Almost Home-Made Spaghetti

This recipe has bloomed over the years on nights when we want a yummy dinner but don't want to spend the night in the kitchen. Based on Classico Spaghetti Sauce, we personalize it with sautéed onions and mushrooms. It even passes the diet test, that is if you are on one and control your portions. Our recipe serves two teen boys, one man and one mom, so adjust as needed. It was especially good on our (finally) cold winter's night in Minnesota (now, if we just had snow...)

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Meaty Spaghetti
Cheesy Tuscan Bread

INGREDIENTS
2 lbs lean ground beef (or turkey)
2 jars Classico Spaghetti Sauce (we use Four Cheese)
1 package frozen spinach, microwaved for 4 minutes
1 red onion, diced
1 pkg fresh mushrooms, sliced
1/2 pkg spaghetti noodles
1/2 loaf sliced Tuscan bread from Target
1 container or pkg shredded parmesan cheese
1 stick unsalted butter
Extra virgin olive oil
fresh or refrigerator basil

Prepare cheesy bread first. Melt stick of butter in microwave. Add enough shredded parmesan cheese to make thick paste. Spread on one side of Tuscan bread. Wrap in foil and bake at 375 for 65 minutes. (If you want to make this GARLIC, add a good 5 cloves, smooshed up well.)

In large skillet, sauté onion in 2 TBSP olive oil. When onions are partially done, add mushrooms and cook until tender. Add more olive oil as needed, just don't get it soggy. While skillet-ing, go ahead and nuke the spinach. Combine spinach with skillet items, stir well, then put contents on dinner plate. Use same skillet to brown meat, adding basil to taste.
Add Classico sauces and onion mixture. Stir well, bring to boil. Cover and simmer while you cook the pasta.

Easy, healthy and full of good stuff! We like to sprinkle more fresh parmesan on top once we've plated. In fact, we pretty much like to put some form of cheese on anything.

Spot was just underfoot the whole time! Must be a 4 paw-er.

Incognito Spinach Potatoes

So the other night when I made our good ol' Roast Beast, I thought I'd jazz up our mashed potatoes. Mostly because I meant to make Cauli Mashed Potos, but didn't have any cauliflower. Ahhh, but I did have frozen spinach! Rachel Ray says that frozen spinach has even more spinach in it because of how much it takes to get one package. Not well summarized, but basically it's more nutritious. The cool thing about putting spinach in the potatoes is that you have a hidden vegetable that gives texture. There are lots of things I've been hiding spinach in... but back to these potatoes:

INGREDIENTS
Red potatoes
1 pkg frozen spinach
1/4 to 1/2 cup buttermilk
Kosher salt
ground pepper


Boil potatoes, drain and cover back in pot. Microwave spinach about 5 minutes. Squeeze out all moisture using paper towels. Add spinach to potatoes. When combined, slowly add buttermilk until potatoes reach desired texture. Salt and pepper to taste.

These potatoes would go well with any meat, chicken or fish dish.

Spot gave 4 paws for the Roast we had, but was not really interested in anything to do with spinach.