Homemade spaghetti sauce

It's been a CRAZY couple of weeks. School has started with fall practices for my husband, I have a couple big projects I'm working on at work, I've been crafting like a crazy lady for my etsy shop and for a local kid's boutique and I'm preparing to teach a night course at a local college on wellness. Needless to say, something had to go by the wayside. The blog drew the short straw.

I've still been cooking healthfully, just not venturing out and trying a bunch of new recipes. Instead, I've been sticking with the old standby's which I've probably already featured on the blog.

One staple in our household is pasta. Since our little vegetable garden gave us a few tomatoes (supplemented with fresh local tomatoes from the farm stand around the corner), I decided to try canning spaghetti sauce for the first time this year. Fresh canned spaghetti sauce is great because I control the seasoning as well as the salt and sugar. Jarred sauce can be pretty high in salt and sugar so I was able to keep them to a minimum. I didn't try any fancy recipes, just this basic one from pickyourown.org.


What are you canning this year?

Summer Pasta Salad

Living in Michigan, I get my fair share of nights to enjoy warm winter casseroles and hearty dishes. We do, however, get to enjoy a few short months of beautiful sunny summer. During those months I try to make our meals as light and fresh. We frequently eat something we like to refer to as "Summer meal" which I will post about in the future. The other go-to meal for us is homemade pasta salad .

Pasta can get a bad rap. Yes it is full of carbohydrates, which in excess can lead to weight gain. BUT there are healthier versions of pasta which can be a great source of whole grains, even omega 3s! I like to use Barilla Plus which is not only whole wheat pasta, but also has added flax for omega 3s. Usually I choose rotini but occasionally get crazy and choose a different shape.

The next part of a healthier pasta salad is to load it up with veggies. BIG chunks of them. I usually put a variety of colors of peppers in plus cucumbers. You can add any vegetable you like - carrots, celery, tomatoes, zucchini, scallions, etc. The more the better! I try to make my salad have a 1 to 1 pasta to veggie ratio.

Lastly, I try to add a protein source to my pasta salad. I prefer to have chunk cheese, cut into cubes but will occasionally add shredded cheese instead if I don't have chunk cheese. We like to grill chicken and add it cubed to the pasta salad as a complete meal. I have also had cubed salami (an unhealtheir option) in the pasta salad.

Lastly, the important part of pasta salad is a good dressing. I have tried a ton of different varieties. My favorite dressing for pasta salad is Kraft's Greek Vinaigrette. Although dressing can add a lot off added fat, it adds a lot of flavor - so a little bit goes a long way. I usually add just enough to coat and serve extra dressing on the side in case anyone (i.e. the husband) wants to dump more dressing on there.

What are your favorite pasta salad ingredients?

Product Review: Steamfresh Rigatoni with vegetables

I love making my food from scratch. I love homecooked breads, fresh vegetables and soft homemade cookies. But sometimes scratch cooking just doesn't work out into my schedule. Or maybe I'm only cooking for myself and balancing a fussy infant on my hip and therefore scratch cooking doesn't really fit in the cards. For nights like those, I try to keep a variety of healthy, quick alternatives available.

Last week I tried Birds Eye Steamfresh Rigatoni with vegetables with tomato Parmesan sauce. It's one of those high-tech steam bags that you pop in the microwave for 4 minutes and voila - it's done. It was so easy!

The bag says that it makes 2 servings which actually would be very generous size servings as a side dish accompanied by a grilled chicken breast or salmon fillet. I, however, was making a whole meal out of this and ate the whole bag. (But even still was only about 440 calories - not bad for a whole meal!).

The pasta was surprisingly flavorful and the vegetables were generous and tasty. It was packed with tomatoes, peppers, onion and spinach. I topped mine off with a little part skim mozzarella and enjoyed my dinner. I would highly recommend!

Each bag provides 2 servings - here's the facts for 1 serving (1/2 bag):

220 calories 5 g fat 35 g carbohydrate 2 g fiber 7 g protein.

Thoughts of my product review are solely my own and
I was not compensated in any way to provide this review.

Tortellini with Zucchini Meatsauce

As I've said before, I'm not pretending that my recipes the most 100% healthy thing you've ever seen. But they're real. Its what I make for my real life husband and me. We're busy, we're hungry and we don't want food to rule our lives.

I say this because not every recipe I am going to post is the most awesome thing for you ever BUT I hope they are examples how small changes in your diet can make a big difference in your total health picture.

