Creamy Crock Pot Spaghetti

Who would have ever thought that spaghetti could get any easier? Spaghetti for many of us is that go to recipe when we don't want to cook anything, or we just don't have time. Somehow this recipe took that concept, and made it even better. Really the only part of this recipe that takes any time at all is cooking the meet. Then you throw everything in and you can continue on your merry way, not worrying about a thing. A few hours later you have the most delicious spaghetti ever! My husband went back for not just seconds but thirds. This recipe will definitely be appearing in our house again! I threw some pureed zucchini in with the sauce. It doesn't change the taste and you get some more  veggies in your meal! This recipe also makes a ton so I have left overs which I love taking to work.

Creamy Crock Pot Spaghetti

1 pound lean ground beef
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder or salt
3 jars 26 ounce pasta sauce
2 cups pureed zucchini (optional)
1 pound spaghetti noodles
1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese
4-8 ounces cream cheese
1-2 cups chicken broth

1. Cook/brown beef in a medium skillet over medium heat until crumbled and browned Season with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Drain fat from pan if necessary.
2. Pour one jar of pasta sauce and pureed zucchini if using into bottom of crock pot on high heat. Break spaghetti noodles in half and place noodles over sauce. Pour cooked beef over noodles, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and top with cubes of cream cheese. Pour another jar of pasta over cream cheese, close lid and let cook on high for 3 hours. After 3 hours, give a good stir (will be thick) and add last jar of pasta sauce and 1-2 cups of chicken broth (more if you want a thinner sauce). Close lid and let cook another hour or until ready to serve.
Makes 10-12 servings

Recipe Source: Picky Palate

Stovetop Broccoli and Cheese Chicken Pasta

I am always looking for new dinner recipes. We honestly eat very simple dinners around my house. This recipe was very tasty. I also loved it because I had all of it on hand. I love when I can make a dinner and not have to go to the grocery store to get everything that is in the dish. I mean don't get me wrong I love going to the grocery store (this actually is true) but mostly because I love food. This recipe was fairly easy, very tasty, and didn't take too long to make. It is also very kid friendly. Again lets be honest, almost everything i like, kids like...I don't think I have gotten my big girl taste buds yet. I was thinking that this recipe is actually quite healthy, but then I remembered the cube of butter that is in the sauce. I personally don't think butter is bad for you, but it definitely isn't low fat or low in cholesterol.  But again, I love butter and use it a lot of recipes!

  

 Stovetop Broccoli and Cheese Chicken Pasta

1 pound thin egg noodles
1 stick unsalted butter
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
2 cups shredded cooked chicken breast
1 pound broccoli florets, steamed
1-1 1/2 cups milk

1. Prepare egg noodles according to package directions, drain and run under cool water to stop cooking.

2. Melt butter into a medium saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in flour, salt and pepper, whisking until thick and combined. Slowly whisk in chicken broth until combined. Increase heat to high and whisk until thick and bubbly. Reduce heat to low and stir in cheese until melted.

3. Transfer cooked noodles to a large dutch oven or pot over low-medium heat. Add chicken, broccoli and cheese sauce, stirring; will be thick. Stir in milk to loosen sauce to your liking. Serve immediately. This dish does best when served as soon as possible. If needed to be prepared ahead of time, add additional milk or chicken broth to loosen sauce.

Makes 6 servings

Recipe Source: Picky Palate

Olive Garden Alfredo Sauce

Oh how I love food! There are a few restaurants at which I always seem to get the same thing over and over again. Olive Garden is one of those places for me. I have tried to figure out how they make such good Alfredo sauce. I have tried several different recipes, all of which have turned out good, but not quite the same. The other day I was talking with some of my wonderful co-workers discussing food (of course). Olive Garden, their bread sticks, and their Alfredo sauce came up. We were all stuck on the idea and practically salivating just thinking of it. I called my sweet husband and had him go pick us some up. It was wonderful! While we were on their website we realized that they had recipes. They actually have their Alfredo sauce recipe on their site. I of course had to try it just so I could share with all of you my results. I'm not really sure that it is 100% the same, but the taste is pretty much amazing. This is the best Alfredo sauce I have ever made. I will continue to try and tweak it to see if I can't get it to taste just like the real stuff.

