delicioustown

it's recipe time!  i am half italian, half polish and trying to eat healthier.  so here is a recipe for a healthy, hearty tomato sauce, i added cannellini beans to make it a little more "meaty" without the meat.  i am trying to have more meals without meat and white starches right now so i also put the sauce on top of baby spinach.  you can leave out the beans, and zucchini for my traditional tomato sauce and serve over pasta too.

you may have run into some italians who claim their mom or they make the best tomato sauce or gravy (if there is meat in it) ever and everyone else's sucks.  i learned early on that this is not a battle worth fighting, i am not one of those italians.  i enjoy all types of sauces for what they are and i love my sauce in quiet contentment.  maybe you will too.

you need:
1 lg can whole peeled tomatoes (has to be whole peeled to be my sauce, it's my fav way to make sauce)
olive oil
1 small yellow onion or 1/2 big one
3-4 cloves of fresh garlic
salt
pepper
dried oregano
1 zucchini
1 can of cannellini beans
baby spinach

put about 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil in a large sautee pan over a med low heat.  while it gets warm, chop up your onions and zucchini and add to the pan, if it sizzles too much lower heat you don't want the onions to brown you want them to sweat.  chop up garlic wait for the onions get transparent, add salt, pepper and dried oregano to taste - i like about a tablespoon of oregano, 1/2 teaspoon of pepper and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.  toss in the garlic, now take the tomatoes and you can toss the whole can into
a bowl and crush the tomatoes with your hands keep all the juice in the bowl to or you can pull out each tomato from the can and cut them up, again, keep the juice.
toss all of that in - fill the can halfway with water and put that in too.  put the flame on low cook down for about 20 min.  see how thick it is, depends on how you like it you can cook it down more.  taste for seasonings and add more salt, pepper or oregano if you like, add about two cups of beans depending on how "beany" you want it.  turn off the heat after you warm the beans for a couple minutes.  spoon over baby spinach and some whole grain toast.

it's so filling and fresh tasting!!!

delicious town

in my ever lasting crusade to stay healthy and lose a few lb's i try to come up with belly filling low-cal dishes. salads are a fun but mostly an unbearably unsatisfying meal for a true food addict such as myself. (i usually fill them with hearty additions.) with the days getting colder i have a need to bury my face in something substantial. i have no picture of this dish - sorry i know i am a super visual person so i'm sure this is truly annoying.

step in my recipe for vegetable stew:

butternut squash (i bought the pre-cut version from trader joe's)
onion - 1 whole small or half a large
carrots - 3 or 4
celery - 3 or 4 use the heart of celery with the leaves this has the flavor!
zucchini - 1
olive oil - enough to coat bottom of pot
salt - 1/2 tsp
pepper - 1/2 tsp
oregano - 1 tsp
cumin - 1/2 tsp
adobo (non msg version) - 1/2 tsp
paprika - couple pinches

very simple:
heat the olive oil on medium in a large pot - toss in butternut squash get a quick braise - chop up and add onions, carrots, celery and zucchini - sautee together until everything softens a little and add the spices - cook a little more and cover the veggies with water with until a little bit of the veggies are still peeking out - cover and simmer the pot for a half hour or until the stew thickens up and the veggies are all soft - serve and be happy.