The One With The Homemade Spaghetti Sauce.

I've been living at my parents' house for the past 2 weeks just because. It makes it a lot easier for Noah to be there during the day while I work and/or go to class. I hated thinking of him being all alone in a tiny apartment. Now he gets to run around a huge house with a backyard, and pester my mom. and trust me, he definitely pesters. This morning when I left, he was running all over the house. If he got close to you, he'd nip at your ankles and run off. He has so much energy. I've been taking him on my runs every now and then, and it still doesn't seem to calm him down. He gets ahold of little things, and decides he wants to eat them, so I'm running around the house screaming, "Noah! Drop it!" and he will let me get just close enough before he runs off again. My mom the other day said, "Wow, I just got a visual of you and a 2 year old." Thank goodness Noah is the closest thing to a 2 year old that I have. No babies for me anytime soon. But anyways, the point of me telling you all this is that on Tuesday/Thursday's I work from 10-2 and then there is no point in going all the way back to my parents' up north before class, so I just stay downtown and hang out in my apartment or run errands until school at 6:00 pm. This past Tuesday I decided I needed to use some of awesome new kitchen equipment I got for my birthday (Thanks Mom and Dad!). So, after work, I headed over to the grocery store and picked up some things to make homemade spaghetti sauce. I know spaghetti is such a boring, typical meal, but it's cheap, and that's what I like. And it's pretty healthy if you pair it with some whole grain pasta.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
• one 28-ounce can peeled tomatoes, pureed in a food processor (IN MY NEW FOOD PROCESSOR) 
• salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
• 3 large fresh basil sprigs
• Whole grain pasta 

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium low heat. Add onion and cook until soft and translucent, stirring occasionally, about 6-7 minutes. 

Add garlic and crushed red pepper flakes (I did without the crushed red pepper), and cook another minute. 

Increase heat to medium, and add pureed tomatoes. Season lightly with salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until sauce thickens slightly and the flavors meld, about 20 minutes. Remove pan from heat and stir in basil sprigs. 

Meanwhile, cook spaghetti until about 2 minutes before tender. Reserve 1 cup of pasta cooking water. Drain pasta. Discard basil from tomato sauce and heat skillet over medium heat. Stir in 1/2 cup reserved pasta water to loosen sauce; bring to boil. 

I then individually sized pasta in a bowl, added some parmesan, and topped it off with the sauce. I also baked some garlic bread to go along with it, because how can you have homemade spaghetti without some delicious garlic bread? 

After finishing that delicious meal, I decided I wanted to make a smoothie for class. So I put together a coconut, pineapple smoothie. 


Ingredients: 
1 cup vanilla yogurt 
1/3 cup fresh or frozen pineapple chunks 
1 medium banana, sliced 
1/4 cup low fat coconut milk 
1/4 cup 1% milk 
Ice cubes 


Place it all in a blender and let it rip! 


When I got to school, I parked in the garage, and I open my door to find this car next to me...

I don't understand how you can let your car get that nasty. I'm pretty messy, but there's no way I would allow the only possible seating available in my car to be the driver's seat, and everything else full of trash. 


"Oh my God, there's a toe in my kitchen."