The other day I had to change our menu because we changed our plans for the week.  I had gone through our pantry and noticed we had a lot of spaghetti noodles.  So instead of barbecue chicken legs, I decided to have spaghetti.

When I started cooking the dinner, the Wee One walked into the kitchen.  He asked me if he could help make the sauce.  I allowed him to help me.  I didn’t take any pictures of him cooking.

After the sauce was done cooking,  he kept dipping Club crackers in the sauce so he could taste it.  He was extremely proud of himself.

When I was growing up, we didn’t eat meatballs.  Instead we had browned hamburger meat in the sauce which is sort of like cut up meatballs.

Meaty Spaghetti Sauce

Stars of the recipe:

• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced or 2 Tbsp. minced garlic
• 2 cans (14 oz.) or 1 can (29 oz.) tomato sauce
• 1/4 c. tomato paste
• 2 Tbsp. Italian seasoning
• 1 Tbsp. granulated sugar
• 2 Tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

Steps:

1. Brown the ground beef, onion, and garlic together.
2. Drain the ground beef.  (I even rinsed off the grease.)
3. Add the tomato sauce, tomato paste, Italian seasoning, sugar, Parmesan cheese, and salt and pepper.  Stir to combine.
4. Allow to simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.
5. Enjoy over your favorite pasta!

This post has been linked up to Miz Helen’s Full Plate Thursday.

Happy eating,
Traci

Today’s blog post is about one of my former students.  He drowned in June of 2009.  I wrote a post on the first anniversary of his death.  Renier’s death was hard on me.  I was physically ill for 2 days after his funeral.