Day 26 – Baked Ziti

Start with some mild Italian Sausage (not in casing), add 3 cloves of garlic, a small can of tomato paste and a tablespoon of basil.  Cook until the sausage is browned and add 4 diced roma tomatoes and 4 diced hot-house tomatoes and cook until reduced into a delicious sauce.   Add to some cooked ziti, and pour over cubed mozzarella, add some more shredded on top and bake at 350 for about 15-20 minutes and serve.   We almost didn’t have leftovers and the Kid ate more than half before he remembered that he should be asking how much he had left to eat before he got dessert.

The eating habits of a Western Domesticated Shit-for-Brains

Quesadillas, pasta, salad … but not in that order

I guess I’m out of the running for the “Perfect Attendance” award in this 365 Dinner Project, but let me tell you about some of the meals of the last week or so.

My wife (who I’ve dubbed “Sutton” for these updates, after my crush on a Broadway performer of the same name) started doing something about a month ago that has done wonders for my stress around dinnertime. She started mapping out a week’s worth of dinners at a time, so it’s kind of like looking at the kids’ school lunch menu. Spaghetti and Meatballs on Monday, Taco Tuesday (Everything is Awesome!)

Day 21 – Lisa – Hodge Podge

Today was a catch up day in that my daughter and I got home last night after a weekend of college visits.  I didn’t motivate to make dinner until 5:30 which wasn’t really much motivation.  So my kids had pasta with butter, I had leftover salad, and the hubby had a frozen Indian dinner.  I did manage to put a berry salad together so that I could feel better about the hodge podge.

Feeling mighty lo

Jan. 13 – Chicken lo mein skillet meal from Schwan’s.

Jan 14 – A piece of garlic toast. (Not pictured.)

Skillet meals are magic. You pour one bag’s contents into a skillet or pan, stir it a few times with your magic wand (cooking spoon), and it’s transformed into a meal with multiple ingredients that looks like you did something. I’m still mystified by how the noodles

January 11: Paleo Pasta

Big bowl of pasta, paleo style. Recipe below, really.

One of the biggest things that people freak out about not getting to eat when one “goes” “paleo” is pasta. Honestly, I haven’t been a big wheat eater for ages. I come from a family of people with Celiac, and I am wildly sensitive to grains in general…..  so, as much as I love pasta, I eat it very rarely. But I do love it. There’s something about a big, hot, steamy bowl of saucy goopy pasta that is undeniably comforting. And we eat A LOT of it. Sort of.

My daughter calls it “gagaboo.” I have no idea why. But really, it’s a pretty classic Bolognese. I just serve it over Spaghetti Squash instead of grain-based noodles. I make a giant pot of it, roast half a dozen squash, and we have it as leftovers for a week, which makes my life easier. 

Another sacred meal (by Flying Spaghetti Monster standards)

 

Jan. 9 – Kung pao spaghetti take-out from California Pizza kitchen

In a recent post I mentioned that I’m not the type of person who likes to get something different every time from the restaurants I go to.  I usually settle in on one or two favorite meals per restaurant and only occasionally vary from those. At California Pizza Kitchen, my most frequent selection is the kung pao spaghetti. It’s spaghetti in some kind of spicy sauce,

Wait– there was garlic bread?

 

Jan 8 (Elvis’s birthday) – Spaghetti and meatballs, eaten with the whole family.

I’m on a lucky roll. This was the third consecutive night of dinner featuring my two favorite ingredients – not cooking, and not choosing. Although the picture may look like some inedible ingredients leftover from Justin Cascio’s Venison sausage stuffed venison backstrap roast, it was yummier than it looks. I’m quickly discovering that the yummy food in pictures is analogous to professional models