Spaghetti and Meatballs

Buon giorno! (That means "good morning" in Italian). All right, if you don't know how to make spaghetti, it is high time you learn because that's just kinda sad. Just sayin'. It is a poor man/woman's meal for those tight college budgets. You can even cheat and buy everything pre-made (including meatballs!) This is an easy one to throw together, with meatballs from scratch.

Prep time: 15 minutes
Serves: 4

Ingredients:
-1 lb ground beef (if you are cooking for 2, this is perfect, as I learned the hard way using 2lbs of meat. I literally had a whole 1lb left of ground beef left over and was forced to make a meatloaf with the remaining mixture--oopsies!)
-2 eggs
-1 onion
-2 tsp salt
-2 tsp pepper
-1 tsp garlic powder
-3 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
-1 cup Italian bread crumbs
-1 package of pasta (I like angel hair, but knock yourself out with some farfalle or whatevermajigger...so many to choose from!)
-1 jar of spaghetti sauce

1. Mix the eggs, ground beef, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and parmesan cheese together well.

2. Dice the onion into tiny pieces and add that to the mixture as well.

3. Mix in the bread crumbs.

4. Form meat mixture into meatballs (remember, the bigger you make them, the longer they will take
to cook. I made mine a little smaller than golf balls. They do cook down a little.)

5. Pour sauce into a pan and heat on medium temperature. 

6. Add meatballs into sauce and cover.  Lower heat to medium-low.

7. Cook for 40 minutes. Move meatballs around about every 5-10 minutes.

8. Bring water to a boil in a separate pot. Reduce heat to medium temperature, and add in noodles. (Most noodles will take about 10 minutes, so do wait to cook them until your meatballs have been cooking about 30 minutes).

9.  Drain noodles, and serve with sauce and meatballs. Do feel free to experiment with other spices and such. I just did the bare minimum, as I was hurrying to MIW for dinner!

Now you're Italian! Actually, here's a random fact--did you know spaghetti was actually invented by the Chinese? Technically, as early as 3,000 B.C. the Chinese were using noodles. Thanks for tuning in! Until next time...Ciao!

Homemade Hot Chocolate

So, I got this recipe from a Land O Lakes carton of Half and Half.
It is fast to make and ridiculously delish!

Prep time: 10 minutes
Serves: 4

Ingredients:
-1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips
-1/2 cup of water
-1/2 cup of sugar
-1/8 teaspoon of salt (optional- I don't use it)
-5 1/2 cups of milk
-2 cups of half and half
-2 teaspoons of vanilla

1. Melt the chocolate chips over low heat (stir the entire time they are melting)

2. Mix in the sugar and water

3. Increase heat until boiling, stirring the entire time

4. Boil for an additional 2 min. Keep stirring

5. Add milk and half and half

6. Heat until all the liquid is hot

7. Add the vanilla

8. Remove from heat and whisk until frothy

9. Add whipped cream if desired

For an added flavor of peppermint, you can add peppermint schnapps OR for an alcohol free version use peppermint mocha coffee creamer. Both options are yummy!

Quick Cherry Pie

Here's a really great way to make a quick pie, that only takes about 12 minutes. This is also a great breakfast idea!

Prep time: 10 minutes
Serves: 4

Ingredients:
-1 pie crust (the doughy refrigerated kind, not the ready-made kind)
-1 can of fruit filling (cherry, apple, blueberry, etc)
-1/2 cup flour
-1 tablespoon cinnamon
-1 tablespoon sugar

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Sprinkle your workspace with flour. Roll the dough out on top of the flour.

3. Spread the fruit filling of your choice on half of the pie crust. Be sure to leave about an inch of space from the edge of the crust on this half, so that the filling isn't oozing out all over the place (I learned that the hard way so that you don't have to!)

4. Fold the pie crust over the fruit filling covered half and firmly pinch the edges together to seal in the filling.

5. Mix the cinnamon and sugar together and sprinkle them over the top of the pie crust. (You may add more or less to taste). I used that whole shaker...just kidding!

6. With a fork, poke generous holes all over the top of the pie crust. You may wish to get a little bit fancy and use a mini shape cutter (My mom uses a heart or leaf one), but I didn't have any of those, so it was a "Make it Work" (MIW) moment for me.

7. Transfer pie to cookie sheet (I am not a huge fan of clean up, so I actually put parchment paper down on a cookie sheet--just don't burn it to a crisp which I may or may not have done...) and bake for 11-13 minutes, until edges of crust are golden brown.

8. Enjoy your masterpiece! Om nom nom!

Oh, and by the way, this is my cooking assistant, Kitty. She didn't actually help, because that would be slightly amazing, gross and unsanitary all at the same time, but she did intently watch me put this all together and kept my lap warm while I was waiting for the pie to bake.