Category: Italian Food

P52 28/52 No Boil Spaghetti

Posted in Crock-pot, Food Photography, Italian Food, Pasta, Project 52, SmoresTagged , , , , , , 25 Comments

Copyright © Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

I wanted to make #1 Grandson spaghetti because he asked me for it, but thinking about it I wasn’t really comfortable using a whole stockpot of water to boil the pasta then dump the water down the drain. Since I live in CA and we’ve got mandatory water restrictions in place it just seemed wasteful to me.  I couldn’t think of anything else to do with the used water.

But,  I thought, ” I’ve tried a No Boil Lasagna recipe and liked it, so why not try Spaghetti too?”

I dug out my crock-pot which is my favorite method for making sauce and crumbled in some leftover meatloaf, poured in 2 jars of my favorite sauce, doctored it up with some Italian herbs, and a half cup of so of water, and set the crock-pot on low to cook all afternoon.  40 minutes before the sauce was done I added a pound of raw spaghetti broken in half to the crock-pot along with another jar of my favorite sauce and enough water to clean out the jar. Stirred in the pasta so it was well coated  in the sauce, replaced the lid and let it cook for 40 minutes more.

No Boil Spaghetti

It’s delicious! The sauce is super thick, and the pasta was cooked through.  He-Man, and #1 Grandson loved it. Both had seconds!

I had some for lunch today and as you  would hope it’s even better today.

I’m glad that worked out, and I saved some water too.

Nikon Df| AF-D Nikkor 105mm| Hand-held| Hoodman STEEL Ultra High Speed Digital Film| CS6

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Baked Smores

I made #1 Grandson his first smore- I baked it in the toaster oven rather than a campfire. He loved it too, and was a right mess after eating the whole thang! . 🙂

More to come…

A non Traditional Christmas Dinner

Posted in Christmas Dinner, Food Photography, Italian Food, Spode Blue Italian, Spode Blue Room, Spode DinnerwareTagged , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Copyright © 2014 Deborah M Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED!

I gave my family several choices to chose from for the Main Course for Christmas dinner. They chose Chicken Parmigiana.

So, I built my entire menu around that.

The first course was my homemade Minestrone Soup that is so packed with goodies it’s more like a stew.

Minestrone Soup

The second course was a simple green salad (not shown), and Crab Crostini. I didn’t make the Crab Salad. To

save time I bought it from a deli. It’s delicious! The French Bread is baked daily at my market so I picked up a couple of baguettes for the Crostini.

Seafood Crostini

Then we arrive at the main course: Chicken Parmigiana. I used Lidia’s Italy in America recipe. It’s wonderful! The chicken breasts are stuffed with ricotta and Parmesan cheese seasoned to taste. I seasoned mine with salt, pepper, oregano, and basil.

Chicken Parmigiana

I served it over a bed of Spaghetti with a basic marinara sauce.

The fourth course I had two types of Panettone cakes: a butter cake, and a fruiti cake, and birthday cake from #1 Grandson’s 2nd Birthday which was on Friday, but we were so stuffed no one wanted any dessert.

The conversation at the table is always laced with stories new and old and there’s always a lot of laughter.

It’s been a wonderful day of joy, great food, and togetherness. It’s the Christmas I wished for.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Nikon Df| AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.8g| SB910| Hand-held

More to come…