Makin dinner Easy Peasy

I love making pasta with red sauce for dinner. I would call it Spaghetti, but...I don't always use spaghetti noodles. Infact, last night when I made it, I used half spaghettin and half fettucine noodles...in an effort to clean out the pantry!

So...Here is my recipe/method/thoughts on Easy Peasy Red Sauce.

When I was in college my roommate and I bought almost all premade, pre-packaged food. Seriously, it’s almost laughable to me now. Of course one of those things was jarred red spaghetti sauce. It’s so easy, and comes in different flavors, and well…you just can’t go wrong with it.
Red Sauce from a jar was one of those things that I bought because it was novelty to me. My mom ALWAYS made her own sauce, and just like with Mac n’ cheese (never had the boxed stuff) and green beans (we only had fresh or frozen) I never realized how good I had it. Mmm all that Salt and fake ingredients were yummy to my taste buds. Anyway….one day after Scott and I got married (this must have been really early in our marriage, cause I make red sauce at least 3x a month now) we were at the grocery store, and I reached for a jar of spaghetti sauce. Scott looked at me and said “you must be joking.” I thought HE was joking. Apparently not.
“Spaghetti sauce is really easy, I always make my own.” He said.
“Oh sure, I know how to make it too, it’s no big deal” I heard myself say.
But really I was unsure of how I was going to pull this off.
Little did I know...how seriously easy it is. Now, we don’t start with fresh tomatoes, so we are still cheating a little bit. But...this way is just as easy, and costs so much less. Plus its easier to control how much you make, and you don’t end up with half a jar of moldy sauce in your fridge.


Last night I started with some olive oil, minced garlic and 1/4 pound of ground beef in a sauce pan, yum!
Then I opened one small can of Tomato Paste, and One large can of Tomato Sauce. The small can cost 25 cents, and the large can cost 48 cents. Can't beat that now can you?

Then I added some spices from my trusty spice rack, along with a pinch of sugar. Hmm.. I see in this picture that some of my spices never get used and are actually dusty. Oops! and seriously who thought that was a good color for counter tops? Ugh.

I dumped everything right ontop of the browned beef and garlic, Here it is pre-stir.

Stir all together and keep warm until noodles are ready! A super cheap and easy meal. I sliced up a cucumber for extra veggies and dinner was ready in 15 minutes.

Easy Peasy Red Sauce

Ingredients
Tomato Sauce or puree. I usually use sauce in a can, which I realize has some additives. (dried onion flakes etc).
Tomato Paste
Seasonings
-sugar
-salt
-garlic powder
-thyme
-rosemary
-basil
-“Italian seasonings”
Really anything that strikes your fancy.

Open the Sauce, and dump into a medium sauce pan.
Open the paste and dump into a medium sauce pan.
Season with seasonings of your choice.

Put pan on stove over medium heat and start stirring to meld together paste, sauce, and seasonings.
Reduce heat to low and let warm through while waiting for pasta to cook.

delicious:Thai Basil Chicken

I went to Arizona to visit my girlfriends last weekend, and one night we got to talking about how our eating and cooking habits have changed since college. The woman who was my college roomie is currently living at home, and is enjoying her mothers fabulous cooking. Lucky girl. The rest of us....fend for our selves, and when applicable our significant others.

In college we would have dinner together every monday night. We would trade of whose apartment it was at. Oh we were cute thinking we were "cooking." We usually George Foremaned (it's a verb ok) up some sort of meat. Opened a can of green beans, and usually popped open a cardboard tube of biscuits. Now, don't get me wrong, it was probably better than going to Taco Bell everynight.

I wish though, that I had been a better cook then. It's amazing what you don't know until you try things on your own...like how to plan meals for a week and grocery shop accordingly.

Anyway..I found this recipe in my trusty Betty Crocker cookbook last night:
Thai Basil Chicken.

There it is with white rice. I bought white rice and white flour tortillas for my husband this week. He said "can't why have white? Just once in a while? Wheat is so.....healthy!"

Anyway..Here is the list of ingredients:
Chicken Breasts
Jalapenos
Garlic
Fresh Basil
Fresh Mint
Sugar
Soy Sauce
Peanuts.
And olive oil for cooking chicken in.

