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.

Sausage Ragout with Polenta

I held off posting until this morning because today is Lose-a-palooza as part of Weight Watchers "Lose for good" campaign. For every mention of the campaign - where Weight Watchers will donate $225k for every 1 million pounds lost - Weight Watchers will donate another dollar, up to 75k today. Since one of the two charities is one I support, No Kid Hungry campaign that's part of Share our Strength.

I will also post whatever I throw in the crock pot tonight later. Two posts in one day! Woo Hoo!

I don't like buying jarred sauce anymore because it's so easy to make sauce in general. In this case a basic ragout. I picked up a pound of chicken sausage today and removed it from the casing and sauteed it until brown. Then I tossed in diced onion, celery, carrot and pepper until soft. Finally, I added some sliced mushrooms, a 16 oz can of crushed tomatoes and a half glass of white wine and simmered for about 20 minutes or so.

I had a roll of polenta in the fridge and sliced up half a dozen or so 1/2 slices and just fried them up. In the end, a bit of ragout on top of the polenta disks and voila! Dinner.

The ragout ends up being about 4-6 points plus a serving - a lot of it depends on the serving size (like everything, your mileage may vary). It really was quite yummy and it's something that my husband is hoping I make again. :)

Italian Stir Fry

What started as a stir fry turned Italian quickly and isn't really a sauce but sort of is.

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 30-45 minutes

1 lb Italian Sweet Sausage (removed from casings)
2 tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 1/2 Red Bell Peppers - diced
1 Sweet Onion - diced
6 cloves Garlic - run through a press or diced
2/3 lb Mushrooms - sliced
14 oz can diced tomatoes
1 cup white wine
Handful of fresh Basil - julienned
Palmful of Italian Seasoning
2 tsps. Bell's seasoning

In a frying pan, pour in the olive oil and sautee peppers, onions, garlic and mushrooms until soft. Add wine, tomatoes, basil and seasonings - simmer.

In a separate pan, fry sausage - constantly stirring and breaking it up until browned and crumbly. Drain meat on a paper towel and add to veggies, mixing well.

Serve over pasta.

Makes 8 servings

WW Points Values: 7 pts. per serving