Casseroles don’t photograph well.  My apologies.  Nevertheless, this recipe was so good I decided to just throw caution to the wind and post the picture anyway.

The dish is Spaghetti Amore.  This was one dish that was an absolute staple in our house when I was growing up.  When my angel mother found a recipe that all of her six kids would eat, who can blame her for making it so often?  It was easy, and cheesy, and was synonymous with comfort food.

I remember making it for my roommates once, and right after we were done, one roommate said she felt like playing board games like she would do with her family after a Sunday dinner.  Yes, it is good.  Yes, it is easy.  But is it healthy? Well, I would have to say the answer is, no.  

 

Ground beef, condensed cream of mushroom soup, condensed tomato soup, grated cheese, and spaghetti would likely not qualify as ‘healthy’.  Condensed soup that contains wonderful things such as high fructose corn syrup, potassium chloride, monosodium glutamate (MSG), soy protein, yeast extract, and the always ambiguous ‘flavoring’ and ‘modified food starch’.  And let’s not even talk about the sodium levels.  

So now the task was to make this dish so it is less processed, more healthy, and also more allergen-friendly.  Swapping out the mushroom soup for real mushrooms, and swapping out the tomato soup for tomato paste and tomato sauce were a delicious start.  Thickening with rice flour instead of ‘modified food starch’ or wheat flour was the next step. I also substituted turkey for the beef, and just swapped out the cheese for a dairy-free cheese.  I have to confess, I was surprised at how well this matched the original.

I love taking these old family standards, and recipes of my grandmothers and figuring out how to make them more allergy friendly.  If you have one you’d like me to take a stab at, let me know!