Veggie Sauce

I've been trying to incorporate more vegetables into my life every day. I know my Italian grandmother did not get sauce from a jar or a can. She made her own sauces and foods from scratch. Whether it was buying fish and mixing it up to make fish cakes to the ever present pan of sauce on the stove, her kitchen always smelled good and the end result always tasted wonderful.

I've been trying to wean my family from jarred sauce for a year with mixed success. They don't quite get how easy it is and last night I wanted to again remind them it doesn't take that long. Whole Foods had a nice Italian style chicken sausage with garlic on sale the other day so I picked up a pound. I had some sunrise slaw in the fridge along with onion and red pepper. In the pantry was diced tomatoes... all I needed for sauce.

I put the pot on the stove to get the water boiling. I then Sliced up the sausage, cooking it up in a deep frying pan with a few sprays of olive oil - which took all of a couple minutes. Because it's chicken sausage, I wanted to make sure it was cooked through. I tossed in the diced onions and peppers and let them soften a bit and tossed in about half the bag of sunrise slaw, the can of diced tomatoes and some white wine. I seasoned it all up with some Italian seasoning, salt and pepper and let it simmer while I waited for water to boil and then the whole wheat pasta to cook.

When the pasta was done and drained, I poured the sauce over it and gave everything a good mix. In the end, it took as long as to make a healthy veggie sauce that was tasty as it did to open a jar of blah and heat it up. Overall, it was 24 points plus for the sauce - most of it being the sausage. When you figure it's 6-8 servings total, then you end up around 4 points plus a serving over the pasta. This would also work over couscous, rice or some other grain.

I wish I had taken a photo of dinner, but the truth is, I wanted to dig in. Yum.

Chicken with Leeks

This is a variant of something I saw in one of Martha Stewart's magazines recently. She used a lot of butter and proscuitto (a fatty, but yummy, Italian ham) - so I tailored it my needs and everyone really liked it. I mixed this in with some whole wheat pasta, but I imagine it can be served with anything.

2 lbs boneless chicken breast - grilled and broken into pieces
2 or 3 leeks - the white to light green parts only
box of frozen peas
juice of one lemon
extra virgin olive oil

Trim away the roots and dark green parts of the leeks, cut the remaining pieces down the middle and soak in cold water for 15 minutes to clean. Once clean, slice the leeks into 2" long pieces and slice into thin slivers. Pour a little olive oil in a pan and sautee the leeks with a little salt and pepper until soft (about 3 minutes or so). Add lemon juice, peas and chicken and toss together, heating until everything is warmed through.





WW Points Values: 4 pts. per serving