Meatballs with Marinara Sauce

Hi Everyone!
Sorry I didn't post last week, I was on my honeymoon (8 months later) in the Dominican Republic! It was a lot of fun and really relaxing but I'm ready to get back to it with this weeks recipe, Meatballs and Marinara Sauce. YUM! Hopefully soon I will post some recipe related to our trip and some pictures but in the meantime, this is an awesome recipe that is sure to please the whole family. Serve over spaghetti squash (recipe coming soon) or with an extra veggie! I made mine with some roasted brussels sprouts.

Meatballs

Ingredients:

1 medium zucchini- finely chopped (with food processor or you can use a grater)
2 small or 1 medium yellow squash- finely chopped (w/ food processor or grater)
1 small onion- finely chopped (w/ food processor or grater)
2 eggs
1 cup almond meal
2 lbs meat- I use 1 lb. grass-fed beef and 1 lb. ground pork
Salt and Pepper

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Put the chopped zucchini, squash and onion in a strain to get rid of some of the extra liquid.

3. Combine all ingredients and use your hands to mix together.

4. Use a ice cream scooper or large spoon to scoop out meat mixture and gently roll into meatballs. Use scooper to create uniformity to your meatballs. Place on baking sheet. No need to prepare the sheet with anything as the juices from the meat will prevent from sticking. Should make about 25-30 meatballs.

 

5. Bake in oven 20 minutes

6. Move to another sheet and save drippings for sauce

Marinara Sauce

Ingredients:

1/2 med. onion-chopped
4 celery stalks- chopped
4 carrots- chopped
3 garlic cloves- chopped or pressed
3 cups chicken broth (preferably homemade)
1 small can organic tomato paste
1 large can organic crushed tomatoes
3 sprigs thyme (tied into a bundle)
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 tablespoon pepper

Preparation:

1. In a large stockpot over Med- high heat, add meat drippings and cook onion, celery and carrots stirring occasionally until slightly soft.

2. Add garlic and cook a 2 more minutes

3. Add chicken broth and bring to a boil.

4. Once at a boil, reduce heat to Med-low and add tomato paste, crushed tomato, salt, pepper and thyme bundle. Cover only half of the pot with a lid and allow to cook for 1 hour.

5. Add meatballs to sauce and continue to cook covered for 15 mins.

6. Serve with spaghetti squash or other veggies.

[Insert picture of finished plate here because I forgot, but I think we know what meatballs and sauce look like :)]

ENJOY!! This is literally the best sauce recipe I have ever made!! Go Me!

My Journey to Discovering Paleo

If you’re like me, you love hearing about people finding success through the Paleo lifestyle. Every week I look forward to readings Mark Sisson's Friday Success Story and often find myself drawn to any post talking about people transforming their lives through Paleo. Whether it’s for weight loss, curing chronic pain or suppressing a disease or illness, the stories are always so inspiring. So this week I thought I would give you my story of how I found Paleo and what it's done for me.

Like many people, I was looking for a diet to help me shed a few pounds (those last 10 lbs. that seem to want to stick around) and I had tried a lot of different trends but mostly crash dieting. It seemed to be a quick fix but never lasted and the havoc I was wreaking on my body internally was not helping me in the long run. Let me start at the beginning, I was always a skinny kid, I never ate much and was a really picky eater, I was active and played different sports. I weighed in at 105-110lbs all through high school and never thought about working out or eating right, I just assumed this was how I was made. My mother is very thin and I assumed I just took after her. Then I went to college in 2002 and gained 25 lbs. in 6 months. It was like my taste buds woke up and I found myself loving food, and I wanting to try everything. Add in the increased alcohol consumption and you can probably guess how I gained the 25lbs so quickly. At my heaviest I weighed 135lb, maybe more, but I stopped weighing myself for fear of insanity. I know a lot of people out there don't think that's a big deal at 5' 4" but for me it was a significant gain, none of my clothes fit, I went from a size 2 to a size 7/8, size small tops to medium and barely a 34 B to a 34 D. I felt like the Hulk except I couldn't change back to my normal self. Luckily I had a neighbor who worked at a gym and he introduced me to working out. He showed me how to use the machines and boy did I use them. I had no clue what I was doing but I assumed doing every single machine in there would help so that’s what I did, add in some weighted sit ups on a decline bench and about 30-45 minutes on the elliptical or treadmill and that was my routine. After a couple months I still looked the same except now I had some muscle under the layer of fat. I didn't understand why this happened. I felt like I would have a 6 pack if I could lose the fat. I decided to try the Atkins diet, and it helped a little but I was in college and on a college budget, it was hard cooking every day and I was always hungry. I would dream about what I was going to eat the next day! That summer I decided to switch schools and my major, from political science to exercise science. I really wanted to understand what was happening to me. I moved in with my best friends and started actually having a fun college experience, one where I wasn't depressed all the time about how I looked. This definitely helped me emotionally. At my new school I was able to maintain my workout regime or mostly cardio and some body weight exercises and college diet of beer and the occasional meal, basically I was completely under nourished and my body was in a permanent state of starvation. At one point I got back down to an unhealthy 112lbs, of course that could not last. By the time I was finishing up with school I started to understand the importance of nutrition and started on the low calorie, low fat Standard American Diet and I was holding steady at about 118lbs.

