Spaghetti

Lately I haven't been able to eat enough spaghetti. This has always been one of my comfort food. As a child I would sit at the table long after everyone else was done consuming plates of the magical stuff. Unfortunately, I ate with a child's gusto slurping the noodles over my chin, which would often result in rashes over my face and cortisone creams galore before my parents finally discovered what it was causing them.

My tastes in spaghetti have matured and now I prefer meatless sauces over rotini pasta, sometimes with cream and vodka, sometimes plain with parmesean cheese. My current favorite I got from the book "The Amateur Gourmet" which also has an accompanying blog. Mini-Me helps stir the sauce so he thinks it tastes better because he helped. He also eats it better when he has a part in making it. It's very simple and employs ingredients that are standards in my pantry - canned tomatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, thyme. I like it because it's vegetarian. My husband likes it because it has a stronger flavor so he can't tell if I'm using his despised whole wheat pasta or not. It also keeps really well in the freezer so it pays to make the bigger batch.

For those interested, here's a link to my favorite pasta sauce.

Cake Mix Cookies

I love making these cookies with my kids because they are simplicity in itself. One package of cake mix, one stick of butter, two eggs (one per kid) and as much candy as you can get away with. My kids like to make these in a muffin tin and bake for about 20 minutes at 350. They make 2 dozen and rarely make it to the second day.

Onions and Mushrooms

Hamburgers are cheap, easy and kid friendly. However, that doesn't mean they can't be adult tasty either. One of my ways to dress them up is by topping Pat's and mine with carmelized onions and mushrooms.



These are easy to make, you just can't rush them. As in making good barbeque, low and slow is the rule. I cut the Then I add a generous amount of olive oil to a pan, heat it up then dump in the mushrooms and onions with some salt to get them sweating. After they start sizzling and dropping some juice I drop the heat to low then just stir them every 5 minutes or so until they get as brown as I like. I make a bunch at a time to keep on hand for stews, soups, omelettes, and the like.

Garbanzo Beans

So while I am not a vegan, or even a vegetarian, I like to add these options to our menu. I don't like to snack on chips or cookies that much, with the exception of Cheetos Hot Chips. What fills the need for snack food for me, at the moment, are these garbanzo beans whose recipe I got from Vive Le Vegan. I always keep a bowl of these in the refrigerator. I make them 3 cans at a time and they last two to three days. I add a teaspoon of pepper to the mix to spice them up a bit.

Roast Sausage

This is a personal favorite of almost everyone in the family. I take smoked sausage cut it into chunks. Then, per pound of sausage I add two red, orange, or yellow bell peppers, one large onion and two cans of petite diced tomatoes with peppers. Finally I add 1 teaspoon of chicken broth dissolved in 1/2 cup of water. Put in the oven at 425 and roasted for 35 minutes, it's heavenly when served with a loaf of crust bread. It's even better the second day because the bell peppers suck up the juices and become meltingly soft. Me, I just like the juice with some bread as I don't eat that much meat. Pat loves the peppers and onions. Trouble maker eats the sausage, complains about hating peppers and onions and insists that he's being starved even though he eats the lion's share of the meat. Oh well, can't please everyone all the time