Dinner?

[EmilytheStrange]

It turns out I love love love spaghetti.

But DD has been rejecting it lately

Other than that, it's taco soup

[megenic]

Baked tofu and sweet potato fries with a salad. No I'm not kidding :-) my kids love it and it's quick and easy.

[mebl0901]

Originally Posted by GotAllBoys Spaghetti! But I make my own sauce, I just make about 6 dinners of it at a time & freeze the sauce in 1qt freezer bags. Then on a day I need it, I usually put it in the crock pot. So nice for when having company to have homemade meal that I didn't have to cook that day (so I can clean the house instead). I need to find more meals like that!

Recipe, please?

[GotAllBoys]

Originally Posted by mebl0901 Recipe, please?

sure... is there a place to post recipe's or do I just copy it in a message? .

[mebl0901]

You can post it here!

[GotAllBoys]

Make Ahead Spaghetti Sauce

I change it up a bit but I'll try to write it out from memory. I usually start before lunch, but even 2 hours before dinner will work. The longer the sauce simmers, the better the flavors will meld together. I really should do a blog post or something with pictures, I get asked about this often.

1 Huge Costco size can of Crushed tomatoes or the equivalent of large cans (106 oz)
2 Small Cans Stewed Tomatoes, cut up
2 Small Cans Diced Tomatoes, regular or flavored
4 or 5 lbs ground meat (I do 2 lbs ground turkey, 1 lb mild italian pork sausage, 2 lbs ground beef)
1 t Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
1 Onion, diced
4 Stalks Celery, diced
1 Bell Pepper, diced
2 Zucchini's, diced (optional)
1 Cup diced mushrooms
Italian Seasonings
1 head of garlic either finely minced or put through garlic press, or you can use canned minced garlic

Have ready one large stock pot and your largest frying pan.

Open the various cans of tomatoes and dump them all in the stock pot. Set it on med-low heat. Add about 1 teaspoon of salt & 1 teaspoon of Italian Seasonings (crush them in your palm first to start releasing the flavor).

Brown meat in your frying pan, drain fat (unless using turkey) then season with salt & pepper (I also season with a bit more italian seasoning) and dump in the stock pot. You can do several rotations of meat if you have to, just make sure you wash your spoon between raw & cooked meat.

Have all your vegetables cut up & ready to go.

Without washing the frying pan, add some olive oil. Take 1 t of crushed red pepper in your palm and crush it with your other thumb to release flavor & put that in the oil. Don't skip this, the end product will not be spicy but it ads flavor.

Add onion celery, bell pepper & zucchini to red pepper infused oil, season with salt & pepper and sauté for about 3 min until cooked but still firm.
Add to stock pot.

Add more oil if needed to pan.
Saute mushrooms for about 2 min.
Add garlic, sauté for 1 min until fragrant. Do not let garlic burn.
Salt the mushrooms and add to stock pot.

Let this simmer for awhile and then taste it. You may need more salt, Italian seasoning or pepper. After making adjustments, let simmer more before tasting again. Let simmer as long as you can until dinner.

After cooling, fill up 1 qt freezer bags and place in freezer. I think this made about 6 last time but we had company over on cook day so I'm not sure.

To defrost, run warm water over it for a minute and then cut the bag open into a crock pot. Let it warm in the crock pot on low, stirring occasionally. You can do the same in the oven. Or you can defrost it all the way and heat it on the stove, microwave, oven or crock pot. It's great for company visits because they always ask what they can bring and you can say a salad or garlic bread and then ALL you have to do is cook the noodles and set the table.

NOTE: When my kids were little and would not touch veggies (and before my food processor broke), I would use less tomatoes and I instead used whatever veggies I could find, I just put them through the food processor. Squash, zucchini, carrots, sweet potatoes, anything that was fresh at the farmers' market and will hide well in sauce. Take your biggest pan, add oil, red pepper flake & then your mush. Salt it, and cook it for a few minutes before adding to the stock pot. Nobody will taste them and they'll be getting a ton of veggies. DH actually got angry when he saw me do this one time, and I had to explain that I'd been doing it for about a year and he'd been loving the sauce.

You could also use this for lasagna, and it's great when taking a meal to someone since they can use it whenever they want.

Oh, and this is really meat heavy. If it were just for me I'd probably only use 2 or 3 lbs, but DH likes "a bit of sauce with his meat". You may want to have some extra cans of tomatoes around in case it's too much meat you can add more tomatoes.