Karen’s No-Prep, Pretty Healthy Except the Meatballs which are Optional Anyway, Quick and Easy Spaghetti and Meatballs Recipe that will Reverse Hair Loss, Cure Insomnia, Save your Marriage, and Generally Fill the Yawning Void.

Yield: a lot
Prep time: virtually nonexistent

Note: unless otherwise specified, all quantities are according to taste and therefore approximate, and with few exceptions I buy store brand.

Another note: except for garlic, this sauce requires little seasoning. Since it’s made with canned ingredients, there’s enough salt, believe me (see nutritional info below). In fact I usually cook completely saltless and most people like my cooking well enough to not add salt at the table (as far as I know, when my back isn’t turned…)

Yet another note: Sodium is a big villain here. That’s the only nutritional sacrifice you’re making for speedy prep here, though, so It Could Be Worse. Regarding the canned tomatoes: I remember reading somewhere that you still get all the lycopene benefits, even with canned.

Ingredients (all preprocessed so that if you’re at work until 5:00, have a toddler, or just don’t have the patience to stand at the counter chopping things into little pieces today, you can throw this together—no they’re not fresh veggies from the farmer’s market but for many of us, if frozen chopped spinach had never been invented we would never cook healthy meals):


From the pantry:
•  3 15-oz. cans of tomato sauce
•  2 28-oz. cans of diced tomatoes (I like petite-cut)
•  2 15-oz. cans of garbanzo beans (really!)

From the freezer:
•  2 10-oz. packages of frozen spinach (chopped)
•  ¾-1 38-oz. package of precooked meatballs
•  1 (or two, if you really like bell peppers) 1-lb. package(s) of Birds Eye pepper stir-fry (I choose a specific brand here because this adds wonderful color—it’s sliced green, red and yellow bell peppers, and remember the goal here is to not be standing and chopping)
•  A specialty item, which you may or may not keep in your freezer: 3 or 4 tablespoons of whole ground flaxseed meal (no need to go to a fancy “natural food store” with an unjustifiable markup, flaxseed is available in the health food section of your local regular-folks’ supermarket, and they usually even have it in a store brand).

From the fridge:
•  1 (or two if you like, but one is easier to camouflage if you’re not a tofu fan) 12.3 oz. package(s) of extra-firm tofu (I buy the “lite” kind). If you don’t like tofu, the softer kind cut into smaller bits “hides” better in the sauce.
•  Minced garlic from a jar (no chopping!): I use a lot, but feel free to use however much you like.

Directions:
1.  Cube the tofu (really the only knife work you should have to do). The smaller the cubes, the better it can hide, if you don’t like tofu. If you like tofu and don’t want the meatballs, use more packages of it and cut large pieces.
2.  Put an 8-quart pot on the stove and briefly sauté some garlic in a tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil. I know I said this was no-chop but if you must have onion, get that sautéed before the garlic.
3.  Open the cans of tomatoes, tomato sauce and garbanzo beans and empty the contents into the pot. Stir.
4.  Add some basil and oregano (fresh-chopped is best, obviously, but not today).
5.  Add the meatballs if you’re going to include them. Stir some more.
6.  Add some more garlic. Stir.
7.  Throw in the flaxseed. Stir.
8.  Drop in both frozen bricks of spinach.
9.  Add some more garlic. Stir.
10. Pour a glass of inexpensive merlot or syrah or a cabernet combination (Yellow Tail does the job fine), check your phone messages, open the mail, and watch a little news until the house smells delicious.
11. Boil the spaghetti.


Nutritional info per serving

Spinach:
Calories 30
Sat fat 0
Trans fat 0
Sodium 125mg
Total carbs 3g
Dietary fiber 1g
Protein 2g

“Lite” tofu:
Calories 35
Sat fat 0
Trans fat 0
Sodium 85mg
Total carbs 1g
Protein 6g

Garbanzo beans:
Calories 110 (from fat, 15)
Sat fat and trans fat both 0, but total fat 1.5g
Sodium        360mg (a whopping 15% of the daily allowable—I rinse them in a strainer first, but it probably doesn’t make a difference)
Total carbs 17g
Dietary fiber 6g (24% of daily recommended amount, awesome!)
Protein 6g

Tomato sauce:
Calories 20
Sat fat 0
Trans fat 0
Sodium 280mg (yikes, 12% of daily allowable)
Total carbs 5g
Dietary fiber 1g

Diced tomatoes:
Calories 25
Sat fat 0
Trans fat 0
Sodium 220mg
Total carbs 5g
Dietary fiber 1g
Protein 1g

Meatballs (you should probably just leave these out of the sauce, now that I think of it):
Calories 270 (from fat, 200)
Sat fat 9g
Trans fat 0
Cholesterol 40mg
Sodium 610mg (25% of daily allowable!)
Total carbs 5g
Dietary fiber 1g
Protein 13g