Who doesn’t love the scene in the Lady and the Tramp where they share a big ol’ plate of spaghetti and smooch at the end? I sure do, and with that I present to you my spaghetti sauce recipe.

It’s actually really simple and I got the recipe from Kyle, who happens to have a knack for food. The ingredients are:

• 1/2 a large onion, chopped
• 2 stalks of celery, sliced
• 2 medium-sized carrots, peeled, halved and chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 large can of diced tomatoes (796 mL)
• 1 can of tomato soup
• 1 lb ground beef
• Dill and salt to taste

Start by browning up your beef and then add in your onion, celery, carrot and garlic:

Let those hang out together for 5 minutes or so to let the flavours have a change to mingle and say “Hello” to one another, then add in your canned tomato and soup. I use the liquid from the diced tomatoes to mix the soup in nicely. Mix all around, and you get this:

When everything is mixed together, I add it about 2 tbsp of the dill and a dash of salt or so to taste. Then I let everything heat up until it starts bubbling and then bring the heat down to a simmer. I like to try and let the sauce simmer for at least two hours for maximum flavour before starting up my pasta and diving in!

Here’s the final product, with the standard Kraft Parmesan cheese on top:

And there you have it! A quick and easy (and cheap!) spaghetti sauce.

Happy weekend! Any special plans?

Lasagna is probably the dish that I have mastered. I can pull off an amazing batch of hot, flavourful lasagna every time I make it. The best thing? It’s Kyle’s favourite, so that can’t hurt either! He actually first tried my Mom’s lasagna once when he came over for dinner and commented on how good it was. I took that as a sign (how often does the in-law’s cooking gets props?) and got my mom’s recipe, which is amazingly easy but SO delicious.

I figured I haven’t featured a recipe in a while, so here we go!

Ingredients:

• 9 lasagna noodles (pre-cooked to Al Dante, but I use the oven-ready ones!)
• One lb of hambuger
• 1/2 an onion, diced
• 3 large garlic cloves, minced
• 766 mL canned diced tomatoes (A little more than three cups)
• 680 mL tomato sauce (About 2 3/4 cups)
• Italian seasoning
• Dill weed (I use the dry stuff)
• Dash o’ salt
• 250 mL cottage cheese
• One bunch of fresh (Not frozen!) spinach (I buy the big packs for yummy salad later!)
• Grated cheese to top it all off!

Brown up your hamburger and then add the onions and garlic. Cook until nice and frangrant!

Add your diced tomatoes and tomato sauce next and mix it all together! Then add your salt, Italian seasoning and dill weed. I don’t measure the Italian seasoning or dill weed, but it looks like it could be about 4 tablespoons of Italian seasoning and 1 tablespoon of dill. (You can always adjust to your own personal tastes!)

Let everything simmer for at least 2 hours to give the flavours a chance to say “Hello” and blend together. Then it’s time to start building!

Preheat your oven to 35o Fahrenheit.

Prep a rectangle-shaped casserole pan with a little cooking spray. (Helps make for easier clean-up!) Then add a enough sauce to the bottom of the pan so the bottom is just covered. Then it goes like this:

1. Three noodles
2. Sauce
3. Cottage cheese
4. Three more noodles
5. Sauce
6. Spinach (I use one nice layer that just covers all the sauce)
7. Noodles
8. Sauce
9. CHEESE!

Pop that in the oven for 30 minutes and you’re good to go! It’s delicious, pretty easy and makes your house smell yummy! Enjoy!

Happy weekend! I’m heading to Vancouver tomorrow, so there may not be a post for Monday :D A little blogging break is good every once in a while, right?