Roasted Butternut Squash Pasta Sauce

Eating healthy doesn't have to mean boring bland food...quite the contrary. I got my creative juices flowing yesterday in the kitchen and boy was I pleased with the results. I set out to recreate a butternut squash pasta sauce I used to buy at Costco, the results were fantastic and oh so easy to make. Serve it on top of some Zucchini noodles made using the Saladacco along with some grilled chicken and you are set with an easy peasy, gourmet dinner or put in a little more effort and make a vegetable lasagna like I did. Yep, a deliciously amazing vegetable lasagna, I will share how tomorrow.

Roasted Butternut Squash Pasta Sauce
1.5 lbs of butternut squash
4 cloves of garlic
Sea Salt
Pepper
Mrs. Dash original
Olive oil
Almond Milk (I ended up using about a cup, you may use more or less depending on how thick you want your sauce)

Method

Peel the butternut squash and remove the seeds (just a note, you can buy peeled and seeded butternut squash at the grocery store if you want to skip this step)

Cut the squash into bite size pieces.

Spread the squash out on a cookie sheet along with your garlic and mist with a little bit of olive oil. Sprinkle a little salt, pepper and Mrs. Dash on top of your squash.

Roast at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until it gets soft. Cooking time will vary depending on how large your squash is cut.

Remove the roasted squash from the oven and transfer the squash to your blender.

Start by adding 1/4 cup of almond milk to your squash and start pureeing. Add in more milk as needed until you have reached the consistency that you desire.

Serve over zucchini noodles or make this yummy vegetable lasagna once I get the recipe posted! How is that for a tease?

By the way, my kids love this sauce, I serve theirs over cheese ravioli's and they are happy as clams. Because of the color, they think it is cheese sauce and I just keep my mouth shut. It is my little secret that I just shared with you all.

Enjoy!

Spinach Zucchini Quinoa Bake

When thinking about what to make for dinner tonight, I wanted to make something that didn't need a lot of babysitting...I was tired and not feeling great so I decided to make some type of casserole. Usually this means something in the vein of Campbell's chicken and rice casserole. You know the one where you mix rice and cream of something soup, sometimes some cheese in a pan and put chicken breasts of the top and bake. Yeah, I know the cream of something soup is awful but the dish is so easy to make when you don't have a lot of time for prep. Well, it got me thinking, could I somehow replicate the dish and make it PINK friendly?

I thought about the Alfredo sauce that I posted about here, and knew that I could use that as the creamy base to cook the rice in. Then I thought about the rice, did I want to use brown rice? I could but brown rice takes so long to cook I wasn't sure it would fully soften in the oven, so I decided to use quinoa because it cooks quickly like the instant rice you would use in the traditional casserole. I knew I was on to something so I decided to give it a try. I however didn't add the chicken on top, you could  with some seasoning and have an easy meal...I didn't because I was really just experimenting this afternoon when I made this and I didn't want to hassle with the chicken part. I simply baked some chicken in the oven at dinner to go along with the dish.

Spinach Zucchini Quinoa Bake
1 cup quinoa
1/4 onion chopped
1 zucchini shredded or use your saladacco if you have one
1 1/2 cups fresh spinach chopped
1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
1 cup plain almond milk
1 cup water
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp Bragg's Aminos
3 tbsp nutritional yeast
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp chopped garlic

Method

Chop your onions, mushrooms, spinach and shred your zucchini

(on a side note, as I made zucchini noodles using my saladacco tonight, my kids thought it was so funny that I was getting such long noodles  6+ feet, they said, "Let's pretend we are Lady and the Tramp" so I they stole some of my noodles and spread across the room and proceeded to eat them, until they got closer and closer, you know how it goes. I love that my kids are eating raw zucchini now, before PINK the only way I could get them to eat it was in zucchini bread which is not healthy at all. Okay thanks for humoring me, I just thought the picture was funny and wanted to share.)

Saute your onions, mushrooms, spinach and zucchini in a saute pan with a mist of olive oil.

In a separate bowl, mix your almond milk, water, Dijon, Bragg's, yeast, lemon juice and garlic.

Add your almond milk mixture to the pan along with your quinoa and stir to combine.

When the liquid begins to boil, pour into a casserole dish, mine was about 6 x 9 but an 8x 8 would work or a pie pan. I just wouldn't use a big pan like a 9 x 12, I think the quinoa would be spread to thin and might not cook correctly. At this point you could add your chicken to the top to make it an easy meal.

Cover your dish with foil or a lid if your casserole dish has a lid and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. You could also skip putting it into a pan and baking and just finish it on the stove top letting it simmer until the quinoa has softened, that is fine. I just wanted to be able to forget about it and not have to watch it like you do on the stove top.

Like I said I didn't add chicken to mine, next time I will. I simply sprinkled some almond meal with a little Mrs. Dash to the top of my chicken and baked in the oven. Serve the casserole along with a salad and dinner is done.

Enjoy!

Spaghetti Reset Style

I am back on reset before starting phase 2. I bought myself a little treat after meeting my first mini goal and it has been a life saver on this round of reset. I have used it for lunch and dinner the last two days, I love it that much. Yesterday, I used it to make some spaghetti with meat sauce. Yep, on reset where most carbs are a no no. How you ask? Well let me introduce you to the Saladacco. It is a little slicer that takes your harder vegetables and slices them into thin spaghetti like noodles. Gosh, let me just show you the zucchini noodles I made for dinner last night

Aren't those cute? They are so easy and fun to make. To eat them, I left them raw and topped them with a little of the marinara sauce I posted here. In a nut shell, it is a can of stewed tomatoes, onions, Italian seasoning and garlic. I didn't make the meatballs because I was in a hurry, instead I simply browned some ground turkey and added the marinara sauce to cook for a bit.

Throw your sauce on top of your "noodles" and you are ready to eat, a quick 15 minute dinner for a busy night. I also put a little nutritional yeast on top of the sauce because it has a slightly cheesy taste, kind of like Parmesan. You could saute your "noodles" a bit to soften but I found that the heat from the sauce softened the noodles enough.

I hope you don't feel like I am being a product pusher, I just have really been enjoying the Saladacco and I wanted to share it with you all. I can see it being something I use often and I am excited to try and make some Yakisoba noodles for dinner tomorrow. You could make the noodles using a grater or a knife if you had the patience.