I Bought This – Prego Italian Sausage & Garlic

When you see “I Bought This” in the title, it means this is a review of a product I purchased on my own with no sponsorship or compensation.

Spaghetti is my absolute favorite food. I make a huge batch of spaghetti sauce twice a month, and each batch makes two dinner meals for the five of us plus leftovers for lunch the next day or two. I never get tired of it!  I start with a recipe from a book I own called “Frozen Assets”, and then over the years I’ve tweaked it by adding and subtracting here and there until it’s the perfect taste for us.

Some people put ground beef in their sauce, but I always use a pound of Bob Evans Italian sausage. I saute some diced onion and crushed garlic in a tiny bit of olive oil, then break up the sausage and add that, stirring it once in a while until the sausage is brown. I spoon off any grease, then add two cans of fire-roasted diced tomatoes, two cans of Hunt’s traditional spaghetti sauce, and about half a cup of Merlot. I bring it to a simmer, then turn it down and let it sit on low heat for three or four hours, stirring it every once in a while.  It’s not a recipe learned in culinary schools, but it works for us!

Sometimes though, I just want a bowl of spaghetti and don’t want to have to wait to make sauce!  Since we all like Italian sausage in our sauce, I grabbed Prego Italian Sausage & Garlic for making a quick dinner.  The kids and I had it last week and it was surprisingly good! The sausage was little round bits about the size of pencil erasers, and there was a lot of it.  The sauce wasn’t overly sweet like some jarred sauces, and it was a good thickness, coating the spaghetti well.

I’ll buy this again. It definitely tastes like jarred sauce, but for a quick spaghetti dinner without hours of sauce-making, it’s a good product. A 25.6 ounce jar is $1.92 at Meijer grocery stores.

MomCentral Review: Ragu Fresh and Simple Pouches

What combines servings of vegetables, microwave convenience, a just-right portion size, and a terrific taste that kids love? It’s Ragú’s® new Fresh and Simple All Natural sauce pouches! I received two pouches from MomCentral to sample, and for me, it’s a perfect way to serve pasta for lunch! The pouches come in three flavors-Traditional Tomato Basil, Garden Vegetable, and Tomato, Onion & Garlic. Like traditional Ragú® sauces, the Fresh and Simple sauces have no sugar, no artificial additives and no preservatives.

Photobucket All you do is clip the corner of the pouch, pop it in the microwave for NINETY SECONDS, and pour the sauce over cooked pasta and voila, spaghetti for lunch! Since it’s just Kaitlyn and I having lunch at home during the week, it’s great to have a smaller amount, too. I’ve thrown away WAY too many opened jars of spaghetti sauce that got a little fuzzy around the edges.

Ragú® is committed to providing busy moms and dads with the tips, tools, and ideas they need to fuel their kids’ appetites and imaginations, so they created a website called Feed Our Kids Well. There you will find links to the Ragú® panel of experts including dieticians, nutritionists, fitness experts, and MomCentral’s own Stacy DeBroff (!), a link to the order form for a FREE 34 page Feed Our Kids Well recipe book, and a link to Ragu.com which has HUNDREDS of recipes and great meal ideas. I’ve used it myself!

Finally, the website has a video created to illustrate just why it is so important to Ragú® to provide wholesome, delicious products like the Fresh and Simple sauce pouches. They know how important our children are to us, how much love and joy they bring to our lives. They know we want to nourish both our children’s imaginations and their appetites. They know that our children are a Daily Gift.

Ragú® is a company that I am proud to support and recommend here on MomReviews. Thank you to MomCentral for providing the Fresh and Simple pouches, and thank you for making them, Ragú®.