Picked up a jar of this lovely tomato sauce at the Greener Grocer the other day. Hubs added some spicy italian sausage to it to dress some rigatoni for dinner. It was also perfect for a super simple lunch for me and the 5YO in the house. Can you tell which portion was hers?
They also have another sauce plus a balsamic dressing which I’ll surely try soon. Learn more at their site, or at their FB page.
We have so many nice foods on hand. I’m excited for dinner this week. Every night is part of the tomato party.
Rees menu for week of 8/9/10
This is very similar to my Stuffed Shells. It’s an example of what I like to do to make things easy, but avoid having the same old thing all the time: Take one recipe that you like and tweak it so it’s just a little different, based on your mood, availability of ingredients, or whatever.
You can make one big 9×13 pan of this, but I made two 9x9s and popped one in the freezer for next week. This one has a few steps, but a lot of them you can do simultaneously (brown the meat while the pasta is cooking, mix the cheese filling in between stirring the meat, etc).
Swiss Chard Lasagna
Boil your pasta. Wash your swiss chard and separate the leaves from the stems. Blanch the leaves, then squeeze all the moisture from them that you can (wait until they’re cool!). Chop the leaves finely, and place in a mixing bowl. Trim the stems and chop. Add these to a skillet with the ground sirloin and cook them together over medium heat until the meat is browned and the stems are softened. To the mixing bowl with the chopped chard leaves, add the ricotta, cottage cheese, eggs, romano, salt and pepper. Mix well. Now, layer it all in a pan. First some sauce, then noodles, then cheese, then meat, then sauce, and keep going. Layer up to the top of the dish, finishing with sauce at the end. Bake at 350 for about an hour. If you’re going to freeze it, freeze before baking.
I put this together in 10 minutes for dinner last night. Then popped it in the oven while I ran over to the French Loaf to get some nice bread. Big hit.
Meaty Pasta Sauce
Preheat oven to 350. Brown beef and bacon in an oven safe sauce pan until beef is no longer pink. Drain. Add marinara sauce and rosemary. Bake for 10-15 minutes. Serve over pasta.
*I like to make my own sauce by sauteeing a small onion, 1-2 ribs celery and 1-2 carrots (all chopped finely) in olive oil til soft. Then add a couple cloves of garlic, chopped. Cook for 1 minute. Add 32 ounces crushed tomatoes. Simmer for an hour. Portion what you’re not using immediately into 1 cup portions in freezer bags and freeze them for future use.
