One for good measure

In my attempt to trim down without giving up my addiction to cookbooks or purchasing an avalanche of new, crappy "Bony and Loving it!" cookbooks, I've taken my turn at lightening up some recipes from the fatty pros. Some substitutions are easy: turkey sausage for regular sausage, low fat milk for whole, etc. But nothing is as simple as cooking with just enough oil, instead of how much these fat meisters would use.

I'm deep into Italian cooking at the moment, a result of a flash of warm weather here in Seattle and the promise of heat and tomatoes and basil growing on my stoop. So most of the dishes I'm concocting have a base, somewhere, of onions and garlic cooked in oil or butter. Recipes usually call for at least 2TBL of greasy goodness. This is at least twice as much as you need (desire is another story). See the great thing about onions when cooking for fatties is that they are full of water, mushrooms too. So you really just need to use enough oil to keep them from sticking and carry the flavor. I start by reducing it to half of what skinny/fatty (Giada/Mario) has called for. Sometimes I can get it down to a tsp and not really miss it.

It's a great way to save room for cheese.

Caveat: I am talking about everyday cooking here. When I have people over, I just stick to the recipe and drown them all in butter or EVOO.