Pskebbies

Yep. That’s right. Pskebbies.

You might call it spaghetti, but I had a little cousin who couldn’t pronounce that, so in my family it became pskebbies. And the name just stuck.

There are many versions of spaghetti. With meat or without, chunks of tomato or smooth, spicy or mild, with meatballs or Italian sausage. But when it gets down to it, it’s just noodles with a tomato based sauce. But simple can be good.

I was a horrible child. My grandmother made spaghetti that no one has come close to replicating. I might be able to; everyone says I’m good at that sort of thing. But I don’t have a chance at trying to make her version because I never tasted it. It had chunks, chunks of stuff, pieces of meat with visible and identifiable pieces of tomato. There were probably onions and bell peppers in there. Back then, I couldn’t do that.

Nope. I got my sauce from a jar. And it had to be a jar of really smooth sauce. Preferably Ragu. I mean, Prego would work in a pinch, but it wasn’t the one I really liked. I wouldn’t eat more than a small bowl of that. Unless there was as much Parmesan as noodles. Then it would be okay. Oh, and that Parmesan had to be the good stuff. You know, the powdery Kraft kind in the can.

I grew up. For a while I was cosmopolitan enough to go for Barilla. That was pretty adventurous. I still wouldn’t have been willing to eat Mama Kee’s. I still was mostly a chunk avoider.

But then I decided that Patric would never be allowed to be as picky of an eater as I was. He wouldn’t miss out on the great foods that are out there, especially not the great foods that only happen at family dinners. And so, I started making spaghetti sauce from scratch.

It’s not hard. It’s actually one of those things that you end up making because it is easy, and it tastes so much better than any sauce in a jar.

Tonight is a pskebbie night. It’s warm, meaty, a little bit spicy, and the pasta gives it the carbs that comfort food needs. No two batches ever turn out the same. The recipe isn’t set in stone. I typically add my spices without measuring them with anything except my palm and fingers. But there are the basics, and here they are.

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