Spaghetti with Mozzarella and Tomatoes

For the most part, I make what I want for dinner and everyone deals with it. That generally means lots of pasta and rice dishes with varying levels of vegetables because YES, PLEASE. The only catch to the whole thing is that Mila is sort of a pain in the butt. She will eat most anything, but she will also throw most anything halfway across the kitchen because it is SO fun to give the dogs food, especially when you make them run to catch it.

She's killing me. That's what I'm saying.

In an effort to either discourage the food throwing or at least make things that contain more dog-friendly ingredients (I KNOW HOW RIDICULOUS THAT IS OMG. It sucks when she throws food they won't eat, though. I mean, I have to clean that up. It's the lamest.), I've been toying with incorporating more of Mila's favorite things into dinner.

Mozzarella cheese balls. 

The girl loves herself some cheese. Any cheese. All cheese. But those little balls of fresh mozzarella? They're toddler crack around here.

Pasta with Mozzarella and Tomatoes.

This dish turned out really good. SUPER good, even. It turned out so perfectly that Miss Alexis, she who threw a fit because she wanted plain buttered noodles and I said no, was caught stealing mozzarella balls from other people's plates.

You read that right.

The anti-cheese kid was convinced.

::BOOM::

(Mila still threw half of her dinner. ::sigh:: )

Spaghetti with Mozzarella and Tomatoes (serves 4, if you count two dogs as one person)

1/2 pound thin spaghetti (half a box)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 clove minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 teaspoon black pepper
3-4 dried bay leaves
1 package grape tomatoes, cut into quarters
1 cup fresh mozzarella balls

1. Cook the spaghetti according to the instructions on the box. 

2. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil and sauté the onion until it's clear.

3. Add the garlic, salt, black pepper, bay leaves, and tomatoes. Continue to sauté over medium to high heat for 4-5 minutes, or until the tomatoes soften enough to smoosh with a fork. How will you know when they're smooshable? Easy, you're going to smoosh them all. Go, go ahead and smoosh the tomatoes with a fork.

4. Turn off the heat. Add the cheese. Toss everything.

5. Add the spaghetti. Toss some more.

6. TAH-DAH! It's time to be super proud of the super easy dish that you just made that other people will assume was harder than it was. Go you!

Comments

[ann]

You had me at mozzarella balls! Sounds delicious!