Cooking Pasta for Dinner

I, like many other women out there, more than likely learned how to cook from watching their Mom. My Mom was a wonderful cook. Not the exotic types of meals, but those hearty meals every kid loves to eat! I use a lot of her recipes today such as her Beef Stroganoff. My Mom also use to make her own spaghetti sauce. I never saw a jar of pasta sauce in my life until I went to college. She just didn’t believe in it! She had to make her own sauce which cooked all day long and made the house smell amazing when my sisters and I came home from school!

As I was making spaghetti for the boys the other day (with my jarred sauce, sorry Mom)! I thought about why I make the noodles the way I do. Well of course, that is how my Mom always did it. So here is how I prepare my pasta:

1. Fill a pot with water and bring to a boil.
2. Once boiling, sprinkle salt in the water.
3. Break spaghetti noodles in half and add to the boiling water.
4. Stir and reduce heat to maintain boil.
5. Cook according to package directions.
6. Once done, drain pasta in colander in sink.
7. Rinse with cold water.
8. Scoop pasta into bowl and then top with sauce and grated Parmesan.

Well apparently my Mom has the salt correct, but rinsing pasta is a big “no no”! Who knew? I thought Mom was always right! So here are some tips provided by Fine Cooking on how to cook pasta properly:

To keep pasta from sticking, stir during the first minute or two of cooking

Add salt, but not oil. A generous amount of salt in the water seasons the pasta internally as it absorbs liquid and swells.

Hot pasta absorbs more sauce. Toss hot pasta with hot sauce quickly—without rinsing it—so the pasta absorbs more sauce and flavor.

What to do? Rinse or not to rinse?

Pantry & Freezer Staples for Frugal Cooking

We all know its 6 pm and what are we going to have for dinner? With work schedules, school, sports, and activities our lives as families can be very hectic! It is all too tempting to run through the drive thru and pick up a quick meal for the family. In our house, we normally do not do fast food on a regular basis. It is normally a treat and usually only occurs about once a month. Below are some items I keep on hand at all times in my pantry and freezer that can easy create a quick and easy family dinner!
Freezer:
Lean Ground Beef
Chicken Breasts
Corn
Carrots
Diced Onions
Pantry:
Spaghetti Noodles
Spaghetti Sauce
Egg Noodles
Tomato Sauce
Chicken Broth
Beef Broth
Diced Tomatoes
Tomato Paste
Canned Corn
Bread Crumbs
Taco Shells

I find that having these items on hand, I can often create a quick and easy meal with other items in the refrigerator or freezer or use the items just by themselves! I can quickly make Tacos, Chili, Chicken Noodle Soup, Spaghetti, Chicken Parmesan, Skillet Lasagna, and much more!

Crushing Pretzels

Do you have a recipe that calls for crushed pretzels?  I know we make a Strawberry Pretzel Jell-O or our Pretzel Crusted Chicken Tenders that call for crushed pretzels.  My kitchen tip is to put the pretzels in a gallon size zipper bag.  I then use the rolling pin to crush the pretzels.  Super easy and fun and no mess!

My Five Favorite Kitchen Gadgets

 As I was prepping for dinner tonight, I thought to myself, WOW there are some items in my kitchen I just LOVE! I think they are “must haves” for my kitchen and maybe for your kitchen too! Besides the normal necessary appliances, the range, fridge, dishwasher, and microwave, I came up with 5 items in my kitchen I could not live without! My 5 items were:


1. My Pampered Chef Knives – I believe that a good knife or two is a must have for every cook. It really reduces the time you spend slicing, chopping, and dicing in the kitchen. It is so much easier to cut things one then multiple times especially raw chicken and beef! I have 2 Pampered Chef knives, but this big one is my favorite and I have yet to lose a finger from its sharpness. My husband jokes that “I take better care of my knives them him”! I store then in a separate place in their handy covers that came with them. I use them and then hand wash them right away, dry them, and put the cover back on them. If you ever have a question about a Pampered Chef item, ask me about it!

2. My Bunn Coffee Pot – Perhaps this is a little extreme, but we LOVE our coffee in our house. We love it even more when it brews an entire pot within two minutes! It is very handy in the morning hustle and bustle. I put the coffee in the night before so in the morning all you have to do is add water and then you have freshly brewed coffee. This was an anniversary gift from my husband’s parents after we made comments on how great their coffee tasted with their Bunn!

3. My Iced Tea Pot – We have had this Iced Tea pot for almost 8 years now. We received it as a bridal shower gift and it has been busy brewing ever since. My husband and I are addicted to fresh brewed iced tea. I will even ask at restaurants if their iced tea is brewed, because that is the only way I will drink it. I never drink any type of pop; my preferred cold beverages are water, lemonade and TEA! We use this pot at least one time per week if not more. I would be devastated if this item broke!

