Showing posts with label pasta. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pasta. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

"Non-Tomato Tomato" Sauce

My kids are allergic to tomatoes so this sauce is my go-to "Non-Tomato Tomato" sauce for pastas and lasagna and pizza and about everything else that needs a sauce. I also tweak it a bit and use it for enchiladas or Mexican inspired casseroles. 

The sauce originally came about on pure accident, as I looked in the fridge in hopes of finding anything that could be made into a sauce. I grabbed a little of this and a little of that and ta-da sauce accomplished!

Keep in mind it is not going to be red like tomato sauce, and it is not as acidic either but it does the trick at our house, even for my pizza and pasta loving husband :) Also, you might want to play around with the amount of broth you use depending on how thick you want your sauce.

Non-Tomato "Tomato" Sauce

Ingredients:

- 1 Tblsp fat (chicken fat, oil, butter or whatever you wish)

- 4 Tblsp onion, finely chopped

- 2 cloves garlic, minced

- 4 Tblsp celery, finely chopped (I usually use the leafy part, but the stalks work too)

- 2" thick slice of a medium sweet potato, peeled and diced small

- 1 cup broth (I use chicken but you could probably use other kinds too)

- Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

- In a small saucepan, heat the fat and add the onion, garlic and celery and  
  sauté for a couple of minutes.

- Add the sweet potato cubes and broth and bring the sauce to a simmer.

- Let the sauce simmer on low until all the vegetables are soft.

- Blend the sauce until smooth with either a traditional blender or an
  immersion blender.

- Season to taste with salt and pepper.

**For pasta or pizza sauce:
          Add ½ teaspoon each of dried oregano and dried basil

**For enchilada sauce:
          Add ½ teaspoon of paprika and 1 teaspoon cumin





Friday, February 13, 2015

Feeding our family of 5 for a month for less than $185!

So I know we are well into February by now, but I still want to take a look back at January and how my food/household spending challenge worked out.

I set myself a goal of not spending more than $1/person/day on food and $1/day on other household items. This worked out to 

($1 x 5 people x 31 days) + $1 x 31 days = $186 total for the month.
**take a look at the very end if you would like some perspective on how much this is**

My original post about my belt tightening is here, and I point out that this budget includes all food, toiletries, cleaning supplies, paper goods and diapers.

I tallied up all my receipts and I came to a grand total of $184.93!! YAY! 
($25.14 on household and $159.79 on food)

Monday, January 13, 2014

Tomato-less Pasta or Pizza Sauce

Pasta and meatsauce has been my go-to dish for as long as I can remember, but since my kids are allergic to tomato and citric acid (which is in most canned/jarred products) this has been a bit of a challenge. However, I have come up with a tomato-less sauce that my kids loved! The color is quite orange because I used carrots but it tasted good and worked well.

Tomato-less Pasta Sauce

1 pound ground beef

1/4 small onion, chopped

1 stalk celery, chopped

1 clove of garlic, minced