Heat up a large
saucepan over medium heat, add a couple tablespoons of fat of choice
then add minced garlic cloves, the bell peppers and onion along with a
little salt and pepper to the pan.
Move vegetables around until onions become translucent.
Add ground chicken and bulk italian sausage to the saucepan and break up the meat.
When meat has begun to cook through, add the spices.
When meat is almost done cooking, pour in the two cans of tomato sauce.
Salt and pepper once more, then reduce heat and let simmer for 5-7 minutes.
When all the flavors are well mixed, add the chopped fresh basil, mix well, and serve!
Easy peasy! Put on mushrooms, brussel sprouts, spaghetti squash, eggs, acorn squash, really anything you want. Or eat it cold.
This is hands down my favorite spring/summer time salad. I’m calling it Salad with SASS…mixed salad greens topped with Strawberries, Avocado and Sunflower Seeds then dressed with a very easy, light and crisp, coconut vinaigrette.
Salad with SASS is spectacular as a side to a grilled grass-fed steak
or a bunless burger, even better with grilled chicken thighs added on
top. If you do dairy, feta (or crumbled chèvre) cheese completes it
nicely.
SASS Salad Superstars
Strawberries
Seriously, you can’t go wrong with strawberries, any berries really. They are low in sugar and fructoseand
loaded with phytonutrients, which is just a fancy word to say they are
chock full of compounds that promote good health. Berries are berry good
for you. Strawberries provide the body with calcium, magnesium,
phosphorus, potassium and vitamin C. Strawberries are on the EWG’s Dirty Dozen List,
which means they have a high amount of pesticide residue. Best to buy
organic, I say. Recently spotted…organic strawberries at Costco! And,
they were only a $1 more compared to the conventional. Score.
Avocado
There is far too much to say about the this superstar in one paragraph. In fact, I’ve devoted an entire blog post extolling
the virtues of avocados. Here’s a fact that you’ll not soon not forget.
Or perhaps you’ll remember the next time your eye starts twitching.
We’ve all heard bananas being praised for their potassium content,
right? Well guess what, avocados got bananas beat in the potassium
department. Per ounce, bananas have 100 g of potassium, meanwhile,
avocados have 144 g. In addition to potassium, which is essential for
proper functioning of the heart, kidneys, muscles, nerves (see twitchy
eye example above) and digestive system, avocados are also rich in
magnesium, an essential mineral that most Americans don’t get enough of.
Unlike strawberries, which have pesky pesticides, our friend the
avocado is one of the Clean 15.
Sunflower Seeds
I ditched croutons on my salad over a decade ago, but if you are new
to living a low-carb lifestyle and missing the crunch, sunflower seeds
come to the rescue nicely. In addition, they are little powerhouses that
do a body good. Sunflower seeds are rich in both vitamin E and
selenium. Vitamin E in the body acts as an antioxidant, protecting the
cells from damage caused by free radicals. A 1/4 cup serving of
sunflower seeds provides more than 40% of the recommended daily value.
Selenium, a trace mineral, is necessary for several processes in the
body, including the immune response and thyroid function. Who knew
sunflower seeds could be more than just bird food!
Salad Greens
I recently shared on the Healthy Living How To Facebook page a TEDx talk titled Minding your Mitchondria. In this talk, Dr. Terry Wahls
shares how she cured her secondary progressive Multiple Sclerosis with a
diet rich in dark leafy greens. Wow! The video is amazing, be sure to
take the time to watch it below. The diet which she recommends is a
“hunter gatherer” diet, one in which processed foods are ditched in
favor of things like fish, grass-fed meats, fruits, vegetables, nuts,
seeds and lots of greens. For optimal health, Dr. Wahls encourages at
least three cups of salad greens a day, “greens are rich in B
vitamins, plus A, C, K and minerals. The B Vitamins will protect your
brain cells and mitochondria. Vitamin A and C support your immune cells,
Vitamin K keeps your blood vessels and bones healthy and minerals are
co-factors for hundreds of different enzymes in your body. Plus having a
plate of daily greens will dramatically lower your risk of having
cataracts and macular degeneration.” Greens…they are on the dirty list, go organic, if you can.
If you
don’t like a cream sauce over noodles that eat away at your intestinal
lining and leak poop into your bloodstream, you’re weird.
No but
seriously, alfredo tastes like heaven and this is as close as you can
get to heaven.
Ingredients
1 spaghetti squash
1 larger delicata squash
½lb chicken tenders
4 slices bacon, diced
½ cup canned coconut milk
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon parsley
½ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon oregano
¼ teaspoon thyme
salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
Preheat your 425 degrees.
Cut spaghetti squash delicata squash in half and use a spoon to scoop out the seeds and excess threads. Don’t be dainty.
Place open side
down on a baking sheet (use aluminum foil for easy clean up) and cook
for 20-25 minutes. You will know when they are done cooking when you can
poke the outside skin and it ‘gives’ a bit.
Now you can either
cook your chicken at the same time or after the squash is done cooking.
Whatever you’d like. Just place chicken on a foil lined baking sheet,
sprinkle some olive oil over the chicken (or other kind of fat), salt
and pepper it, and sprinkle just a bit of basil on top. Easy peasy. I
cooked my tenders for around 15-20 minutes, or until cooked through.
