Apr. 25 - Spaghetti & Meat Sauce

It was a cool, rainy day - just absolutely miserable, with screaming kids, a bored mommy, and a daddy who wound up working a solid 6 hours out of the day (after traveling Thursday and Friday and not coming home until late). What better comfort food than spaghetti?

I used Ronzoni Smart Taste's spaghetti (which I "bought" seven boxes of and paid NOTHING using this deal and buying them at Giant where they're priced at $1 each. Thanks, Deal Finding Chik for the tip! I'm also not big into jarred sauce lately - I've eaten it so much that it just doesn't taste good anymore, so I made a tomato meat sauce to go with it. It was the *best* recipe I've tasted! The sauce was fantastic, albeit a tad bit runny, and it made enough for four separate meals. I divided the rest into three freezer bags and tossed it in the freezer - three meals ready to go! I definitely recommend trying this out. Next time, though, I might half and half it with sausage meat instead of all ground beef. We paired it with salads since we have 3 lbs. that I bought at BJ's and need to finish ASAP!

Oh, and I almost forgot - since it was Luke's 11-month birthday (can you believe it?!?), we ate special "butterscotch birthday pudding" that was topped with Cool Whip. Yum!

Spaghetti Tomato/Meat Sauce
Ingredients
1 (28 ounce) can stewed tomatoes
1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
1 pound lean ground beef
2 yellow onions, chopped
6 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 tablespoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Blend the stewed tomatoes and crushed tomatoes in a blender.
2. In a large pot, brown the ground beef with the onions and garlic. 
3. Pour in tomatoes, and reduce heat. 
4. Add sugar, basil, oregano, salt and pepper, and cover. 
5. Simmer about 45 minutes. Serve warm over pasta of your choice.

The prep time was about 15 minutes - that included chopping the onion and garlic, as well as browning it and mixing the sauce together. This would be simple to toss together and put in the crockpot on low for those of you who work. It's also a great sauce to make ahead and freeze, pulling out each individual serving when you need it (when I say there were four servings, I meant there was enough for four meals for 2 adults and 1 child). And like I mentioned before, next time I make it, I'm going to substitute 1/2 lb. of sausage for 1/2 lb. of the beef. I think that will give it a nice kick! If you want to make it vegetarian, however, delete the meat out of the recipe and substitute in two tablespoons of olive oil.