Baked Spaghetti

Spaghetti is spaghetti is spaghetti...right? I mean, it's pretty hard to mess up something as simple as spaghetti. I've had my fair share of mishaps, though. My friend Christina lived with me for a couple of months when Russ was overseas. I have no idea what we ate those two months we lived together, but it couldn't have been decent considering the only meal I remember was spaghetti and when I pulled the spoon out, all the noodles came with it. Reminiscing aside, I've learned a little (thank goodness) since that tiny duplex we shared, and now spaghetti is a staple in my house. I think the reason it continues to be so popular is because spaghetti is the only meal that both of my children will eat without complaint. It does not matter which version I make (I like to switch it up occasionally), they still eat it. My regular version just wasn't doing the job of stretching our money like I was desiring to do, so I started making baked spaghetti.

My family has this certain sauce everyone uses. I've never heard anyone say it was a secret so I have no issue giving it out. It's certainly cheaper than Ragu, Prego, or all those sauces, but you have to work with it to get the taste you really want. Plus, it's probably really bad for you, but...well...I don't care. haha It is as follows:

• one can of tomato sauce (14.5 oz)
• a big dollop of ketchup- probably an 1/8 of a cup...maybe?
• dried onion flakes, basil, oregano, thyme, whatever you want to add.

Seriously, that is it. It's pretty good too. If you tend to use more than one pound of meat, I would suggest using one large can of tomato sauce and one small can. Sometimes I do use a ready made sauce, but the homemade is cheaper and everyone just eats it so much better!

Okay, now on to baked spaghetti. We love this meal because it is a 2-nighter. I make this with a salad on the side and occasionally a bread of some sort. We have the exact same thing the next night too and it's enough to feed all of us just fine. It's a LOT of food, so if you have a small family and do not like leftovers, skip this recipe. I hope that you enjoy it as much as we do!

Baked Spaghetti

• 1.5 lb hamburger meat
• one box of spaghetti noodles (1 lb pkg)
• 1 can of Ragu, Prego, or the Baine sauce recipe above

Preheat the oven to 350. Cook the noodles and sauce as you normally would for spaghetti. Once the noodles are al-dente, drain and pour back into pan. Mix finished spaghetti meat together with the noodles and spread into a 9 X 13 baking dish. Cover with shredded cheddar cheese and put into the oven for 15 minutes. Serve. Should make 6-8 servings. Serve with salad and bread to pull it to a 2 day meal. (Our salads usually have one chopped bell pepper, one chopped tomato, one or two chopped carrots, and some sort of cheese with very little dressing.)

Happy Cooking! :)

I'm back! Taco Soup!

Ah...It's been WAY too long since I have posted. I'm back to my old cooking ways. I have a few tricks now and I have come to love cooking! We still eat out occasionally, but it is mainly on the nights when Andrea has soccer right smack in the middle of dinnertime and cooking afterward would be fruitless.

The recipe I am sharing tonight is one that my mom gave me. The first time I tried it, I hated it. The person that cooked it the first time was a family friend and I'm not really sure what they put in it that made it taste so dramatically different, but I was not a fan at all. My mom got a recipe from another family friend and started making it at her house. I tasted hers, liked it and we instantly had a family favorite in my house.

This recipe is incredibly simple and it's a soup which is perfect for this time of year with all the cold weather! I don't have any of the nutritional information and since a lot of the recipes I will be posting are not from cookbooks, I probably won't have it most of the time anymore. If you really want to look up all the information, I'm sure you could, but I'll leave that to you. I don't have any pictures as I no longer have a smart phone (budgeting is another new thing in our house and we chose to give up the smart phones) so the pictures may be less frequent as well. We shall see over time.

Below is the recipe for Taco Soup. We actually had it tonight and will have it again tomorrow night. My kids pretended not to like it, but then sucked it down faster than the speed of light so they could eat tortilla chips. Oh well, at least they ate their food. We had only one little struggle with the redhead tonight. I believe that may be a supper first. We usually have at least 2-3 supper fights on a good night. He's a picky eater and his mother is not a compassionate chef. I cook it, he eats it. End of discussion. Ho hum...that's another blog completely...

Anyhow, back to taco soup- It's fantastic and easy and you will have a lot of leftovers! We eat it with tortilla chips. For a healthier version, the store now carries whole wheat tortilla chips. No one in my house was a huge fan though so we switched back to the regular version.

Enjoy & Happy Cooking!

TACO SOUP
1 lb ground beef (lean is what we use)
1 small onion, chopped
1 can of pinto beans (15 oz)
1 can of kidney beans (15 oz)
1 can of whole corn (15 oz)
1 can of mexican tomatoes (14.5 oz- These are tricky to find so look carefully!!!)
1 can of stewed tomatoes (14.5 oz)
1 small pkg Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix
1 pkg. taco seasoning

Cook the meat and Onions then drain excess fat. Combine all ingredients and simmer about 15 minutes.

There is a side note that this is 2 points for 1 cup according to Weight Watchers...so yeah I guess I have a little nutritional info. haha
***I have trouble finding the Mexican tomatoes sometimes so I just buy regular diced tomatoes. It doesn't have that "mexican" flavor, but you really, honestly cannot tell the difference.***