Sunday, June 1, 2014

Channeling My Inner June Cleaver

Today I just had a craving to cook something.  And, it wasn't just a craving to cook a meal, it was to cook something that I could make a whole bunch of, eat tonight for dinner and then freeze some for later.  I decided on spaghetti sauce.  Why I have no idea since I have jars and jars of it in my pantry.

So, I hopped in the car and drove to the fancy grocery store.  I came home with tomatoes, mushrooms, celery, garlic, a sweet onion (or, as the kids call it, a stinky onion), salad mix, mild Italian sausage, thin spaghetti, two bottles of wine and a movie. 

Since I haven't been to the big grocery store in quite a while, I took a little extra time to explore.  There is a what used to be normal sized grocery store right near our house so I frequent that for basics, but because of the size, they don't stock many new or "fancy" items.  That can be a plus since I don't waste time, and money, wandering the aisles and adding things like this to my cart:



Once home, I got to work on the sauce.  I channeled my inner June Cleaver and even wore an apron.  I bought one a few years back at an estate sale and it's been hanging off my spice closet ever since.




I chopped the onion, minced three cloves of garlic, chopped one stalk of celery and put all that in a skillet with once tablespoon of olive oil, a pound of mild Italian sausage and around a pound of ground beef.  While the beef and sausage browned, I added one can of diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, tomato soup and a couple of chopped up mushrooms to the crock-pot.

After draining the grease from the meat and veggies, that got added to the crock-pot too and my little helper stirred it all up.

The plan is to have spaghetti for dinner with the veggie salad as a side along some Breadsmith garlic knots which I picked up yesterday.
Oh, and wine.  Let's not forget the wine!  The Toad Hollow Risque is what we served at our wedding so it always brings back good memories.









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