I'm normally intimidated by fresh herbs, but I knew I could buy basil and we actually happen to have mint in our yard from the previous owner. My first use of fresh herbs from my own yard.

Anyway...you just slice the chicken up thin, and cook it with the seeded and diced jalapenos and galic. Betty thinks you should use fresh garlie..but i used the preminced stuff. Then after it's done, add the soy sauce (1 tablespoon) and the Sugar (1 teaspoon). Top with Basil, Mint and Peanuts. All chopped...and I decided...to taste..not to follow the recipe.

And it was delicious and flavorful. I guess that I know flavorful food can be easy, that chicken doesn't just have to be done on the foreman...but I can never quite translate that in recipes.

Anyway..this is now joining our "repetoire."

so simple

So a while back I was checking out at the grocery store and I was suckered by smart advertising and bought a magazine...it was one of those little mini mags (think the size of Prevention) only It's published by Martha Stewart ( I know, I know). I can't think of what it's called off the top of my head, but it's full of recipes. Anyway....I found it the other day when we were unpacking, and found a recipe for shrimp, pea and feta pasta. It looked pretty simple, and I didnt' need too many ingredients that would be wasted or would be out of the ordinary for me....so I planned it for this week. At that point, though...I knew I wasn't going to make it with shrimp...but I didn't know what I would use instead.

So I went to the grocery store, and happened upon Chicken Sausages. If you read Kath's blog you know she has had these a few times in the past couple of weeks. Well, as a sausage and hot dog lover, I've been looking for them, but haven't been able to find them in my grocery store. These were near the other sausages, but with no other like them around...serendipitous. They are all natural roasted red tomato and garlic chicken sausages. Yum. They came in a package of four...and I figured they would be perfect in the pasta!

Ok, so my recipe for the pasta was-Adapted from Martha Stewart:
1 box organic 100% semolina flour pasta
2 chicken sausages
1 cup of snow peas (trimmed and cut in half on the diagonal)
reduced fat feta

Tossed with:
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon dried mint.

The method:
Boil water for pasta...when it is almost al-dente toss in the snow peas.
While pasta is cooking-warm up sausages in a pan -they were pre-cooked.
When pasta and peas are done, drain and return to pan.
Mix all ingredients for the "sauce" and toss with pasta
Add in feta and cut up sausage.

It was really easy to make. Although, I didn't find it very flavorful --oh yeah I forgot to add that I lightly seasoned with Salt and Ground pepper. It could be that I cooked more pasta than the recipe called for. I just cooked the whole box, knowing both Scott and I would take the leftovers for lunch.
The original recipe called for fresh squeezed lemon juice, and fresh mint...i'm sure this would make a bigg difference. Also, maybe de-glazing the sausage pan and using that as "sauce" would add a bit more flavor.
But it was a great fast mid-week dinner. I also can't pass up any excuse to use our "pasta" bowls. My Aunts got them for us as a wedding gift They are shallow and have a great big tomato in the middle. If I remember correctly they are from Crate and Barrel.

a whole day?

Ok, it's time for the food update! So, i'm posting a breakfast, lunch and dinner....but they are all from different days. I am so clever. That was sarcasm.

This is my re-discovered love. Oatmeal with walnuts, a pinch of salt and all natural applesauce on top. My dad is pretty much anti added sugar of anykind, unless it's in the form of applesauce, so I ate whenever I had "mush" (what we called it in my family" I had applesauce on top. Applesauce was on sale this week in those cute little single serving, made for lunch sizes. I'm not a huge advocate of single serving packaging...but I couldn't resist. I think with some cinnamon on top, and this would taste like apple pie.

Ok, on to lunch. Lately I've really been enjoying red-leaf lettuce. It keeps for quite a while, and makes great salads for lunch.
Here is a salad I had just yesterday. I used lettuce, a carrot, a red bell pepper, and left over bbq chicken. And Newmans Own All Natural Cesar.

Seriously Yum.

I also had a whole wheat tortilla for some carbs. and my trusty nalgene. No..i'm not stuck in the late nineties...this used to be my brother's nalgene...till he got stationed over seas and I "stole" it from him.

I have one of those "fit n' fresh" salad containers. Really the only thing I like about it is the size, and the little built in dressing container...the "utensils" it came with were complete crap.

