Olive Oil Instead Of Butter

More this time of year than anything else, the wife and I find our available time dwindling away. It really affects the menu around the house as we need to make dinner faster and faster. It is to the point that basically I find I only have time to focus on the main dish, and then most of the side dishes I have to use some sort of boxed solution like rice, pasta, instant potatoes, etc..

The one thing I hate about having to do this, is the fact that most of these dishes are far from healthy. Almost without exception, many of these sides call for either butter or margarine.. Now I enjoy the taste of butter, but when I began noticing that as a family of four, we were going through about 1- 2 pounds of it in a week, it made me a bit concerned.

Well, I decided that for all of these dishes, I would substitute olive oil (sometimes extra virgin, sometimes not) tablespoon by tablespoon for butter. Olive oil of course is much better for you. Well, after about a month of this, I would like to report that it has been quite a success. 99% of the time you really cannot tell the difference (or I am getting used to it). The only exception was with instant potatoes. I found I had to use just regular olive oil instead of the EVOO as the strong flavor of the EVOO was a bit obtrusive... Otherwise, it even worked well for them. In fact, I would say the potatoes were silkier and lighter than when I use butter.

Now I still use butter on say, toast, and I still use it if I get time to bake (which is very rare this time of year), but otherwise I have found that I have practically dumped butter.

Now if I could just find a way to take all the sodium out of these boxed side dishes..

Well Jafo you could possibly make up your own "Instant" mixes and just omit the salt, I do not know where the suppliers are for like dried potato flakes (maybe health food stores?), but at least like for instance "Rice-A-Roni" couldn't you take rice, & angel hair pasta (broken into fine pieces) (that would be fun for the kids to do! breaking the pasta), and then make up your own seasoning packet...omitting the salt? For instance find the salt-free dried buillion and just start from there and add your favorite spices keep mix handy in a zip-lock bag and add as you would when making it from a box. Just imagine how wonderful!!! Picture this "Jeff's Homemade Rice-A-Roni" made to taste to please just you and your families taste buds! Just prepare lots when you do have time, and then use it when you don't. I can see it now sauteing the dry rice & pasta mix in Olive Oil until it reaches that pretty brown color, then add your hot water and your very own spices!!! Only adding salt at the table when served as desired! You could make some spice packets with chicken flavored bouillon and some w/ beef flavored and you could add some slivered almonds to some of the spice packets and not to others, you could also add dried veggies to some for a different flavor, taste and texture. You know my ideas sounding so neat I think I'm going to do this for myself Can you imagine the money you'd save over paying at least $.99 per box of that stuff. I guess you could liken it to making your own homemade Bisquik! Which I used to do!
Well hope this idea helps a little!
CCCathy