It’s been awhile!

But I’m not going to spend a lot of time explaining my absence- life has been hectic and we’ve had a lot to contend with, but summer is here and I wanted to share a quick nomato sauce recipe with you all. I’m actually putting together a full lasagna with this beautiful creamy sauce and a healthy helping of my dairy free zucchini cheese (made with that club… er giant zucchini below). The whole lasagna won’t be nightshade free, but if you leave out the eggplant and bell peppers, you won’t be missing anything, so don’t write this one off on that account.

The nomato sauce was fast and easy and it’s so tasty so without further ado here’s a recipe for you!

• 4 medium beets (see note at the end of the recipe if you’re working on cutting carbs and don’t think you should use this many root veggies in one go)
• 3 large or 5 small carrots
• 1 medium zucchini
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2-3 tsp mushroom powder (or substitute a few strong flavored mushrooms such as shitake or portobello)
• 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 small onion
• 4-5 cloves of garlic (more to taste
• 1 small bunch of basil
• 1-2 tsps Italian seasoning
• 3 tbsps extra virgin olive oil
• 2-3 oz dairy and nut free pesto (if you’re good with nuts and dairy, regular is fine too)
• nutritional yeast to taste
• salt to taste

I started with a small onion and a few cloves of garlic sauteed in some extra virgin olive oil. I wanted to really infuse the sauce with the flavors that we know and love in lasagna and all Italian style dishes. I added a small amount of basil, roughly 2 oz of dairy and nut free pesto (from a local farm, but this recipe looks to be a fair substitute) and stirred that all up over low heat. My husband was in love with just that (and so happy when I told him this meal was for us).

While that was sauteeing, I steamed the beets, carrots, and zucchini (and you would add mushrooms here if you’re using fresh) in the chicken broth until soft. The mushrooms add an umami flavor that is missing without the tomatoes and you’ll be happy you used them, even if you don’t normally like mushrooms. Once they’re done, I threw them all in the blender, added a bit of salt and the apple cider vinegar, and pureed til smooth. Once that was mixed well, I poured it into the sauteed onion and spice mixture and let it simmer over very low heat. I added nutritional yeast to taste along with salt and called it good. (And when I say to taste, I probably added 2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast).

Once this was all done, I browned some ground beef with salt and pepper and mixed it all together for a meat sauce and let it simmer some more to blend all the flavors and cook it down a bit.

To complete my lasagna I layered 2 thinly sliced medium zucchini and 2 thinly sliced medium eggplants (could use 4 zucchini here and skip the eggplant if you’re nightshade free) in a casserole dish and alternated with veggie slice layers, sauce, and slices of my dairy free cheese. To dry the zucchini and eggplant out a bit prior to layering, I brined them in salt water for about 10 minutes and then sauteed them. Baking time should be shorter since you’re not cooking noodles and you’re precooking your zucchini. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes and then enjoy!

A few notes on beets. Different colors are more or less sweet. For a good balance, I often like to mix golden and red beets evenly when possible. For a sweeter sauce use all red like I did in this recipe. For a slightly more savory you can mix Chioggia and yellow. Adding in cauliflower in place of some of the beets can also cut the sweetness a bit if you’re watching your carbohydrate intake (and beets are definitely on the sweet side so if that’s a concern for you, using 2 beets and a cup or so of cauliflower florets plus the carrots and zucchini is definitely a good alternative).

 

But what do I eat?!

