What's for Dinner? Noodles

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Linguini Alfredo is one of our favorite things.

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We eat pasta. It's one of those happy full belly kind of meals.that the whole family adores, Pasta scales up quite nicely for large family dinners, and we feed 10 people at a time here. Everyone crowds the table for dinner at our house, because we eat very, very well.

One of the most important things you can do is learn to cook and provide nourishment for you and your family. We cook from scratch all the time and make sauces from scratch as a manner of rote. Scratch cooking is one of the best ways to control your food budget, sodium intake, taste, portions However, meal planning also includes lots of our favorite food brands items from the store. We keep some bottled sauces in the pantry for when time is an issue, or when one of the kiddos is in charge of meal preparation. Sometimes those bottled sauces need a few extra spices and that's okay too. We keep an extensive spice collection. We're in the U.S., so McCormick is probably our favorite bottled spice brand, but we buy store brands. I still can't figure out for the life of me how plain salt or sugar is supposed to be different with extra marketing built into the price. Anyway, here's some noodles we had for dinner.

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Spaghetti in vodka sauce is one of those meals that I always associate with an actual chef in the kitchen. Simple, Divine, Scrumptious.

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Chicken and egg noodles always ends in empty bowls.. This meal was fun because it's two different meals.that were combined in a scratch sauce that was thickened using the remaining fresh biscuits we had from breakfast. We quite literally cleared out leftovers to make this. The noodles were added at the very end to soak up the remaining liquid from the sauce.

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Cheese Ravioli Puttanesca is one of our meals that the kiddos get really excited about. We love scratch raviolis, but no one has time for that outside of showing off for Sunday dinner. We buy them from the frozen section of the grocery store. The scratch sauce here is simple, yet elegant, and was a vibrant contrast to the creaminess of the cheese filling.

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Beef and red bell pepper stroganoff is our twist on a classic dish. Ground beef, noodles, sour cream, peas and carrots, and a quick beef sauce is about as simple as it gets around here.

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Black Forest ham and cavatappi al burro means noodles in garlic butter. Boil up some noodles, add butter, salt, and pepper, pre-sliced sandwich meat, and some veggies to make a quick meal that everyone here loves.

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Kids mac and cheese, because we can make scratch mac and cheese over here. Sliced hot dogs are leftovers from a different meal and were added with the veggies to heat through once the mac and cheese was ready. Eat your leftovers.
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Spaghetti marinara, it's spaghetti. I grew up making red sauce. I can make a chunky tomato pan sauce on the fly, but marinara takes two hours to make. The secret to getting out of the kitchen is, repeat after me, Bertolli. 

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Fettucini Alfredo/Carbonara, I don't know. I put eggs in things. Sometimes I make the recipe. Most of the time I whip up what I'm hungry for. This time, I wanted eggs in my Alfredo/carbonara.that I grew up eating. My Bronx Italian stepdad would make this sauce when I was a kiddo that isn't Alfredo or carbonara. This is milk, not cream. As a kid, sometimes there would be cottage cheese in it, which I was told later might be influenced by Polish food. Whatever. It's yummy, and that's all that matters.

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Chili mac, because I'm from Texas, and chili is part of our diet. We have exposed the children to the spice of chili from a young age, because it is in so many of our meals. Sour cream is the magic remedy if your kiddo thinks chili is too spicy. Add it to any meal, or just eat a spoonful if you ever chew on a big old jalapeno pepper and instantly regret it.

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Chicken carbonara, the actual sauce version without milk or cream, pan fried chicken, eggs, parmesan cheese, pepper, salt, and butter. Here, it is served with elbows in one of the kiddos' bowls. 

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Beef ravioli Florentine is a great way to get your leafy greens. Eat your veggies.

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Linguini pancetta chicken in garlic cream sauce. It was so hard not to eat the sauce while it was cooking.

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Baked spaghetti is how to eat leftovers. Cold spaghetti from the previous day was pressed into a glass baking dish with a little extra sauce, topped with grated mozzarella cheese, and baked at 350 F/ 175 C until bubbly and heated through. 

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Birria mac and cheese, if you know how to make birria, then I know for sure that you saved every last piece of it that wasn't eaten. Here, I added a chunk of birria to a box of mac and cheese for lunch.one day.

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Spicy Italian sausage and rotini aglio e olio with broccoli, olive oil, roasted garlic, and garnished withg parmesan cheese.

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Spinach Bacon Frittata is another leftover reuse idea. Cold spaghetti, leftover bacon, a can of spinach, mozzarella, plus whatever extras you want, in a big iron skillet, Bake at 350F/175C until cooked through.

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Brisket mac and cheese is another example of adding leftover meat to a fresh meal, even if it is a box of mac and cheese.

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Fettucini Alfredo with roasted ham is more leftover ideas. Don't waste food. Refigerate it and eat it again, or make it into something else. Also, a splash of milk helps if you ever reheat Alfredo-sauced noodles in the microwave.

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Beef rigatoni in tomato cream is an example of a quick chunky tomato, onion, and garlic pan sauce made in the pan that beef is browned in. Pretty rare that we eat rigatoni. It's such a big beautiful noodle, but should be handled in slightly smaller batches than in which we cook or you run the risk of breaking the tubes.

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