Quick Dinners: Same Thing Different Every Night

The marinara I roasted in my previous post yielded about 1 1/2 quarts of sauce. I wanted to stretch this out to make a weeks worth of meals. I work 10 hour days, so when I get home, I am usually too pooped to pop. I like to either have left overs, or items prepped which can easily be assembled for a quick dinner.



One night, I stopped by our local Polish market, Rich's Deli and picked up a links of kielbasa. At home, I cut the smoked sausage in half and ladled my marinara over the meat. I broiled the sausage and marinara for about 15 minutes, during which time, I quickly boiled some fettuccine. When all was done, I spooned the marinara over the pasta, and cut the sausage in slices, layering them on top of the pasta and sauce and topped with some Parmesan cheese, a quick delicious meal! I served some wilted greens on the side, but a quick garlic toast would also compliment nicely along with some red wine.



The next night, I was feeling a little more energetic, so I decided to make some pizza to finish up the remaining marinara . I was able to quickly whip together some pizza dough.

• A Quick TIMESAVER: Preheat your oven 200 degrees while you are mixing together your dough. When you dough is done, turn the oven off and place your kneaded dough resting inside an oiled bowl into the warm oven. This will expedite the rising of your dough. Check dough in 30-40 minutes, and it should be good to go.

I rubbed the rolled out dough with olive oil and chopped garlic and covered with my marinara. I layered some sliced kielbasa left over from the previous night over the sauce, sprinkled it with some pickled capers, and covered the pizzas generously with pre-shredded mozzarella cheese. The pizzas went into the preheated 400 degree oven for 20 minutes or until golden and crispy.



Bam, dinner was done! In about a total of 2 hours cooking time during which I spent 30 minutes actually working, I was able to make enough pizza for two nights of dinners. So that took care of the part of the tomatoes. I still had about 35 lbs more in the fridge, to take care of on the weekend, so stay tuned.