Once your squash
is done cooking, pull it out of the oven, dethread the spaghetti squash
into a large bowl with a fork. Go against the grain, if spaghetti squash
had grain. Now throw your diced bacon into a skillet and cook until
done. Use a slotted spoon to pull out your cooked bacon, but leave
behind the grease. I used all of my grease, you Take your delicata
squash and hollow it out. Unless you want to eat the skin, be my guest.
If you’re smart tho, you’ll just use the insides and dump them into your
warm skillet filled with bacon grease. Then add your coconut milk. You
may need to add a little bit more coconut milk depending on how runny
you like your sauce. Mix thoroughly with a ladle to break up the squash a
bit. I used a pink ladle. It works the best.
Add seasonings to the mix and salt and pepper as needed. Mix thoroughly and cook on low for about 5 minutes to simmer.
Now dice up your cooked chicken.
Pour sauce over spaghetti squash and add your chicken to the mix.
Mix well.
Top with bacon. Duh.
Eat it like you mean it.
I might have eaten a lot of this before it made it into the pan. You’ll never know though.
Ohhhhh, that’s what it’s suppose to look like.
This picture makes me dizzy.
That was a lot of captioning. Far too much. I understand if you never want to read my blog again.
by Juli
http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/CFJ_Kitchen_ChickenMeatloaf_FINAL.pdf
overview
Muffins made of meat: the other side of baking.
blocks per muffin
2.2 protein blocks
.5 carbohydrate blocks
2 fat blocks
makes 20 muffins
ingredients
2 lb. ground chicken
2 eggs, whisked
1 cup almond flour/meal
1 cup fresh basil, chopped
1 tbsp. garlic powder
1 tbsp. onion powder
1 tsp. dried parsley
Salt and pepper, to taste
directions
1.
Preheat oven to 350 F.
2.
Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.
3.
Use your hands to make golf-ball-sized balls of ground
chicken mixture, then plop them into 20 silicone liners or
muffin liners in a muffin tin.
4.
Bake 20-25 minutes or until there is no pink in the muffins
or they “give back” when you poke them.
from http://pinchofyum.com/creamy-cauliflower-sauce
March 18, 2013
This. Sauce. I make it all the time. I use it in tons of recipes. I spoon-feed it to myself straight out of the blender.
So it’s only appropriate that I dedicate an entire post to my
all-time favorite, super adaptable, absolutely totally delicious creamy
cauliflower sauce. The garlic, butter, creamy cauliflower cooked to
perfection all pureed up in that blender (or food processor, because you
have a well stocked kitchen unlike me even though I blog about food,
say what?) is just life changing.
I honestly have a hard time NOT putting it in every recipe that I
make. If something seems to be lacking, this sauce just magically pops
into my mind. Bing! Like, hey! maybe a little cauliflower sauce will
help this recipe be amazing! Which is a great idea until things start to
get out of control as is often the case in my brain, and somehow I find
myself wondering if cauliflower sauce would be good in pumpkin bread.
Gross. No, it wouldn’t. But maybe…
Too much, Lindsay. Too much.
This sauce is really flexible. It can kinda become anything.
Mostly for me, it becomes Alfredo sauce for my noodles and I call it Healthy Fettuccine Alfredo.
And it can also become creamy cauliflower garlic rice. Good grief, I love this stuff.
Hey guess what? Coming soon it will become sauce for a white pizza.
Yeahhhh there’s a reason why I want you to have this recipe in your
head. A reason that involves thick yummy whole wheat crust, this sauce,
white melty cheese, chicken, tomatoes, and on, and on, and on, and on.
Before I launch you into the recipe, I feel like I should say this:
this is not made from cream and butter and flour. It’s made from
caul-i-flower. Get it? Flour? Flower? While I personally consider this
sauce to be magical, it’s not going to taste like it’s made from cream
and butter. Well, actually, it kind of does, and MANY of you have said
how much your cauliflower-hating families loved this sauce, so who
knows. I just want to remind the skeptics that this is indeed
cauliflower sauce, so you can expect it to be at least a little bit, um,
cauliflowery.
And creamily delicious.
Did I already mention howmuchIlovethisstuff?
Garlic:
Saute the minced garlic with the butter in a large nonstick skillet
over low heat. Cook for several minutes or until the garlic is soft and
fragrant but not browned (browned or burnt garlic will taste bitter).
Remove from heat and set aside.
Cauliflower:
Bring the water or vegetable broth to a boil in a large pot. Add the
cauliflower and cook, covered, for 7-10 minutes or until cauliflower is
fork tender. Do not drain.
Puree:
Use a slotted spoon to transfer the cauliflower pieces to the blender.
Add 1 cup vegetable broth or cooking liquid, sauteed garlic/butter,
salt, pepper, and milk. Blend or puree for several minutes until the
sauce is very smooth, adding more broth or milk depending on how thick
you want the sauce. You may have to do this in batches depending on the
size of your blender. Serve hot! If the sauce starts to look dry, add a
few drops of water, milk, or olive oil.
Notes
I like to add a little bit of olive oil for the
flavor and to help keep the sauce really smooth. Several other readers
have mentioned that they really liked the addition of Parmesan cheese as
well.
