Amazing Spaghetti Sauce.

Desperate for an awesome, easy, healthy dinner that will thrill everyone in your family?  Kid's included?

I am happy to announce that this is not just wishful thinking.  

First, this is my mom's spaghetti.  Not my mother in law's.   My amazing mother in law is the only one with the true Italian touch, and Uncle Jim, and Auntie Sue, and Lori.  It also wouldn't be called spaghetti.  It would be roni's or gravy or cavatellis.  When I'm looking for comfort food, however, I want something from my Californian childhood




.

It amazes me that my kids will eat this with zucchini noodles.  Since I have yet to order a spiralizer, I simply use my vegetable peeler.  It works great.  

~Recipe

1 red bell pepper

1 small yellow onion

4 cloves garlic

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 1/2 lbs ground beef

1 can diced tomatoes 

1 can tomato sauce

1 can tomato paste

8oz water

3teaspoons salt

3teaspoons garlic powder

1teaspoon cracked pepper

1 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon dried basil

handful of fresh Italian parsley

Chop.  Mince the garlic, yellow onion, bell pepper, and parsley.  

In a larger pan, sauté the garlic, bell pepper, and onion in 2T olive oil, on high heat, for about two minutes until veggies are just starting to get tender. 

Mix in the ground beef, stir to incorporate.  Lower heat to medium/high and cook beef until there is no pink, about 5-7 minutes.

Add salt, pepper, oregano, basil, and garlic.

Then add canned tomatoes, sauce, paste, and water.  Let everything boil on medium/low for about five minutes.  Throw in your parsley.  Mix together.

Lower the temp to lo, so that it barely simmers and leave it alone.  :)

After a few hours, you can skim off any fat.

I like to make this in the morning and leave it just barely simmering all day long.  It's an easy meal for Eric to put together when he's home with the kids.

The sauce is great with pasta.

However, we have found that our whole family loves it over zucchini noodles.  With this recipe, I will usually shred about 6 zucchinis.  If you aren't used to raw zucchini noodles with a hot sauce, you should know that they will sweat and your plate or bowl will get a little soupy.  

Failure.

Failure seems to be the theme of my week.  Like a red thread through everything I've done, marring and declaring itself in all of my attempts.  We had some wonderful friends over this week and I prepared a labor of love, my mother in laws Italian gravy.  A couple hours later it was complete.  Left to sit and muddle the flavors into the rich sweet scent of tomatoes and garlic.  It was to be enjoyed the next day, but was simmering happily on the stove at a very low temperature.  However, it was not safe from the tiny little fingers of my angel girl who as of yet cannot see eye level with the counter, but oh how she can turn those knobs.  And she did.  The heat cranked up it wasn't long before the putrid smell of burned metal and sauce caused me to race to the stove, lift the lid and be hit in the face with an acidic billow of smoke.  Try as I might it was ruined.  7am the next day I started a new pot of gravy, ending at 130 in the afternoon.

My new gravy now simmering, my house clean, company coming, we went to the park.  It was the only safe place.  We returned with 45 minutes to clean up and get dinner on the table, plenty of time.
  unless. .  .
while upstairs, my little ones moved a chair over to the stove and tried stirring and eating the thick red sauce, which resulted in splatters and goo in a three foot radius.  I pulled them upstairs, cleaned them up, deposited them in their room and finished getting ready.  2 minutes later Avalyn came screaming into my room with soap from head to toe and of course in her eyes.  As I threw her into the tub and was trying to clean her up, Judah came in, laughing.  I lost it.  I started to yell.  Then I went into their room found puddles of soap on the carpet, in their toys, EVERYWHERE!  and I screamed.  I was psycho mommy and I broke my heart.  No I didn't hit or 'hurt' my children, but I demolished my sons heart.  I demolished myself.

I am not a person who gets upset over messes.  They are the hallmark of my life.  Never something to lose yourself over.  But I did.  I let go of myself and yelled at my most precious boy.  The child that I would give my life for.  The son of my heart, my delight and my joy.  In that moment how I appeared was more important than my kids, and for me, that is never okay.   I had forgotten that having friends over to a perfectly clean house with dinner on the table is NOT who I am right now.  I am spaghetti splatters and mess, lots of life and laughter.  I forgot and yep, I failed.

Eric and I prayed over Judah, I apologized, lots of cuddles and lots of tears on my end.  He is okay, still the amazing precious boy as always.  I am doing my best and sometimes my best sucks.

Two nights later, just to make this a full and complete week of failure, I succumbed to my sugar addiction.  Found myself under the table, box of donuts on my stomach, candy wrapper in one hand, whipped cream in the other, or something like that.  Okay, it was the vanilla ice cream that has been in the freezer since I started my sugar fast.  It's been whispering to me.  So I finally gave in, big fat bowl with broken up snickerdoodles, that my kids and I had made that afternoon, covered in hot fudge.  Mmmm.  It was good.  Though on the second bowl I decided maybe not that good and I tossed it.  Yep, I failed.  I was shooting for 40 days and I made it 16.

I should point out that I made it over two weeks, even while at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and if there's one food weakness I have, it's carnival food.  Must be all the sugar.  I made it through 2 days of smelling funnel cake and corn dogs, ice cream sundaes in waffle cones and huge cokes.  But, I'm not stronger than my husband out of town and ice cream in the freezer.  So, yes.  This week I have failed.

What is failure?  def.  A lack of success.  Isn't it interesting the guilt that tries to sneak in when you don't make a goal?  The sinking feeling that maybe you just aren't good enough.  Maybe you'll never be good enough.  You quit, does that make you a quitter?  You flipped on your kid, does that make you a bad parent?  Sneaky little lies that if you aren't careful could completely trip you up and have you give into where you failed.  I could go nuts and binge on sugar and just blame it on how I couldn't make it 40 days.  I could decide I'm a terrible mom and not try to be better.  I could take my low moments and camp there.  Or I could be really proud of my successes and realize the areas that I need to improve.  I didn't eat sugar for 16 days!  I didn't succumb to carnival food!  That's pretty awesome!  I am a GOOD mom.  I adore my kids and I focus on them and put them first every day.  There is GRACE.

Lessons learned.  In the movie Meet the Robinsons their motto is just keep moving forward.  Failure is fabulous at letting you know what doesn't work.  It shines a glaring light on areas that need improvement.
My highlighted areas this week were:
-I need to be careful in moments of stress and remember that no matter what happens I value the condition of my children's hearts over myself.
-I can't have sugar in my house.  It talks to me.

What I am walking away with here and what is moving me forward:  The unconditional grace that God has for me.  The depth of his love and passion.  His covering, when I fail.  I am moving toward perfection, I'm not there yet.  Every day I'm taking a step closer.