Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 packet of yeast (1 tbsp)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 1/2 – 4 cups flour
• 8 tbsp butter
• 3/4 Parmesan cheese
• Garlic salt

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 170
• Mix the water, sugar and yeast together. Let it bloom for 5 minutes
• Add in the salt, and flour; one cup at a time. Mix with a bread hook for roughly 5 minutes. Once completely incorporated, let the dough rest for 5 minutes

So here is where you can go two different ways, if you want to to ‘dump the dough’ into a pan and make a giant simple pan of sticks to be sliced up like they do at Little Caesars. I’ll give you both ways, for labeling purposes we’re gonna call it Little Caesars and Olive Garden 🙂

Little Caears

• While dough is resting place 4 tbsp of butter in a 9×13 pan and place in the oven to melt
• Remove dish from oven, spread the dough to the edges of the pan
• Melt remaining 4 tbsp of butter and pour on top of dough, sprinkle cheese and garlic salt on top
• Bake for 7-10 minutes
• Turn up the oven to 350 and bake an additional 12 minutes
• Once finished, use a pizza cutter and slice the bread into sticks

Olive Garden

• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, or use a baking stone. I prefer a stone
• Turn dough out onto counter and roll out in a log
• Slice the dough into pieces, roll out piece and place on baking sheet
• Bake 7-10 minutes
• Turn up the oven to 350 and bake an additional 12 minutes
• Once removed from oven, use a pastry brush and top with melted butter, garlic salt and cheese

These are so good and so easy, normally bread takes forever to rise. If you have time I do like to let them rise. I will make the dough early on in the day, place on stones/baking sheet and cover with a towel and then bake later. It’s a personal preference because I love my bread sticks super fluffy. It depends on how small you cut them but you can typically get 2 dozen sticks if you do it Olive Garden style

…this is going to take awhile

Ingredients

• 3-4 cans of crushed tomatoes or 15-20 tomatoes
• Minced garlic
• 1 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1-2 tsp basil
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese

Instructions

• Heat oil in a large stock pot, saute garlic
• Add tomatoes, pepper, basil and sugar. Stir and bring to a boil
• Reduce heat to low, simmer uncovered 1 hour. Then covered for 2 hours, stirring frequently
• Stir in cheese, simmer an additional 5 minutes

This recipe will make a ton of sauce, so you may want to cut it in half if you don’t plan on canning it for later.

If you’ve never canned anything it’s actually not too hard. There are a ton of blogs about it, and a bunch of seemingly overwhelming information and while I am no pro by any means I seem to have figured it out. Boil the jars and lids to sanitize. Fill the jars, put the lids on. Boil the jars for roughly 10-15 minutes. You want to make sure they are completely submerged so the lids seal. While they cool they will make popping sounds but you want to make sure the lids are completely sealed once they cool, you’ll know if they are when you press down and it doesn’t pop back up.

I mean how pretty does jarred sauce look? On a side note you will want to store it in a dark cool cabinet so don’t be like me and leave it on top of your toaster oven.

5 ingredients and less than 30 minutes ..it’s easier than you thought

Ingredients

• 5 eggs
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese
• 1 cup Parmesan cheese
• 2 cups ricotta
• Salt
• Parsley

Instructions

• Crack 4 eggs in mixer bowl and lightly beat
• Mix in flour 1 cup at time until incorporated, wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate for 10 minutes
• Mix remaining egg with mozzarella, Parmesan and ricotta. Season with salt and parsley
• Take dough out of fridge and flour the counter
• Cut dough into sections, roll out thin (1/4 inch) and cut into strips roughly 3 inches wide
• Place a dollop of cheese mix, using a pastry brush wet the edges and fold over the dough
• Using a fork make indents to seal edges. Repeat until all dough is used up. This should make roughly 20 ravioli depending on your sizes
• If freezing them for later, place them on parchment lined sheet, put in freezer than transfer to bag
• If cooking, bring water to boil and cook roughly 4-6 minutes or until they float and dough is no longer sticky

This is such a quick and easy process, and you can swap out the filling ingredients for whatever you want too. Feeling like cheddar and Colby, do it. Think potato and bacon is more your speed, try it out (although I would make mashed before stuffing them). Spice it up with ground beef and taco seasoning, it’s mexi-talian.

I have recently started making my own tomato sauce so if you’ve got a few hours that are free and want to give it a-go you can check that out here and have a completely from scratch dinner. That reminds me, I also make some killer bread sticks because what Italian meal is complete without those.

Pasta is a tricky thing that often intimidates people but don’t let this scare you, just know if it turns out awful you can always order pizza 🙂

It’s Friday morning and I’m sitting at my desk in my office, staring down an orthodontist invoice of nearly $6,000 and my first thought is “how am I going to pay for this, my back is too sore to to be a stripper and my car is too old to Uber”, so here I am.

Starting a blog is always something I have thought about because after all my ideas are typically the best, I’m super fun and witty and always right (my boyfriend totally agrees on this one). My coworker who is a lot younger than me caught a glimpse of my massive orthodontist bill, and said maybe you could try a blog… followed by a few other ideas that i’m either too old to understand or not cool enough to get.

I figure what this world needs is obviously a food blog because there doesn’t seem to be any available on Pintrest …womp womp womp. I’m a pretty solid cook, honestly I don’t toot my horn that much; but flaunt what ya got and i’ve never actually given anyone Salmonella before.

Much like everyone else who clicks on any recipe on Pintrest you are immediately flooded with pop-ups, ads (which I am not opposed to, again scroll back up to that 6k bill mentioned earlier) and a long drawn out story about the tomatoes your best-friends grandmother grew and how that it really reminds you of your grandmother and how sweet she is which reminds you that your favorite new obsession are these sweet baby platypus’ circulating on Facebook. Talk about ‘if you give a mouse a cookie’ syndrome. Honestly what-da-fuq, just tell me how to make the damn dunk a roo dip.

I think my main goal is give you that recipe first or at least say those three little words we all want to see… “click to recipe” at the top of the post because we’re all busy ass moms (and dads) who just want to cook dinner. I gotchyou. You can cook now and while that sauce is simmering, you can scroll down and read about my great-aunts cat.

To wrap this up without boring anyone too much… I meal plan the week before, i’ll share that and those ever important recipes. I am constantly trying out new hair products, my hair is kind of my thing. I drink a ton of wine, and none of it is expensive so if you’re looking for recommendations on what goes well with lasagna, it will always be an $8 bottle of wine. Sometimes I craft although I can’t promise it’s good. I’m the president of our PTO so i’m constantly on the go with that. I also am on a kick to become more eco-conscious, save the sea turtles and all that jazz.

So check me out, good vibes only – you keyboard warriors need not apply. Don’t like it, keep on scrolling, it is possible to move on. Hang on tight 🙂