Sausage Ragu with Pappardelle

This sounds like a fancy recipe but it's really simple. And best of all, it comes out to under $2.50 a serving! I saw this recipe in an older copy of Cook's Country Magazine, from October of 2016.

I live in a remote area and had a little trouble sourcing a fresh fennel bulb for the recipe, but it was definitely worth the effort to locate this wonderful ingredient. Fennel is the slight anise-like flavor used in Italian sausage. My picky-eater of a husband loved this, as did both my boys.

With the original recipe calling for either using 2 lb of pasta or freezing half the sauce for a later date, I decided to go ahead and pick up extra pasta. Once the sauce was finished however, I realized that I wouldn't need 2 lb of pasta since we like our pasta pretty saucy.

Sweet 'n' Sour Smoked Sausage

It's been a long week. Remind me next time my phone rings on my day off that I should not answer it. It will only be bad news or somebody begging for a favor. Like being called into work on my day off. In return for working almost a full shift on my day off, I got to only work half a day. Leaving early on a Friday? Start my weekend early? Hell yeah!

The only thing that would have made today better would have been to avoid the four-year old class, who thought flushing random things was a good idea. But I didn't have to clean up the mess so I cannot complain too much. Except that my shoes got wet walking down the hallway. 

At least today ended early and I got to spend this beautiful day relaxing on my deck with a good book. My desire to relax and do nothing carried over into my dinner. 

This is a recipe that I saw in a Kroger advertisement a few months ago. I had put off trying it, not really sure why. It is nothing fancy but a perfect "I'm feeling lazy" dinner that still tastes amazing.

Sausage Gravy

Nothing goes better with some homemade biscuits than some good, old-fashioned sausage gravy. What makes this sausage gravy even better is that it also has bacon in it. Everybody knows that everything is better with bacon.