My Favorite Lunch

Hi!  How was everyone's Thanksgiving?  Hopefully everybody had a wonderful day filled with turkey and pumpkin pie.  I know mine was.  :)  Sorry I was MIA for a week, expect that to probably happen again as life can get a little hectic.

I have a hard time finding the perfect meal for lunch.  If I eat too much meat I feel sluggish, too much veggies and I'm starving by 3pm.  So lunch needs to be a good blend of healthy fat, protein, and veggies to keep me full but not ready for a nap.  Enter the delicious and simple Coconut Milk Butternut Squash Soup.  I hope you all enjoy this easy recipe as much as I do.


Coconut Milk Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients
-Whole Butternut Squash, cut into ~1 inch cubes
-olive oil
-salt
-pepper
-can of coconut milk

Directions
-Toss squash with olive oil, salt, and pepper.
-Roast at 350 for 1 hour or till fork tender.
-Put squash and milk in a food processor and blend till a thick soup forms.  (Will look like baby food.)


I like to make this on a sunday night and then I have a quick and filling lunch for 3 or 4 days (depending on how hungry I am).

On a side not I've walked 20.5 miles since I started my 90 miles challene.  Only 69.5 miles to go!  

Honey Garlic Ginger Chicken Wings

I had my first chicken wings a little over two years ago when I went to a wing and pitcher night with some friends.  I became very hungry due to consuming several pitchers of beer and ended up eating a dozen glorious chicken wings.  Since then I've consumed many chicken wings and these honey garlic ginger chicken wings are just as delicious as their deep fried counterparts.  As a cheaper alternative you could use this recipe with drumsticks and thighs.  They go well with sweet potato fries and some pineapple slices.  Mmmmm.

Honey Garlic Ginger Chicken Wings
(adapted from: thepaleomom.com)

Ingredients:

-3 lbs chicken wings

-1/3 cup honey

-1/4 cup lemon juice

-1/4 cup water

-2 tbsp soy sauce

-2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

-2 tsp garlic powder

-3/4 tsp ginger powder

Directions:

-Mix together the marinade ingredients.  

-Add chicken to the marinade and let marinate for 2 days.

-When ready to cook pre-heat oven 400 degrees.

-Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.

-Put a baking rack on the baking sheet and place chicken on top of rack.

-Bake for 30 minutes then turn chicken and bake for another 30 minutes.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thursday...just think a week from now we'll be eating turkey!  :)

Spaghetti and Meatballs

I found a non-paleo version of this delicious homemade meatball recipe several years back and since then it has become a staple of my winter weekly menu.  Even though I'm convinced Albany is the tropics, the early sunset definitely puts me in hibernation mode and has me craving some hearty winter food.  (Anytime I type meatballs I think of "Schweddy Balls" from that SNL skit.  I am a 13-yr-old.)

So here is my recipe for Paleo Meatballs and spaghetti.  I hope you enjoy!

Paleo Meatballs and Spaghetti

Ingredients

-1 to 2 lb ground beef

-1/3 c. almond meal

-2 eggs

-1/2 to 1 Tbsp of Italian Seasoning mix 

-1/4 c. parm cheese (optional, and not paleo but it was for the husband)

-Jar of no sugar added tomato sauce or your favorite pasta sauce 

-One whole spaghetti squash

Directions

-Mix together beef, almond meal, eggs, seasoning, and parm. 

-Pour pasta sauce into a crockpot.

-Form meat mixture into balls and drop into sauce in crockpot.

-Cook on low for 8 hours.

-One hour before meatballs are done preheat oven to 350.

-Rinse off spaghetti squash and place it whole on a parchment sheet lined baking sheet.

-Bake for 60-80 mins.

-Remove from oven, cut in half, de-seed, and scoop out the innards with a fork.  It will automatically form spaghetti strands.

-Serve meatballs and sauce over the squash.

Contagious Emotions

I'm taking a class online through Coursera.org called Inspiring Leadership Through Emotional Intelligence (if you're not familiar with this website definitely check it out).  Last week's topic was on contagious emotions and while I always knew how the emotions of others affected me I was surprised by the scientific studies that had been conducted on the subject.

