Help me make a spaghetti milkshake

Cafe Society
1

Millions,

For some unknown reason, I let my subscription to the SDMB expire. Tragic, really, but when it came time to renew said subscription, well, let’s just say that we’d just finished a long and not so lucrative tour and fifteen dollars seemed positively astronomical. A few jobs without computers and another tour and, then, suddenly, I’m back on the internet. So it’s been quite some time. Please: be gentle.

What brings me back after a five month absence? Why, Spaghetti Milkshakes, of course.

The back story: I have a roommate who feels that it would be better if all food were mashed up into a gruel to be easily digested on-the-go. He’s, not surprisingly, a pretty bad cook. I mentioned the merits of flavor, of texture, of chewing. He sat there, unimpressed, nonplussed. We argued. We kept arguing. And I assented. Fine, I said. Let’s have an experiment, I said. I’ll make you some spaghetti with marinara one day and, the next day, you can try a spaghetti milkshake. You choose which is better. And if it’s the latter, you can have the recipe.

Of course, my cooking tends to be less…liquefied. So I wonder: What’s the best way to achieve the Spaghetti Milkshake? It doesn’t need to include ice cream or milk; its more the consistency of a milkshake we’re going for here. I’d like it to bear as much resemblance to pasta with marinara sauce as possible and, obviously, I’m trying to make it as edible as I can. All suggestions welcome. Results, of course, to follow.

2

I think I just threw up a bit in my mouth. :eek:

3

Mmm, tastes like Alcatraz.

I say tell him to make his own damn liquefied abominations and to leave you out of it.

4

That doesn’t sound like a good recipe for a spaghetti milkshake, Encinitas.

5

My mother had her mouth wired shut for a very long time following surgury for Ménière’s disease. Although she didn’t use it much, we got her a milkshake cookbook that included recipes for hamburgers and, I believe, speghetti.
The basic idea is to make it how you normally would, then toss it all in a blender. I don’t think you’d need milk or ice cream. I would try it out, then adjust the amount of marinara sauce to get the desired consintency.

6

My mother had some jaw problems that prevented her from chewing when I was a kid, though I can’t recall the details of it. What I do recall is the monstrosities she made in the kitchen during this time. Like garygnu said, you don’t really change much. Make it like you normally would and then adjust the liquid accordingly until it blends smooth.

Spaghetti, I think, would probably be one of the better choices for this sort of thing. The ground up noodles in sauce probably wouldn’t be too offensive.

You should have gone with a hamburger or a tuna casserole if your goal is to make him ill. Mmmm. Fishshake.

7

Okay, so we got “Good God, WHY?” out of the way…

I would simply simmer the marinara sauce until it reduced a bit, and blend noodles and sauce with an immersion blender. Maybe add a bit of seaweed for thickening.

Or you could just buy him some Gerber baby food. That’ll scare him. The pasta/meat/veg combos are the worst.

8

garygnu: That was going to be my default strategy. Essentially, just pulverizing the left overs and adding salt. Sounds like you never ventured down the lasagna in a glass path specifically, but its nice to know that there’s literature out there that deals with this highly important problem.

Without being too personal, your mother seems the perfect person to settle this argument. How’d she do with whole the liquefied food thing? “She didn’t use it much” seems to suggest that the obvious hypothesis (blender-ized spaghetti = not so good) will be easily provable.

9

You think a milkshake (well, I guess just “shake”) made from tomato sauce and nice, starchy pasta would need additional thickening? Here I was thinking that we would need to add extra liquid so that it can actually be drunk.

10

CaerieD: If he decides that the spaghettishake is delicious, it will be followed by the almost-certainly-less-delicious fishshake. I’m thinking Cod. Sounds appropriate. And WhyNot: thanks for the seaweed factoid, although I don’t see blended spaghetti needing a thickener. Of course, this is my first time purposely ruining a good meal, so I’ll have the seaweed in the on deck circle, just in case.

