With the New Year many of us have made resolutions or agreements with ourselves to get healthy or to lose weight.  With so many people looking to make healthy food that still has flavor I thought it would be a great opportunity to work with Cookwell Oils and Chef Jake Fisher–Cookwell’s professional chef and inventor of menu favorites at popular restaurants like Applebee’s and Pizzeria Uno to remake some old recipes that belonged to my family.  The remade recipes are healthier versions of my family’s favorites – Beef Stroganoff, Pumpkin Bread, and Potato Latkes.

All these recipes originally called for a good amount of oil.  I have already made a lot of changes to the types {and amounts} of oils we eat.  I choose healthy oils as much as possible – like coconut oil for frying and in the place of recipes that call for solid shortening, and olive oil for roasting and sauteing.  I use butter for finishing sauces and for bread – good homemade bread has to have a bit of butter.

So, I chose these recipes because they were some of my family recipes that still remained that I hadn’t figured out how to change – especially the Beef Stroganoff and Pumpkin Bread because they called for large amounts of vegetable oil.

Cookwell’s Oils come in a variety of options {available at Walmart} like grapeseed oil, sunflower oil, sunflower and olive oil blend, and flavored olive oils – like balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil and garlic flavored extra virgin olive oil.

They remade my recipes, sent me some fantastic recipe cards and a box of great kitchen gifts!  We gave the beef stroganoff recipe a test drive.  I think the concept of Cookwell’s oils are fantastic – and their mission is great – to help home cooks cook healthy meals.  And, they’ve made it easy to do that – all of the oils are labeled with what they are best used for {bake, baste, dip, or fry} and with their temperature and flavor grades.

I cooked the remade recipe for dinner this week – with two minor changes – I used a couple cups of water (to make more of a gravy) and I left out the dill.  While Chef Jake said it would bring freshness to the dish, my husband has a strong aversion to it. So, if you like dill, this would bring that element of fresh to the dish.  I LOVED that he swapped in Greek Yogurt in exchange for the sour cream that the recipe traditionally called for.  I had heard of swapping sour cream for Greek yogurt but had not really tried it.  I was a little skeptical that it would taste too tangy but it was great!  I couldn’t tell a difference AT ALL!

The recipe was a hit.  Thanks Chef Jake Fisher for your help making over this family recipe! Here’s to a healthier year in 2013!

Disclosure: I am a Walmart Mom. This post is sponsored by Walmart.   Walmart has provided me with product and/or compensation in exchange for my time and efforts in creating this post. My participation is voluntary. As always, my opinion is my own.