Cheesy Tomato Sauce

You know when you the cooking gods are smiling and you make something really really tasty? Well this pasta sauce was created on one of those lucky cooking days. It is a simple semi-homemade sauce recipe for when you need to make dinner with limited ingredients!

Cheesy Tomato Sauce
makes 4-8 servings

1 lb ground turkey
1 onion, diced
2 big cloves of garlic, minced
1 Thai chili pepper, small mince
3 shakes of Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp dried or freshly chopped basil, oregano
1 jar of pasta sauce (I used tomato basil)/Canned no flavor tomato sauce
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Heat oil in large frying pan. Saute onion, garlic, and pepper together. Once starting to soften add the meat. Season with the worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Cook meat until done. Add spices and tomato sauce and let it simmer until you are ready to eat. If you want to make it cheesy, stir in the mozzarella until it is combined and melted. Let it simmer for another 10 (ish) minutes then serve over pasta!

Hearty Vegetable Lasagna

Wow! Life can sure get hectic! Kind of dropped the ball on my 100th post and celebrating the blog's 1 year! Hope you enjoy post # 99 and stay tuned for 100!

Here is a veggie lasagna which used the Hearty Vegetable Lasagna recipe for inspiration. I added in extra veggies and followed some of the reviews ideas for flavors. This was very filling and straightforward to make. Easy make ahead meal as well. Be cautious when freezing veggie based lasagnas because they produce a lot of liquid and can get soggy. If anyone has any tips for making them freeze better, please let me know!

Previous Vegetable Lasagna using zucchini, squash, eggplant, and spinach.

Veg!

Spread some sauce/veg in the bottom

Layers of noodles, ricotta, veg, and sauce

Continue and top with cheese

Golden bubbly goodness!

Hearty Vegetable Lasagna 
makes 12 slices

 1 (16 ounce) package lasagna noodles

2 tablespoons oil

1 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced

¾ cup chopped green bell pepper

½ cup carrots (or whatever is left over in your fridge)

¾ cup chopped onion

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp oregano

Salt and pepper

½ zucchini, sliced

½ bag baby spinach

2 (26 ounce) jars pasta sauce

1 (15 ounce) container part-skim ricotta cheese

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Cook the lasagna noodles in a large pot of boiling water for 10 minutes, or until al dente. Rinse with cold water, and drain. (OR use no cook lasagna noodles)

In a large saucepan heat oil. Cook and stir mushrooms, green peppers, carrots, onion, garlic, and oregano, season with salt and pepper. Cook until softened. Add in zuchini and Wilt several handfuls of spinach over the warm veggies, stir to combine

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spread 1 cup tomato sauce and some of the veggie mix into the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Layer on top of that: noodles, veggies, sauce, and ricotta until nothing remains. There will be approx 2-4 layers. 

Top with the mozzarella cheese.

Bake, uncovered, for 40 minutes (but keep an eye on it, if it starts to get too brown cover with foil and let it continue to cook). Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

Creamy Tomato Basil Sauce

Here is a quick and easy tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes and left over cream cheese (from the Lime and Coconut Cupcake frosting!).

 Tomatoes, oregano, garlic powder, and onion powder. I also added in 1/4 cup of water

 Mash as they cook down. Then pulse in the food processor until pureed. Pour back into the pot. Add in basil.

 I added in spoon by spoon the cream cheese. I added in a little under 1/4 cup of cream cheese. But basically go until it tastes how you'd like it to.

The rest of the meal... I seasoned the chicken with garlic powder, oregano, and sauteed in olive oil for about 8-10 minutes. Pasta was whole wheat spaghetti which cooks in about 4-5 minutes.

Next time maybe add in a few red pepper flakes for a little kick. 

Tomato Basil Sauce
Makes 3 servings

8-10 Tomatoes
1 tsp each Onion powder, garlic powder, oregano
1/4 cup cream cheese
Basil

Heat pan with tomatoes and spices. As tomatoes heat through mash them down with a spoon, about 5 minutes. Puree in the food processor. Stir in cream cheese until its reaches the desired creamy taste and let simmer until rest of meal is ready to eat.

I served over pasta with a side of chicken.

Turkey and Spinach Stuffed Shells

I was making dinner last night and decided to attempt my cousin's Stuffed Shell Recipe. It had been a while since I've made this, so I made it up as I went along. I decided to stuff it with turkey, spinach, and ricotta. I used mushroom pepper jar sauce and covered it in mozzarella.

From start to finish this recipe took about an hour to prepare and cook, but makes about 30+ stuffed shells. Depends on how much filling you put in each one, mine were fairly hardy. We ate about 6 each. The filling could be used for Lasagna or Raviolis as well.

I used my food processor (still awesome!) to dice/chop up the onion and the garlic. Put it in a hot frying pan and let it get soft. I added in some seasonings here. Oregano, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. I stirred this around for about a minute. Then I added the meat. I used ground chicken but turkey or beef would be fine too.

Once it cooked through there was a lot of liquid in the pan. I drained it then added in the spinach leaves. I was rushing around the grocery store and just grabbed a bag of spinach. Not all bags of spinach are created equal. This bag had spinach with stems and I had to pick through it. Next time I'll make sure I get baby spinach leaves just for making this dish a little easier. However it made no difference to the taste. I wilted the spinach in the meat mixture. The meat was very chunky and not the texture I was looking for so I dumped it all in the food processor and pulsed it a few times until it was coarse sand texture.

Next I added in the container of ricotta cheese. YUM!

Meanwhile, I cooked the jumbo shells and had them drained and waiting to be filled. I under cook them a two minutes because I am against soggy pasta and it is going to bake in the oven more too.

I put some sauce in the bottom of the pan and started to stuff the shells and place them in the baking dish. I used a jar of Mushroom and Pepper sauce. Nothing super fancy.

Next I covered it with the rest of the sauce and then a bag of mozzarella cheese. Baked it uncovered at 375 for 20 minutes or until the cheese is melted and starting to get a little golden.

Changes for next time? Well, we didn't think it had enough flavor. I think I might try it with chicken sausage (out of the casings), or double/triple the herbs when cooking the meat. And for those who don't like ground turkey, it didn't taste like there was any meat in it, and because I pulsed it in the food processor there wasn't any meat texture either.

All and all a tasty meal and not too intensive. It can be changed easily for your food preferences or whatever ingredients you have in the house.

I made Molten Lava Cakes for dessert!

Turkey and Spinach Stuffed Shells

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

Jumbo Shells

1 med/small vidalia Onion

5 cloves Garlic

1 tsp Red Pepper Flakes

1 tsp Oregano

Salt & Pepper to taste

1 lb ground turkey 

16 oz (ish) of fresh spinach

16 oz part skim ricotta cheese

1 jar of sauce (or homemade sauce)

2 cups of mozzarella cheese (it is 1 package)

Directions

1. Heat pan with some olive oil and add chopped onion and garlic.
2. Add red pepper flakes, pepper, oregano. Stir.
3. Add meat and continue to stir.
4. When mostly done cooking add in spinach until it wilts (about 30 seconds).
5. Pulse in food processor until everything is about the same size.
6. Let mixture cool.
7. Boil water and cook shells a few minutes shorter than the recommended package directions.
8. Add in ricotta, salt, pepper, any more seasonings, and then egg to the cooled meat mixture.
9. Put some sauce in the bottom of the baking dish, stuff shells, top with rest of sauce and mozzarella.
10. Bake at 375 for about 20-25 minutes.

Enjoy!!