On Monday She Ate...

Rigatoni with Meat Sauce

Today is the start of my "off" week, which means I have a lot of time to actually cook and prepare meals for the week. I did the grocery shopping this week and, again, stocked us up on fresh fruit and vegetables. Another thing I've been pretty much obsessed with since Weight Watchers is cottage cheese. A 1/2 cup of fat free cottage cheese is just 1 Points Plus value and with 0 points cantaloupe, I have found one of my favorite snacks. During the work week, I really like soups because you get a little more bang for your buck and they fill me up without wasting points. That way, I can have a small snack when I get home at 11:30 pm. I swear, getting home from working PM shift at a hospital is like getting home drunk from the bars and needing to drunk eat. EVERYTHING is appealing and awesome and wonderful. Popcorn! Leftover chinese! Pizza Rolls! Now, I like to have a Chobani yogurt to quell the hunger pangs and then I scoot off to bed.

So. After a pretty long and tiring work week, I was hardcore craving carbs tonight. So we decided on rigatoni with a meat sauce. This was very easy to make and easy to double or triple the sauce to freeze for later in the week.

Rigatoni with Meat Sauce

Points Plus Value: 9 Points 
Adapted from: Weight Watchers
Serves: 4 people

Whatcha Need:

• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 medium carrot, peeled, chopped
• 1 rib of celery, chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 8 oz lean, uncooked ground beef
• 28 oz canned diced tomatoes
• 1/4 c chopped fresh parsley
• 1/4 c dry red wine (or reduced sodium beef broth)
• 1 rosemary sprig
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 c uncooked rigatoni
• 4 Tbsp rigatoni

Whatcha Gotta Do:

1. Heat the oil in a large nonstick pan

2. Add the chopped onions and cook until they're translucent (and filling your kitchen with that delicious scent that tells everyone else around that you're making dinner!)

3. Add the celery, carrot, and garlic. Saute an additional 5 minutes.

4. Add the ground beef and stir frequently to break up the meat. Cook until it's nice and brown.

5. Add the tomatoes, which juice, the parsley, the red wine, the rosemary, the bay leaf, and salt and pepper.

Before Weight Watchers, I would have had a glass of wine (or two) myself while cooking. Then probably another glass with the actual meal. Now that's a NO NO! And I'm a little sad about it....

6. Bring that yummy sauce to a bubble, then immediately turn it down and simmer uncovered for about 45 minutes to let everything thicken up a bit.

7. Cook up the rigatoni and pour the sauce over the cooked noodles.

One serving is a cup and a half. Sprinkle with 1 Tbsp of the cheese and EAT UP!

Our Review: I like most of the recipes that give me enough food for the points. Like I said, I love pasta so I got a whole bowl full and that made me and my stomach very happy. The taste was okay, I like thicker meat sauces myself, but you could definitely taste the rosemary and the carrot and celery added a nice little crunch. I gave the recipe 4 stars. Patrick gave it 4.5 stars. He said the overall taste was good, but didn't like that there wasn't more of a tomato sauce.

Tomorrow, we weigh in! I wish we had a sauna so I could try to sweat some pounds away, but we'll just have to see what the scales say!