Ben's Favorite Recipes #2

    Salad dressing. I can eat a salad without it if the salad itself is interesting enough, but poor Ben needs something. Most salad dressings at the store are loaded with sodium. I do add a tiny bit of salt, after trying to do it without salt altogether, it really is needed, but only a bit.

    

Italian dressing:

     1/4 cup of white vinegar 

     2/3 cup of light colored olive oil 

 (Or a vegetable oil of your choice, I have also used grapeseed oil, canola oil, corn oil...basically whatever is in the cabinet if I do not have the light colored olive oil.)

      1 clove garlic (finely chopped or through a garlic press)

      1-2 tsp onion powder

      2 Tbsp of dried oregano

      1/4 tsp of dried thyme

      1-2  tsp of dried basil

      1 Tbsp of dried parsley

      (sometimes I use fresh herbs from the garden... it takes a bit more of the fresh, but fresh makes me happy.)

      1 tsp of freshly ground black pepper

      1 tsp of sea salt

      Mix all ingredients in a salad cruet and store in the refrigerator. This is a fresh dressing with no preservatives.

      Secret: Sometimes I am lazy and skip the oregano, thyme, onion powder, basil and parsley and use Pampered Chef's Italian seasoning..

     

     As for salads, I really do put a lot into my salads. Whatever vegetables are coming from my garden and/or are on sale tend to go in. This week, we have shredded squash, zuchini, broccoli in addition to roma tomatoes, romaine lettuce and cucumber cubes.

     He swore initially that he would never eat zuchini, squash, crimini mushrooms and so many other things fresh, but somehow when combined in shredded form in a salad, he loves them. I get more vitamins in him and he thinks everything tastes good. It is win-win.

     Secret:  I also chop up zuchini and squash and other things and add to the spaghetti sauce when it is slow cooking. The mushrooms and added veggies make the sauce a bit more hearty so that we are able to use a lot less meat.

   

Spaghetti Sauce:

      Here is a hearty sauce that freezes well and can be used for pizzas, lasagnas and pastas. It is simple to make and tastes amazing!  I make a large batch, and then freeze whatever is not used into meal sized portions.

    The most important thing about my sauce is it begins with Hunt's Diced Tomatoes with no salt added.  Most tomato products have a LOT of added sodium. Since the pasta will also have some sodium, I tried to reduce the sodium as much as possible.

   

    4 cans of Hunt's Diced Tomatoes with no salt added

    1 large chopped onion

    1 large chopped bell pepper

    3 cloves garlic, chopped or pressed

    1-2 Tbsps Italian Seasoning Mix (Pampered Chef makes one with no added salt)

    1 tsp freshly ground pepper

    1/2 lb browned ground beef

    1/2 lb chopped crimini mushrooms (or portabella mushrooms)

       1-2 cups finely chopped peeled squash and/or zuchini

   Place all of these ingredients in a slow cooker on low. Stir once or twice during the day and enjoy a LOVELY meaty flavored sauce with your whole grain pasta noodles for dinner. I cook mine for at least six hours.

    Notice that there is no added salt.

    Sometimes I add a couple of chopped banana peppers to the sauce also. If I have some from the garden, I toss them in. We also use freshly grated Parmesan to top our spaghetti. It comes in tubs at the grocery stores now and tastes so much better than the powdery stuff in the plastic shake can.

    

   

    
    

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