Friday, August 28, 2026

Home improvement week means easy dinners

I have to admit, having a meal you can toss in a pan and then into the oven while you do some home improvement project, then come back to and it be delicious and a full meal? Kind of awesome. Actually, really awesome. We've had this weird issue with our under-cabinet lighting; it won't get very bright. We've had it installed and working great for a while, then suddenly it wouldn't work right. It's on a switched outlet, so Andy swapped the switch - no luck. Swapped the outlet - no luck. We plugged another light into that outlet - same issue! So, something is wonky somewhere in our 120 year old house's wiring and I'm not really interested in figuring it out right now. I've been researching LED wireless under cabinet lighting and found a solution! I was all excited to install it then we had a flush valve in a toilet go out... so I spent 4 1/2 hours on that instead of the fun lighting project... 4 1/2 hours on one toilet is just wrong... thankfully I got the most of it figured out, after 3 trips to 2 different hardware stores (one where the "helpful hardware folks" was a girl half my age who just googled things and said I wasn't trying hard enough). I was very happy the next night to toss dinner into the oven, then do my lighting project with no issues, everything worked and we had a great dinner, then I went out to do a camper improvement project! I will say I get my Boursin cheese at my favorite weird grocery store for 3 for $1... while at Aldi I noticed they are over $5 each! So, if you are stuck paying over $5 - I'm sorry, but this stuff is good!!

Dump and Bake Creamy Sausage Pasta
1 12-ounce box bowtie pasta
1 12-ounce package frozen broccoli florets or about 3 cups fresh broccoli florets
1 13.5-ounce package smoked Polish kielbasa cut into 1/4 inch coins
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 5.3-ounce package Boursin garlic & fine herbs gourmet cheese

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350℉.
In a greased 9×13-inch casserole dish, add the uncooked pasta noodles, broccoli, sliced kielbasa, chicken broth, milk, and salt; stir.
Remove the cheese from the package and place it in the center of the dish.
Cover the pan tightly with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
Uncover the pasta, give it a stir, and bake an additional 20 minutes or until the pasta is soft.
Give the pasta a stir and let it set for 10 minutes. This will help the sauce thicken and coat the pasta beautifully!
Stir once again and serve!

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