An original dish for the pasta file

Dear City Gay:

I've been struggling lately. It's five days until payday, I'm running out of food, and I'm tired of using my credit card to buy groceries. I started digging through my cupboard to avoid running to Sonic for a quick meal. I decided I had enough fixings for spaghetti, but I decided to alter it a bit by using some cream and vodka in the sauce. I have no idea what the exact measurements were, so the following recipe is a total guestimate.

Pasta:
This part's easy. Put water in a pot, throw in some salt, wait for the water to boil, and throw in spaghetti. Duh.

Sauce:
Ingredients:
1 pound hamburger
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 can tomato soup (I think this is the country part; a better ingredient would probably be real tomato sauce.)
Italian seasoning
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup vodka
Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Brown the hamburger with the minced garlic.
2. Add the tomato soup, Italian seasoning (maybe three tablespoons - I eye-balled this and just kept tasting the sauce), cream, and vodka. I also added about a ladle of the pasta water. Let this simmer for about 1o minutes (or long enough for the strong vodka taste and smell to tone down).
3. Drain pasta, and add the pasta to the sauce.
4. Toss with about 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese.

Serve with grated Parmesan.

Yields: A crapload. Seriously, I'll be eating this for days.

I don't have a picture of it because, frankly, a picture wouldn't have been very exciting, and I was really hungry, so I didn't waste time photographing the meal.

I was surprised how good it was, but because I'm getting rounder by the day, I avoided seconds. I think the cream helps temper the taste and obviously creates a creamy tomato sauce. The vodka taste is subtle. I may not have let the vodka cook off enough because my head feels pretty good. (However, I'm also drinking wine right now, so that is the more likely culprit.) I imagine this would be better using a real tomato sauce, rather than a can of soup, and with fresh herbs, rather than the dried Italian seasoning.

This spaghetti was good in a pinch, and perhaps with a bit of fine-tuning, this could be a pretty good meal.

Loves,
Country Gay