Today was a pasta kind of day. You know those days. It was rainy all morning and wet and even though it cleared up this afternoon, it just seemed like a day that was destined for noodles covered in sauce wearing some sort of delicious cheese. We have pasta pretty often, though, and I wanted something not quite the same as the usual linguine or rigatoni with meatballs or meat sauce with ground beef. So we went with a variation on the theme with a more traditional ragù. Sometimes ragù is known as bolognese sauce, although traditional bolognese is made somewhat differently (served with tagliatelle or green lasagna and containing beef (sometimes pork or lamb), pancetta, onions, carrots, tomato paste, broth, red wine and sometimes cream or milk) and comes from Bologna, Italy.
So what did I do?
I went shopping. I had to. We were actually almost entirely out of pasta, which is very rare for us. So on the way home from work, Josh and I headed to Busch’s and picked up a package of beef stew meat (I would have used a cheap cut of shoulder and chopped it up myself, but there were none), a can of crushed tomatoes, onions, a bag of shell pasta (conchiglie) and a small block of parmesan. Including the cost of the pizza dough from yesterday to make garlic bread with, the entire dinner worked out to about $10 not including spices. Woot!
Now, generally I can make a pasta dinner for the two of us in a half hour. Tonight it was an hour and a half, and most of that was simmering the sauce to cook the stew meat long enough to let it start to melt into the sauce. I’m a big fan of packaged beef stew meat for slowcooked meals. It’s cheap, it’s delicious when properly seasoned, it responds well to long cooking times and hey, who doesn’t love the iron and the protein? Vegetarians, that’s who. Continue reading
Two things came into play this evening. No, three. 1) I had leftover pepperoni in the fridge from making toast pizza. 2) It’s summer and I prefer to grill food whenever and wherever possible in the summer–I mean, I have grilled breakfast before. I won’t turn on the stove if I don’t have too. 3) I really, really, really did not want to eat another burger. Instead, I thought to myself, “Hey, self! Let’s grill pizza for dinner instead.” I figured I could pile it with veggies and low-moisture part skim mozzarella since, after all, we did have lunch at Bill’s and wanted something healthier but just as tasty as chili dogs for dessert. So pizza! Josh was all about it. I mean, we are married for a reason.
So we didn’t really wake up until almost 10am this morning. By the time I finished taking our dog Winston on a 2 mile morning walk, breakfast was pretty much a no-go. So Josh and I each downed a bit of fruit and then pondered what to do for lunch. I was already of the opinion that we should have hot dogs, because hey, I’ve been in a hot doggy kind of mood lately. In lieu of trekking to the store, picking up what we’d need for do-it-yourself dogs (I mean, there’d have to be buns and peppers and Josh gets one kind of sausage and I get another and side dishes and eh), we decided on taking the dog for a nice jaunt over to 
Now, I believe in letting the natural flavor of good quality meat shine through, and that great steak is best when kept simple, so that was my plan tonight. I prepared the meat as simply as possible and Josh picked just a simple side of mashed potatoes to go along with, and we (well, I) washed it down with a bit of his homemade root beer. Below is the recipe (more or less, I’m terrible at measuring when I cook) for our delicious meal tonight. Also, yay I finally charged my Nikon camera to get decent pictures!