Judy E. Buss

Sauce-cooking has an unjustified reputation for being complicated and time consuming. With a few inexpensive ingredients and a minimum of effort you can prepare delicious and health-boosting sauces for any dish, including desserts!

Basic sauces can morph into numerous mouth-watering variations and open up a wide range of possibilities. Most can also be prepared ahead of a busy day or a festive dinner and many types of sauces don’t require cooking at all.

A sauce is simply a flavored concoction, often a thick or thin liquid, which is mixed into a dish to enhance flavor and/or to lend moisture. Health-minded cooks consider making fresh sauces an integral part of the cooking process, an opportunity to increase the nutritional profile of a meal, and an added “aroma therapy” bonus…

Smothering a home-cooked wholesome dish with a mass-produced (for massive profits), processed sauces defeats the purpose of healthy cooking. An autopsy of most store-bought sauces reveals their lifeless pre-existing condition, replete with unhealthy additives, such as artificial flavors, colors, and sweeteners, thickeners, preservatives, corn syrup, high amounts of sodium, and chemicals we can’t pronounce and which don’t belong in our bodies.

Cooked vegetable sauces, no-cook dressings, and their variations, yogurt sauces, chopped vegetables and fruit salsas, or simply adding olive oil, lemon zest, juice, salt, and pepper, present the home cook with limitless options that transform even the blandest dish into a memorable one.

Mashed fruit, cooked or raw, offers many fabulously delicious and nutritious dessert toppings which can be spooned over cut up fruit or frozen yogurt. Discover the joys and benefits of flavor-and-nutrition-packed home prepared sauces.

FRESH COOKED TOMATO SAUCE
Cook with or without meatballs or cubed tofu.
2 servings

2 large tomatoes, chopped
1 large yellow onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 green bell pepper, seeded, finely chopped
1 dried bay leaf
1-1/2 tablespoons dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried basil
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Mix in all the other ingredients. When the sauce begins to bubble, cover, reduce the heat, and cook slowly 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the stove, and discard the bay leaf.

NO-COOK SENSATIONAL RASPBERRY SAUCE
To remove the tiny hard raspberry seeds, use a fine strainer.
Yield: about 1-1/2 cups

All you’ll need: 2 cups (12 ounces) fresh or frozen unsweetened raspberries, thawed, if frozen.

In a large fine-mesh strainer, puree the berries over a bowl with the back of a spoon. Be sure to scrape the sauce from the strainer underside. This mashing process takes about 10 minutes, resulting in a tangy smooth sauce with a BIG raspberry flavor, and without the tough little seeds.

No need to sweeten the sauce because it is served over sweet desserts, such as a fruit salad, frozen vanilla yogurt, (Oh My!), or a pound cake. If you must sweeten the sauce a bit, mix in 1 – 2 tablespoons honey.

“Mission Nutrition” Tips and Recipes from Judy E. Buss, Syndicated Eating-for-Health Columnist

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