Recipes and Stuff: Pasta and Goodness-Veal and Sausage

As I have mentioned before, it's all about saving money and using what you have. I remember weekends at my Nana's and baking with half the ingredients that the recipe called for. We would either substitute or leave out what she didn't have on hand. It was always an adventure and was always good. Even if it didn't look too good! But hey, it was fun. I have so many memories of those times and I have always cooked the same way. So if you don't have all the ingredients to make a traditional dish make one of your own! Here I made what I had on hand and it was very good. More than good it was great! Let's take a step back and think about the money saving thing. Even though Italian cooking, for maybe you, is something that you may think is exact (I am full blood Italian), rules can be broken. Make it your own is what I say. So here is what I made and let me tell you it is really good. You can change the meats or omit and put in other things, it doesn't matter. The exercise for this is to make what you can with what you have on hand and satisfy your family. Mushrooms, peppers (easy on the peppers, they tend to dominate the taste of what ever you put them in unless of course if you use roasted red peppers) sausage, meat of any kind. The combinations are endless. So, back to what I made. I had a package of veal, and a package of Primo sausage and half pound mozzarella.

I used penna pasta which is my fav but you can use what ever you have on hand. That is the purpose...use what you have.

Let me start with a basic sort of marinara sauce. Chop up a couple clove of garlic, some onion, I prefer crushed tomato (see pic), fresh or dried parsley, basil, salt, pepper and optional grated cheese ( I use my home made cheese-only if you ask me to blog that!)

Fry up the garlic, onion in some olive oil, add the meat till browned, add tomato and herbs. dash or two of salt and pepper and simmer for about 40 minutes in your cooker.

The veal which I took out to brown the sausage.

We are super cooking here. You can do the long cook way and wait for about two hours if you wish in a regular pot. Cook pasta,

mix with some of your sauce and add to dish with cooked pasta and topped with mozzarella bake in oven 375 degrees for about 20 minutes or until cheese is melted.