A versatile tomato sauce.

Lots of my recipes are based around this tomato sauce, which I make in batches. I use some fresh with pasta and grated cheese (cheddar and mozzarella), which we call 'Pizza Pasta' because of the stringy cheese just like a pizza topping, and freeze the rest in one serving batches. Aldi sell zip-lock freezer bags that are just the right size for one adult portion of sauces and soups. Come to think of it - that's a vegetable-based meal right there! Maybe we don't do so bad after all ;)

Ingredients:

• Olive oil (for sauteing the veg in)
• 1 clove of garlic, chopped finely
  
• 1 onion, chopped finely
  
• 1 carrot, grated
  
• 1 courgette, grated
  
• A splash of balsamic vinegar
• 1 tin of chopped plum tomatoes
  
• A squirt of tomato puree
  
• 1 teaspoon of soft brown sugar or caster sugar
• 1 vegetable stock cube
• 500 ml boiling water(or water just off the boil form the kettle)
• dried basil and oregano - half a teaspoon of each or a bit more

Heat the olive oil, and saute the onion, carrot and courgette for 6 minutes. Add the garlic and saute for another minute. Add the balsamic vinegar and cook for another minute. Add the plum tomatoes, the tomato puree and the sugar and simmer (little bubbles, not big ones!) for 8 minutes or so. Crumble in the stock cube, pour in the boiling water and add the dried basil and dried oregano. Cook on a higher heat (but not max) for 2 minutes, stirring all the while.

Let it cool for 10 minutes - or more if you want to make a phone call or have a coffee and a bikkie. Make sure it's till warm though! Transfer the still warm sauce to a blender and whizz it all up. Will keep in the fridge, covered, overnight for re-heating the next day.

Freezable? Yes
Family Verdict: YUM! They don't know it's good for them ;)
Last Word: This sauce is the business! I use it in so many things where you might otherwise use passata or a jar of pasta sauce. It includes extra veg - what can there be not to like?

The How's

Lots of people can tell you the why's of Meat-free Monday, all I'm doing here is saying how I'm doing it. As a family we're not very good at eating our veggies. It was this that prompted me to join Change4Life, the NHS initiative backed by these people. On reflection, a couple of those partners seem at odds with a 'healthy' attitude to eating, but that's by-the-by.

About us:

My husband doesn't really like vegetables, although he tries not to grimace in front of the kids when faced with his greens (or oranges, reds, yellows... it's best to eat a variety of different kinds!). My son (aged 2, nearly 3) is usually game to eat most things. He loves beetroot nearly as much as I do ;) Mmm beetroot. Yumalicious! My daughter (aged 4) likes ketchup with everything. Ketchup or cheese. Actually prefrerably both. She generally needs more coaxing to try new foods. With my son, he'll happily eat most things if they are on MY plate. Finally me: I'll admit I should eat more vegetables, but I do ok. I like tomatoes, but dislike ketchup. I'm growing some tomatoes in a hanging basket in the garden actually! The amount of vegetables that constitutes a 'portion' scares me a little. I'll admit to a 'gagging' sensation at the thought of a whole portion of broccoli, even though I quite like it. I wonder why that is?

What I really needed was a full-stop point; some kind of marker to say, from here, we try harder to get more veg into our diets. As the person who buys and prepares most of the food our family eats, I decided that observing Meat-free Monday was a good place to start. It gives me a whole week to choose a recipe for our evening meal together that includes no meat. I'm choosing to self-impose the rule that this meal must also be a vegetable-based meal because this suits my purposes.

This leads nicely onto the rules:

1. No meat. All day;
2. Main meal must be vegetable-based;
3. Where I can I'll use store-cupboard vegetarian or even vegan options, but where I don't have anything that would work in a meal I might have to use something that may once have contained an animal derivative. I feel a bit naughty doing this but I have to be realistic - we're on a budget. A tight budget.
4. Milk, cheese and eggs are fine.
   

They seem quite simple and easy to follow :)