Hanamachi Lights: Bento & Food » Money

Recipe: Fixing Hunt’s Pasta Sauce

Faith — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 13:43:56 +0000

Pasta sauce is convenient these days. What used to take hours, sometimes days, now takes only the few minutes necessary to open up a can of red sauce and heat it up on the stove top. It would be great, delicious even, if Ben didn’t continually buy Hunt’s pasta sauce.

What’s wrong with Hunt’s? Is it cheap? Well, not bad at $1.10 per can. Is it red? It’s very red, there are even scales of redness. Is it sauce? Technically, yes, it is sauce. Is it tasty? Okay, herein lies the problem. Hunt’s pasta sauce is bland, bitter and tastes a bit like the sauce they put on canned ravioli. There’s no sweet, savory love like you get with Prego (I believe it really is in there), and no fruity, juicy goodness like you’d get with a similarly sized, 20 cent cheaper can of Del Monte which, incidentally, is my choice in cheap pasta sauces.

So how do we remedy this? Apparently it’s surprisingly easy. Here’s what you need:

1/2 can of Hunt’s pasta sauce
1/4 lb of browned ground beef
Sea salt and ground black pepper to taste
2 T clover honey

Basically, after you brown your ground beef you stir in your spices and pasta sauce over medium-low heat until the sauce barely starts to heat up. Pour in your honey and stir it in slowly. Keep stirring with the heat on for about 5 or 6 minutes, or until the sauce is thoroughly heated. Serve over your favorite pasta!

Happy Halloween and Thanks Nat!

Faith — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 06:07:21 +0000

I can’t believe I’m going to be passing on Halloween. We’ll hand out candy, obviously, but we don’t have near enough time to even carve Pumpkin Chan. Thank you Mom, The Boy and Hubby for sucking up all of our time – appreciate it!

For your viewing pleasure HL isn’t gone – I bet you thought it would be, didn’t you? I did, but that’s because I’m broke and it’s renewal came up. How, pray tell, did I avoid losing it like I lost Shibuya? My best of all bestest buds Natalie renewed it for the year along with a few others I was about to lose, on account of she’s the greatest.

Thank you Natalie for being an awesome friend!

The Bento Blog Blues: No Food Woes

Faith — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 00:51:27 +0000

Well my camera’s not working, and even when it was I couldn’t figure out how to control the blasted thing which meant fuzzy pictures on a good day, badly lit ones on a bad. Half of the photos here are from a mobile phone, which was the only way to get a semi clear picture!

On top of that I just find myself working too much to really get into blogging what little food I do make, which is a shame actually. With no room down here (hopefully will change once I’m moved), bad lighting, no usable camera and no money to buy food, I’m sorry to say that this blog is boring even to me, lol.

It’s just as well, really, because I’m in one of those no food slumps and because of that I may start posting recipe-related articles with no photos because I’m not actually making the dishes. Here’s to hoping the camera and food situations get better!

Betty's Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Faith — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:35:25 +0000

The Boy isn’t here right now (yay!) so we’re celebrating by trying out a cookie mix we got on sale for 90 cents at Hy-Vee. It’s an oatmeal, chocolate chip situation from Betty Crocker and it turned out sooo delish! If only we weren’t running low on milk… As always, more pics on Flickr (sidebar)! I’m not usually a mix girl (though I have gotten into the nostalgia of Jiffy lately!), but times being what they are it’s cheaper than scratch!

Shrimp Souper Meal

Faith — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:28:29 +0000

From a few days ago, a giant shrimp flavored ramen soup cup called Souper Meal, which I’ve never had before the Dollar General opened. Very tastey! It’s got a ‘flavor enhancer’ which tastes like olive oil and garlic, and really does a number on the broth. Good buy for 99 cents!

Cheap and Delicious SPAM Fried Rice

Faith — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:34:32 +0000

Even though it’s brutally hot and humid, our meal for today is a delicimous concoction that vaguely resembles fried rice. If you don’t like SPAM, I don’t understand your language, because this is a dream to make.

Granted, we don’t have the money for SPAM so we had to get the half-priced Luncheon Meat (any generic discount SPAM or canned ham will do in a pinch!) we so affectionately refer to as Lint Loaf in our house. It’s really no comparison to SPAM, but it’s fairly good and it works well in this recipe!

Heat up your pan or wok to medium on a gas range and melt a tablespoon of real butter. Toss in the following:

1/2 Small White Onion – chopped
1 Clove Garlic – crushed

Saute until the onion starts to get transparent, then pour in:

1/2 C of filtered water (necessary out here in the boonies)
1.2 Bag of Frozen Peas
1 Packet Ramen Noodle Seasoning (your flavor choice)
2 tsp. Shoyu / Soy Sauce
1/2 Can of Lint Loaf / SPAM – Cubed

Stir gently, if you stir too hard the SPAM will become mushy and fall apart. Heat for 2-3 minutes.

Fold in:

3 C of Cooked Rice

Until thoroughly coated. Scoop out into a bowl and enjoy! I personally like mine with a liberal shake or two of white pepper and a couple of make-shift spring rolls. Don’t forget the green chai tea!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Bento

Faith — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:46:36 +0000

Trying this one more time – my plugin made my related posts go haywire! Had a great dinner of fakey bento proportions. We only had $1.50 to our name so instead of buying things we need, we hauled off and bought cookies which we had with warm milk tea. Mine are in my Buffalo Wings take home container, which works as a sort of not so cute bento but fun none the less!

Schwan’s: Expensive but Worthwhile

Faith — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 08:54:50 +0000

Laota and I got our very first order from Schwan’s a couple of days ago, and man was it worth the money! First of all, frozen and pre-prepared food isn’t my thing, but with my busy schedual and no transportation ( it’s freezing out there! ), it’s harder and harder for me to go to the grocery storey, because I don’t want to walk a few miles in freezing weather, and if you’ve ever been to Missouri you know the smaller towns don’t have sidewalks most of the time, so you’re going mostly uphill right in the narrow road being passed by jerks who don’t care if they hit you with their pick-up trucks, all just to buy some chicken or milk. Plus, I’m finding it hard to even find time to pack my bento, which I adore doing.

So this is a nice alternative. When Laota and I get off work, it only takes about 10 minutes for us to heat up a meal with main course, side dish and veggie and it cuts down on mess so we don’t spend quite as much time with dishes. They even gave us a free 2 and a half pound tray of sweet and sour chicken with pineapple and peppers over rice because we’re new customers. How cool is that?