Easy Things to Cook :)

Happy Wednesday, everyone! :) I can't wait to try out the awesome recipes Erin and Nicky, they sound really great!

That being said, I'm not the best cook but I really enjoy cooking. My favorite thing to make is probably spaghetti, because it doesn't take much effort to make it taste okay, and I like to make it when I'm babysitting or cooking because it's pretty easy. 

I'm pretty sure you all know how to make it, but I'll put the directions (or at least, what I do) anyway: 

 

First, get out a pot and boil water in it. I usually add salt too, but I honestly have no clue why -- it's something I've seen my parents do when they're cooking.... (Note: I just looked it up and apparently salt increases the boiling point of the water which helps the pasta cook better, and it adds flavor. Neat!)

Once your water is boiling, add the spaghetti noodles. If you want to mix it up, try using a different kind of pasta like the kind that's shaped like little bow ties. :) 

While you're boiling the pasta, begin to heat up your spaghetti sauce. I usually just buy some from the store and add mushrooms to it because I like mushrooms. Feel free to try different types of sauces or add other kinds of vegetables that you like! Continue to heat the sauce but don't set it at too hot of a temperature or else it will start bubbling and going everywhere (I know this from experience). You can also add meat, but I usually don't.

Cook the pasta until it's tender, but make sure you don't cook it for too long because then it'll get too mushy and that doesn't taste that great. You can do this by pulling them out with a fork and tasting them. Also, there's another way that you can test to see if the pasta is ready by throwing the noodle at the window. If it sticks, it's ready. :P 

Once the pasta is ready, use a strainer to drain the water out, then put the pasta back into the pot and add the now-heated up sauce. Stir it, and then it's ready! Just put some in a bowl to eat. :) I like to add shredded Parmesan cheese on top of mine usually.  

Another fun thing to make that's pretty easy is lemon cake. Usually I just buy the lemon cake mix from the store and follow the directions on the box (so original!). Something you can do to make the cake really moist and awesome-tasting is to get some lemon pudding mix and add it to the cake. :) If you have one of those circular cake pans with the hole in the middle, use that to bake the cake in. 

One of these things!

While you're baking the cake in the oven, squeeze several lemons and add powdered sugar to the juice until you have a slightly thicker icing. It should taste sweeter, but not too much. It's up to you to decide what the ratio of sugar to lemon juice is, because that's what I do. :P Once the cake is cool, just pour the icing over the cake, and you have a lemon cake! It should taste really moist and yummy! 

Anyway, I hope those directions make sense!