Spaghetti & Meatballs

So, it's about 10 pm right now, I just finished devouring that plate of food in the picture, and Erin still isn't home from her 12-hour shift that was supposed to end at 7:30 pm. Luckily, she has a delicious meal to come home to! Can I get a golf clap for the Husband of the Day?!

I actually wanted to post this recipe because it's a great example of how to turn traditional comfort food meals into Paleo-friendly ones. I'm currently participating in a Paleo Challenge at our gym (http://www.crossfitdelawarevalley.com/) in which you keep a food log and earn points based on how strictly you adhere to the dietary guidelines. Remember those? No grains, no legumes, no gluten, no dairy, and no added sugar! This has forced me to get creative in the kitchen and try a bunch of new recipes, which is actually pretty fun when you have time to do it.

Let's start with the most obvious offender, the spaghetti. What you see in the picture is actually spaghetti squash, and it's downright awesome. When properly prepared, it has a slight crunch and sweetness to it. Once you cover it with some organic marinara sauce, it's a legit substitute for the real thing. A quick sidenote about marinara sauce and all packaged foods for that matter...if you can't pronounce the ingredients, you probably shouldn't be eating it. Preparing spaghetti squash is so easy a caveman could do it (you see what I did there?). Simply cut it in half, scoop out the seeds, lay the halves face down in a baking dish, cover with saran wrap, and microwave for 8-12 minutes depending on the size of it. Remove from microwave and scrape out the insides with a fork. It just shreds into spaghetti-like strands right before your eyes, thus the name.

Last but not least, the MEATBALLS! Traditional meatball recipes always include bread crumbs. In this recipe, we replace them with almond meal or almond flour which I buy by the bag at Trader Joe's. I started with a pre-packaged "meatloaf" bundle with 1 lb of ground beef, 1/2 lb of ground veal, and 1/2 lb of ground pork. That wasn't enough meat for this guy, so I added another 1 lb of ground beef to make sure I had leftovers. See the rest of the ingredients below. This made 19 meatballs for me which I pan-fried in some coconut oil and then baked for a few minutes at 375.

Ingredients

• 2 lbs ground beef
• 1/2 lb ground veal
• 1/2 lb ground pork
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup almond meal
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• Generous amounts of garlic powder, italian seasoning, and sea salt. 

Setting Records!

It's no secret that I am addicted to CrossFit and the Paleo Diet, but I'm going to try NOT to make this a workout log. I will limit posts pertaining to CrossFit to new personal records (PRs) or competition results only. I will limit posts pertaining to the Paleo Diet to recipes or meals that we whip up that I think people will genuinely enjoy. This post falls into the Personal Record category, but I should probably summarize CrossFit and the Paleo Diet briefly.

CrossFit is a general physical preparedness program that combines functional movements from gymnastics, powerlifting, olympic weightlifting, kettlebell training, and other odd object lifting into short (usually) intense workouts. The goal is to optimize and balance performance across ten facets of fitness: cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy. The program started in the early 2000's and gained popularity through military, law enforcement, and fire departments and grew to over 2000 affiliated gyms throughout the world. Every year, they hold a competition in California to determine the "Fittest Man and Woman on Earth". In order to make it to said competition, you must qualify at the local and regional level. More on this later.

The Paleo Diet suggests that we should all be eating like our pre-Agricultural Revolution ancestors because we are genetically identical to them yet they experienced little to none of the maladies that top the "causes of death" charts today. What did these people consume? Lean, wild game meats, seafood, vegetables, nuts and seeds, and fruit. Things like grains, dairy, legumes and sugar didn't enter our diets until mass farming was popularized. Along with these foods came obesity, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, diabetes, cancers, and a slew of other hideous auto-immune diseases. I could preach all day on this stuff but no one will believe me until they read a few books from esteemed professionals (something I wish I was, but am not). I will suggest some of these books later.

This brings me to the aforementioned Personal Record. I have a bunch of goals I'm currently working on and one of them is to Clean and Jerk a 235 pound barbell. In that quest, I was working on the Jerk portion of that lift the other night and hit a personal record of 225 pounds. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, just watch the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaOv4qUtmJg