mid-week meal share: spaghetti with creamy marinara sauce

Good evening from a bad blogger! Today was my first day off after my long stretch and after school this morning and a list of other errands, the girls are bathed and in bed and I'm finally able to get to my post from yesterday.

On one our last trips to the grocery store I was picking up one of the major staples in our family's diet: pasta. Kennedy begged me for some rotini because "it's twisty". When we got home and I was looking at the box I thought it was some weird retro version of Barilla that our extremely old and out-dated Kroger was still able to keep in stock via a worm hole.

Clearly this is a box of linguine, but that's because I used these for the ridiculously cheap and easy meal I'm sharing this week. Barilla Pronto. After looking at the box I went to Barilla's website and realized that Pronto products seem to be fairly new. Time-space continuum pasta: 0. As the box says: One Pan-No Boil-No Drain. Let's get on to the recipe! And this is one that in the future I probably will stop giving credit to and just take it allllllll for myself.

Cost effective: $5 y'all.

Easy to concoct: probably the easiest yet next to take out and all you need is 10 MINUTES!

Nutritious: I think I might keep this portion out from here on out.. the recipes have proven to be full of carbs and other things that are not leafy salads.

Here's whatcha need:

1 box of Barilla Pronto half cut spaghetti (or other)

3 cups COLD water

1 jar of Barilla marinara sauce

½ cup of heavy cream

½ cup of grated Parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste (needed)

1. In a large skillet, pour in your spaghetti. Or pour in your linguine if you grabbed the wrong box on the damn shelf.

2. Pour cold water on top; enough so that the noodles are covered.

3. Turn your burner on high and set a timer for 10 minutes.

4. Once the water is boiling, stir frequently to continuously. The noodles definitely start sticking once the water starts to absorb. So they aren't 'no boil' noodles, but you don't need boiling water before you begin to cook them.

5. When the water is almost gone (for me it was when there were 3 minutes left on the clock), you'll go ahead and add in your sauce and cream. I recommend turning the heat down to medium.

6. Mix the sauce in evenly and continue to cook until the consistency is to your liking.

7. Remove from heat once said consistency is achieved.

8. Top with cheese and enjoy!

Is this recipe quick and extremely easy? Yes! It's also extremely affordable. Does the flavor show the ease? Kind of. It is completely tasty but I personally felt that there were many flavor elements left out. The easiest way to achieve this without altering "anything" would be to pick a different flavor sauce. Tomato and basil sauce would cook the exact same way, no?

GCWOK approved.

Leia