Recipe Fridays: Reinventing the TV Dinner, pt. 7

Sometimes you just want a big plate of spaghetti and meatballs!  What do normal people do when that happens?  I don’t know, I’m not normal!  But I put up a big pot of sauce, make 2 lbs. of meatballs from scratch, and have a big plate of spaghetti and meatballs, homemade!  Here we go, cuz I’m not at liberty to share my recipe.  The sauce is basically crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, Italian seasoning, *whispers* grated carrots, like a good medium carrot grated into the sauce, honest to god, minced onion, minced garlic, tomato paste… You’ll have to figure out your own proportions. 

This translated nicely into a TV dinner – it was a few days before I was to attend a wedding, and I wanted to look hot, so I veggie-loaded. 

A small mound of spaghetti that I’d tossed to coat with sauce – by the way, since I live alone, I’ve taken to cooking only as much pasta as I am going to eat that night.  This way, I also have freshly ‘made’ pasta water to add to a bit of sauce, to help it stick to my pasta.  It’s very simple and makes life easy – always hot, fresh pasta!  Anyway, this, with one meatball, and though that might look like cheese, it’s actually plain bread crumbs (I’ve taken to making my own from stale bread pulsed in the food processor, into small crumbs, and season later).  I added those for color, crunch, and to trick myself so I wouldn’t want cheese… it cuts back on fat & calories a lot.  Nifty, right?  (And it tastes good.  Honest.)

To help cut back on calories that week, I’d prepped bags of salad fixins on Sunday – sliced cucumbers, raw broccoli, bell peppers, purple cabbage, Romaine lettuce… and just kept taking from those containers to make myself yummy salad.  I like salad, so this didn’t bother me, but it’s also a great way to keep yourself on track.  (And I lost 5 pounds that week from eating salad more meals than not, though I did have my share of pasta as well.  I want to lose more, but that’s what happens when you only give yourself a week…) 

Roasted wedge of cabbage with bacon. 

I’d purchased bananas earlier that week as well, in hopes that I would eat more fruit for snacks and stop being so fat.  I had a few bananas before the rest started turning very quickly, so I put some butter in a skillet, add some brown sugar, and let it melt.  Sliced a banana into it, and then slipped those in and put it over low heat.  Unfortunately, my TV show started and I ran into the living room to watch, and sort of let these go a touch too long.  But one side got very caramelly, not quite burnt, slightly crisp, chew sugar bits, which was nice.  I bet this would be really good over ice cream, but obviously I wasn’t trying to eat ice cream the week I’m trying to lose weight!  This tasted pretty good, I would definitely do it again.  And watch these more carefully and not the TV… hehe. 

And the last compartment is obviously just a plum.  I think I did a great job of stuffing my face, but with items that honestly didn’t come to that many extra calories overall.  Love! 

Happy eating!!!