Spaghetti Gratiné & Personal Pita Pizzas

We've almost always eaten our spaghetti with a mound of broiled cheese on top. It's obviously heavier on the fattiness side but it's really worth it. All you do is preheat your the broiler of your oven, put your cooked spaghetti in an oven proof plate, top with you favourite spaghetti sauce recipe and then add grated cheese. Pop it in the oven till the cheese is brown and bubbly and then serve the hot plate in another plate so that it doesn't burn your table. This recipe is simple but really good for those comfort food days.

Though spaghetti gratiné was a stolen idea, our recipe for pita pizzas is original - meaning that we didn't find it in a cookbook or anything. What you need for these are greek style pitas (i.e. not pocket pitas), some canned pizza sauce, and your toppings of choice. What's great about this is that everyone can have what they want on their own individual pizza. So for all of you parents out there, this is one of the really kid friendly meals.

Before you put your pita pizzas in the oven, you need to prepare your ingredients. Chopped tomatoes, mushrooms, ham, cooked bacon, onions, olives, peppers, pepperoni, grated moza cheese, feta, artichoke hearts, proscuitto, smoked herring or salmon, hot peppers, and pretty much anything else you can think of are great ingredients. The best thing is that everyone has choice and variety enough to satisfy everyone's eating habits.

These and other really obvious meals brought to you by Pat, the future owner of Stone Spoon Bistro.

Spaghetti Squash & A Sleeping Potion

I was introduced to spaghetti squash some time in my teens. Coming from a family of grilled cheese, pizza fingers and takeout, I was never introduced to anything culinarily (if that's eve a word) interesting. Well spaghetti squash is not only interesting, but it's a fabulous and healthy change from pasta.

To cook the squash, simple cut it in half, empty out the seeds, place in a baking pan with about an inch of water in the bottom, and cook in a 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes. Once cooked, use a spoon to scrape out the strands of crunchy squash. Serve with homemade spaghetti sauce. Yet be warned that it's best to serve 3 or 4 people on one squash. Half the squash to yourself can be a vegetable overdose which I guess isn't so bad when compared to deep-fried food overdoses.

I also started working again after 2 weeks being paid to stay at home while they cleaned the building in which I work after some minor fire damage. And if that wasn't enough, the shifts I'm scheduled for are from 5pm to 1am. Though I get up early in the morning and simply take a brief nap before work so that I don't pass out, the hours are less than desirable. What's more, when I get home I'm almost wide awake. The solution: a grandmother's trick to drink a tall glass of warm milk before going to bed.

Though some of you might cringe to think of warm milk, there are ways to make it a bit more appealing. I for one sprinkled a bit of sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla extract into the milk. This concoction almost tasted like Chai tea so it went down pretty well.

On a scientific note, the melatonin (the sleeping hormone) found in milk is what makes this perfect for a pre-sleep drink. (You could always take a shot of hard liquor or sleeping pills but that can prove to be problematic in the long run).