Sunday's Plate

Today's menu is Spaghetti, salad with dressing, and lightening cake.

Spaghetti is the simplest of dinners and most kids love it.

The first thing to do is buy your ingredients. For every family member, buy six ounces of ground meat. This can be any ground meat, but the leaner the better for YOU and your child. That means you want the really really red stuff. Spaghetti sauce can be made with ground lamb, ground pork, ground chicken, ground turkey or with no meat at all.

You will want to buy noodles to put your spaghetti sauce on. There are many many kinds of pasta. It does not have to be the long thin strands we normally see. Spaghetti is one kind of long thin strand. Shop for pasta the way you shop for a dress. Get exactly what you want. My favorite thin strand is vermicelli because the sauce tastes more powerful than the pasta when I use vermicelli. Buy whole grain noodles. I am not fond of the whole wheat because I find it grainy. I like whole grain - tastes better and you know it's good for you. Regular white pasta is not good for you. It's one of those foods that makes you fat without adding anything to the nutrients chart! Might as well be eating Twinkies.

Next thing to buy is the sauce ingredients. There is tomato sauce in a can, tomato paste which is much thicker and sometimes bitter, there are tomatoes diced in a can, and there are cans of whole tomatoes and spiced tomatoes. There are so many kinds of tomatoes in a can, it's an industry!

I personally use the plain stuff. For every two people I'm serving, I use a can of plain tomato sauce and a can of diced plain tomatoes. I don't want someone else seasoning my sauce. Mr. Terry uses tomato paste, but then he adds sugar.

The next question is: do you want vegetables in your sauce? At home the answer is always yes; at school it is always no. Kids are not fond of mushrooms, green peppers and onions which are the usual spaghetti sauce ingredients. So make your mind up about that, and if you want the veggies, buy an onion, a green pepper and any kind of mushrooms you think you like.

Spices are not hard that hard to understand. If you like the way it smells, you will probably like the way it tastes. You can buy fresh spices in the green grocery section of your market, or you can buy dried jar spices in the baking department. Sometimes for beginning cooks, the "Italian blend" is perfect. I grow a lot of my own spices, and my favorite is the wide leaf basil. You will need salt.

Don't forget to pick up some Parmesan cheese.

At home, pull out your big frying pan and your big pot. Put enough hot water into your big pot to fill about three quarters full. Put the lid on and turn the burner on high.

In your big frying pan, you will brown your meat. That means on a fairly high heat you will want to cook the ground meat until it is gray. You will find that the fat separates from the meat and you will lose about 2 ounces by way of fat. Drain this fat off into the garbage pail. It reduces the wear and tear on your drains.

Slice your vegetables if you decide to use them. Slice your onions thin with your good knife. Cube or slice your green peppers and your mushrooms. If you cut these vegetables too small, you will have what amounts to cat food, so leave them fairly large. Some women grind them in a food processor so the kids don't know they are there. I used to cook mine separately, and add them if desired at the table. This let the kids off the hook.

Add your vegetables to your drained meat. Experienced cooks will sigh about the fat, because the mushrooms and the onions will absorb the fat and enhance the taste, but the less fat, the healthier your meal - so let's go healthy for the sake of the kids. When your veggies have been slightly cooked, add your salt and your spices. Try a half teaspoon of salt first. Too little and it's bland; too much and you can't eat it. So go easy on the salt. You can always add more, but once it's in, you can't take it away.

Add your spices as slowly as you added your salt, and taste a little. Then add your tomato products and stir and turn your heat down to low. Let this simmer a little.

When your water is boiling, drop your noodles into the boiling water and stir. Turn your heat down to medium and let the noodles cook about 8-10 minutes. A high heat will cause your noodles to starch out and go over the side of your pot. That's a mess, so cook them on medium. When the noodles taste like they do on the table, drain them or let the water out. This is tricky without a colander. You can use a towel in the sink, but go slow and don't use the garbage disposal side ;-}

Put your pasta on a plate and add a cup or two of your sauce. Add Parmesan cheese. Voila!

Dessert:

Lightening Cake

2 cups of white or whole grain pastry flour
1/2 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl with the big whisk. Beat until smooth about two minutes.

Spray your 9x9 inch glass baking pan with pan spray or take a paper towel and and use a teaspoon of oil to coat the bottom of the pan so the cake does not stick to the pan.

Topping:

1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Cut the butter into small pieces. Work in the brown sugar, cinnamon and flour with your fingers until you have a crumby looking stuff. Use this on top of the simple cake.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.


Salad:

A salad is simply a group of broken or cut vegetables mixed together and served with a sauce. My favorite salads have walnuts, fruit, goat cheese, and onions to go with a dark romaine lettuce.

But a beginners salad begins with lettuce. Buy a nice medium lettuce and cut or break it into bite sized pieces. Add tomatoes, cheese, onions, anything you like.

Salad Dressing:

Salad dressing begins with either mayonnaise or oil.

Thousand Island Dressing:

1/2 cup mayonnaise - NOT MIRACLE WHIP
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup lemon juice

Sludge:

1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons ketchup
tablespoon of lemon juice
tablespoon of soy sauce
tad mustard
tad salt
tad pepper

Ranch

1 cup mayo
1 packet ranch dressing mix
1/2 cup milk