Dinner...Calzones! I made these last week. In college Scott and I LOVED this Calzone place, the other night we were talking about them, and I figured I would try to recreate. Let's just say I have a long way to go!

Here is Scott's calzone...it has more cheese than mine, even though I could have happily grated the whole block of mozzerella in my calzone. I also purposely made these huge. I pretty much cook for 3-4 every night. I always take leftovers for lunch, and Scott eats more than I do. Most nights.


Here is mine...I put TONS of sauce in it.

I think next time, I'll work the dough a little more, it ended up being pretty thick.

I also made stuffed bell peppers last week. As I was serving them Scott looked at me and told me " I don't like cooked bell peppers."

Oh, Something that would have been good to know YESTERDAY! Name that movie.

mmmm...now I'm hungry for my snack.

completion!

Success....I have posted all meals!


Had this Larabar as a snack at 3:00pm...I was STARVING. clearly not enough protein today.
I couldn't decide what to make for dinner..so we had a "salad bar." I opened a bag of greens, cut up bell peppers, pears, cucumbers, carrots, shredded colby cheese, and opened a bag of cashews. I also made a homemade salad dressing, as well as set out some bottled stuff that I don't eat. Grilled up some chicken breast...and called it good! I had two bowls of salad...

And..i'm debating a piece of toast now...

apparently not in the "swing" of things!

Every night I get all the things i'm going to need the next day ready:
workout bag
lunch
breakfast
snacks
things need for work.

And I've finallly stopped forgetting things (now that i've said this, I'll probably forget work clothes tomorroe!) But I forgot my usb cord to get pictures of off my camera! D'oh!
So, I'll take pictures all day, and maybe even post a little bit, but pictures are going to have to come tonight.

I also forgot dinner pictures last night but I made turkey burgers. These were my first turkey burgers, and my husband was not impressed when I picked that up at the grocery store, instead of ground beef. But I seasoned them with chopped garlic, worcestshire sauce (sp), season salt, and red pepper flakes. It made them quite tasty. Hooray! No more ground beef for us.

Late snack and Dinner

Well, I got hungry during my commute home. Traffic was SUPER slow. I ate this LARABAR...
Only have the picture of the wrapper..I don't think the cops would like my excuse of "I was taking a picture for my food blog." as to why I rear ended the car infront of me, so no picture of the actually deliciousness!

As I said, my husband made dinner. It really just turned into breakfast burritos on corn tortillas. With a little bit of scrambled egg (no milk or salt) a pinch of cheese, and 2 dollops of fat free sour cream. I also cut up a small carrot. I should have had broccoli..but it sounded yuck with the rest of the meal. That is a 6 inch salad plate..for reference!

Here is my desert...a piece of Dove Milk Chocolate from my stocking. In practicing listening to my body...I didn't want this chocolate so bad that it hurt...it just sounded sort of pleasant. :)

Well, that concludes Day one of pictures. (Assuming I don't eat anything else!)

snack and afternoon stuff

Well I finally got hungry just now, which is about 30 minutes later than I usually get hungry. I had my ~4oz of yogurt with the other half of the kashi bar from yesterday. But...NO PICTURE.

When I went back to the breakroom to get the yogurt out of the fridge..two of my co-workers were in there. Almost everyone I work with, is extremely blunt and curious, and I'm just not prepared to take pictures of my food in front of them. Ah...eating insecurities live on. Am I afraid they will see the blog? Am I afraid they will comment on my choice of food? Who cares...apparently me!

Also..my lower body is SOOOO sore from my workouts this week. I've been part of the body by Glamour program (http://www.glamour.com/) for the past couple of months, and this week I've been doing the strength workouts from month 1, and man my lower body is killing me. Hurts to sit down pain. I suppose when it hurts to sit on the toilet... I should just be thankful it doesn't hurt to pee! Ok bad joke.

Today has gone by super fast, can't believe it's already 3:30! Not sure what we are having for dinner tonight..we have a TON of corn tortillas that my husband bought that we need to get rid of..he makes these delcious taco things...that yeah..aren't healthy at all, so we'll see what I can do to not gorge my self. I think I might also try my hand at home made baked tortilla chips.

But..there will be pictures...hurrah!