I figure I might start posting some of the recipes I'm coming up with as I experiment with healthy cooking. As I am a lazy chef, these are bound to be really super easy. If you are following the Weight Watchers diet, all ingredients are zero points, save for the olive oil. If you use an olive oil spray, that will count for zero points. Really, you're just using the olive oil to sautee the onion and garlic in, so the amount you actually ingest per serving is so negligible it might as well be zero anyhow. So here we go!
Collect the following:
One saucepan
Olive oil (I use extra virgin)
About 1/4 of an onion
Two cloves garlic
1 can whole tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
Oregano or Italian Seasoning
Garlic powder
* One Willing Assistant - Optional ( I used a child.)
Bribe willing assistant with boastful talk of fresh spaghetti sauce, and get him or her to chop the onions and garlic for you. They should be chopped into fairly small pieces, though not diced all the way down to nothingness.
Warm pan and coat bottom with olive oil. Collect onions and garlic from willing assistant; praise appropriately and add to pan. Sautee (this means 'stir a lot so they don't stick and burn and set off the smoke alarm') until nice and squishy, but not limp over a medium heat.
Meanwhile, get willing assistant to open cans of whole tomato and sauce, preferably with can opener. Add whole tomatoes to sautee mixture, squishy the tomatoes a bit so they start to break up. Sing about how breaking up is hard to do; drive your willing assistant away so you don't have to share any taste testing that happens at this stage.
Sprinkle some oregano or Italian seasoning and garlic powder to taste. Burn tongue tasting - willing assistant will return and laugh at you. Threaten willing assistant with plastic spatula. Add tomato sauce. Stir. Taste again - add more seasoning if needed.
Relent and share with willing assistant.
Serve over whole wheat pasta, or mix sauce, grilled chicken, feta cheese and brown rice for a healthy meal.
Enjoy!
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Comments: 32
I like the humor you add to your experience of cooking this. Next time have your assistant do the tasting.
Thatz the same way I create my own spaghetti sauce. Except I add 2 extra ingredients. I usually slice button mushroom and saute them with tuna flakes in extra virgin olive oil and combine them with the sauce when it's put to simmer.
The sauce is really easy to add things to as well- at various times I've added peppers, mushrooms, peas, chicken....
My helpers are 14, 16, and 16 now. I taught them how to cook from an early age- starting with simple gathering and mixing. I agree that you should teach kids how to be safe with can openers and knives and the like- but with a bit of supervision at the right age (which varies from kid to kid, some are more responsible than others there's always some little task a kid can do to help make dinner.