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Ingredients Archives: Tomato Sauce

Smoky BBQ Beef Stew

By on March 26, 2019 in Main Dishes

Do you have foods that are so reminiscent of childhood they almost make you cry? I totally do. Like chocolate cake with vanilla icing, cherry pie, Belgium waffles, chicken legs and beef stew. Those were staples in our house. While I no longer eat chocolate cake regularly (but I do still have it because… balance), beef stew is a staple in our house. There is just something about the tender meat, creamy tomato sauce and soft potatoes and carrots that just make me happy. It’s one of my all-time favorites.

This recipe is a fun twist on traditional beef stew. I came up with it because I think my family was getting sick of traditional beef stew. Maybe it’s because we were having it once a week and consuming the leftovers throughout the week. Who knows? I personally was totally fine with that. Either way, I knew I needed to come up with something new.

This recipe was it! When my daughter said “What’s for dinner?” I said “BBQ beef stew.” She groaned “not again!” but when I explained it was completely different, she was willing to have another bowl of beef stew. She loved it! What really sold her was the rice. She’ll eat just about anything as long as it’s on a bed of rice.

I love rice, but when I’m trying to watch my carbs, I just swap out the rice for a bed of leafy greens. This is one of my favorite ways to get in more veggies and keep my blood sugar regulated.

This stew is grain-free and uses spices like turmeric, cinnamon and ginger so it’s also anti-inflammatory and gives you extra help to regulate blood sugar. Plus it tastes awesome. That’s my #1 priority when it comes to food. Why would I waste time chewing something that doesn’t bring me joy? That seems ridiculous.

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Shepherd’s Pie Baked Potatoes

By on August 10, 2017 in Main Dishes

Tonight on the menu in our house was shepherd’s pie. I always try to make dinner as easy as possible, but sometimes even that’s more effort than I feel like giving after a day of being a mom.. The idea of using a pan to cook the meat, two more to cook potatoes (we have to make sweet and regular potatoes in our house because everyone likes something different), and two pans to bake the pies (again for different potatoes) made me want to order a pizza.

Then I thought, “what if I just put the meat on top of a baked potato? Wouldn’t that taste the same?” The answer: YES! It does. I made the potatoes on one foil-lined pan that didn’t need to be washed. I didn’t have to wash a potato masher, and I didn’t have to wash the pans I’d have to use to bake the pies. I ended up washing one skillet. SUCCESS!

I used a lot of vegetables in this dish because I’m always trying to cram in more vegetables. This dish is a perfect way to add vegetables because once it all simmers in the sauce, your kids won’t even notice all the veggies. Mine didn’t!

I had to take a picture of this because it’s so beautiful! When they say, “eat all the colors of the rainbow everyday,” this is a great start.

I topped my husband’s and daughter’s servings with some grass-fed, grated cheese. My daughter hasn’t eaten dinner that fast in a long time. We cook our sweet potatoes using this method from empowered sustenance (click here for link). I always add a russet potato to the pan for my husband and it comes out just as perfectly as the sweet potatoes.

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No-Sugar Saucy Asian Meatballs

By on March 1, 2017 in Main Dishes

When I first started eating healthier, I wasn’t sure what to eat. I had meat and veggies seasoned with salt and pepper. This is a delicious meal but after a few weeks, I was pretty darn sick of it. That’s when I started experimenting with seasonings. Eating healthy is actually really easy if you figure out how to add flavor to food. Sometimes we feel like eating healthy has to be miserable. Good news. It doesn’t!! These meatballs are proof. They are so yummy! My husband and kids loved them and these are people who order things like chili cheese fries and shakes at restaurants, so that’s quite the compliment. Plus, these are easy to make. These days I’m really lazy with cooking. If it takes me more than 20 minutes active time to cook, I’m out.

The only chopping in this recipe is the green onions. To add to my laziness, I cut these with kitchen shears rather than chop them with a knife and cutting board. Add the onions to a large bowl.

Add in the seasonings, coconut aminos, and sesame oil.

Mix this all together before adding in the meat. This keeps the meat tender.

I make my meatballs about the size of golf balls but make them whatever size works best for your family. Just be sure to increase bake time for bigger meatballs and decrease it for smaller ones.

I bake these in the oven for about 15 minutes.

The sauce was the easiest part.  Because it’s such a small amount I didn’t want to dirty a saucepan. I mixed it together in a glass dish and microwaved it for two minutes. It doesn’t get much easier than that.

Then I just tossed the meatballs in the sauce and sprinkled them with sesame seeds.

You could eat these over rice or rice noodles (if you do, I’d double the sauce), but we just ate them plain with some veggies and cheese on the side.

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No Sugar BBQ Sauce

By on September 8, 2015 in Dressings and Sauces

BBQ sauce makes any meat better. Pour it over chicken, that’s all you need for a great dinner. Pour it over a pork roast and, voila; pulled pork. Smear it on hamburgers and they’re suddenly the best hamburgers ever. My daughter DSCN0305uses BBQ sauce like most kids use ketchup, so we go through a lot of it in our house. While I’m totally okay with adding strange things to food to get kids to eat them, I’m not okay with the sugar content of most condiments. This is especially true for BBQ sauce. When we made the change to a healthier lifestyle, I knew we couldn’t give up BBQ sauce. That’s when I began the quest to make a no-sugar BBQ sauce. Not only did I succeed, but my husband says this is the best BBQ sauce I’ve ever made and my daughter gave it her stamp of approval.

First let’s look at a typical bottled BBQ sauce. The sauce we bought before we made our own, contains 32 grams of sugar in 1/4 C with high fructose corn syrup being the first ingredient. That is crazy. My BBQ sauce has less than 3 grams of sugar in 1/4 C and tastes delicious.

This is also an easy recipe. I didn’t want a recipe that required a lot of sauteing, dish washing and vegetable chopping, so I made it simple. Just throw all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk them together. Yes there are a lot of ingredients, but they are likely things you have in your pantry. If you don’t like an ingredient, leave it out.

I like to store it in a mason jar (or a washed, glass peanut-butter jar since we have a million of those sitting around) and stick it in the fridge. This will stay good for about a two weeks.

DSCN0314One night we had some left over pork roast and needed a quick dinner. I threw the roast leftovers in a slow cooker with the BBQ sauce and we had dinner. It’s almost too easy.

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