I know so many people who are working to get healthy. They’re concerned about losing weight, controlling blood sugar, blood pressure, or just being here for their kids down the road. This has all certainly been in the back of my mind as we’ve headed down this road to health and I remember starting off nearly 5 years ago and being totally overwhelmed by everything that was being thrown at us. We were learning, quite suddenly, that “healthy” as the modern world sees it was not actually healthy at all. Low-fat, low-cholesterol, low-carb? All really not the best options. Vegan, vegetarian, soy? Not things we wanted to be doing for optimum health. So we came home from our second or third appointment with our chiropractor and naturopathic doctors and had kind of a “What do we eat now?” moment. I was in comfort mode after my husband learned all the things he “couldn’t” eat anymore so I bought some stevia and other odd ingredients and made us the most disgusting sugar, dairy, grain, and egg free pumpkin pie. Looking back I laugh, but at the time it was the only thing I could think to do about our new-found knowledge of our food allergies.  It was impossible to think of life without bread, cake, pasta, Dr. Pepper, and more. Impossible and heartbreakingly overwhelming. And so, I spent my days desperately trying to recreate the things I was sure I had lost.

I found so many websites that talked about following the teachings of Weston A. Price. And I got the overwhelming feeling that if I did not do things perfectly, I may as well go choke on my cheeseburger, because there was no point in doing the best that I could. This attitude was never more clear than when Sarah Pope of The Healthy Home Economist tore into breastfeeding moms for their poor diets, indicating that they would be better to feed their babies homemade formula than to feed them the milk that nature intended. With advice such as this available putting people off from making changes, it’s no wonder so many feel alienated by the healthy living community.

My approach is much more moderate and I’d like to share it with you because I feel sometimes as tho too many people think if they can’t do it perfectly that they just can’t do it at all. Start with vegetables. Get as many of them into your diet as you can. I used to consider vegetables a luxury food and sometimes, I still do. It took a lot of work for me to learn how to find the best deals. One thing I found made the biggest difference was eating seasonally which is a wonderful thing to do for your health anyway, but it sounds so fancy and snooty. “Oh I eat only local and in season” sounds like something overheard at Whole Foods. Here’s why it doesn’t need to be that way tho. Seasonal produce will almost always be the cheapest options available. So in the spring, you’ll be seeing radishes, greens, eventually some strawberries, asparagus, and green onions for example are starting to be nicely discounted. If you can find a local farmer’s market (and fortunately we’re seeing a huge resurgence in the popularity of these markets) the things the vendors are selling are the things most likely to be in season in your area right then. And farmers are an amazing resource if you can talk to one. They can often tell you ways to use their produce because they have to find ways to use up what doesn’t sell themselves. So don’t be afraid to tap into that resource.

I’m going to take a moment to digress here tho and ask you to PLEASE not go to the market at the end of the day only in hopes of getting them to sell to you at half-price. They work hard and often for very little profit (some days are a loss if the weather is bad). Just as you need to earn a living, so too do they. Please don’t go just in hopes of free produce. So many of them are above and beyond generous, but please don’t go in expecting them to just hand over anything that’s left. I say this with love of all farmers and customers alike.

So now we’re thinking seasonally. What’s next? Discount grocery stores such as Aldi and Sav-A-Lot are great options for getting veggies into your diet, whether fresh or frozen. They spend less on displaying and storing their products in order to pass on a larger savings to the consumers. Often produce at these stores will need to be used quickly in order to prevent spoilage, so be sure to inspect it closely for spots, mold, bruising, or mushy greens to ensure it will last for you to use it. If you have space in a freezer, many things can be frozen with no extra work. As an example, I often freeze tomatoes fresh from our favorite farm store after removing bad spots and the stems. We invested in a deep freeze specifically for this purpose, but a bag or two of frozen tomatoes squeezes into even a small freezer quite nicely and takes the place of canned tomatoes in most meals while adding a fresher brighter flavor to foods. For me it’s a treat to go to the freezer in December and have fresh tomato taste in my foods in a hurry. I also freeze bell peppers in the summer at the peak of their season when they can be found for cheap from local farms in abundance. Broccoli, cauliflower, celery, onions, cooking greens such as chard and spinach, and many other veggies are perfect candidates for freezing. When it comes to produce, the easier, the better as far as I’m concerned.

This is a lot to chew on so tomorrow we’ll work on the Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen and in the meantime, I would love to hear from you where your sticking points are.