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Main Dishes Recipes Sauces and Condiments

Quick Italian Bolognese Sauce

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We do a lot of Italian cooking in our house. Sometimes I do more complex things like pizza, meatballs or chicken cacciatore, and sometimes I just want a nice simple bowl of spaghetti and meat sauce. While most bolognese sauces take hours to prepare, you can make this start to finish in about an hour, most of which is just simmering so it’s not hands on time. This recipe uses simple ingredients to bring in huge flavor and create a tender meat sauce. Please be advised: this recipe will cause cranky family members as the aroma floats through the house. There was much whining in my house when I made it.

Categories
Main Dishes Recipes Sauces and Condiments

Ramen Lo Mein

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When my sister-in-law moved in a few weeks ago, we combined pantries in an attempt to save on groceries. In her stash, I found two and half CASES of ramen noodles. Not those little 24 pack cases but over 120 individual packets of ramen. I’m pretty good when presented with pantry stuff that needs to be used up, but what the hell were we going to do with that much ramen? No one particularly likes to eat ramen prepared per package directions and I’m fairly certain that the amount of sodium in those little flavor packets might kill us all. I needed to use the noodles for something. Ramen lo mein seemed like an obvious choice.

Categories
Recipes Sauces and Condiments Tips and Tricks

Make your own brown sugar

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This morning my husband decided to make oatmeal. He likes brown sugar and cinnamon in his oatmeal but I realized that I had used the last of the brown sugar making peanut butter cookies on Saturday. Then I remembered how easy it is to make brown sugar. I mixed up a batch and now my husband is happily eating his oatmeal.

Categories
Main Dishes Recipes Sauces and Condiments

Why I love whole chickens: Roast chicken and chicken stock recipes

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This is why I love whole chickens. Pictured above is 30 cups of glorious chicken stock and a 4 cups of meat from a leftover chicken I made earlier in the week.

Categories
Recipes Sauces and Condiments

Homemade Russian Dressing

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I love Russian Dressing. It is one of those salad dressings that I will always choose if a restaurant has it. Recently, my husband and I went to dinner with some friends at a local restaurant that makes it own Russian dressing. I started to think I could do this at home as well. How hard could it be? Turns out, not that hard at all.