Vegetable Packed Tomato Sauce

Once every month or so I like to make spaghetti for me and Kevin.  It is a nice meal that will feed both of us rather than me making two separate dinners, and I can sneak in a bunch of veggies without Kevin knowing the difference!  Another nice thing about spaghetti night in a veggie-meat divided house is that I can make us noodles we both prefer.  I would rather have zucchini noodles, while Kevin likes more traditional pasta.

Since my parents visited the last weekend, my mom gave me a HUGE zucchini from her garden.  What the heck was I going to do with that much zucchini?!  Spaghetti and marinara of course!  When my parents visited, we also went to the cute little Farmers Market in downtown Puyallup.  One vendor was selling homemade pasta, so I bought Kevin two "nests" of semolina fettuccine and chipotle adobo fettuccine.

Pasta?  CHECK!

Marinara sauce...

Vegetable-Packed Tomato Sauce
Time: 30 minutes
Servings: 4-6 servings

Ingredients:
    Vegetables to saute:
        1 small yellow onion, diced (1/2 large onion)
        1 lb fresh tomatoes, diced
        1 carrot, peeled and diced
        1 celery stalk, diced
        1/4 cup mushrooms, sliced
        1/4 cup zucchini, diced
        2 to 4 cloves garlic, pressed
    Sauce base and spices:
        1-15 oz. can tomato sauce
        1-15 oz. can diced tomatoes
        1 cup vegetable stock
        1 tsp parsley
        1 tsp oregano
        1 tsp basil
        1 tsp smoked paprika (optional)

Instructions:
1.)  Prepare all of the vegetables to saute.  In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, saute all of the veggies until the onions are translucent and the tomatoes start to breakup, about 10 minutes.

2.)  Add to the saucepan all of the sauce base and spice ingredients.  Bring to a boil and reduce heat.

3.)  Simmer uncovered for 15 minutes, until fragrant and well incorporated.

4.)  With an immersion blender, or in batches with a blender, blend the sauce to the desired consistency.

5.)  Serve hot over your favorite type of noodle (or not noodle).  Store leftovers in a closed container in the fridge for up to a week.  Or freeze in freezer-safe containers for next spaghetti night!

Amys Notes:
When blending the sauce, you might want to keep it a little chunky, depending on your preferences and how well you cut up your veggies.  Since my husband is a bit anti-veggie, I like to blend it to a nice smooth consistency.

Along with the zucchini noodles, I wanted a bit of substance with some cooked red lentils.  Once cooked, they became a bit like meatballs, which was perfect.

Health and Happiness,

Amy

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Chickpea Marinara Sauce

Last night was the first night in a while that we had no plans other than to stay in for a home cooked meal.  I have mentioned many times before that my husband is still a meat and potatoes guy, so that means for a homecooked meal, I need to make two... yay?  He requested one of his all-time favorite meals: mashed potatoes with chicken strips and broccoli.  I though potatoes sounded pretty good too, but I opted to have a baked yam instead.  To top my yam off, I decided to make this yummy marinara sauce that is partially homemade.

To cook the sweet potato, heat the oven to 450 degrees F.  Wash your potato of choice (russet, golden, or sweet potatoes will work perfectly too), and peirce some holes with a fork throughout.  Wrap each potato in foil (no oil needed!) and place in the oven.  Set the timer for 30 minutes and flip.  Check on the potato after 30 more minutes if it is done.  Mine usually take 1 hour, but time will depend on your oven and the size of your potato.

Chickpea Marinara Sauce
Time: 30 minutes
Servings: 2-4

Ingredients:
        1/4 onion, finely chopped
        2 cloves garlic, pressed
        1/2 cup mushrooms, finely chopped
        1- 16 oz can marinara pasta sauce of your choice
        1- 16 oz can diced tomatoes, no salt added if you can find it
        1+1/2 cup cooked chickpeas, or 1- 16 oz can chickpeas drained and rinsed
        1 Tbsp no salt seasoning

Instructions:

1. In a large skillet over medium heat, water saute the onion and garlic.  Once the onion and garlic become fragrant and slightly translucent, add the chopped mushrooms and saute for 5 minutes.
2. Add the remaining ingredients and stir to combine.  Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for 15 minutes, until the sauce has thickened.
3. Serve over a baked potato or whole wheat pasta.  You can top with fresh parsley, green onion, nutritional yeast, black olives, or any other toppings you desire.

Amys Notes:

This sauce turned out nicely thick to top a baked potato perfectly.  You could also top any type of whole wheat pasta or whole grain.  I bet this would be great on top of barley.  The nice thing about this sauce is that it ends up with that homemade feel, without having to make a tomato sauce from scratch.  Since it has one can of (no salt) diced tomatoes to one can of marinara sauce, it is going to have a lot less sodium than just a jar of pasta sauce.

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Orange Ginger Dipping Sauce

Happy Hump Day to everyone!  This week seems to be going by fairly quickly for me.  Most of our free time this week has been spent relaxing at home watching Netflix or reading on the couch.  Yesterday evening we met up with some friends at our regular bar that sells pints of Alaskan beer for $1, a poor recent-graduates dream hehe!

