moderately-healthy, could-be-gluten-free spaghettios

Ohhh yeah. I know you're intrigued. SpaghettiOs...some people love 'em, some people would rather eat dirt. I belong in the cool group--ahem, the first group. In the effort to eat better and remove unnecessary chemicals and additives from our kids' diets, we try to avoid a lot of processed foods and canned goods. Sometimes you can find products packaged in BPA-free cans (many Trader Joe's products fit the bill--we buy their beans occasionally, and their tuna), but tomato products are (as far as I understand) always canned in BPA-lined cans. They are just too acidic for the other kind.

Really, we don't miss canned goods. We have used frozen vegetables and TJ's tuna for years now. We have adjusted a couple of favorite recipes, using jarred pasta sauce or fresh tomatoes instead of canned. Two things that are harder to replace: tomato soup and SpaghettiOs. I have bought boxed tomato soups (and to be honest, I don't know how BPA-laden those boxes are), and I've made homemade versions using fresh tomatoes. The SpaghettiOs problem has proven to be more troublesome.

One could argue it seems silly to even think about finding a way to eat SpaghettiOs again--it's not like they're a super healthy food, nor should they be a staple in our diet. They're canned AND super processed, plus they're wheat pasta (which we try to avoid)...seems a no-brainer to just eliminate them forever. But still, I've been hunting around for a SpaghettiOs recipe for a while now, because I love them. That's a good enough reason, right? I like them room-temperature...all the better with weenies. Or hot, spooned onto (heavily) buttered bread. Oh, and I can't neglect to mention the rather-strong-yet-unfilled pregnancy craving. For SpaghettiOs. Two pregnancies in a row. Yeah.

So. Enter: Pinterest. I joined a week or two ago, and (maybe sadly?) one of the first things I looked up was a recipe for homemade SpaghettiOs. I found this one, and it looked pretty easy and didn't use any super strange ingredients, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I changed a few things, as usual--it calls for six (six!) cans of tomato sauce, but I thought I would just hunt around for jarred sauce. Not spaghetti sauce (which has added seasonings and such), but plain tomato sauce in a jar. Easier said than done! Finding nothing at Giant Eagle, Trader Joe's OR Whole Foods, I settled for large (glass) bottles of strained tomatoes at WF. I'm not sure how different strained tomatoes are from tomato sauce, but it seemed to work out fine. They were 24-oz bottles, so in total I was short about 15 ounces, so I used less pasta to make up for it (about 13 oz instead of a full pound).

Speaking of pasta, I did find anellini pasta at Whole Foods. It's like anelletti, but smaller. Bonus: it is gluten-free! I had about given up on finding tiny pasta shapes of the GF variety, and was planning to just use regular wheat pasta, so I was pleasantly surprised. It came in a 12-oz bag, which was perfect for my slightly-reduced recipe. The problem is, the Os are SMALL. Like, too small. You know in real SpaghettiOs, how there are tiny Os and larger rings? These are like the tiny ones. I found bags of cute alphabet pasta, regular wheat pasta but on sale for cheaper than a second bag of GF Os would have been, so I just went ahead and got those, too. I used about 6 oz of Os and 7 oz of ABCs. Anyway, not that this really matters, you can use whatever kind of pasta you want, but it explains why the title of this post reads 'could-be-gluten-free.' :)

Okey doke! Let's move on. Below I'll type out what I used, and what I did--it's similar to the link mentioned above, but not identical.

What you need:
3 24-oz bottles of strained tomatoes
3 cups water
2.5 tsp garlic powder
13 oz small pasta
1.5 cups freshly shredded cheddar cheese (I used medium, will try sharp next time)
1.3 cup milk (I used whole)
2 TBS butter
salt, to taste (Sorry, I hate when recipes say that--what does that mean? How much?! I used 2.5 tsp.)

What you do:
-Combine the tomato puree, water, and garlic powder in a large pot and bring to a boil. I used a huge soup pot. I thought it would be way too big but it totally wasn't. Watch out for splatter! I would not recommend wearing one of the few maternity shirts that fit you (erm, if this happens to apply to you, that is).

-Once boiling, add the pasta. Stir a LOT (don't want it to stick to the bottom of the pot!). The splatter is pretty intense. I had to turn my burner down to medium. It might help to wear an oven mitt while stirring--I thought of this after the fact, but it makes a lot more sense than wrapping a dish towel around your hand (which is what I did...fail).

NOTE: Since I combined GF and regular pastas, I added the regular pasta first and let it cook twice as long as the GF pasta. I added the GF Os when the wheat ABCs were sort of halfway between crunchy and soft. Maybe you could call that chewy? I know, so exact, so helpful.

-When the pasta is cooked to your preference, add the cheese and stir until melted. I reduced the heat here, too, though that step is not indicated in the original recipe. Maybe it's common knowledge?

-When the cheese is melted, add the milk, butter, and salt. Stir until it's all good and creamy and there are no chunks of butter floating around. Mmm...butter.

The verdict:
It's really good! It doesn't taste exactly like SpaghettiOs, but I was really happy with how it turned out. Mine thickened a lot once I took the pot off the heat--if you prefer yours a little runnier, you may want to add more water in the beginning, or maybe more milk. I think it tastes great, and while I might have added a little more salt, I don't think it really needs it.

I put a bowl down in front of Cameron, and he took one look and stuck his nose up in the air. "I'm not eating this. I don't want it." I told him he didn't have to eat it (he was excited for the grilled cheese I'd promised him, and was not expecting something red in a bowl), but that it used to be one of my favorite foods when I was little, so I thought he might like to try it. He took a bite (more like a lick) and said, "I like it!" I've heard that before. I hear it several times a week, when he has to taste a new food. I wasn't looking today, but I know the face he was making during the taste-test...scrunched up nose, forced (and rather unhappy) smile, breathy swallow. He says "I like it," and then refuses to take another bite.

But today...today was different. I did look eventually, and saw he was taking another bite! And another, and another. Three bowls' worth of bites. He LOVED it. "Oh man...this is really good." Winnn. He told me Martha Speaks (he thinks that is her full name...) licks alphabet soup, so that's how he ate it--licking and slurping it off the spoon. I kept telling him, the word is SpaghettiOs. He kept saying "alphabet soups." I think we should call ours TomatOs. Eh? Eh?

So, yay! Success. I'm so pleased! And the recipe made a TON of food. I gave a little to Fletcher (who also liked it, but that's less surprising) and made a bowl for myself, then filled two 6-slot silicone muffin tins and the regular 12-slot tin (with foil liners) to freeze for future lunches. I still had enough left over to fill a couple more slots, too, but I was forced to eat it since I had no more muffin tins. Forced, I tell you.