Two basic recipes

[lodessa]

I learned to cook when I was still in elementary school because my mother didn't until after I was born. She didn't want us kids to suffer the same fate so from the time I was about 8 I had one night a week I was responsible for cooking on. I've always really liked pasta so these were some of the first meals I learned to make. Of course you can get macaroni and cheese out of a box and meat sauce out of a jar... but making it yourself feels better and tastes better.


Macaroni and Cheese

Steps 1-5 are just a basic white sauce. If you want to make a pesto cream sauce add pesto instead of cheese, or for alfredo sauce add garlic (i prefer granulated), basil, oregano, and if desired parmesan cheese instead.

Ingredients
3 Tablespoons of Butter (or margarine)
3 Tablespoons of Flour
Approximately 1 Cup of Milk.
Sharp Cheddar Cheese (You can you Mild but then you just end up using a lot more of it)
Elbow Macaroni (or other shape of pasta)
frozen green peas (optional)

serves 4-6 people


Preparation Instructions

1) Start boiling a large pot of water.

2) In a medium sized sauce pan melt butter on low heat.

3)When butter is melted, add flour.

4)When butter and flour mixture starts to bubble (it should smell like pie crust), slowly start to add milk. If you add milk too quickly it will get lumpy. Be sure to stir consistently.

5)Grate cheese

6)When sauce is a texture and mass that you like add the cheese slowly, stirring to make sure it gets evenly distributed.

7)The water should be boiling now and you can add the pasta.

8)Add salt and pepper to taste to the cheese sauce.

9)Add peas, if desired, to the cheese sauce. For best results cover for a few minutes, but it will work just heating them up by mixing them in too.

10) When pasta is done (check the box for time and/or test it for firmness) drain and combine with sauce.

11) Serve.



Spaghetti Bolegnese

Ingredients
1 onion
1 lb of ground beef
3 cans of plain tomato sauce (more or less depending on how meaty you want your sauce to be)
salt
pepper
oregano
basil (best fresh but doesn't need to be)
garlic (again I like granulated but any form works)
Spaghetti or other form or pasta

Serves 6-8

Preparation Instructions

1) Start browning the beef on medium heat

2) Cut up onion into small pieces (smaller is better as they cook more thoroughly and are less obtrusive)

3) Add onions to meat and cook both until meat is cooked through and onion become translucent.

4) Add spices (make sure not to add the salt until the onions are cooked)

5) Add tomato sauce, cover, and bring to a simmer.

6) Boil water for pasta.

7) Cook pasta then drain.


Sauce can be cooked in anywhere from 40 minutes to 6 hours or more. The longer you cook it the sweeter and more dense it will become as the water boils off.

Comments

[silver-fic.livejournal.com]

OKay, I just love that you put pes in the macaroni and cheese ^___^

I also like adding either hot dog bits or diced popcorn chicken, but yeah, I like junk food ^__^

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I know a lot of people do hot dogs or tuna but I drew up doing peas because we had to have a vegetable in our meals and I've grown to love it. The best is when you use shells instead of macaroni and the peas get stuck in them like pearls in clam shells.

[silver-fic.livejournal.com]

OKay that is just great. I have also done the tuna thing too, but my latest discovery was with left over kfc popcorn chicken diced into macaroni and cheese and that tasted just great. Mmm, I love sheels and sauce, like white auce or cheese sauce, just love it gets caught in the sheels and it tastes great. ^___^ Okay, now I totally have to go look and see if we have peas in the freezer, because I know I have shells and I so want to try that for dinner. I am making oven fried chicken for lunch tomorrow, and then a pasta dinner for me and a friend.

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

Oven fried chicken was also one of the first things I learned to cook!

Shells are possibly my favorite shape of pasta.

[silver-fic.livejournal.com]

My favorite shapes are shells, Gemelli, and the pasta that is a cross between Spaghetti and Macaroni that I can never remember the neme of, it's tubed like macaroni, but long like pasta.

I love overn fried chicken, and chicken is something I am actually really good at cooking, and also one of my favorite foods in the world, so It all works out well.

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

The only tube pastas that are coming to mind are penne and rotini which are a little long but not like the spaghetti family.

[silver-fic.livejournal.com]

YEah, no it's not that wide either. I remember Rachael Ray used it once, I swear if I have find it again I will right it on permanent marker on my jeans so I won't lose the name

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

There are so many types of pasta.

I totally made myself tortellini with pesto, parmesan, peas, and pine nuts on Saturday.

[silver-fic.livejournal.com]

Dang that sounds good. I have two packages of Tortellinni in the cupboard that are telling me to et them, but my dad says I can't have them until I tidy the garage, so that he can walk from the forn to the back, and he would also like to be able to reach the circuit breakers, no idea why ^_~ But yeah, so no tortellini for me

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

It was a happy thing.

So happy.

[qt-ninja.livejournal.com]

yay for homemade food!
i tried your number again and it didn't get a response. :(

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

I have my phone and it totally didn't ring.

What the hell is going on?

[qt-ninja.livejournal.com]

i just tried it and it went striaght to voicemail give me again maybe somehow my phone has it wrong