Vegetable Spaghetti Sauce

Mommy's Little Cook

Vegetable Spaghetti Sauce
Brown in large pot:
1# ground beef
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped

Take 1 whole butternut squash, cut in 1/2. Scoop out & discard seeds. Put face down on plate and microwave 10 min. Let sit in microwave another 5 min. Scoop out inner flesh, mash w/ potato masher.  You could always put in blender, too.

Add following ingredients:
(2) 29 oz cans tomato sauce
Mashed butternut squash
1-2 cups shredded zucchini
1/2 to 1/2 C. shredded carrots
Spices to your taste (basil, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, garlic/ onion salt and/or powder, Mrs Dash, Lawry's Seasoning -- whatever is in your cupboard.)
1 bay leaf (take out before serving -- I always forget :))

Bring to boil.  Lower heat to simmer 1-2 hours.  Use what you want and freeze the rest.  This is an awesome recipe and a good way to get kids to eat their veggies.  Elizabeth LOVES spaghetti, and esp this recipe.  She was even helping me taste test and ended up w/ her own bowl of it, eating it like a soup.

Some recipes call for tomatoes, green peppers, mushrooms, fennel, or even broccoli and cauliflower.  But this is my doctored-up version that I thought I would share.  Plus I always lose this recipe and thought it would be easier to keep it on my blog to refer back to.

Family Fun with the Parks

Excited for Elmo!

ELMO!!!

Everyone was there: Elmo, bert, Ernie, BigBird, Telly, Honker, Zoe, Cookie Monster, Count, Oscar

Teeter Toddlers

Yeah Slide!

Nummy food

 

 

Elizabeth & I spent the night at Auntie Jen's one weekend and she treated us to an awesome Sesame Street production.  Super Grover had lost his Super Powers and his friends from Sesame Street helped him get them back.  It was amazing.
The following weekend the Parks stayed over night @ our house to help us with our garage floor. The girls had so much fun.  After they had left, Elizabeth was going around the house saying, "Auntie.  Ady.  Where are you?".

Coupon!

I label this "hobbies"...because I'm a nerd and I like couponing.  The other day I spent $207.54 and total savings was $100.94 -- a savings of 33%.   No, I'm not as good as some eXtreme couponers, but I also don't buy 33 tubes of toothpaste that I dislike the taste of either.  However, I do have 10 boxes of cereal on my pantry -- but I have a toddler and spouse who love kiddy cereals and go through them quite often.

This is just by clipping the Sunday paper's coupons and doubling them up with items that are already on sale -- so I buy an item on sale or use an in-store coupon and also use a manufacturer's coupon.  I've never tried printing out my own coupons because some stores don't accept them.  Maybe someday I'll look into it. But for most things that I buy: if its not on sale and it could be, we don't buy it (unlike milk which is rarely on sale).  If it is...clear a space for 10 of them! :)

Feast Day of Guardian Angels

 

"Guardian angels are not just for children. Their role is to represent individuals before God, to watch over them always, to aid their prayer and to present their souls to God at death.  The concept of an angel assigned to guide and nurture each human being is a development of Catholic doctrine and piety based on Scripture but not directly drawn from it. Jesus' words in Matthew 18:10 best support the belief: "See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father."  A feast in honor of the guardian angels was first observed in the 16th century. In 1615, Pope Paul V added it to the Roman calendar."

We thank God daily for our Guardian Angels and pray God's love, devotion, and guidance for them to aide us in our journey here on earth.  Thank your Guardian Angel today and celebrate them on their feast day.

Decks Done!

West/front deck with horizontal boards.

We finished the decks! Well...I supervised and gave input :) David did a great job. We wanted to try 2 different designs.  I like them both.  The horizontal makes it easier for little hands to hold onto the boards when using the stairs, but then the birdies like to sit on them & poo on the deck.  Pros & cons. We have to let the wood age before staining, so that will be next summer.  Just for fun, we took the old steps and put them on the east exit.  They're still pretty sturdy and I hate to waste them and then not have another emergency exit.  They'll do until the next deck comes :) 

 

North Deck with the vertical boards