrots
Broccoli
Celery
Jalapeno
Red wine (optional)
Parmesan cheese (optional)

Recipe

1. Make the pasta. Salt your freaking water, please.
2. Prep your veggies by largely dicing them. You don’t want them to disappear into the sauce but you want them to be edible without having to cut them again.
3. Cut up your sausages and cook them until they’re browned. Take them out of the pan and put them in a bowl for now.
4. Sauté your veggies. When you’re cooking, start with the ones that need the most time to cook (are the hardest) and work up to the softer ones. (Example: onion, carrot, broccoli, peppers, celery, garlic)
5. Add the stewed tomatoes to your veggies (you’re making a hearty tomato sauce, if you didn’t catch on to that yet). Add the tomato paste.
6. Stir everything around and add your spices (garlic and onion powder, salt and pepper, oregano, thyme, crushed red pepper, an Italian herb blend if you want). If your sauce is too chunky or needs to be thinned out (you’ll know) add either a splash of water or some of the red wine.
7. Add in your cooked sausages to your sauce.
8. Plate your meal by putting down the spaghetti and topping with the sauce. Add cheese on top if you want.

That’s it! A simple TITM that’s always delicious and, bonus, makes more than enough to save for leftovers later in the week!

xoxo,
J