It was very easy for me to get the vegetables I needed for the salad and the meat sauce (tomato based), as my older sister has a vegetable garden. I was able to use fresh vegetables for my salad. For the spaghetti, I went to Kroger’s and purchased the most organic brand of noodles I could find. The brand that I chose to go with was Organic Spaghetti by Kroger’s Simply Truth Brand. The meat sauce was a little more difficult to make since I had to make it from scratch. Typically, when I make spaghetti and meat sauce, I purchase Ragu’s Garden Combination sauce. I found a really good recipe for meat sauce from scratch. I purchased all of my ingredients from Kroger as well. The recipe called for ground beef, 1 chopped onion, 4 cloves of garlic, 1 small green bell pepper diced, diced tomatoes (they said to use a can, I used fresh tomatoes and diced them myself), oregano, basil salt and pepper. The recipe also called for tomato sauce which I made from scratch as well. In order to make the tomato sauce, I used 5 pounds of tomatoes that I had purchased from Kroger. I cut the tomatoes in half and took out the seeds. I had to grate the tomatoes into a bowl in ordered to get about 4 cups of tomato. I put the tomato in a sauce pan on high and added salt, olive oil garlic, basil and 1 bay leaf. After bringing it to a boil, I lowered the heat and let it simmer for a little …show more content…
I chose lasagna because I wanted to see if my boyfriend would be able to tell the difference from fresh, homemade meat sauce and the Stouffer’s Lasagna. Stouffer’s brand prides themselves on using “real” ingredients. The lasagna took about 1 hour and a half to cook. One of the main differences I noticed in making the spaghetti sauce from scratch and cooking the lasagna was prep time. With the spaghetti, I had to go shopping for all of the items I needed for the dinner. I had to pick vegetables from a garden, wash and dice them. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen and away from my boyfriend who was my dinner guest. With the frozen lasagna, I was able to put the lasagna in the oven and go into the living room where we shared our meal. We were able to talk and spend time together before eating instead of me being in the kitchen making sure to stir the sauce or making sure that the pasta didn’t over cook. The lasagna was served from the plastic container that it is baked in. With the frozen meal, the clean up time was a lot less than what it had been with the homemade spaghetti dinner. There was not rave reviews about how good the lasagna was unlike the difference my boyfriend could taste with the homemade spaghetti