Alfredo Sauce

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time:10 minutes
Serving Size:4
Ingredients

1 1/2 cup milk

1 1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup imported Parmesan cheese, grated

1/2 cup imported Romano cheese, grated

6 egg yolks from fresh jumbo eggs

Salt and black pepper to taste


Procedures

HEAT milk and cream in a heavy bottom saucepan until it begins to simmer. Turn off heat. Slowly whip in cheese, then remove from heat.

PLACE egg yolks in a separate bowl and slowly whip in a portion of the hot milk and cream mixture. Slowly add egg yolk mixture back into remaining cream mixture. Place back on very low heat and continually stir until simmering. Take sauce off heat so it thickens. (This will increase temperature of egg yolks, known as tempering).

SEASON to taste with salt and black pepper. Serve over your favorite pasta.

Recipe Source: Olive Garden

Lasagna

I am very lucky to have lots of family close by. Both my husband's and my family all live withing a 45 minute drive. We always have lots of family stuff going on and are so lucky to get to see all of them so frequently. I currently have 2 sister-in-laws that are pregnant. Both are due around the same time. Even better than getting 2 nieces or nephews I get 3! Yes one of my sister-in-laws is having twins! When all is said and done she will have 5 children. We don't have any kids yet so this to me is mind boggling!  She is already pretty miserable and still has a few months left to go, so I decided I should help her out a bit. She has 3 kids and a husband to feed and always tries to make home cooked meals. I decided that I should make a bunch of freezer meals. I could keep a few for my husband and myself and give the rest to her. This way her family can still eat home cooked meals, but with very little work on her part. This was the first of my freezer meal adventure.

I have always loved lasagna. It is fairly simple to make and tastes so good. I love that lasagna actually gets better after a day or so of letting it sit. It is a great one to make the day before and not have to do much the next day. It is also a great freezer meal. I like to divide mine between two 8X8 pans, eat one and freeze one. You could even break it into small portions and make a few in bread pans if you are only feeding a couple people.

I got this recipe from my mom. It is the recipe she always made us growing up. She got the recipe from her sister. I have always loved it so thanks Aunt Jackie for a great recipe!

Lasagna

1 lb hamburger
1 small onion
32 oz spaghetti sauce
16 oz ricotta or cottage cheese
2 eggs
1 lb mozzarella cheese
1/2 lb lasagna noodles

Brown hamburger and onion in a large skillet. Cook until no longer pink and onions are soft. Drain meat. Combine meat and spaghetti sauce set aside. In a blender or food processor combine ricotta or cottage cheese and egg. Blend until smooth. This step is optional and isn't really needed if you are using ricotta cheese. Cover the bottom of a 9X13 (or 2 8X8) pan with a small amount of meat sauce. Place uncooked noodles in a single layer over sauce. Spread half of the cheese egg mixture over noodles. Add a layer of meat sauce, more noodles, then cheese mixture, and remaining meat sauce. Cover with grated mozzarella cheese.  Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

* Freezer directions: Before baking lasagna cover with foil or lid and place in freezer for up to 6 months. If you are using 8X8 or 9X9 pans you can actually freeze the lasagna over night. The next day place pan in a small amount of warm water to loosen up the edges. You can then pop the frozen lasagna out of you pan and slip it into a gallon size zip lock bag. Not only does it take up less space in your freezer but you get to keep using your pan. On baking day slide frozen lasagna back into baking dish and let thaw. Once thawed bake as directed above.