Summer of 2008, my girlfriend and I decided to move to St. Simon’s Island for the summer and work as waitresses at a bar/restaurant near the beach. The heat got to over 100 degrees; I worked 12 hour shifts most days which means I was probably losing a pound in water a shift. I was still rocking the low calorie low fat diet. On days I only worked 1 shift or had the day off I was sure to go for a run and do a few body weight exercises. By mid summer I got down to 103lbs, you can imagine how pumped I was! Looking back, friends tell me I looked scary skinny but I didn't think so. A normal person would be concerned when their monthly cycle stopped but I just thought, "hey, one less thing to worry about"

Fall of 2008, I moved back to the city, got a job working as an executive assistant (desk job) and guess what...slowly but surely the weight came back and a year later I was back to 120lbs. I wasn't so concerned with diet when I moved back because I was so tiny I figured I could let loose a little. I started going to LA Fitness and had a personal trainer so I'm sure some of that was actual muscle but my size 0 clothes started getting tighter and tighter.

Fall of 2009 I started dating Ross, now my husband, and I got lucky because he was very into working out and eating RIGHT being a former collegiate athlete, he knew I was not eating nearly enough food and would tell me so but of course, I thought he was crazy. I mean, who ever heard of needing to eat more to lose weight! Besides I went to school for this stuff and I don't remember hearing “you lose weight by eating more food”. Well truth be told, I did learn that in the form of biology class. I had all the information and tools but I just didn't interpret them that way, I didn't really know how to interpret that stuff at all, I just wanted to pass my classes. I was still stuck in the mindset that the more you exercise the more weight you could lose and wasn't as concerned about the nutrition side of it, calories in, calories out, right? The fastest way I knew to burn calories is running so run I did! I was still brainwashed by the Standard American Diet that FAT IS BADDDDD!!!! So Ross brought me to his gym and showed me there is more to working out than machines and running. He taught me how to back squat, one legged squats aka pistols, bench press, triple press, dips, and this evil exercise call Push the Box. Holy legs on fire Batman! After my first training session with him I was almost in tears and cursing him, I was so sore the next day I couldn't walk and I thought I was going to have to break up with him. I mean isn't that some form of domestic violence?! Obviously I didn't break up with him. I even went back and actually started liking this torture, plus I really enjoyed watching him work out (he he!) Before I knew it we were living together and I started cooking my low fat dinners for him, which he loved. He loved eating something besides baked chicken breasts and broccoli. As I was feeding him what I thought was healthy food, he was reading a little book called 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferris. He told me he wanted to try it and I said be my guest, that's a guy thing and I could never lose the weight I want gorging myself on weekends and eating high fat and beans during the week. I was still on the mission to get back to that high school weight. At this time I was holding steady at 125 lbs. but I did at least have some defined muscle. My clothes we fitting well (size 4, small, 34 C) but I wanted to get back to that high school weight. I went to see an integrative medicine doc about my thyroid or hormones; whatever it was preventing me from losing just a little more weight. I was in the gym 5 days a week for an hour and half and ate my low calorie meals. Mathematically I felt like I should be burning way more than I was eating so why could I now shed the pounds? The Doc convinced me that instead of testing hormones or doing blood work, I should go on the Ideal Protein diet he was promoting that included shakes and bars and replacement meals and eating very low everything else with every 2 week weigh-ins. Week 2 weigh-in I had lost 7 lbs., I was siked!! I thought I will hit my goal of 112lbs in no time! The fun stopped there as I got to week 4 and had gained 2lbs back. I was devastated. Here I am eating your stupid shakes and bars and salads for lunch and fish and spinach for dinner and my stupid boyfriend is having ice cream and fries and burgers and whatever he wants on the weekends and doesn't gain a pound. Suddenly this 4- Hour body diet doesn't seem so crazy! And it’s way cheaper than buying all these shakes and bars. So I ditched the Ideal Protein diet (I still to this day have a couple shakes left) and immediately started the 4-Hour Body, and it was such a relief!! The happiest moment was going to Mexican and having tacos and Queso dip followed by Cold Stone ice cream! The worst stomachache followed it ever. I think I over did it a little! After following this diet for 9 months I dropped to 120lbs but my clothes fit great and at a size 4 I was finally happy!

