Very Veggie Pasta Sauce

Since I'm on vacation this week I lined up a couple of guest posts this week.  You guys are lucky! When I sent out the "call for bloggers" email, I got two quick responses from twin sisters in Chicago.  I have "known" these girls for a few years now and I only hope someday we can meet in person!

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About me:  My name is Jennifer von Ebers – I work full time at an architecture firm that designs restaurants (www.ariainc.com) as an executive assistant.  I am a Mom of 3 great kids, 17, 15 and 11.  I’ve been married for 18 years to my wonderful husband David.  In my spare time you can find me in my kitchen, testing recipes, blogging, networking with other foodies and loving life! You can find hundreds of lightened up recipes at my site www.slim-shoppin.com and also get motivated to lose weight by reading dozens of weight loss success stories!

Since its getting towards the end of the week I wanted to kind of clean out my veggie drawer. I had 2 tomatoes, 1/2 an onion about 1/2 a head of cauliflower, 1/2 a green pepper, some carrots, jalapeno and garlic. I wondered what would happen if I pureed all those and added it to some crushed tomatoes, Italian spices, and some ground sirloin beef?

I figured cauliflower doesn’t really taste like anything, so I cooked that in my microwave until tender. Meanwhile, I peeled a couple carrots, threw in the onion, 1/2 the jalapeno (seeds removed) and tomatoes, green pepper and garlic into my blender. I was going to blend the heck out of it so it was super smooth.

Once that was blended, in a big pot, I browned about 1/2 a pound of ground sirloin.

I added the blender full of veggies/sauce mixture into the pot and added Italian seasoning, salt and pepper, a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes.

I also added a 14 oz. can of tomato sauce

Once it had cooked for about 15 minutes, I added an 8 oz. box of cooked shell pasta

Delicious!!!  

It's me again.....Ally......doesn't this pasta sauce look super simple and better yet healthy?  I know we all hit the end of the week and have half-dead looking vegetables in our fridge.

Why haven't I thought of putting them all into a pasta sauce before?

A huge thanks to Jenn for supplying this recipe.  I hope you enjoy!