Olive Basil Sauce

OK - I found this recipe about 20 years ago in one of my Bon Appetit magazines and it was from a really cute column called, "Honey I Forgot The Guests." As with many people this couple would invite guests to their home for a dinner party only to realize that they had this bad habit of leaving the menu and the shopping until the very last minute. So what was the secret to ending this madness? Making lots and lots of multipurpose sauces they could defrost and toss into pasta, over ice cream, in an omelette, you name it. Quite a charming idea actually. I'll post their second sauce, Apricot-Orange too.

Olive-Basil Sauce (makes 1 1/4 cups): 1 cup of pittled Kalamata olives, 1 cup of fresh basil leaves, 3/4 cup of toasted walnuts, 1 large garlic clove, 1 tbsp. of fresh lemon juice, 1/2 tsp. of dry mustard, 1/4 cup of olive oil.

Blend first 6 ingredients into a processor to course the puree. With the machine running gradually add oil through feed tube. Season with pepper (can be prepared 2 weeks ahead. Refrigerate or freeze.)

Uses? Toss into pasta, smear in an omelette, dollop over grilled fish or meat, or spread on baguette.

Sweet Potato Butter

Well Oprah likes it so why not give it a whirl! Here's one recipe for it I found:

6 cups of diced sliced sweet potato, 2 cups of diced granny smith apples, 4 cups of water, 2/3 cups of orange juice concentrate, 1/2 cup of packed brown sugar (or Splenda brown sugar), 1 1/2 tsp. of ground cinnamon, 1 tsp. of ground nutmeg, 1/4 tsp. of cloves.

Put all of the ingredients into a pot and bring to a boil, then turn heat way down and let the mixture simmer for 2 2 1/4 hours or until mixture is nice and thick with maybe just one cup of water remaining and keep stirring. Turn the heat off and let the potato mixture cool somewhat because your are going to blend it in batches. Then put into jars and into the fridge and chill for two hours before serving. Yum.

Diet Dressing Easily Revamped

Voila! I am not a huge fan of vinegary tasting diet dressings, but I buy them because most of them are only 5 calories a tablespoon. Here is a re-vamped dressing using Kraft's Zesty Italian, Calorie Wise.

For one salad add 2 tbsp. of zesty Italian to 1 tbsp. of prepared mustard and one packet of Splenda. Season up with salt and pepper and anything else that gets your diet on. It has that nice Swedish Mustard Dressing taste.

To Die For Swedish Mustard Sauce

Have you ever had a Gravalax salad with Swedish Mustard Sauce? OK - it will be all you need for lunch. You won't even need much of it because the flavors are so satisfactorily fabulous (did that make sense?) Swedish Mustard is used in Sandwiches and also over top of this salad, so use it as a salad dressing as well. I am sure you could keep it for a week in a container in your refrigerator, but please don't quote me. Find out where in your town you can get Gravalax....I bought mine at the IKEA grocery store as I've heard that it's the best. Then you get yourself some gorgeous mixed salad leaves, I love the organic mix with a small slice of Gravalax, then drizzle with mustard sauce. Geez, I nearly forgot. Garnish this salad with a little fresh dill. Please don't pull dill out of the pickle jar...go get some fresh dill at the grocery store. Also, please sip a glass of your favorite wine with this meal. You will feel like you've had an amazing lunch.

Swedish Mustard Sauce: 1/2 cup of dry mustard, 1/2 cup of sugar (I'm sure a low calorie sweetener would be good too), 1 tsp. of salt, pinch of white pepper, 2 tbsp. of white vinegar, 1/4 cup of boiling water, 1/4 cup of vegetable oil, 1/2 cup of heavy cream. Put all of the ingredients into a blender and blend for 1 minute. Scrape the sides with a rubber spatula or your hand(!) and process for 30 seconds longer. The mustard sauce should be a little thicker than heavy cream. Store in a glass jar, well sealed in the fridge and let sit for one day so that the flavors blend. You won't be disappointed.