Baked Ravioli

As you can see by all the recipes on this website, we like pasta at our house lol.  This one is a great weeknight meal that can be prepared ahead of time and refrigerated or frozen until ready to cook.

I have school on Mondays and Wednesday nights, so I will usually assemble this the night before and stick it in the fridge so that Mr H can just throw it in the oven 45 minutes before I get home and it’s ready to go.

What you need:

Bag of frozen cheese ravioli

Large jar of pasta sauce

Provolone cheese slices

Shredded mozzarella cheese

Parmesan cheese

1 pound Hamburger

Diced onion (as little or as much as you like)

What you do:

Cook your hamburger and onion together and drain grease.  Pour about a half cup of sauce in the bottom of a baking dish (9x9 is fine, you just have to be sure to use a cookie sheet underneath the baking dish when cooking in the oven because the sauce will boil over).  Then put a layer of ravioli down and cover with provolone cheese slices.  Then layer in this order: hamburger, sauce, ravioli.  When you are finished, use any remaining sauce  and cover with shredded mozzarella cheese.

Spray the underside of a piece of tin foil and cover the dish.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes and then uncover and bake for 10 additional minutes or until cheese is melted and sauce is bubbly.

Easy Peasy Spaghetti Sauce That Rocks!

This sauce only has 3 ingredients in it.  That’s right, ONLY 3!  When I tell you that it is SO GOOD though!  Mmmmmm. 

You will need:

One large yellow onion

2 28oz cans of diced or whole tomatoes

10 tablespoons of butter

Garlic or garlic powder

That’s it!!!  Don’t underestimate though.  I did.  I thought, there are not enough ingredients in this sauce for it to be good.  It will surprise you though.

What you do:

Pour your tomatoes, butter and garlic in a pot.  Peel and cut your onion in half.  Place the onion in the pot with the cut side down.  Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer.  Cook for 45 minutes stirring frequently.  When you are stirring, crush your tomatoes with your spoon or with a potato masher. 

If you wish to add meat to this sauce, you need to cook it separately and then add it to the sauce when the sauce is done.  So delicious! 

The Difference Between Big Mistakes and Blessings Disguised as Mistakes (BDMs)

I bought an iPhone last year for my upgrade and did not purchase the AppleCare (big mistake #1).  I did not purchase an Otterbox or a waterproof case for it (big mistake #2).  I went to the beach for Labor Day and took it down to the pool with me (big mistake #3) and left it in my bag with my cold water bottle that was sweating all over the place (big mistake #4).  My iPhone drowned.  I tried to turn it on while it was still wet (big mistake #5).  It fried.  When it finally dried out, the screen would not work.  The phone itself appeared to be working fine because it was ringing when people called me and I could hear text messages coming through, but the screen no longer functioned.  So I went home and on a whim decided to try and send it to Apple to see if they would fix it.  I knew that they probably wouldn’t because it was water damage, but I was desperate.  So I sent it to them anyway.  They emailed me a few days later that they were returning the phone unrepaired because they don’t cover water damage under warranty yada yada.  So here’s where things start to get a little crazy.

I came home from work and there was a little sticky note on my door from Fedex that they tried to deliver and no one was home to sign, so they will be back tomorrow for a final attempt.  Stupid me didn’t think about signing the sticky note and leaving it on the door for them or leaving them a note to tell them to take it next door to my inlaws (BDM #1).  So the next day, Fedex comes back and obviously I still work at 10am on a weekday so I was again not there to sign.  So they left a note that said they were sending it to their depot in Greensboro and I would need to pick it up there.  I didn’t get around to driving to Greensboro until about 10 days later (BDM #2).  I figured what was the hurry anyway, the phone didn’t work so why did I need to hurry up and go get it?  Plus it’s hard to plan that drive when you have so much going on (school, work, toddler, life, etc).  So I made the 45 minute drive to the Fedex depot only to be told when I got there that they had shipped it back to Apple because they only hold returned packages there for 5 days and then they return to the sender (not really a BDM, but it still sucked).  I was LIVID.  No one bothered to put any information about that little 5 day rule anywhere on that paper that was stuck to my door, so how was I supposed to know??

So then I go home and I call Apple the next day and tell them what I’ve been told and I ask them to please reship the phone to me but to a different address where someone will be home during the day.  The lady on the phone says that’s fine and puts a note in the computer for them to do so.  Fast forward to one week later and I still do not have the phone.  So I call Apple back.  I speak to a very nice gentleman on the phone who informs me that according to their notes they are unable to find my phone (BDM on THEIR part).  At this point I’m like, clearly it is not meant for this phone to make it back to my hands.  So I ask him what I need to do at this point and he says, “Well Mrs Hopkins, if they are unable to find your phone they will just send you a replacement.”  Say WHATTTT??

Moral of the story……EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON!  And I have some amazing luck haha.  I just hope that I don’t run into some random person and transfer all of it to them like Lindsey Lohan in that movie “Just My Luck.”  That would totally suck.  Maybe I should go buy a lottery ticket today haha.  Oh well, yay for getting an iPhone again!!