I can’t wait to tell you about this recipe!  Sunday, I stayed home from church to kick the last bit of an infection, but still needed to have lunch on the table for 8 of us (and a young guest.) So around 8 am, I snuck up to our attic kitchen and threw 2 (24 oz) cans of spaghetti sauce, 1 frozen 2 lb log of lean ground beef, and a cup of water (which I used to rinse out the sauce cans) in a large oval slow cooker on high.  Then back to bed for me.

At 11:30, I took the lid off, and smashed the now cooked beef into crumbles with the back of a fork.  (A potato masher would have been handy…but which box did I pack that in?)  (The beef had taken on all the yummy flavors of the sauce.) And stirred in 1 lb of dry macaroni noodles.  Then I replaced the lid and waited for the family to come home.

Darren found some lettuce, cottage cheese and pineapple to make it look something like a meal.  But oh, that spaghetti mac was yummy. We had 1 serving left over and I packed it into a lunch kit for a lucky child.  I’m going to say this serves 8-10 of a mixed age and gender family or 6 growing boys.

I imagine this recipe would work with gluten free noodles, or low carb Dreamfields pasta too. The pasta shape is important though.  Full size macaroni takes longer to cook than thin spaghetti which would have turned to mush in the crock.

Oh the bliss of not thawing meat or standing over hamburger browning in the skillet.  Imagine it, you pregnant ladies who can’t stand the smell of cooking meat!  Imagine it, you busy working mom’s or homeschoolers who don’t have an extra moment in the day.  This is a life changer.