Marinara Me

I improved a rather simple dish - made it much better and it wasn't even that difficult!  I must mention that most of my cooking skills are being coached by Mark, my fiance. (He's a fiance now, not just a boyfriend.  How funny to say and type it.) He's a wonderful artist and luckily that creativity carries over to everything else he does.  He is the yin to my yang; where he excels, I do not and vice versa.  My number one focus lately has been to improve my cooking skills, rather GET some cooking skills.  I'm the baker.  I can bake like it is nobody's business-- cooking is another task.  So without mentioning my man too much, because this is for the Bell Ladies, I wanted to give credit where credit is due.

Back to the Marinara:

I bought a bottle from Whole Foods, just a regular bottle of marinara sauce.  It happened to also have arugula and all the Italian herbs that a good marinara should have.  I cut up some red onion and caramelized it with some garlic and butter then I added some cut green beans and kale that I had shredded.  I gently stirred in the kale and green beans so they could cook/steam with the onions and garlic.  After the kale and green beans were sufficiently cooked I added them to the sauce that I had started heating in another pan.

Served it over wheat spaghetti noodles and Voila!  Dinner.

Since its autumn I will tell you my carb saving tip that is one of my favorite dishes.  Instead of using pasta- use a spaghetti squash.

Spaghetti Squash dinner:
Cut squash in half and place both halves face down on a baking sheet in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes to an hour.  Squash will be soft and come out easily.  Flip over the halves when them out of the oven to get the hot air come off.  Then, with a fork, you can easily get all the squash out, it will come just like spaghetti noodles.  Put your favorite sauce over the top and serve.