Loaded Marinara Sauce

I had a fun day visiting with my mom and aunt who came to visit. They took the kids and I out to lunch at Super Mex (I had their Lite beans and green rice with warm corn tortillas and salsa - which I will try to recreate soon - it was delicious!) Then we shopped around at thrift stores for treasures - which my oldest son called "worse than a garage sale." (The skeptic ended up getting a really cool tie!) By the time we got home it was homework, clean up and time to think about dinner. Luckily I had leftover Marinara sauce in the fridge along with some fresh veggies. The old fallback.

The interesting thing about this Marinara sauce is that it is secretly loaded with veggies and hence tons of nutrition and yumminess.


Here is what I did:

Cut up some carrots, red bell pepper, yellow onion, and garlic - steam fry in pan (with water, but allowing them to still get some color). When they are semi-tender, toss them in your blender with a jar of low-fat (less than 10% calories from fat) marinara sauce. Puree til almost smooth.

Heat sauce until bubbly, and add more spices if desired. I love to add crushed red pepper and/or fresh basil.

Serve over your favorite pasta!

For the veggies: I rinsed the snow peas and tossed them in a hot pan until they all turned bright green (about 4 minutes) then I added some garlic salt. I didn't even cook the carrots, just sliced and threw in at the end. It was super hard, I don't know if you can handle it.

For the natives, I broiled them some garlic toast - and all was well. They never blink at pasta. We're Italian. Could eat pasta everyday a different way - but that's not the title of this blog now is it?