Family Recipes for the Brand New Cook

All About Pasta

Basic Spaghetti Sauce

Ingredients: 5-6 cloves of fresh garlic minced

4-5 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon dried basil

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1 Large can tomatoes

1 teaspoon salt

1) Pour olive oil into a heavy sauce pot and on low heat saute garlic. Cook for a few minutes stirring frequently.

2) Add dried basil and oregano to garlic

3) Add tomatoes and stir

4) Then fill the empty tomato can with water and add to sauce.

5) Add salt

6) Keep on low-medium heat stirring every half-hour. Sauce should bubble a little but you don't ever want it to boil furiously.

7) Simmer sauce for at least 5 hours. You may need to add a bit more water as it cooks down.

8) BIG RULE FOR SAUCE: Don't ever let it burn! If you go to stir your sauce and it sticks to the bottom of the pan start over! It will taste bitter.

This recipe can be doubled or tripled as needed!

Lasagna

Ingredients: Prepare a double batch of sauce either same day or day before

1 box of "no boil lasagna noodles"

1 large container of ricotta cheese

1 large (biggest they've got) container of Romano or Parmesan

Simple Frugal Cooking Recipes

As a busy mom, what do you do when a meal is finished? Do you wash dishes and wrap up the leftovers? Do you actually eat the leftovers, or do they sit in the fridge getting yucky? As a busy mom, you want to make sure you make plenty of frugal meals for your family - and that includes a strategic use of leftovers. With the simple tips in this article you will learn a number of frugal cooking recipes that will help use up leftovers.

One of the problems with leftovers, is that we tend to serve them day after day until they are gone.. Say you prepare a giant roast beef for Sunday dinner - there are plenty of leftovers, but the family will get tired if you keep serving slices of roast beef over and over for the rest of the week. You will have to get creative with your meal planning to keep dishes on the table that your family will actually eat.

You can start by chopping that roast up into bite size pieces. Add in some frozen vegetables, and some instant rice. Cook in a large frying pan or a wok, add in soy sauce and a beaten egg and you have a frugal meal of beef fried rice.

That's just one way that a leftover roast can be re-used. Don't forget beef stroganoff, a classic that's simple to make - just add some cream of mushroom soup, sour cream and egg noodles and you have a classic comfort food dish.

Bon Appetit Recipes Are Some of the Best of All the Cooking Magazines!

You've probably noticed that the cost of a single issue of most cooking magazines will buy you a whole cookbook these days. It's hard to justify the price, especially when most of the magazine is filled with ads. However, Bon Appetite has somehow managed to stay reasonably priced and full of valuable content for the goodies. I've been a fan of this cooking magazine since I was in my teens. The Bon Appetite recipes are some of the best I've run across in all these years.

In each issue, the publishers include a regular feature, which is my all time favorite. Readers write in, describing a restaurant at which they enjoyed a delectable dish that they've been thinking of ever since. The only trouble is, they don't have the recipe. The readers often come across these remarkable dishes while traveling and are unlikely to be dining at that restaurant again, any time soon. Sometimes they want to recreate it for their spouse at home, or serve it for a special party occasion.

At any rate, they write and ask the Bon Appetite recipe editor if they might prevail upon the chef to part with the recipe. The chef in question is flattered that his or her creation made such an impression on the diner and responds to the Bon Appetite recipe editor with a scaled down recipe, suited to home preparation, along with every little detail of how to prepare the dish. This column of Bon Appetite recipes has been in the magazine each month, all these many years, so it must strike a chord with most readers.

Reasons to Cook Recipes With Cayenne Pepper

Cayenne pepper is one of the most popular spices used in many food dishes. It got its name because it comes from the area near the Cayenne River in French Guiana. The scientific name of this pepper is Capsicum frutescens. The other name for this spice is red pepper. Here are some famous recipes derived from this popular spice.

Many recipes use this red pepper as an ingredient. It is a popular additive to many seasoning concoctions from a wide variety of cuisines namely: Indian, Mexican, Italian, and Caribbean. A simple recipe that involves this spice is scrambled egg omelet. All you need are a couple of eggs, about one tablespoon of milk, one-fourth cup of cheddar, a dash of salt, and the red pepper. Except for the cheese, mix all the other ingredients together using a warm skillet. Cook and stir for at least five to seven minutes. Once all the moisture has dried out, top if off with the cheddar and serve hot.

Other popular recipes that include this wonderful ingredient are Mexican steak burrito, southern fried chicken with garlic butter, Romanian minced meat rolls, and Spanish seafood stew. American enchiladas are a play on the Mexican version, but are more akin to American tastes. The addition of red pepper to this popular Mexican dish adds the right balance of spice and flavor to it. You can check out the Internet for more details on how to cook these wonderful meals using this ingredient.