Ross started writing me workouts to take to the gym I thought they looked insane and was wondering how he came up with these. Little did I know he was watching CrossFit videos and coming up with workouts for me. Sneaky, very sneaky! Fast-forward to Nov. 2011 and we get a Groupon for CrossFit for 10 classes. I think I felt nauseous every class but around class 5 I started loving the way I felt. For the first time ever, I started to feel strong in the gym and started noticing results. Ross loved it and after his 10 classes were up immediately found CrossFit Johns Creek through a friend and started going there. It took me a little longer to get through my 10 classes but by Feb. 2012 I was hooked and loved my new family at CFJC. The more we got addicted to CrossFit the more we started hearing about the Paleo Diet. It's very similar to the 4 Hour Body minus the legumes (beans) and the all-day gorge fest on the weekends. We decided to give it a try and started seeing even better results! Sure we have cheat meals and aren't perfect but tinkering with our diet for more than weight loss is something I never thought I would do. I actually feel like an athlete and look for ways to improve my health and performance. It’s fun and it’s become my passion. I've always loved cooking and cooking Paleo easy. I think its fun trying new recipes and finding replacements for some of my favorite comfort foods. I love that I'm not obsessing over my weight anymore and I'm not starving myself to try and attain 'the perfect body'. Everything I want happens naturally when I'm eating Paleo and it’s a lifestyle I can keep up FOREVER! I finally know how to interpret the information I learned in school and want to learn more! This is my Paleo journey and for those of you just starting out, I can't wait for you to discover yours!


And now here's a funny picture of a some random cat!

Because no post is complete without a picture!

Eggs for Breakfast!

This week I am going to give you one of the simplest and tastiest breakfast recipes. This egg, bacon and sausage cup can be made a variety of ways and once you have the basic idea you will be able to mix it up and create your own. This breakfast cup is easily transportable and will have everyone in your office drooling! Its packed with great protein and healthy fats and will keep you full until lunch time.

Egg, Bacon and Sausage Cups:

Makes 5 servings

Ingredients:

• 5-10 strips of bacon- super thick cut, you probably only need 1 piece, thinner slices, use 2. 
• Make sure this is quality bacon- Applegate Farms or some local bacon from the meat counter or butcher. 

• 10 eggs- Farm Fresh preferably

• 6 Sausage Links- I use Mild Italian, make sure its good quality, like the bacon, with the least amount of added ingredients. 

• 5 Ramekins or Extra Large Muffin Pan

Directions:

• Line 5-10 strips of bacon on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Place in a cold oven and heat to 400 degrees for 15 mins. you want the bacon cooked but still flexible. 

Always cook bacon in a cold oven, this will reducing shrinking

• Once bacon is cooked, place on paper towels to soak up excess grease. With the left over grease on the baking sheet, pour a few drops into each ramekin or muffin pan and use a brush or paper towel to grease the edges and bottom. Save the remainder of the grease for future recipes.

• Line the outside of each ramekin or muffin pan with 1-2 pieces of bacon depending on the thickness of the bacon. 

• Crack two eggs into each ramekin or muffin pan.

Bake on 350 degrees for about 25mins. You want the whites to be mostly cooked while the yolks remain runny. If the white look uncooked put back in the oven for 5 min increments until desired doneness. This is also done if you prefer your yolks cooked through.

**If you are planning on reheating this in the microwave, you want the eggs slightly under cooked so when reheated the yolks won't cook through and you can still have the runny deliciousness.

• Cook sausage links on grill or on saute pan over med- med-high heat until cooked though. 

• Once cooked, slice up links and add a couple pieces to individual packaged egg cups. 

•  Reheat in the microwave for about 1 min. Cut open and enjoy!!

Variation: 

• Usually when I do this, I will cook some ground sausage and put a tablespoon in the bottom of the cups but you don't get as much protein this way and I find that adding some of the sliced sausage in the tupperware with the cup works just as well. 
• If you don't like over easy eggs you can add a scramble mixture instead of the whole eggs. Feel free to add some onions or spinach or other veggies to you scramble mixture. 
• This can recipe can easily be doubled if you are cooking for two people. 

Just for fun!!

This past weekend my husband and I went took our dog (daughter), Walker to Bark-in-the-Park to take watch the Braves take on the Mets. Even though its been unseasonably cold and rainy in GA the sun came out and we had a great time! Take a look at our family portrait! Walker was such a good girl and we can't wait to go back next year!