Spanish Noodles

Tonight Brit and I made Spanish Noodles, a dish that I had grown up eating and was feeling nostalgic for (seems to be a trend lately). Brit had taken a look at the recipe and was curious as to what gave the dish the title; there didn't seem to be any specific flavor profile amongst the ingredients that led to the title making any sense. Coincidentally, my mom called me while I was cooking dinner and I asked her where the name came from. Here's the story:

Turns out my mom was in the girl scouts many, many, many decades ago. Back when my mom was a brownie, attending the girl scouts meant going to home ec. The brownies were given lessons in etiquette and cooking and whatever else is involved in "women's lessons." One of the dishes my mom was taught was Spanish Noodles. Back in the 1960's, international/ethnic food was not as popular. By the fact that the recipe involves cooking the pasta/meat in tomato sauce made this a Spanish dish. And that story is probably far less interesting than you were expecting!


Spanish Noodles

Serves 4

olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium bell chopper, chopped
1/2 cup (2 stalks) celery, chopped
1 lb ground turkey
2 cans (16 oz) tomato sauce
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp wine vinegar
3 cups cooked pasta

Cook the pasta until al dente.
Heat oil in a large pan and saute the vegetables until brown. Remove the veggies to a side bowl and cook the turkey, breaking up until done. Add back the vegetables, pasta and all the remaining ingredients. We had to put everything into large pasta pot for it all to fit.
Simmer on the stove another 20 minutes (or in our case, just 10 because we were too hungry to wait). I seasoned the dish a little with salt and pepper (and because Brit looooves pepper and would have added a great deal herself later) and then put some grated taco cheese blend on top.

Yum! We both really liked the dish and enjoyed eating outside in the beautiful weather. We're going to have so few days left before it gets too humid to be outside in the Phila summer. Next time we make this dish we plan on doubling all the veggies. The dish was also similar, but not as good, as my spaghetti and meat sauce dish. We'll make this dish again, but will probably just stick to my meat sauce for the most part.