Herself's Recipes

As prices climb and the stock market falls it gets harder to toss food at the end of the week.  I clean out the fridge on Mondays so that’s my night to make pasta sauce.  This sauce takes about 10 minutes to put together. The flavor comes from the various vegetables and meat that have been cooked previously in different ways.

Take last week’s left over meat and vegetables.  I prefer more meat than vegetables, but whatever is in the fridge I use.  Grind it in the food processor, you want about 2 cups worth of ground cooked meat and vegetables.

In a large skillet add about 3 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of minced garlic.  Slowly brown garlic.

After garlic browns add your ground meats and vegetables. Cook until meat and vegetables are warm.

Then add 1 can tomato paste ( 6 oz ), 6 oz water  or wine and 1 can diced tomatoes ( ~ 15 oz )

Let simmer on the lowest heat for a half hour.

Serve over your favorite pasta.

Most importantly the cost of this meal is just the pasta, 1 can of paste and 1 can of diced tomatoes. The rest was leftovers or things you have in the fridge.

Technically Florentine refers to dishes made in the Florentine, Italy style. These dishes include spinach and use a cream sauce. Over time that has shifted and it now usually refers to dishes with spinach and cheese. Rumor has it that Catherine de Medici brought the dish from Italy to the French court of Henry II in the mid 1550s.

This is a nice way to use up spinach or dress up some rice. I usually serve this dish with fish.

1 cup white rice

2 cups water

1 cup cooked spinach ( about 12 oz boiled )

1/4 cup Parmesan or other hard cheese, grated

1/2 white onion diced

1 Tablespoon butter

Take the rice, water and place in microwave for 15 minutes or so until water is evaporated.

In a small skillet brown the onion in the butter until clear.

Add spinach, cheese and cooked onions to your rice.

*If you try to save time by cooking the spinach with the rice, you will end up with green rice.

*If you add the spinach, cheese and onions to the rice before it is done you’ll loose some of the flavor. Wait and add them at the end.