Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Sweet and Spicy Oven Fries and Spaghetti Sauce (2 recipes)

Hello everyone! Miss all of you I met before and nice to meet the new ones.

It's been a looong time. I just haven't had a lot of time or energy for writing. I get like that a lot with writing emails too. It's probably because I spend way too much time playing online RPGs. Anyway, while I was away so to speak, I came up with a couple recipes I kind of threw together with what I had on-hand. I'm not bad at this experimental cooking thing, but these two recipes turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. :P My husband liked them both too. Measurements are very approximate, I just sort of mixed what I thought would work in the amounts that I thought would work. Sorry, I'm not so good at guessing measurements and I just tossed stuff together. Also the recipes were made for one to two people, and my husband has a pretty big appetite, so almost three people! Hehe. Both recipes feel free to use more less of the ingredients depending on your taste. Okay, here we go:

_Sweet and Spicy Oven Fries_

2 large baking potatoes
Pam cooking spray
1/4 cup of granulated sugar
1 tsp extra-spicy chili powder (or 2 tsps of regular chili powder)
1 tsp garlic salt
1/4 tsp salt

Scrub potatoes, peel if you want. I actually left the peel on because we don't have a vegetable peeler and I am really bad at peeling with a knife (being legally blind and all with no depth perception). This is one of the very few times I eat potato skin and I don't have a problem with it unless I go overboard with quanity.

Slice potato lengthwise, lay flat side down and cut into slices, prob 1/4 inch thick (again hard to estimate with no depth perception), cut slices in half again if you want for more slender fries.

Put fries into a bowl with lid (I used a large round Gladware bowl). Spray fries liberally with Pam or other brand nonstick cooking spray.

In separate bowl combine sugar, salt, garlic salt, and chili powder. Pour spices over fries. Cover bowl and shake vigorously to distribute spices and cooking spray as evenly as possible.

Line a baking sheet with foil, spray foil evenly with Pam. Spread fries out on foil-lined baking sheet in one layer. If there are any really small pieces, lay them on top of a bigger slice so they don't burn.

Bake in a 425-450 degree F oven 10-20 minutes until browned to your like. Turn fries over and bake additional 5-15 minutes until as crispy as you like. SLide fries off baking sheet with spatula and serve as is or with condiment of your choice. Adjust recipe times/amounts as desired.

_Leftovers Spaghetti Sauce_

Okay, in this recipe, I'll admit I was very naughty. :P I had leftover ground beef in the fridge and used it for this. However, I bet ground turkey or that TVP stuff would work okay. I still have a hard time giving up my red meat, but I'm working on it. If you use the TVP I have no idea how to put it into this recipe.

1lb ground turkey, beef, browned and drained, or TVP prepared however you prepare it to replace browned meat
1/2 of a small white onion, diced
1 large can of stewed tomatoes (all I had was original)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 regular sized jar of Prego spaghetti sauce (any flavor), but I had tomato, onion and green pepper on hand, and my second fave flavor is tomato, onion, and garlic.
2 tbsp or so of granulated sugar

Put all ingredients into a large pot. I sort of slowly added in everything so I could check consistency and flavor. I think I ended up adding a little bit of water though. But in the end it turned out to be the consistency of chili, actually good enough all on its own even. After adding in all ingredients, stir and heat to a boil, then simmer for about 30 min covered, stirring occasionally. The sugar is used to neutralize the acidity of the cooked tomatoes. Adding too much will sweeten the sauce. I learned from my mom that it's better to use just a little spice/seasoned as you go, because you can always add more, but can't take away if it's too strong. My mom is a waaaayy better cook than I am (better vision helps!), but really she's wonderful at throwing stuff together or making a set recipe ten times better. After simmering to let the flavors mix, serve on hot cooked pasta of your choice, or as I said, eat it by itself if you want. Again, I used ground beef for this (bad!) and luckily I had no problems with it. But you do what you can with what you have when you're on a tight budget right? Everything I used was leftover except for the can of tomatoes, that was one of the few things in my pantry along with spaghetti noodles. I bet this would taste pretty good over white rice. This also reminds me of when I first had ground beef mixed in my spaghetti sauce when i was a kid, I was hooked. Can't you tell, I still can't get over beef...

Oh and on a totally different note, I tried turkey bacon, Butterball brand. OMG!! I was so hooked, that stuff is awesome and better than regular bacon (though regular bacon is still yummy to me).

Oh, and another note... I had no idea pork was bad for IBSers! :'( I've eaten pork before and after I found out I had IBS. I usually bought the lean stuff and don't remember having any probs. Ham sometimes bothers me, but not always.

And I don't know if I ever mentioned that I found a type of soy milk I really like, the brand Silk is better than So Good, which I tried first. I also really love the Soy Crisps from Quaker (similar to rice cake crisp things) in barbecue flavor - I can't get enough of them.

Oi, this post has gotten mighty long, hehe. Hope you are all safe and happy and healthy. Ttyl.

Please let me know if you guys (dare to) try my recipes. I hope they turn out as good as they did for me, trust me I wouldn't share bunk recipes! :P

Lots of love,

Sommer

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XOXO from lil' ol' me.

(IBS-C, mood disorders, etc., etc.)

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