A Pleasant Dinner

This morning I was rooting through the freezer trying to decide what I wanted to make for dinner. We had a fairly calm day planned, making two more of the pavers and that was about it. But I also knew we'd eaten up pretty much everything I had in the fridge. I found two half pound packages of hamburger and decided to make my twice baked rigatoni. Now, the last time I made this, I promised myself that I would always ask folks over for dinner because I make a large casserole dish and no matter how we try to eat it up, there's always some that goes bad.

I decided to ask sister Lori and her husband Rick. I don't have them over for dinner much and since we'd be eating late, it might work for them. It did. Lori accepted right away and I started dinner at 8:30 in the morning.

I make my own sauce for this dish; no jarred sauces out of the grocery aisle. I used a pint of homegrown tomatoes that I painstakingly processed in my kitchen last summer. A medium sized can of tomato sauce and a medium sized can of tomato paste, rinsing out each can with drinking water that went into the sauce. Though the seasonings I used were dried, I dried them out of my garden last year. I use Basil, Oregano, pressed cloves of garlic (3), lovage, black pepper, a touch of parsley and onion powder. I then chop up a small to medium mushroom and toss that into the mix. I end the mix with some Parmesan cheese for a taste of sweetness. There's no real measure for these, just to taste or smell. I bring all this to a boil and simmer it for several hours. Since I canned my own tomatoes, they have big chunks of tomato in them. Simmering for several hours will dissolve the chunks, if not completely into smaller chunks. The best thing about my spaghetti sauce is the smell. It makes your mouth water as soon as you walk in the door.

While I waited for the simmering to continue, Husband and I went down to the basement to mix another batch of cement for two more pavers and came back up into the house to clean and straighten up for company. Then I browned the meat, drained it and put it into the sauce, brought it back to a boil and reduced the heat to simmer yet a few more hours.

Around 5:00 pm I started to boil water for the 1 lb. Of rigatoni. I cooked that for about 10 minutes and drained it. Then I added it to the sauce, mixing it well making sure that all the rigatonies were coated with sauce. Then I poured the whole thing into a 9x13 casserole dish, evened it out and covered it with mozzarella cheese and sprinkled just a light layer of Parmesan cheese, basil, oregano and Italian seasonings. I covered it with tin foil and cooked it in the over for 30 minutes at 350 degrees, taking the foil off after about 20 minutes.

Somewhere among all this, I also cut about 8 slices of bread and coated it nicely with garlic butter. Garlic butter is real sweet cream butter, whipped to softness with small chunks of fresh garlic, olive oil and parsley. I cover this with Parmesan cheese and Italian seasonings. Then I cook it for 20 minutes on an upper rack in the same oven.

Lori brought a beautiful tiered salad of tons of greens such as lettuce, peas, radishes, carrots, hard boiled eggs, a mayonnaise dressing and bacon bits. For dessert there was apricot jello with banana slices and whipped cream. It was a delicious meal with good company and great conversation.