In this recipe, I simply made tortellini and meat sauce but made a few changes to health-i-fy it. I used ground turkey instead of ground beef. This saved me almost 160 calories and 19 grams of fat per serving. I also added in zucchini into the sauce. Every little extra serving helps!

Here is a pretty good list of substitutions you can try. You don't need to revamp every meal you've ever made but maybe one or two small changes can make a big difference in your family's eating habits!

Tortellini with Zucchini Meat Sauce

3 cups cheese filled frozen tortellini
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 pound ground turkey
2 small zucchini, sliced

Start a pot of water boiling for tortellini.

Brown ground turkey in a pan. Once cooked, push to side of pan and add zucchini. Cook zucchini until lightly sauted in turkey juices but still with a bite to it. Add spaghetti sauce and allow to simmer for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, add tortellini to boiling water. Cook according to package directions (traditionally 2-3 minutes). Drain tortellini and plate. Top with prepared meat sauce.

Makes 4 servings, per serving:
522 calories
19.3 g fat
50.4 g carbohydrate
4.2 g fiber
35.4 g protein

Tortellini Soup

Often times we get so focused on particular qualities of healthy eating that we neglect to see the importance of other aspects of a healthy diet. In the past I have found myself so focused on cutting the fat or adding in fiber that I neglect to think about other qualities of food like calcium content or other vitamins and minerals.

One mineral that should be focused on is sodium. (Did you know that sodium was a mineral?) Sodium, when eaten in excess, can impact cardiovascular disease, blood pressure and lead to water retension. Recommended intakes of sodium range from 1500-2400 mg per day but reports indicate that the average American can take in as much as 8000+ mg each day!

Many sources of sodium are fast foods and restaurant foods, so if you're making food homemade you're already ahead of the game! But other area that a lot of sodium can come from are canned goods like canned vegetables and soups.

I decided to revamp a tasty recipe for Tortellini Soup from The Well-fed Newlyweds with my focus being on cutting down the sodium. The original recipe already calls for low sodium chicken broth but if you didn't use low sodium chicken broth you're looking at 1469 mg of sodium in each serving.

I simply used low sodium chicken broth and canned tomatoes that had no added salt. I did not add salt to the pot and cut the sodium down by over 500 mg to 911 mg per serving.

Overall it was pretty awesome! I thought it was tasty and flavorful. I was bringing a meal to a family in our church so I made a big batch of the soup base and split it in two before adding the tortellini. I put the soup base in a ziploc and then gave the spinach and tortellini on the side before giving it to them.

Tortellini Soup - BETTER

1 Tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 small onion, minced
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 qt (4 cups) low sodium chicken broth
14.5 oz can no added salt tomatoes (I used diced)
Freshly ground black pepper
9-10 oz package tortellini (I used cheese but I suppose you could try other variations!)
3 cups chopped fresh spinach

In a large pot, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and cook until beginning to get translucent. Add garlic until softened and light golden. Add oregano, broth, tomatoes, and pepper to taste.

Bring soup to a boil and add tortellini. Cook according to time listed on package (mine was 2 minutes). One minute before tortellini are done, add spinach. Stir to combine.

When tortellini are cooked, remove the pot from the heat immediately so your tortellini do not overcook. Add additional pepper if necessary. Serve soup immediately.

Makes 4 servings. Each serving provides:
311 calories
9.5 g fat
42.9 g carbohydrate
2.8 g fiber
14.7 g protein
911 mg sodium

Chicken Parmesan with vegetables

Before I was married, I lived alone from the time I was 19 until I got married at 26. I loved living alone. I was in charge of my own stuff, my own place and my own meals. I still cooked just for one and would have leftovers for lunches and dinners in the upcoming days. I've never been that big of a meat eater and could live off of cheese and beans for my main source of protein. When I got married, that changed. I soon learned that I needed to have a good protein source at every meal, whether it be eggs, chicken, beef, turkey, etc. There are only a few meals that I know my husband truly enjoys that are vegetarian. (This minestrone being one of his favorites!)

In the last month as I've been trying to increase my own protein intake, I've been trying to come up with meals that not only have protein sources that my husband enjoys, but that I enjoy as well. I decided to revamp a basic chicken and pasta recipe to serve both of our taste preferences.

Chicken Parmesan with Vegetables

2 Tbsp Olive Oil
12 oz chicken (four 3 oz breasts or two large breasts cut in half)
1 cup sliced zucchini
1 cup chopped green pepper
1 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried oregano
2 cups spaghetti sauce
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 cups cooked whole wheat spaghetti

Drizzle olive oil in a nonstick pan. Cook the chicken breast over medium heat until lightly browned on both sides. Add the vegetables. Stir and cook until tender-crisp.