You can also bake from frozen, but you won't want to put the cheese on until after it has baked for a while. To bake from frozen place covered lasagna (without cheese) in a cold oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Bake for 1 hr 35 minutes. Uncover and sprinkle with cheese. Bake for another 30 minutes or until bubbly.


If you are using glass pans I recommend you thaw the lasagna first. Even Pyrex pans can shatter with extreme temperature differences (trust me I know).

Fantastically Unhealthy Pasta Sauce

This recipe is a slight variation of the sauce I use on my gnocchi. It is absolutely wonderful and I love it. This is something I will only let myself make every once and a while because it is not good for my thighs, but oh how my taste buds love it! It is creamy, full of flavor, and it has bacon and pine nuts in it! I bought a huge bag of pine nuts at Costco a while back and have loved using them on all sorts of things! This sauce is great with practically any kind of pasta. If you feel like you are lacking in the cholesterol department give this recipe a try it will not disappoint.

Amazing Pasta Sauce

1/2 cup butter

2 ounces crumbled bacon

1 tsp dried basil

1/4 cup pine nuts

1 cup cream divided

2 oz cream cheese

Parmesan Cheese

Beat 1/2 cup of cream until whipped, set aside. Melt butter in a sauce pan, add pine nuts and cook until the nuts begin to brown. (While waiting, begin boiling a pot of water for the pasta.) Add 1/2 cup cream (not the whipped 1/2 cup of cream, but the other normal 1/2 cup of the cream) to the butter and pine nuts and bring to a light boil. Cook for one minute, then turn the heat down to low. Add basil, bacon and cream cheese. Let simmer on low until cream cheese in well incorporated. Then fold in the whipped cream. Pour over pasta and top with parmesan cheese as desired

Browned Butter and Mizithra Cheese

Do any of you have a favorite dish at certain restaurants that you get every time you go there? I definitely do! Its not that it's the only thing good on the menu, because I'm sure there are plenty of other good things. It is just that I love that one thing so much I just can't bare to get anything that I might not enjoy as much. Well this is one of those things for me. The Old Spaghetti Factory serves this dish. I have always loved it. It really is the only thing I get when I go there (and I have been going there for years). I love it because it is simple AND has amazing flavor. Well one day some friends and I were discussing this dish and we decided that it couldn't be hard to make. We then went out to see if our local grocery stores carried mizithra cheese. We were so excited when we found out that it did. In case you have never heard of this type of cheese here an excerpt taken from Wikipedia:

Mizithra (Greek: Μυζήθρα) is a traditional, unpasteurized fresh cheese made with milk and whey from sheep and/or goats. It is, mainly, produced on the island of Crete but other areas in Greece also produce it. In Cyprus a similar cheese is known in both types (fresh or dry) as "Anari" (Αναρή in Greek, Nor in Turkish).

I have since been able to find this cheese at most of my local grocery stores. You can usually find it in the specialty cheese section. It is definitely more expensive than your more common cheeses, but oh so worth it on this dish! This dish is so simple to make! I love that I can throw it together in less than 20 minutes and feel like I'm eating at a delicious restaurant.

Spaghetti With Browned Butter and Mizithra Cheese

8 oz spaghetti pasta
1 cube butter
1-2 cups mizithra cheese

Bring a large pot of slightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta. Cook pasta per package directions until tender. While pasta is cooking place butter in a sauce pan over medium-low heat. Cook slowly stirring frequently. Butter will bubble up and then begin to turn a nice brown color. You will start to see brown flecks in the butter. This is where the butter gets its flavor. Browning the butter often takes about 5-10 minutes of cooking time so be patient, but watch butter carefully. Once it has started browning if you are not careful it can burn very quickly. Once it is browned remove from heat and set aside until ready to use. Drain pasta. Place desired amount of pasta on a plate. Sprinkle generously with mizithra cheese. Pour approximately 2 tbs browned butter over pasta. Enjoy!

