In case you're a little dense or this is your first visit to my blog, I am not an awesome fifties housewife that cooks from scratch and keeps a perfect house. So recipes will be far and few between on here...and probably will consist of compiling several ready made ingredients! There's my disclosure.
Most young kids need a good high fat, high calorie meal here and there. By high fat, I mean high monounsaturated fats...not saturated animal fats from meat, butter and dairy. That is why I buy the leanest meat I can then add fat and calories with good fats such as olive oil and avacados.
Here is my super healthy turkey pasta! I make a large batch of the sauce and freeze it in two or three large portions so we can have it once a week without a huge hoopla and mess.
Ingredients:
~One package of super lean ground turkey
~Lots of olive oil
~One standard sized bag of frozen veggie mix
~One jar of your favorite pasta sauce (that you hopefully bought on sale and stocked up on)
~Barilla Plus Rotini Pasta (I get this kind because it has extra protein & omega-3s plus is multigrain...and rotini picks up lots of the sauce which is what you really want the kids to eat in this recipe)
~Ground flaxseed (I buy
Spectrum Naturals - Essential Flaxseed Ground Organic, 14 oz granules)
1. Start cooking your ground pasta in a huge pan with LOTS of olive oil (you bought the extra lean to avoid the bad animal fat, now you must add the good monounsaturated fats to keep this a nice healthy but high calorie meal for the kiddos)...lots to me is around 1/4 cup or more.
2. Start your water boiling for your pasta.
3. Defrost your whole bag of frozen veggies (I usually put them in a colander and run hot water over them) and then throw them in a blender (or your food processor if your husband recently broker your blender...grrr).
4. Add a little bit of your fave jarred pasta sauce and turn that sucker on. Keep adding the sauce until you now have blended the whole jar of pasta sauce and the entire bag of vegetables into an unrecognizable reddish orange mix.
5. Add a few tablespoons of ground flaxseed and blend more (this does add a bit of texture to the sauce...if you have super picky eaters, consider buying flaxseed oil to add instead).
6. I hope you have been stirring your turkey...stir the turkey!
7. Once the turkey is FULLY COOKED (I cook the crap out of any ground meat...so nasty...ground meat goes through a variety of machines etc to get ground which gives it extra chances to get exposed to botulism etc...SO COOK THE CRAP OUT OF IT PLEASE!) add all of your blended sauce and simmer until your pasta is cooked.
8. I hope you remembered to add some pasta to your boiling water! If not, do so now...then wait the extra 7 minutes you could have saved by doing it a few steps ago. Don't go sit on your ass, clean your kitchen or something.
9. Serve and enjoy!
Take the extra (there should be a lot unless you have a large family) and freeze it. Consider making a double batch next time as this recipe freezes very well...all you need to do is toss a frozen container of it in the fridge the morning you plan to serve it and heat it up, serve over freshly boiled pasta.
Beware adult eaters! This is calorie (and nutrient) dense...not something you, as an adult, want to chow on regularly unless your one of those people everyone loves to hate that can't keep weight on. Give yourself a small portion with a large salad or something. Great for kids though!! Much better option than unhealthy treats or even whole milk or cheeses (anything high fat from animal products is not a great fat) if your child is underweight or on the lower end of the charts like mine tend to be.
