Quote Originally Posted by madscot13 View Post
Oh hey I agree about the condensed soup! it may be great for moms in a rush, but making your own sauce from scratch is the best way to go and the healthiest. I maximize the cheese, we love the flavor. But hey this gets back t my original post- should I be worried about the cholesterol and saturated fats in my foods? A lot of the protein rich foods I eat have a lot of fat and I want to know if I should change my diet.
Cheese is not bad for you - I use it too. Actually, I don't drink a whole lot of milk so I get most of my calcium from food in cheese. It sounds like to me you have a nice round diet so I don't think you have a problem. We can all get too obsessed about what we eat or don't eat! When I say minimize the cheese, most people will put an awful lot of it in a typical, old fashioned casserole and I have found that I can get really tasty casseroles without quite as much cheese. It is a saturated fat so I try to minimize it. I add chile pepper flakes to add flavor to casseroles, lots of herbs, brown the meat before I put it in to add flavor, the chicken broth low sodium adds flavor and even the veges (a little tomato with the acidity adds flavor) as well as onion and other aromatic vegetables. If the rest of the casserole is really tasty, you don't need quite as much cheese to add to the flavor. Also, another trick is to use cheeses like parmesan that have intense flavor so you don't have to use quite as much (or add this to say your cheddar to add flavor and cut down on the amount of cheddar) use sharp cheddar so you can use less for the flavor. These are just a lot of tips to cut the saturated fat in your casserole and they taste just as good!

It helps if you like to cook like I do and do a lot of experimenting! I hardly ever use a recipe out of a cookbook, but even when I do, by the second time I make that recipe, I will be altering it some way! Ahh the joys of cooking!

Spoke