Laura's Spaghetti (Squash) and Meat Sauce

Thanks again to Laura and her culinary inspirations. Looks delicious!



Ingredients:
1lb ground beef
1 large spaghetti squash
1 yellow onion (chopped)
3 cups chopped spinach
2 TB olive oil
1 jar of organic pasta sauce
3 large cloves of garlic (crushed)
2 tsp pepper

Scrub the squash well. Though you'll only be eating the flesh, you don't want any grime making its way into your dish. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Split the squash and remove the seeds and 'guts' with a spoon. Place it in a baking dish and leave it in the oven for about 30-35 minutes. Check for tenderness.

While the squash is cooking, start frying up the ground beef on the stove top in a large skillet or frying pan. Cook until all pink is gone and then add onions, garlic, olive oil, and pepper. Continue cooking for about 10 minutes. Then add spinach and cook for another 5 minutes or so. Add pasta sauce and continue cooking for another 10 minutes or so. The longer it cooks, the better it will taste.

When the squash is done baking remove from the oven and scrape the flesh of the squash with a fork; you should get orange spaghetti-like strands. Then scrape strands with a spoon into a bowl. Serve the meat sauce over spaghetti squash and enjoy!

Simply Natural Organic Pasta Sauces are available at most grocery stores and in pack of 3 at Costco (you know I love my bulk bargains at Costco!). With ingredients like this, why would you make your own?? :-)
Ingredients: Organic Tomato Puree, Organic Tomatoes, Organic Basil, Salt, Organic Soybean Oil, Organic Chopped Onions, Organic Garlic Powder, Organic Oregano and organic Chopped Garlic

Paleo Made Simple From Mama L

Here comes a variety of paleo food ideas with simple, delicious ingredients courtesy of David's mom, Leslie. Pictures and all! Thanks mama L for sharing your recipes!

Walnut Chicken Skewers
Slice up chicken, crush walnuts. Wet chicken with something you like (beer, oil, water). Dip in the crushed walnuts. Make a yummy sauce. Bring to potluck - instant popularity!

Roasted tomatoes
Delicious way to serve tomatoes, cooking sweetens them right up: cut tomatoes, coat with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, roast at 250 for 4 hours.

Roast chicken
Get a good hutterite chicken. Sprinkle with coarse salt and peppercorns. Roast. Enjoy and then make soup!

Breakie
Gotta love it when, for the entire summer, every carton of hutterite eggs have double yolks...served with fried green tomato salsa.

Canning Galore

20lbs of peaches, pears, plums, tomatoes and apples turned into... ...a winter stock of local produce! Just add a touch of sugar and lots of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and clove! The salsa is great!

Coconut Pancakes and Waffles

I found this video on Mark's Daily Apple. It was a user submission for a recipe contest held during a month-long primal challenge in September. It looks fabulous!

Pumpkin Pie

This is another recipe sampled from Mark's Daily Apple in a post about primal pie fillings. It is rather high in carbs for an everyday food, but it is a delicious way to enjoy a traditional dessert for thanksgiving while staying allergen (ie grain and dairy) free.


Crust:
1 Cup Almond Meal
1 whole egg
2 TB coconut oil
1/2 tsp salt


Soften the coconut butter until it is soft or slightly melted. Mix all the ingredients thoroughly. Line a pie plate with with parchment paper and plop the ball of dough in the center. Brush the dough with a little extra coconut oil (so it doesn't stick) and use your fingers to spread it into the crust. Bake at 400 for 15 mins.

Filling:
1 Cup fresh or canned pumpkin
2 eggs
1/2 cup maple sugar flakes
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp powdered cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ginger

Mix everything together and pour into the pre-baked pie crust. My pie plate was rather shallow, so this amount of filling turned out to be slightly too much and I didn't use all of it. Return to the oven and bake at 350 for 30-35 mins.

I found the organic maple flakes at sobeys. It's just dried maple syrup which makes it basically pure sugar. Whether this really qualifies as anything close to paleo, I can't decide...

Soy Sauce

Okay, so you may have noticed several of my recipes involve soy sauce in the marinades and sauces. Technically, made from soy beans (a legume) and usually containing wheat (eek!) soy sauce is a no-no on a paleo plan.

1. Small amounts - first off, the amount of soy sauce that I use is generally 1 or maybe 2 TB, spread into a recipe yielding several servings. I try not to get to worked up about the teeny tiny amounts of the substances that make their way into my food. I would spend time stressing about whether every pieces of meat I ate was pastured/grass finished before I would hyperventilate about whether that 1 TB of soy sauce had trace amount of wheat in it.

2. Fermentation - Soy sauce is made from fermented soy beans and it is this process that neutralizes many of the bad stuff in soy beans. A couple thousand years ago in asia people figured out that if they fermented their beans and grains first, everybody seemed to get less sick from eating them.

3. Wheat Free Options - If you are seriously gluten intolerant, there are wheat free options such as this one from VH sauces.

4. Get the good stuff - Cheaper options are usually made from hydrolyzed soy protein instead of brewing and fermenting naturally. The resultant product is not the same dark color as real soy sauce and so this liquid is then colored with caramel coloring. Check the ingredient label and look for simple, pronounceable, non-chemical ingredients.