Category: Food & Cooking

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Bolognese With a Twist

How do you make a healthy bolognese sauce? Use lean ground turkey.

This recipe is quick and easy, We consider it a healthy twist on the traditional bolognese sauce, which features beef, pork, pancetta and butter.

Classic bolognese can take hours to prepare and can be quite heavy tasting. This recipe is lighter, but still comforting. Despite using a leaner meat, the results are a thick, rich sauce which is healthy and delicious. Fewer calories, less fat and great flavor…tastes like a winner to me.

In our household we pair the sauce with fresh zucchini noodles. The recipe is large enough to freeze portions for future quick, last minute meals.  So good!

One trick we use to create a more intense flavor is to use tomato paste. We make ours from Freeze Dried Tomato Powder. And boy, is it packed with tomato flavor. It is a great item to keep in your kitchen pantry. It can add that extra oomph to any recipe your might add it to.

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Quick Turkey Bolognese sauce

Lean bolognese is made with ground turkey instead of beef, and the result is just as delicious. Plus, finely chopped mushrooms are incorporated into the sauce for a earthy flavor. This is served over pasta, zucchini noodles or polenta, then sprinkled with parmesan cheese.
Course: Main Course
Servings: 12

Ingredients

  • 1 Tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 large onion chopped
  • 4 cloves garlic minced
  • 1 tablespoon italian seasoning
  • 1 lb lean ground turkey
  • 1 cup mushrooms finely chopped
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 28 oz tomatoes crushed
  • 1 ½ tablespoon tomato paste
  • ½ cup fresh basil chopped

Instructions

  • Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, until softened, about 5 minutes.  Stir in garlic and itallian seasoning. Cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add turkey, mushrooms and salt. Cook, crumbling the turkey with a wooden spoon. Stir until the turkey is no longer pink and the mushrooms are cooked, about 10 minutes.
  • Increase heat to medium high. Stir in tomatoes, tomato paste, basil, and cook. Stir occasionally, until thickened, about 5 minutes.
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Better Than Pasta

The Internet is overflowing with food and diet advice. The problem is sifting through all that clutter. In the past few months we’ve been using EatingWell to build meal plans and make our daily lives better.

However, this post isn’t about diet but rather a discovery we made through that search. Zucchini noodles are a great replacement for pasta and with a few simple steps very easy to prepare.

I have an excellent mandoline and can julienne like a pro, but these babies can be finger shorteners. Luckily, there is a much safer and cheaper solution … the spiral slicer.

Again the Internet is packed with a variety of these. But our advice is to avoid the small handheld tubes and go with a horizontal crank type, The above link is the one we use, but you can find similar models … on-line.

The 2mm noodle blade works best for most pasta dishes. Keep in mind that the stream of veg coming out the cutter blade can get unruly. Making use of kitchen shears when moving raw noodles to the cooking vessel works well.

Cut zucchini in half and place the cut side next to the blade. This does two things. First, it makes it easier to cut, and finally it moves the waste to the end you would have trimmed anyway.

Once cut, we typically give them a quick ‘wilt’ in a skillet over medium high heat with a teaspoon of oil (or quick spray). Not looking to do much more than pull the moisture out, but then we like a bit of crunch so you can cook them down to personal taste. A steam basket in the microwave works just about as good and again, the idea is to draw out water.

They don’t keep well, so you do need to make them fresh. Pair them with any sauce you choose. They are especially good with basic pesto stirred in at the end of the sauté. Just be sure to drain any excess liquid first.

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What’s for lunch – Bento!

Avocado Egg Salad, berries, cherry tomatoes, carrot, celery, and crusty baguette.

You can create a nutrient rich, balanced and portion-controlled meal in these specially divided containers. Long a Japanese tradition, a bento box traditionally contains rice or noodles, fish or meat, with pickled and cooked vegetables.

The boxes are easy to make ahead and can be eaten on the go. When packing your box, focus on the flavors you enjoy.

4 tips to packing bento

Vary textures

Think hard, soft, crispy, crunchy

Eat seasonally

Fresh, seasonal fruits and vegetables retain more nutrients. Naturally ripened and harvested at the right time, they pack more flavor and nutrition.

A feast for your eyes

Vary the colors of ingredients. Diversity of colors leads the eye around, adding to anticipation of your meal.