4. My Mini Chopper – This is a life saver for chopping onions! I just peel and quarter the onion and pop it in here and chop away. It dices really fine and I hardly have to touch the onion. By the way, that is one of my pet peeves when my fingertips smell like onions! It is also great for making salsa! I coarsely chop my tomatoes, onions, peppers, and cilantro and season it with salt, pepper, and lime juice. I let the mixture sit over night. The next day I throw it into my chopper and chop away, make a wonderful salsa!

5. My Scrub Brush – I think it is so much easy to wash dishes with one of these handy scrub brushes in which you can fill dish soap directly in the handle. I find that I rarely have to fill the sink with soapy water to wash dishes.

So do you have some favorite kitchen gadgets?

Round 2 – Making a 2nd Meal from Leftovers

So it has been a tough week and a half on my family. Last week I had to travel for work for four days. This left my husband in charge of the kids and the household. They all survived however my husband became sick Friday night and was in bed ALL weekend. He finally went to the doctor on Monday and is now back up to par. Needless to say, the kids and I were pretty much on our own the WHOLE weekend (payback??) and when I cooked, I cooked my normal amounts. My husband did not eat anything and thus I was left with a lot of chicken and over a half left of a meatloaf.


When Monday rolled around I did not feel like cooking anymore and I REALLY needed to use up these good leftovers. So we had 2 nights where we made new meals out of our leftovers. Here is how that went:

Saturday – Roasted whole chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy

Sunday – Meatloaf with corn and rolls

Monday – Homemade chicken noodle soup using the rest of the chicken leftovers.

Tuesday – Spaghetti with meat sauce. It is really good to just add a few slices of meatloaf crumbled up into your pasta sauce. It was delicious and the kids ate it up. They love meat of course!

I just thought how cool it was that we were able to use up our leftovers as not traditional leftover nights. They were disguised in a new delicious meal! By just using a few different things in our stocked pantry with the leftovers lead to two completely new meals for us!

The Crock-Pot - The Working Mom's Best Friend

After a long day at work for my husband and I, a day at preschool for my oldest son, and a day at grandma's for my youngest son, we walked into the house last night to the wonderful smell of fully cooked Beef Stew!  How does a working mom of 2 young boys pull this off?  Yes, my beloved Crock-Pot!  I use my Crock-Pot at least once a week for a hot meal right when you get home.  It takes some prep work the night before but it is so worth it after working eight hours and not having to cook!  Let along grab take-out on the way home!

A Crock-Pot is great for Beef Stew, Pot Roast, Chili, Soups, and Chicken dinners.  All is takes is a little prep work the night before to get all of the ingredients into the liner of the Crock-Pot.  During the hustle and bustle of the morning, I take the stonewear liner out of the refrigerator, put it into the Crock-Pot and let it cook! 

Now I have had a few mishaps on my perfectly planned dinners.  Like the one when I had the corned beef all ready to go and in the Crock Pot while I left for work.  To my surprise when I arrived home nine hours later, I did not smell the amazing scent of cooked corned beef.  I found a Crock-Pot that I had forgotten to plug in and hence a large piece of meat that ended up in the garbage can. 

Who invented this amazing appliance?  Well it appears that Rival introduced their first Crock-Pot on 1971.  It became an instant hit with housewives across America and Rival re-designed their Crock-Pot in 1974 to include the removable stonewear liner.  After only 10 years, sales of the Crock-Pot rose to $30 million dollars.

The Crock-Pot is not as popular as it once was, however as more and more families are watching their budgets very tightly these days, I believe the Crock-Pot is once again gaining popularity!  It is a very economical way to give your family a wonderful, healthy, hot meal!

Want an easy pot roast recipe?  Place your roast in your Crock-Pot and pour one can of cream of mushroom soup over the roast.  Then sprinkle one packet of onion soup mix on top.  Let cook on low for 8 hours.  Even better?  Place carrots under the roast while it cooks, you will have delicious tender carrots and meat in a great gravy!

Check out Life As Mom for some more frugal ideas!

Save Time with Onion!

I was considered a "BIG" onion waster in my house.  If a recipe called for a 1/2 a onion I would chop half and put the remaining half in a ziploc bag in the fridge uncut.  Well it would sit there and eventually no longer be usable.  So I made a committment, then whenever I had to cut an onion I would cut the WHOLE onion!  The extra onion I put in a ziploc bag and place in the freezer.  Now I have chopped onions whenever I need them.  It is great when making a crockpot of chili or stew, just throw in your already chopped onion and save some time in the kitchen!!