Boring to Amazing

Spaghetti

Since cutting out some of the unhealthy foods I eat, I've fallen into a rut of cooking the same foods often. A friend inspired me to spice up my regular old spaghetti recipe...so that's exactly what I did!

The internet is great! I researched different things I could do to turn boring spaghetti into amazing spaghetti and I found this article, which was chocked full of suggestions. Here's what I chose to do:

Ingredients:
~ a little over a pound of ground beef
~ half of a turkey sausage link, diced
~ Ragu Traditional spaghetti sauce
~ half a box of thin spaghetti noodles
~ half an onion, diced
~ a few frozen carrot cubes, thawed
~ 1/2 tbsp. of sugar
~ a few leaves of spinach, chopped
~ a few strings of shredded parmesan cheese
~ 3/4 tbsp. of butter

Instructions:
1. Sauté the diced onions in a little olive oil. I like to season my onions with a bit of salt, pepper, and onion powder for some extra flavor.
2. Add the sausage and allow the sausage the onions to cook together.
3. Before removing that mixture from the pot, add the carrots and allow them all to cook for a few minutes.
4. Remove the mixture from the pot, brown, and drain the ground beef. I seasoned the beef with salt and pepper only. I didn't want to add different seasonings since I was using so many new ingredients.
5. Combine the sausage/onion/carrot mix with the ground beef and add as much or as little spaghetti sauce as you'd like. I used half of a 45 oz. jar.
6. Add sugar and stir. I usually don't use sugar, but my mom does so I knew this would be a small but perfect addition.
7. Simmer for about 20 minutes.
8. Cook noodles.
9. Add spinach and parmesan then stir. The cheese is supposed to make the sauce creamy and rich.
10. Add about 3 tbsp. of pasta water into the spaghetti sauce. This is supposed to bring the flavors together and improve the texture of the sauce.
10. Add butter before serving the sauce. This is supposed to make the sauce rich and smooth...a tip from the professionals!

You want to talk about some good spaghetti?! THIS was some good spaghetti. Introducing a few ingredients to the pot turned boring spaghetti into Amazing Spaghetti! The portion sizes of this recipe are little on the small side. I usually cook a larger pot of spaghetti, but I didn't think I would want to eat spaghetti all week. I cut the portion sizes in half but I was still able to get 4 significantly sized portions out of this. Next time I'm definitely making a bigger pot! Also, if you want to make a homemade spaghetti sauce, these instructions would work well for that!

Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

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My Sauteed Meal

Good Saturday Morning Mi-ettes & Saturday Morning Coffee-ettes! It is such a beautiful day today and before I get out there and on the road, I figured I would take some time for myself. My friend, Nicole, has been begging me to blog about this recipe, so here goes it!

Sauteed Sausage, Onions, Green Peppers, Squash, & Zucchini 

So, since becoming so overwhelmed, I haven't been putting so much thought into cooking meals. I make something extremely simple or eat out...usually pizza. I was getting tired of that and my appetite wasn't being fed, so I found this on Pinterest. The picture didn't have a link, unfortunately, so I had to improvise. It was very simple and took no time at all.

 

1. Cut up all vegetables (any vegetables you'd like; cut as big or small as you want).

 

2. Oil your pan. Use any type of oil you'd like. I chose butter, because I love butter, plus I feel it cooks things better. Use as much or as little oil as you'd like.

 

3. Cook all vegetables on low heat. Add any seasonings to the vegetables you'd like.

 

4. Cut up sausage (or any meet you choose) as the vegetables cook.

 

5. After vegetables have softened, remove them from the pot.

 

6. Saute sausage (in the juices of the vegetables).

 

7. After sausage has cooked and softened, add the cooked vegetables.

 

8. Cook until both the vegetables and sausage are done and eat over rice.

I ate off this delicious meal for a couple of day. As the vegetables and sausage sat in their own juices each day it was even better! I will be creating a menu for myself shortly so I can take some of the thought out of having to decide what's for dinner. This will definitely be on the list!!

What do you guys think of my self made meal??