Survival is always possible through “comfort foods”.

We discovered this pasta during a particularly difficult day, not knowing what to eat or cook and trying to resist sugar and chocolate, I went back to my childhood and out came this quick, easy and absolutely satisfying dish.

A PASTA

All ingredients, of course, need to be organically grown. A requirement for any good dish.

In a large cast iron skillet put at least 4 tablespoons organic butter

While that melts, slice an onion very thin and put those circles of beautiful yellow onions in the butter on a low light and let them bubble for many minutes until they are soft, but don’t let them brown.

However, if you are one of those who does not want to see your onions in your pasta sauce, cut the onion into four pieces and add it to the food processor with what follows….

Into your food processor put three stalks of celery – one green pepper – and optional would be to also add one red pepper and one orange pepper. Not necessary unless you want to ‘gild the lily’.

Add those ingredients to the slowly cooking onion and let all of them cook with an occasional stirring. If you chose not to have onion rings in your pasta then all of the above ingredients would be added at once.

After a time, add one pound organic and pasture fed ground beef to this mixture and stir to break up the ground beef.

To continue gilding the lily you can add shrimp, oysters, ham. Not necessary, but that depends upon your condition at the time. One or all of the shrimp, oysters and/or ham adds tremendously to this dish.

After that has cooked and begins to come together add three tomatoes which you have put through either a food processor or magic bullet to turn the tomatoes into liquid.

Add an equal amount of water and then the seasonings.

We like to add – oregano, thyme, turmeric, salt, and either pepper or tabasco sauce to taste. If you have a cultural tongue which likes other kinds of spices feel free to eliminate any of the above and add your favorites. We have tried adding rosemary to the above along with sage and that was a good combination but not when we wanted food as comfort.

While that simmers away get ready to add the ending of this dish – handmade, homemade organic noodles. It is crucial that you add handmade, organic, homemade noodles or the dish will suffer. The difference between these noodles and the ones you buy not organic – which means made with flour processed so there is nothing left to nourish you – it is dramatic and the taste difference will astound you.

Once upon a time we would have had water boiling to cook the noodles and when cooked and drained, put them on a plate and cover with the sauce. We have found, however, that this dish is best by putting the uncooked noodles directly into the cast iron skillet with a top on and let the dish simmer until done.

You will know it is done and ready to eat when you see oil accumulate on top.

Serve with an organic baguette just out of the oven. To make this as though it was freshly baked, quickly run the baguette through water and then put it in the oven to dry out. It will be fantastic – especially if you serve it hot out of the oven! We rarely serve bread which is not directly out of the oven.

With this secret you can take stale bread, put it quickly under the faucet and then into the oven and you will always have what feels and taste like freshly baked bread.

We don’t have nearly as much bread crumbs or as many servings of bread pudding as we used to before discovering this. It is something my great-grandmother Bucksell used to do. She insisted on freshly roasted coffee beans, ground just before making the coffee, but her bread could be rock hard she would pass it quickly under the faucet, into the oven and voila! – a great bit of freshly baked bread to accompany her coffee.

Enjoy!