Since I'm on my Slim Fast diet I'm trying to be creative with my 600 calorie meal and the other day I was bored and, being the creative foodie I am, I decided to have a play around in the kitchen.
There was nothing exciting in the fridge since it was the end of the week and we don't go shopping till Friday, so I took some of the old carrots and celery and whizzed them up in the mini chopper with a red onion and two cloves of garlic. Put this all in a pan with a slug of oil, a tin of chopped tomatoes and a sprinkle of dried oregano. Half a teaspoon of salt will counterbalance the acidity of the tomatoes. Cook on a medium heat for five minutes.
Add a tablespoon on tomato puree and the same of ketchup (this adds a really nice sweetness and a tangy-ness that you won't get form the puree alone). A heaped teaspoon of green pesto in the absence of fresh basil and a vegetable stock cube finish the sauce. Leave it to simmer for twenty minutes with the lid on, stirring every so often.
Serve with pasta - I'm not a missive fan of wholewheat. It's fine in a pasta bake when there's lots of sauce but if it's going to be served like this then I like a half white and half wholewheat - Sainsbury's do a good one.
Tonight I've made meatballs to go with the sauce too - pork mince mixed with some chopped chives, breadcrumbs, an egg, a red onion (finely chopped and sweated down) and a pinch each of salt, pepper and paprika. Roll them into balls the size of walnuts and grill until cooked through. Add to the sauce and simmer for a few minutes to let the flavours mingle and then serve with the pasta.
Basic pasta sauces can be adapted, changed and served in different ways.
I use it with the meatballs in a tapas dish- add a teaspoon of smoked paprika and very finely diced chorizo sausage to the sauce.
It can also be used as a base for a ragu - just add some browned beef mince into the sauce at the same time as the tomato puree and change the vegetable stock cube to beef.
Another idea could be to put browned chicken breasts into a oven proof dish, pour over the sauce, top with thinly sliced potatoes, sprinkle with grated cheese and bake for half an hour until golden and bubbling.
So there you go. Pasta sauce has many, many uses, many more than I've mentioned but I've tried to pick more unusual ideas.
I'll post a photo of my finished meatball dish (it's simmering currently) so you can see how mine looks.
Pasta sauce is a good place to start cooking as some you can buy are hugely expensive and full of artificial preservatives and flavourings.
I'm hoping to do a bit of baking this Sunday (low fat of course) as I haven't done any in a few weeks.
See you then!
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