eat your greens...

(and yellows, and reds, and...)

Some ways I've added more vegetables to our family meals:

• Corn, shredded carrots and shredded chicken mixed with BBQ sauce on top of whole wheat pita or english muffins. Add cheese on top and broil for SW style mini pizzas.
• Add chunks of zucchini and tomatoes to spaghetti sauce.
• Use macaroni style noodles for spaghetti and add sliced celery to the sauce. I've also done this with barely any noodles and tons of celery.
• Zucchini, green pepper & tomato in scrambled eggs with a little bit of cheese. You can up the veggies and decrease the number of eggs and it's still great!
• Slices of zucchini with cream cheese on bagel.
• Chopped carrots and celery in BBQ sauce over chicken.

make-it-yourself spaghetti sauce

In large sauce pan, simmer 1/2 to 1 whole onion (pureed, diced or sliced) and 1 TBS minced garlic for 7 or so minutes over med heat.
Add 1 pound of your meat, season with salt, pepper & garlic powder - cook through.
Add 2 TBS tomato paste and 1 28oz can crushed or diced tomatoes. Also add any other veggies you want, chunked or pureed. Add 1 TBS sugar (more or less to taste) and some oregano (also any other spices you want).
Simmer for 20 minutes, meanwhile cook the pasta (choose whole wheat to make this meal super healthy).

Orange Beef (or Chicken)

I tried out a great orange beef/chicken recipe this past week. Warning - it's pretty sweet, so don't add more sauce to try to get it 'go further'. :)

Put in crock pot:
1/2 cup orange marmalade
1/2 cup terriyaki sauce
2 to 3 pounds stew beef/chicken
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic

Let cook on low 8 hours or so until meat is cooked through. Add veggies of your choice (like snow peas, red pepper, orange pepper...), turn to high and cook about 10 minutes, till veggies are cooked crisp. Serve over brown rice.