Sprinkle with oregano. Add the spaghetti sauce and cook until heated through, approximately 5 minutes.

Put 1/2 cup of cooked whole wheat spaghetti on a plate. Top with a piece of chicken and generous ladle of veggies and sauce. Sprinkle with 1 Tbsp Parmesan cheese over each serving. Makes 4 servings.

Per serving (chicken, veggies and pasta!)
345 calories
10.9 g fat
36.8 g carbohydrate
6.9 g fiber
26.3 g protein

Super Easy Spaghetti Pie

Pasta is often my go-to dinner when short on time or I don't have anything planned for dinner. I always have an abundance of pasta, sauces (gasp! I RARELY make homemade) and protein to add on hand, so its something I can quickly throw together. For my real job, I came across this recipe on The Pioneer Woman's recipe site Tasty Kitchen. Sounded like a good variation of my traditional pasta dishes, so I gave it a try!

As listed, each serving (6) of this recipe provides:

607 calories
38.9 g fat
38.1 g carbohydrate
3.2 g fiber
24.8 g protein

Like usual, I was making this the night before. I put half of the recipe in a 9x5 loaf pan for the next night and kept it in the fridge. I put the other half in a foil lined 9x5 loaf pan for a freezer meal. Afterall, there's only two of us eating real food in the house and I figured that it would be enough for the husband and myself, plus leftovers for lunch the next day.


I made quite a few changes to the recipe but I think I still got the same tasty outcome:

• substituted whole wheat spaghetti for traditional
• used 4 egg whites instead of 2 whole eggs
• used 1 green + 1 red pepper instead of just one pepper
• used 3/4 of a pound of Italian sausage instead of a full pound
• Omitted the olive oil as there was plenty of oil in the pan from the cooked sausage
• used reduced fat sour cream instead of full fat
• used part-skim mozzarella instead of whole milk mozzarella

I know that sounds like a whole lot of change, but really, it was what we already had in our house - so it was no big deal. I also omitted mushrooms because I'm pretty sure my husband might die if a mushroom crossed his lips, or so he makes me believe.

When all was said and done, this was delicious! The sausage gave the dish a really powerful flavor. I'm sure I could have decreased the fat even more if I had used turkey sausage, but that's not always so easy to find. The peppers also added a lot of flavor. I'm looking forward for when I pull the other half out of the freezer!
Super Easy Spaghetti Pie - BETTER

1/2 pound whole wheat spaghetti, cooked
4 egg whites
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1 whole onion, chopped
1 red + 1 green pepper, chopped
1 cup mushrooms (optional)
3/4 pound Italian sausage
1/2 cup reduced fat sour cream
1 cup spaghetti sauce
1 cup part-skim mozzarella cheese

Combine 1/2 pound of cooked spaghetti while it is warm with beaten egg whites and Parmesan. Pour coated pasta into a deep dish pie pan or a 9-inch baking dish. Set aside. (I put half in a loaf pan for now and half in a loaf pan for the freezer).

Saute Italian sausage in a large pan. After about 5 minutes, move sausage to the side. Cook the chopped onion, peppers and mushroom in the same pan. Saute until veggies are soft. Remove the sausage and set aside.

Take pan off of the heat and add about a 1/2 cup of reduced fat sour cream and stir into the veggies.

To assemble the pie - pour the creamy vegetable mix onto the spaghetti "crust". Next cut up the sausage and place a layer of pieces on the vegetables. Cover it all with a layer of spaghetti sauce and then a layer of shredded mozzarella.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Makes 6 servings, per serving:

436 calories
25 g fat
31.3 g carbohydrate
5.1 g fiber
23.8 g protein

Chicken Spaghetti

I recommend putting a baking sheet under this as mine OBVIOUSLY bubbled over :)

I work a weird schedule. I alternate between working 6am-2pm one day to 10 am - 6pm the next. On the days I get out at 2 pm, I try to make ahead a meal for the following day when I get out at 6pm so we can actually eat at a decent hour, instead of 9 pm. I am always looking for meals that can be made ahead or frozen. When reading the Pioneer Woman's post for Chicken Spaghetti, she talked about it freezing well, so I assumed I could just make it a day ahead as well.