Keep it simple

Slicing, dicing, julienning, or any of other cutting techniques affect flavor. Surface area can affect the flavor of vegetables and fruit. Avocado Egg Salad recipe can be found here.

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Avocado Egg Salad

If you think that avocados are just something to mash-up and dip corn chips into, here’s some news for you, and we’re not talking that ‘millennial ‘ toast fad either.

Not to say either of those uses are bad, but maybe it is time to rethink this super food’s role in your pantry. Yes, super food.

In that dark green shell the “alligator pear” holds 20 different vitamins and minerals, a 100 gram serving has; 150 calories, 15 grams of healthy fats and only 2 ‘net’ grams of carbohydrates … no sodium or cholesterol. See… super food!

We came across a really great way to fix this fruit. Make an egg salad. You can skip the mayo and get a rich creamy egg salad that is perfect for a sandwich or scooping. Though we’d recommend that you use celery sticks, or carrot disks, rather than corn chips.

We have also started to slice it thin, layer it on a piece of toast, add some fresh ground pepper, and then put an over easy egg on top for a great breakfast treat.

Sure you can keep mashing up that dip because you are still getting superfood advantage, but maybe that jar of processed cheese stuff isn’t the best pairing.

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Avocado-egg salad

Servings: 2 people
Calories: 150kcal

Ingredients

  • 1/2 medium avocado diced
  • 2 hard cooked eggs diced
  • ¼ cup celery chopped
  • 2 teaspoons lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon fresh chives minced
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 3 turns fresh ground pepper

Instructions

  • Dice avocado, egg and celery to about the same ⅛ inch size pieces and place in small bowl
  • Add lemon juice, chives, salt and pepper, then mix to combine 
  • This can be spread on bread, toast or scooped up with slices of fresh veggies like carrot, celery, zucchini or cucumber.
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Green Goddess Goodness

It may have been years since you tried Green Goddess dressing. I remember bottles of a Kraft version that showed up in our family fridge in the 70’s . I guess it was popular on the SoCal sprout salads of the day. We recently came across a version of this dressing as part of an oven-roasted green veggie salad … it was better than I remember and actually easy to make.

Classic Green Goddess recipes use anchovies, either whole or paste to get that earthy flavor. This take on the classic swaps out pungent fish with white miso paste, more vegan friendly. You can find miso in most markets these days and it’s worth the effort.

The way we are making it is with a hand blender which allows us to do very small batches but it can stay in your fridge for a few weeks if you wanted to do larger portions. The recipe attached is weighed out in grams to make this process easier.

Try tossing a couple cups of chopped up broccoli crowns, one inch pieces of green bean and small chunks of zucchini in a tablespoon of olive oil and pepper. Spread it out on a sheet pan covered with foil and sprayed with oil and roast for 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven.

Mix this with some of the green goddess and spread over a bowl of salad greens, some wilted kale or even a mix of both.

For a speedy dinner salad check out JQ’s quick dressed greens. You add the parts of an oil and vinegar dressing to the bottom of a large bowl and then toss salad while mixing the dressing. The taste variety comes from herbs and spices added to the mix.

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Green Goddess dressing

This version of Green Goddess gets it's umami-ness from white miso rather than anchovies, and makes a great sauce for oven-roasted veggies, chicken, lentils, or even a mixed green salad.

Ingredients

  • 60 grams mayo
  • 30 grams buttermilk
  • 3 grams lemon juice
  • 10 grams white miso
  • 1 clove garlic about 3 grams
  • 15 grams green herbs see note

Instructions

  • A hand blender works really well for small batches. This can be made in a food processor but you'll need to double or triple the quantities. If you are using a hand blender (Bamix), add ingredients in the order listed, keeping herbs on top. In a food processor you can just load it all in.
  • Mix with short pulses stopping often to scrape down the sides, until the herbs and garlic are very finely chopped and the mixture is smooth in texture.

Notes

  • Measures are in grams so you can increase the amounts easier. Just put the mixing vessel on a scale and add ingredients. This amount is good for two large bowls of mixed greens with roasted veggies.
  • Herbs - you can use any combination of fresh green herbs you like. We use about 2 tablespoons(Tbsp) parsley, 1 Tbsp chives, 1 Tbsp tarragon  and then add basil to get 10 to 15 grams.