Dinner with the Darnells: Southwest Pasta

One of the things I have loved about marriage is learning how to cook each night. Don't get me wrong, I knew how to cook before getting married but I didn't cook on a regular basis. I hadn't learned yet how to manage working a full-time job then coming home and cooking a meal. But, marriage means two people to feed which means eating out on a regular basis is no longer feasible. Plus, my husband really likes it when I cook dinner for him. So, we devised a system - I come home and almost immediately start cooking then Mike cleans up the kitchen afterwards. I have to start cooking right when I walk in the door because if I sit down with a book or start watching Gilmore Girls my motivation to cook dinner decreases exponentially. Mike and I believe in sharing the duties of the home, especially since we both work full-time. Knowing that I don't have to clean up the kitchen after the meal makes cooking after work a much less daunting task. Plus it's incredible attractive when my husband serves me that way.

The other big piece of the puzzle that needed to come together before I could fall into a good rhythm of cooking dinner every night was finding recipes that I could whip together in 30 minutes or less. More than that and fatigue from the day sets in and the task becomes over-whelming and out we go.

I've received lots of requests asking about the recipes I use so I thought I would start posting some of our favorite recipes on the blog. Dinner with the Darnells! :) Now before I share more with you I must let you know that (1) none of the recipes are really my own, I find them on blogs and make a few modifications occasionally, (2) I have a strong preference toward meals that will easily make lots of left overs so that Mike and I will have left overs to take for lunch the next day, and (3) we try to keep it generally healthy - no cream of anything.

Our first meal tonight is One Pot Wonder Southwest Pasta from The Wholesome Dish! This dish is originally meatless but my husband is not one to love meatless meals so I typically cook some ground turkey in a separate skillet while this cooks and then I mix it in with the pasta at the end. Since the reliable weatherman predicted ice and sleet for Dallas today (Monday) I knew there would be a major run on the grocery stores Sunday (that's what Dallas does...every time). So, I preempted the run on the grocery stores and did my weekly shopping on Saturday evening instead. Well, I wasn't the only one and the store was already out of a few things I needed, including ground turkey. So, on Sunday afternoon I fed my husband to the lions and sent him to the other Central Market to get ground turkey. No such luck so he came home with extra lean ground beef instead. That'll do!

The only other modification I typically make is using whatever noodles I have on hand. Somehow I always end up with an assortment of half-used boxes of noodles. Not sure how that happens. So, whatever noodles are in the pantry are what's used for the dish. Another reason to love the dish - it helps clean out the pantry!

Delicious with the smallest hint of heat.

The dish is a big hit with Mike and holds up extremely well when re-heated. I love how the cooking process creates a wonderfully thick sauce coating everything. And, Mike loves that there in minimal clean up! We usually have left overs for a few days which is fabulous if (1) I want to cook a meal the next day that won't make good leftovers or (2) this is the last meal I cook for the weekend since I have a fairly strict no-cooking-on-the-weekends policy. We hope you enjoy this meal as much as we do!