Weekend Cooking 2/22

Each weekend, Beth Fish Reads hosts Weekend Cooking.  This is perfect for me since I love food and cooking almost as much as I love books!

It's been months since I've had a Weekend Cooking post because weekends are usually packed full of family time, but I wanted to squeeze in a quick one today to tell you about the delicious dinner we had last night.

As you may know, if you have read my past Weekend Cooking posts, I get a lot of my favorite recipes from Cooking Light magazine. I picked up a new issue at the grocery store in December on impulse and last night, I tried one of the recipes from it: Beefy Bolognese Over Penne Pasta. I planned it as a treat for my 17-year old son. We have been eating a Paleo diet (no diary, or grains, little sugar) for the past year for medical reasons for my older son and I, and our younger son is not happy about that! He loves pasta, so I planned this dinner for him.

I thought it would be just the three of us, then our older son said he'd be home from college for dinner, and my younger son announced he had one friend - and then two! - coming over. So, we ended up with six people for dinner, including 4 ravenous young men. I doubled the recipe, and everyone loved it. It's a classic Bolognese sauce with bacon, beef, and bison meat and packed with vegetables, and the long simmer time makes it very flavorful. Even my son's friend who eats very few vegetables and says he doesn't like "wet foods" (yes, really) cleaned his plate!

So, this dish is great for picky kids, but it would also work just as well for a dinner party. This one is definitely a keeper.

Hope you are enjoying foods & cooking this weekend, too!