11

What goes better with spaghetti than a salad and a tall glass of milk? Make sure to include those. :smiley:

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Well, seaweed is what commercial manufacturers use to thicken all sorts of things you wouldn’t think need thickening! I bet if you cooked it, liquified it, and then cooked it again, the starch released from the pasta would thicken it plenty all on its own. But it also depends on how thick your marinara is and what your pasta:sauce ratio is. You’ll either need to thicken it or thin it. Or neither.

Do keep us updated. Not because I want the recipe, but because I hate suspense. :wink:

13

Can’t be too far off from a spicy Virgin Mary… Virgin Mary with texture, that is. Try a Penne with Vodka for the real thing. Didn’t you hear? Milkshakes with a shot of bourbon and some Bailey’s are all the rage.

14

Seems as good a time as any to mention Bass-O-Matic: “That’s delicious bass!”

15

Tonight: spaghetti. Tomorrow: spaghetti in a cup. I promise to relay all the pertinent details.

16

Hear ya go. Make a semi sweet ice cream with a small amount of ragu (from the Jar…or homeade), fresh oregano (not dried), and creme anglaise ice cream base. Spoon into the blender, add milk, blend, and stir in some cooked angel hair pasta, just like giant tapioca tea.
Oh, and add some sweet sundried tomatoes… Sweet.

17

When I was a toddler I didn’t eat properly but I would drink just about anything out of a bottle. Eventually my parents just blended hamburger meat into my milk. Reportedly I liked it best when they added garlic.

Perhaps that’s why I grew up to be a vegetarian.

18

Birdmonster! Welcome back!

The rest of your post is pure Evil, but you’re still good people. :slight_smile:

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Bah. Tastes like bass.

:smiley:

20

The deed is done. Last night, after having earlier plans dashed by Labor Day barbeques, picnics, and other non-fluid mealtimes, I got up the nerve to pulverize a perfectly good spaghetti dinner. Here is how it went:

I took garygnu’s recommendation as a starting point; in other words, I started with a regular meal, cooked the way its always been cooked, from top to bottom. Nothing too special here, just some farfalle and a simple sauce of plum tomatoes, onions, some fresh basil, a few sauteed carrots, and a few predictable seasonings. (And, for the record, this is the last moment where these ingredients resembled a proper, edible dinner).

Now, here’s where it gets milkshakey. I tossed the aforementioned meal in our blender and decided to start with “chop.” There was a whole lot of twirling but not a whole lot of chopping. I tried “liquefy” and “blend” and all the other colorful adjectives on our blender but all I got was a pasta dinner pushed to the outsides of the jar and the peculiar smell of an overtaxed blender motor. A foreseeable setback.

So I visit the neighbors and they have a food processor made after the Reagan years and we transfer the still-mostly-looks-like-a-spaghetti-dinner mixture into it and now it’s looking good. And by “good” I mean “hideous.” The red in the sauce and the starchy bland yellow of the pasta blended into a sickly bright-orange mash that looked, well, kind of vomit-y. And by “kind of,” I mean “really.”

Yet, it still smelled good. The problem was the consistency. We weren’t yet at “drinkable” or even “milkshake with a spoon” consistency. It was more the texture and density of a thick hummus. So I added a little tomato juice and a little veggie stock. Then a little more. And a little more. And then: success! Pour-able Spaghetti!

As I mentioned, this was all for a roommate whose dream is a meal in a glass. So I poured him a mug of spaghetti. And he chugged it. I kid you not. He drank it all in one long sip. He licked his lips. He had two more glasses. “Exactly” was his verdict. “Exactly what I wanted.”

Of course, I had to try some. I poured a swallow into a small water glass and tipped it back. And, honestly, it did kind of taste like spaghetti. But there was something…off about it. Maybe it was a texture thing or the veggie broth or the fact that it looked like food that came up rather than food that goes down, but there was a sickly kind of aftertaste. Like food that’s going bad but hasn’t quite turned. Like some leftovers that didn’t quite make it to the refrigerator. I can’t explain it much better than that.

But I finished my glass, went to bed, and woke up without stomach pains and in a wonderful mood. And my roommate brought the rest to work. In a Thermos. So we’re calling it a success. Just don’t make it for your families.