It’s summer! For us, one of our favorite traditions is picking up my nephew (who is BFFs with Mancub) for a few weeks. So now, I have 2 teenaged boys with teenaged appetites. I LOVE IT.
My goal: feed everyone generously and tastily with a reasonable budget. My main goal is to WASTE NOTHING.
We eat a lot of spaghetti at my house. It’s a family favorite. Today I made a giant batch with homemade sauce. Mancub, Cousin and The Engineer ate their fill for dinner, and then I packaged the spaghetti in individual containers and put them in the front of the fridge. This way, they are readily available for anyone who’s hungry and there’s less chance that the spaghetti will be lost in the back of fridge, slowly growing moldy and looking all science-experimentish. And it’s worked! My watergirls came home from work and found the appetizingly packaged leftovers and dug right in.
Here’s my easy-peasy recipe for homemade spaghetti sauce. It’s much cheaper than the name brand and, I think, much more delicious.

Spaghetti Sauce
1 pound ground round
2 cans tomato sauce
2 cans diced tomatoes
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp. garlic salt
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. pepper
1 onion, diced (optional)
1 green pepper, diced (optional)j
1 can mushrooms
dash parmesan cheese

I was fresh out of peppers so I skipped them this time, but normally I love the taste they give the sauce. Plus, it’s a sneaky way to add veggies to the mix.

In a hot skillet, add a generous amount of olive oil. When it’s hot, cook the veggies until they are soft. Next, add the hamburger. Cook until the pink is gone. Add spices, tomato sauce and tomatoes. My hubby doesn’t like the texture so I blend them first before adding to the sauce. He’s spoiled that way.
If you have time, an option is to put this in the crockpot on low for a few hours. It realllly tastes great the longer the flavors have to mingle. If you don’t have time, just serve it over hot pasta. Easy peasy.

After everyone’s eaten, package the leftovers in individual containers like tv dinners. Whatever size you have on hand is fine.