Wednesday, March 15, 2006

A no-brainer



Spaghetti With Butter And Parmesan
365 Ways To Cook Pasta Copyright 1988

12 ounces spaghetti, spaghettini, vermicelli, or capellini
¼ pound butter I'm not Paula Deen - I used a little bit less butter than this
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley (optional)

1. Cook spaghetti in plenty of boiling salted water until al dente, or firm to the bite, about 7 to 10 minutes; drain.
2. Melt butter in a small skillet. I just melted it in the pot I cooked the pasta in - DUH!
3. Toss spaghetti with melted butter, cheese, and parsley, if using. Serve hot.

I just haven't been excited about cooking this week, mainly because I've been very tired. I didn't have anything planned for last night. Not a thing! So I took some of the chicken strips I buy for my son and turned those into Chicken Parmesan, using a small container of leftover jarred pasta sauce I had in the freezer and a chunk of mozzarella that was leftover from making pizza last week. Add a box of spaghetti (Barilla, not Dreamfields this time) and butter, Parmesan cheese and parsley and we had a meal.

It wasn't bad at all. Those chicken strips are processed chicken but they're not too bad, for a processed chicken strip. I wouldn't want to eat them all of the time but every once and a while I'm desperate enough to make a meal out of them for all of us. My son gets them for lunch once a week. I want to make him my own but it's a time-consuming process (I do the flour/egg/breadcrumb method, then pan-fry and finish them off in the oven) and I never get around to it.

I'm sure I could have found a more exciting recipe for my spaghetti in this cookbook but I was in a rush and made the first one I saw that I had all the ingredients for. I have to take a closer look at this book though. I've had it forever but it gets lost in the crowd on my bookshelf.

Question of the Day: How far ahead do you plan your meals?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I try to plan a week in advance,but it doesn't always happen.

The Cookbook Junkie said...

Wow! I can finally get into my own comments. Blogger has been a nightmare the past two days.

Now I try to plan for the entire week, but sometimes there are 'gaps' or I change my mind about making something I had planned.

Before I started blogging, I would often not have a clue what we would be having until I got home from work. It's hard to remember those days. But it was only for about a year or so that I really had to worry about it. My husband used to work nights so I never had to worry about feeding him (or a child) until recently.

Randi said...

I usually decide the day of what we're having for dinner. But, I do have ideas in my head starting on Sunday.

H0kie Erin said...

Well..it's about 4 now...so I guess I should start considering "what's for dinner?"

I try to do it for the week, but it just hasn't seemed to happen. My goal is to get into the habit over the summer. However, after last summer's awfulness I'm not making too many plans yet.