back to reality, sort of

Hi everyone. I'm back. It has been a busy few days, but I can officially say that I'm now Dr. Madden! I passed my defense, and can finally relax a little.

On to food/weight updates. I lost 0.6 lbs this week...not too shabby for a week where I was mostly away. I just hope this pattern continues. Mike & I had a wonderful dinner on Wednesday night at the Weathervane at Southern Season. I was very proud of myself, eating just half of my appetizer (butternut squash risotto!) and half my entree (a sinfully delicious duck confit and truffle cream sauce linguini). Mike took the pasta for lunch (thank goodness), and I will be eating my leftover risotto today for lunch. I'm going to count 8 points for it, because for a full dinner serving of my own risotto, I count 8. I think I'm being conservative enough by doubling.

Onto some recipes. Being at Southern Season gave me some thoughts. You can buy the proscuitto ends there (left over from slicing) for fairly cheap. My Aunt Jennie used to make a pasta sauce with prosciutto, called filete sauce, and I decided that these ends would be used perfectly in her recipe. The one I have is huge (24 servings!) and contains loads of olive oil, so I'm skinny-ing it up, halving the size and posting here.

Filete Sauce- serves 12 but freezes well --2 points plus per serving

5 tbsp olive oil

3 stalks celery chopped very finely

4 ounces prosciutto (again, chopped finely)

2 large cans whole peeled plum tomatoes

1 small can petite diced tomatoes

3 medium onions chopped finely

2 oz red wine

2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

salt and pepper to taste

In a large skillet, heat olive oil and saute celery for 8-10 minutes or until soft. Add onions and saute another 8-10 mins. Add prosciutto and "melt" it into the vegetables (you want to see the edges curl up and the fatty part go translucent), about 3 minutes. Add wine, tomatoes (crush with your clean hands before adding) and stir to combine. Add parsley and plenty of pepper (black or crushed red or a combination). Bring to a simmer, cover and cook about an hour. After half an hour or so, taste it, and if it seems like it needs salt add a little. Prosciutto is very salty, so you may not have to add any. Serve over pasta.

Hint #1- I like to portion this out right away. Its about 2 ladles full per serving, so after serving that night's dinner, I portion it out into 5 freezable containers (4 ladles full each). It makes for a very easy weeknight dinner after defrosting.

Hint #2- I serve this over pasta (1-1.5 cups per person), and though there is some protein, there's not a whole lot. I suggest serving a spinach salad alongside this meal with some chopped hard boiled egg to get an extra dose of protein.