Afterwards, we brought the party over to one of Kevins favorite restaurants in town, Flamin Joes, a place that specializes in spicy wings.  Weve been there over a dozen times in the last couple of months, but this time Kevin finally decided to take their "Code Red Challenge", also known as the "Widow-Maker" (comforting, I know...).  He successfully ate a dozen of their hottest wings in 4 minutes, with a 4 minute waiting period afterwards of not eating or drinking anything.  While this awesome culinary feat won him a t-shirt and his picture on the wall, I couldnt help thinking how terrible this is for him.

Late last night Kevin woke up with horrible stomach pains: "Like someone punched me in the stomach."  I felt so terrible for him and tried suggesting anything I could think of to help elevate the pain.  I finally settled on getting him a glass of water with a bunch of lemon juice in it.  My thoughts were to hopefully reduce the acidity in his stomach with lemon juice, which is acidic outside of the body, but becomes alkaline within.  It made him feel slightly better, but he still tossed and turned all night.

This whole event got me thinking this morning about what foods really do to us inside of our bodies.  When you think about the whole concept of eating, it is actually quite strange.  We are making the conscious decision to take a foreign object, which was once a functioning organism, and put it into our bodies to utilize the caloric energy and nutrients for ourselves.  When someone gets a tattoo, or their hair cut or dyed, usually a lot of thought goes into the permanence of it, and how it is going to affect you in the long-run.  But with food, most of the time we dont think twice about what we put into our bodies or how it is going to affect us long-term.  Nothing can be more permanent than what physically builds us.  Well, just some food for thought!  Now on to the food....

Ingredients:

• 1 c garbanzo beans
• 1 orange peeled
• 1/2 c peanut butter
• 1 to 4 Tbsp rice vinegar (to taste)
• 2 Tbsp low sodium soy sauce
• 2 tsp minced ginger (more to taste)
• red pepper flakes, as desired
• 1 tsp sesame oil (optional)
• non-dairy milk to thin
• sesame seeds

Directions:

1. Place all ingredients in a blender, except for the red pepper flakes and almond milk.
2. Blend on high until smooth, adding almond milk to thin if needed to obtain desired consistency. 
3. Lastly, add the red pepper flakes as desired, and give it a quick stir in the blender.
4. Serve chilled and topped with sesame seeds as a dip, or thin with a bit more almond milk and use as a salad dressing.

Amys Notes:

• Depending on how tangy you like your dips or dressings to be, add as much rice vinegar as you would like.
• 2 tsp minced ginger gave me the small hint of flavor that I was looking for, but others that are more crazy about it can make it more of a stand-out flavor by adding one or two more teaspoons.
• I added about 1/3 cup of almond milk to reach the consistency that is pictured.  Ill be adding a bit more to some of the leftover sauce to create more of a dressing to have on a salad this afternoon.
• This recipe makes a significant amount, so I would suggest maybe trying out a half of the recipe.
• I enjoyed my dipping sauce with some spring rolls I made for lunch yesterday.

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CHEDDAR CRUSTED HADDOCK WITH A CREME FRAICHE SAUCE

I am trying to cook more fish this year as it is so good for you and much healthier than most meats. I am never that excited about eating fish - its not exactly a four cheese and pepperoni pizza, is it? - however I generally really enjoy it when I eat it.

This is from a Waitrose recipe card and it took around 20 minutes. I actually didnt follow the recipe exactly as I did not read the card properly but it worked out well in the end.

Ingredients for 2 people:

2 haddock fillets (about 150g each)
2 rounded tablespoons of half fat creme fraiche
15g pack of fresh chives, snipped (I couldnt buy chives and so used dill)
20g butter
150ml whole milk (I just used semi skimmed as that is what I had)
Black pepper
1 tablespoon
3 rounded tablespoons grated cheddar cheese

To serve:
Peas

Preheat the grill to its highest setting with the shelf about 15cm from the heat and line a baking tray with buttered foil.

In a frying pan, place the fish skin side down and add a little freshly milled black pepper but no salt. Then pour in the milk - it wont cover the fish completely but that doesnt matter. Bring the heat up so it simmers gently (uncovered) for around 6-8 minutes - I did 8 minutes.

Meanwhile mix the breadcrumbs and cheese and season with black pepper. I never have preprepared breadcrumbs so I just blitz some bread in the blender and make my own.

When the fish is ready, transfer to the lined baking tray using a fish slice and then sprinkle with the cheese and breadcrumb mixture. Pop under the grill for 5-6 minutes until the topping is golden and bubbling. I also started boiling the water and got ready to cook the peas at this point.

This is where I went wrong in the recipe - after removing the fish from the frying pan, I automatically put the pan in the sink and covered with washing up liquid. In fact, I was meant to use this left over milk as the basis of the sauce. Whoops! So if you want to do it the proper way, whisk the creme fraiche into the frying pan of milk over a medium heat. I just heated the creme fraiche with some black pepper in a saucepan.

Add the butter and some chives (or dill in my case), keep a few left over to sprinkle with at the end. Taste and season if necessary.

When everything is ready, serve the fish with the peas and a big dollop of sauce. Finally sprinkle with a few leftover herbs.

Even though I messed up the sauce, my version worked really well and added some moisture to the fish as even though I loved the cheese topping, it was a little dry. Arabella had a touch of mayonnaise however I am sure a spoonful of tartar sauce would also work well. We served this with peas however new potatoes and spinach would also work very well - Arabella suggested french fries although that would change the health factor!!

I would definitely cook this again as its a nice way to serve fish, next time I just need to read the recipe properly!!

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