One thing leads to another and all of the sudden…

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A little over a week ago, I began preparing meals for our Spring Break trip. I describe some of those steps here and here. We had done our research and knew eating out would be too hard after skiing all day and I guessed we would be getting back to the cabin hungry and tired. I imagined the kids would be starving and out of patience and that I would be sore, bruised and have a broken leg and wouldn’t feel like cooking anything. I was exactly right about everything — except the broken leg ((praise!!)).

An important part of speed cooking is planning ahead. I knew I would need 4 meals and they must be quick, simple and tasty. I picked the kid’s most favorite meals: tacos, spaghetti, Hobo Dinners and breakfast for dinner. Making the taco meat and spaghetti sauce ahead allowed me feed the hungry herd quickly so I could lay my sore & bruised self down ASAP ((haha)). I will share my taco meat recipe in an upcoming post, I love it so much– no “Old El Paso” for this girl!

Over the years, I have figured out a few tricks that easily transform jarred pasta sauce into something out of Mama Mia’s kitchen:

1) Do not pre-season meat.

2) Use a combination of ground Italian sausage and lean ground beef.

3) After removing browned meat from skillet & allowing it to drain, use the same skillet to cook onions, garlic & carrots.

4) Finely grated carrots add a wonderful richness and sweetness — without adding sugar and oil. ((and pack the sauce with extra vitamins!!))

5) All jarred pasta sauces are NOT created equal. Use one with limited and simple (i.e. easy to pronounce) ingredients.

6) Fresh herbs are like magic if you have them, if not a specialty blend of Italian seasonings from your nearest Italian grocer will work well.

7) If there ever was a time to cook with a very good red wine…now is the time.

By following these few steps, one thing leads to another and another and all of a sudden you have a DeLiCiOuS pasta sauce in your kitchen!

Oh, and did you notice anything missing from my pasta sauce?? Two traditional ingredients in a homemade pasta sauce have been omitted…I did give you a pretty good hint (hah). Omitting a few things and adding something in it’s place makes this a healthy ninja recipe! Tasty AND healthy – a double bonus!!