Great Foods

I've been really happy with some meals we've come across which have become part of our regular diet. Why, yes, I'll share...

First we have tomatoes. Nice and wonderful. Red and round. Not to mention fabulously healthy. What do we do with these luscious "fruits"? We boil them for 30 seconds or so until their skin is peelable. We peel them. Chop them up and freeze them....lots of them. Why, you ask? So we can use them for spaghetti sauce throughout the year.

The spaghetti sauce is quite simple and quite tasty. It's been handed down from John's grandma to his mom to her children. The recipe is as follows:

About 2-3 cups of tomatoes of the frozen tomatoes (let thaw or sit in hot water to defrost), about 6 tbsp of brown sugar, 1-2tsp of oregano, a large sprinkle of salt, let it warm up (don't boil it or it kills the tomatoes healthy enzymes) and Voila you've got spaghetti sauce! Some spaghetti and some cheddar cheese make it a real spaghetti meal and garlic bread is great with it as well.

We love this meal an extra lot because it's quick, easy and its definitely healthier than a box of macaroni and cheese. We've even use it as the sauce we dip our grilled cheese sandwiches in!

BIG P.S. Store bought tomatoes DO NOT work. Only the farm fresh tomatoes (or home grown tomatoes) work. Trust me, I've tried it. I buy my tomatoes from the little farmers market stands along the road for $15-16 a box.

Mmmmmm. My favorite salad.

It consists of this: Spinach, cut up apples, cranberries, sliced almonds and honey mustard salad dressing (all natural). I love it. I could eat it every day. In fact, we pretty much do.

Concord grapes. Pick as many as you want at Thanksgiving Point. What do we do with these? We have made them into juice. How? By picking them (obviously), washing them, chopping them up a little in a blender, simmering them, and straining them with some cheese cloth wrapped over the top of a large bowl or pot, (tightened onto it with a rubber band) and finishing off the straining process by scraping, smashing and adding a little water to the grapes over a seive.

It's messy, it's very purple but it's SOOO yummy. And, I might add, deliciously healthy.

And, last but, of course, not least. Is our Thai dish. Originally it's used with mangoes but we were introduced to this meal using peaches and love it that way.

All it contains is "sticky rice" (called calrose rice - you can buy it most anywhere in the oriental food section of the grocery store...or just use any rice), cut up peaches, and coconut milk (it's canned and is also found in the oriental food section of the store). It's a dish you don't have to feel guilty about eating throughout the day. You can eat this for breakfast, lunch, even dinner if you add something a little more filling like bread to it, and it's good for snacking between meals.

The kids come to me complaining quite often about how hungry they are...so I point them to the sticky rice and they love it!

PS here as well. Store bought peaches are okay but don't even compare to the farmers market peaches. Once again $15 a box which makes about 15 frozen baggies of cut up peaches.

Thanks Rosanne for introducing us to this one as well!