By Ling-Ling Shih at Ling Ling Wellness Pages
Spaghetti
Time for cooking: 20 min.
Ingredients
- Two bags of your favorite noodles or pasta
- One 2 lbs bottle of your favorite pasta sauce
- 2 lbs of ground chicken (you can substitute this with ground turkey or ground beef)
- vegetables (such as zucchini, onion, tomatoes, yellow/red/green peppers, green onion, any squash varieties, etc.)
- chopped garlic (3-5 cloves–Optional, if you already have onion)
- 1/2 cup of sun-dried tomatoes
- Shredded cheese
Photo 1 shows what I used today:
For meat, I used 2 lbs of ground chicken; for veggies, I used two zucchinis, one onion, and some fresh green onion; about 1/2 cup of sun-dried tomatoes. (I love this particular brand of sun-dried tomatoes: Bella Sun Luci–Premium California Sundried Tomatoes with Olive Oil & Italian Hers which I got from Trader Joe. It’s so tasty!) Two bags of pastas and garlics. I try to use garlics as much as possible, since it is very good for you. By the way, I like to serve this meal with a layer of shredded cheese on top of the dish.
(You should always have garlics and onions in stock for cooking. They are essential for cooking. They can keep for a long time and you normally don’t refrigerate them but keep them out on the kitchen counter).
Photo 1
Procedures:
First, boil a big pot of water enough to cook two bags of pasta on one stove. Prepare the vegetables and chop the garlic as seen on Photo 2 and photo 3
Photo 2
Photo 3
Heat up a big wok with 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil with high heat and sizzle the garlic and onion on the pan. After stirring it for a short while, about 1 to 2 minutes, put in the ground meat and stir. (If you use ground beef, you can cook the garlic and onion with less oil, because ground beef has a lot of fat in it). After the meat changes its color as seen in Photo 4 and Photo 5, add zucchini, pasta sauce, and Sun-dried tomatoes, and stir them until they are mixed well. Once they are heated to a good temperature (boiling), you can turn down to slightly over low heat and simmer it with the lid on for 5 to 10 minutes. The whole dish should not take more than 15 to 20 minutes.
Photo 4
Photo 5
Remember to put in the noodles and drizzle a little olive oil into the pot after the water is boiling on another stove and cook the noodles according to the instructions on the package. (You do not need to put any salt into the pot, as some package has instructed, since the salt for the dish will come from tomato sauce and cheese). And stir them occasionally. Put the timer on. Cook it until al dante. (See Photo 6) Don’t overcook it. Once noodles are cooked, drain the water in a colander. You can rinse the noodles with just a bit of cold water so they would not stick together, if you like.
Photo 6
Now the spaghetti sauce is ready (Photo 7), then just pour the sauce over the noodles and put a layer of cheese on top as seen in Photo 8, 9, and 10.
Photo 7
Photo 8
Photo 9
Photo 10
I only have two people eating this meal tonight, but I still cook this much. I like to cook in large quantity, so we can have leftovers and eat it over two or three days!
Remember, this is a dish with a lot of carbohydrates (because of pasta), so eat this dish with some fruits and a bowl of green salad. I surprise myself by how good it has turned out! However, don’t eat three plates of spaghetti at one sitting like my boyfriend. He is an idiot. In all honesty, I did not have time to make salad for this meal.
By Ling-Ling Shih at Ling-Ling Wellness Pages
4 Health Fitness 