Each month, I collect "a few favorite things" and post them here. You might find recipes, DIY's, or just fun adventures! Using the right side of my brain is great medicine!
My Favorite Recipe: January
Homemade Meat Sauce for a Crowd:
I always wondered why online recipes started with an excessively long story. Just get on with the ingredients already! After I started cooking meals for my family, I began to understand the nostalgia behind each generational "tweak" to carefully crafted family recipes. My husband comes from an Italian family line and I've had the pleasure of enjoying his mother and aunties delicious cooking. Below is a compilation of all their best meat sauce recipes, with a few tweaks of my own. Ringing in the new year with a new diet is fun, but ringing it in with pasta for a crowd is better!
Ingredients:
4 cans of Cento San Marzano tomatoes
2 lbs of 80/20 ground beef
2 lbs of Spicy Italian Sausage
1 yellow onion
1 cup of white wine
Garlic cloves (measure with your heart, I use about 10-15)
Fresh Basil (measure with your heart, I use about a handful)
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil
Crushed red pepper flakes
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions:
Brown meat in olive oil (depending on the size of your pan, break it up into batches so the meat will brown not boil).
In a large pot, saute onion in olive oil. Add tomatoes, wine, crushed garlic, and seasonings. You can keep it "chunky" or blend using an immersion blender.
Add the browned meat and bring to a boil. Once boiling, drop to a simmer for 45 minutes. The longer on low, the better! At the end, add the fresh basil and top with grated parmesan. I used rigatoni for this recipe. Serves well with crusty bread and salad.
*Notes: I like to add butter to my sauce to combat the acidity!
My Favorite Song: January
This is one of those songs that I play on repeat! It is constantly in my head and always brings me peace. Enjoy!
My Favorite Beauty Items: January
Oh how I love being a woman! My favorite beauty item this month was a Christmas gift from my husband: a butterfly necklace. Butterflies are my special symbol in this season so looking down at this throughout my day reminds me of Gods promises. The other beauty item I'm appreciating this month is a lip balm from Glow Recipe. I've been using it day and night and it has become one of those "it's in the details" beauty joys!