Note: I'm sure the restaurant uses even more butter than this on their dish. Feel free to use as much or as little butter as you want. The browned butter is an amazing compliment of flavors to the cheese so I usually tend to use a little more rather than less.

Gnocchi

Most of you (all 3 of you that actually read this) know that I LOVE to bake. For me its a fun creative way to get yummy food to eat. Most of the time my creativity is limited to sweet treats. I think it is just because I enjoy eating those the most. I always enjoy trying new dinner recipes, but I dinners aren't nearly as fun for me to make as a yummy dessert. Well a few nights ago I found a recipe that looked so yummy. The first time I ever had gnocchi was at a restaurant called Ottavios in Provo. The restaurant is no longer there but I will always remember their gnocchi. Here is a brief refresher on gnocchi in case you don't know what it is. I had never mad gnocchi before, but I must say the results turned out pretty good. Let me also mention that there is very little about this recipe that is healthy, but I enjoyed all of the calories I got from it! Here is the yummy recipe just in case you want to take the time to make it.

Gnocchi Dough:

2 cups ricotta cheese

2 eggs

1 cup shredded Parmesan

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. white pepper

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

2 cups flour (I used half whole wheat and half white flour)

Mix all the ingredients except flour together. Then, gradually add the flour. You may need less (I actually needed a lot more) depending on how big your eggs are. You want a soft, not too sticky dough. The dough is easier to work with if it's a little chilled, so take about 1/3 of the dough out and put the rest in the fridge until needed.

Roll out dough on a floured surface into a 1/2 inch thick rope. Then cute the rope into 1/2 inch long pieces. Then roll each piece on the back of a fork to give it ridges. That is just to help hold the sauce, so don't worry about perfection. Then line them all up on a pan, keeping them separate. Then place a piece of wax paper over top and begin another layer of gnocchi. Repeat until all of the dough is used. Cover the top with another piece of wax paper and place them in the fridge until ready to be boiled.

Sauce:

1/2 cup butter

2 ounces of prosciutto, chopped

10 torn basil leaves

1/4 cup pine nuts

1 cup cream

1/2 cup shredded Parmesan

Beat 1/2 cup of cream until whipped, set aside. Melt butter in a sauce pan, add pine nuts and cook until the nuts begin to brown. (While waiting, begin boiling a pot of water for the gnocchi.) Add 1/2 cup cream (not the whipped 1/2 cup of cream, but the other normal 1/2 cup of the cream) to the butter and pine nuts and bring to a light boil. Cook for one minute, then turn the heat down to low. Add basil and prosciutto. Then fold in the whipped cream and the Parmesan.

Add the gnocchi to the boiling water. Once they float, they are done. (It happens quickly.) Remove and mix with sauce. Serve immediately.

*Notes: I didn't have fresh basil or prosciutto so I used dried basil and bacon. I'm sure the recipe is even better with the fresh basil and prosciutto but I still thought it was fantastic without them. Also remember that the sauce will separate upon reheating so enjoy it the first day when it looks all pretty. I took some for leftovers and it still tasted amazing, but didn't look nearly as good. One last change I made was that I didn't have ricotta cheese so I substituted some cottage cheese that needed to be used.

The only thing I didn't like about this recipe was the time it took to roll the gnocchi. It wasn't horrible but it was a slightly tedious process. In the end you do end up with a lot of the gnocchi. I cooked about half of it and froze the other half so I can make this again soon :). My pictures aren't that amazing but feel free to take a peak at the site I found this recipe on to see her pictures.


Here is my dough (yes I mix/knead all my dough in my kitchen aid mixer and LOVE it!!)

I let my dough sit for a little while. It made it much easier to manage.

This is the process that took some time, the rolling out, cutting, and shaping steps in the recipe

MMMM the sauce! I know its so unhealthy but sooo good!

Once you put the gnocchi in the boiling water it really only took a few minutes for them all to be floating

This is the hubby giving his thumbs up in approval of this dish :).