I was right! My inlaws were watching the little munchkin one day and I wanted to have a home cooked meal to thank them for watching her.... but I wouldn't be there to bake it! So I made it the day ahead and left my mother-in-law instructions for getting it in the oven. It turned out great! I even made a special little dish of it for my father-in-law who doesn't like onions or peppers (although I wouldn't RECOMMEND that, as that takes out a lot of the vitamins and minerals of the dish!).

As prepared by the Pioneer Woman, this recipe provides:
391 calories
19.5 g fat
27.2 g carbohydrate
1.6 g fiber
26.2 g protein

I made just a few little changes to the recipe. First, I substituted whole wheat thin spaghetti for the regular spaghetti. Second, I doubled the amount of green pepper and onion to make it a little more vegetable-heavy. Lastly, I substituted 2% cheddar cheese for the full fat version, and only put 1 cup in the dish, with an additional 1 cup on top.

It was awesome! It also reheated really well. I had it for lunch the following two days after we had it for dinner.

Chicken Spaghetti - BETTER
2 cups cooked chicken breasts
3 cups dry whole wheat spaghetti, broken into two inch pieces
2 cans cream of mushroom soup (or cream of chicken, or both!)
1 cup shredded 2% cheddar cheese
1/2 cup finely diced green pepper
1/2 cup finely diced onion
1 jar (4 oz) diced pimentos, drained
2 cups reserved chicken broth from pot
1 tsp Lawry's seasoned salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
salt and pepper, to taste
1 cup additional shredded 2% cheddar cheese

Boil chicken breasts in water. Shred the chicken breasts. Cook spaghetti in same chicken broth until al dente. Do not overcook. Reserve 2 cups of broth. When spaghetti is cooked, combine with remaining ingredients except additional 1 cup cheese.

Place mixture in casserole pan and top with remaining sharp cheddar. Cover and freeze up to six months, cover and refrigerate up to two days or bake immediately: 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until bubble. (If the cheese on top starts to get too cooked, cover with foil).

Makes 8 servings, per serving:
269 calories
7 g fat
29.0 g carbohydrate
3 g fiber
22.2 g protein

Chicken Parmigiana

Chicken Parmesan is one of my go to recipes that I make when I’m tight on time and want something tasty. I’ve been making a recipe that my mom made forever but thought I’d branch out and see what the recipe blog world had to offer.

I came across The Pioneer Woman’s recipe for Chicken Parmigiana and knew it would be a flavorful hit. As posted with 6 servings, each serving provides:

772 calories

29.6 g fat

76.2 g carbohydrate

46.9 g protein

I tried not to alter the recipe too much so I could get the full flavor that she promised. Instead of ½ cup olive oil, I reduced it to 2 Tbsp olive oil. I also practiced portion control and used ½ pound of whole wheat pasta, instead of a full pound of linguine for six people. The smaller portion of pasta let the focus be on the delicious chicken and can be paired with a green salad to fill up your plate.

Chicken Parmigiana – BETTER

6 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, trimmed and pounded flat

½ cup all-purpose flour

Salt and pepper to taste

2 Tbsp olive oil

2 Tbsp butter

1 whole medium onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

¾ cup wine (white or red)

3 cans (14.5 oz) crushed tomatoes

2 Tbsp sugar

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

½ pound whole wheat pasta

Mix flour, salt and pepper together on a large plate. Dredge flattened chicken breasts in flour mixture. Set aside.

Start a pot of water for your pasta. Cook pasta until al dente.

Heat olive oil and butter together in a large skillet over medium heat. When butter is melted and oil/butter mixture is hot, add chicken breasts and cook until nice and golden brown on each side, about 2 to 3 minutes per side. Remove the chicken breasts from the skillet and keep warm.

Without cleaning the skillet, add onions and garlic and gently stir for 2 minutes. Pour in whine and scrape the bottom of the pan, getting all the flavorful bits off the bottom. Allow the wine to cook down until reduced by half, about 2 minutes. Pour in crushed tomatoes and stir to combine. Add sugar and more salt and pepper to taste. Allow to cook for 30 minutes. Toward the end of cooking time, add chopped parsley and give sauce a final stir.
Carefully lay chicken breasts on top of the sauce and completely cover them in grated parmesan. Place lid on skillet and reduce heat to low. Allow to simmer until cheese is melted and chicken is thoroughly heated.

Place cooked noodles on a plate and cover with sauce. Place chicken breast on top and sprinkle with more parsley. Serve immediately. Makes 6 servings, per serving:

463 calories

15.6 g fat

38.7 g carbohydrate

5.9 g fiber

41.3 g protein