Use-it-up Harvest Spaghetti Sauce

I'm starting to think I'd do all right on the show MasterChef, especially on those Mystery Box Challenges, since apparently I face the basically the same thing at home on a fairly regular basis!  Just the other day, I had a half pound of ground venison that needed to be used up, an abundance of summer squash, an assortment of other garden veggies, and kids that wanted spaghetti for dinner.  I came up with a super hearty and delicious spaghetti sauce that it barely needed the spaghetti to make it a meal!  I only ended up using half the box of spaghetti to feed the whole family!  Keeping that in mind, using garden veggies, homemade tomato sauce, and venison my father-in-law gave us (we ran out of what my husband got.  Guess I need to send him out more to hunt this year!), this whole meal cost under $1 to feed the whole family!

Another nice thing about this meal is that it is super quick!  Start it when you start your water to boil for the pasta and by the time the pasta is ready to serve, so is the sauce! 

Harvest Spaghetti Sauce

1/2 lb ground meat
1 small onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 small summer squash, pared (if desired), quartered and sliced
2 cups plain tomato sauce
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried basil (or 1 tbsp fresh)
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tomato, chopped

Brown ground meat with onion and green pepper.  Add summer squash and saute until squash just begins to soften.  Add tomato sauce, garlic, basil, oregano, and tomato.  Simmer about 10 minutes.  Serve on pasta, topped with grated Parmesan cheese.

Buttery Harvest Chicken & Rice

The zucchini fairy dropped off a number of lemon squash in addition to a zucchini the other day, so now I'm experimenting with different ways to use it.  Apparently, it is used just like any other summer squash, but since I didn't really have any summer squash recipes (other than zucchini recipes), I'm still doing some experimenting.  Here is the result of one such successful experiment.  With onions from my garden, carrots from my mom's, summer squash from the zucchini fairy, and homemade chicken stock, this only cost a couple bucks or so to feed the family!

Buttery Harvest Chicken Rice

2 tbsp butter
1 cup sliced carrots
1 medium onion, diced
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup water
2/3 cup uncooked white rice
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 small summer squash
3/4 cup cooked chicken pieces

Melt butter in a large saucepan.  Add carrots and onion and cook until tender.  Stir in chicken stock, water, rice, salt, and garlic powder.  Bring to a boil.  Cover and reduce heat; simmer for 13 minutes.  Stir in squash and chicken.  Cover and simmer 10 minutes longer or until rice and vegetables are tender.