A basic synopsis of the readings and the videos I watched was that people mimic the emotions of other people.  Everyone has had an experience where they subconsciously mimicked the emotions of another person. Think about a time where you interacted with someone who was miserable, did you leave feeling more miserable than when you had arrived?  On the flip side, a time when you had an interaction with someone who was friendly and upbeat.  You probably felt happy when you departed from their company.  Now think about how your emotions are affecting others.  When you snap at your co-worker because you are tired or when you smile at your co-worker and genuinely ask how their weekend was.  Both of those interactions carry a lot of emotion with them and can change the emotion of the other person.  I've tried to take this lesson into my everyday life and not only try to influence people's emotions positively but to recognize how the emotions of others are affecting me.  There is one very important part to this though and it is that your emotion must be genuine.  People are not stupid and can very easily pick up if you are being fake happy.  Take a moment before you walk into work tomorrow to take a deep breath and think about the emotions you want to spread to others, hopefully it will help put you in the right mindset for the rest of the day.

So what do you think?  Ever picked up a positive or negative emotion from someone else?  Ever changed the emotion of someone else?

Here is one of the articles if you would like to read it.

Paleo-ish Gluten Free Banana Bread

I love banana bread, it's my number one way of making old bananas into a delicious treat.  I've tried a number of Paleo Banana Bread recipes and wasn't super impressed, either the texture was off or it just tasted down right bland.  So I've decided to compromise with a Paleo-ish Gluten Free Banana Bread.  Enjoy!

Paleo-ish Gluten Free Banana Bread

Ingredients:
-1 1/2 cup gluten free all purpose flour mix
-1 1/4 tsp baking powder
-1/2 tsp baking soda
-1/2 tsp cinnamon
-1 tsp vanilla
-1 whole egg
-1 cup mashed bananas
-1/2 cup maple syrup
-1/4 cup melted coconut oil

Directions:
-Combine the maple syrup, oil, bananas, and vanilla.
-In a separate bowl (I usually just use a 2 cup pyrex measuring cup) combine the dry ingredients.
-Add egg to the wet ingredients then dry to wet.
-Mix till combined.
-Pour into a well greased 8-inch cake pan.
-Bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes.

(An extremely professional picture of ingredients.  I would love to be one of those people that takes beautiful food pictures but I'm like "I need to make food as quickly as possible so I can get down to the eating part".  Anyone want to come take pretty food pictures while I cook?)

On the exercise front yesterday I did an awesome workout through bodyrock.tv.  I don't know if anyone else is familiar with them but I love their workouts.  The workouts are usually only 12 minutes long and definitely kick my butt.  This is the workout if you want to check it out.  

Hope everybody is having a great Monday!! :)

Eggplant and Tomato Marinara Sauce

This recipe comes from a couple months ago when I had a plethora of eggplant and tomatoes in my CSA box.  I'm not a crazy tomato fan (although I do love tomato sauce and ketchup) and Jim isn't a big eggplant fan.  So as I was searching around Pinterest looking for recipes (like I do everyday) I stumbled upon a '100 no-processed crockpot meals' pin.  As I began searching around in the 100 recipes I found the perfect solution to my abundance of eggplant and tomatoes.  The solution was Eggplant and Tomato Marinara Sauce.  Plus as a bonus it is cooked in a slow cooker, basically a win all around.

Eggplant and Tomato Marinara Sauce
(Adapted from: http://www.stacymakescents.com/crock-pot-garden-marinara-sauce)

Ingredients:
-3 ½ lb of fresh garden tomatoes roughly chopped or 2 – 28-oz. cans.
-2 to 3 Tbsp of minced garlic
-1 onion, chopped into large chunks
-2 cups of chopped eggplant (I mostly peeled the eggplant but wasn't super concerned)
-1 ½ Tablespoons of brown sugar (to cut the acidity)
-1 ½ Tablespoons of Italian Seasoning
-2 bay leaves
-1 teaspoon salt (add more or less to taste)
-Freshly ground pepper, to taste

-1 lb of ground beef

Directions:

-Combine everything except for the meat in a crockpot.  Cook on low for 8-10 hours.

-When done process in batches in the food processor till a uniform sauce is formed.

-Now I would let this sauce sit in the fridge for a couple of days before eating.  I found that the flavor of the sauce was much better a few days after the initial cooking.  It's not terrible the first day but it's way better on the third.

-When ready to serve: brown meat and add sauce to combine.  Heat throughly and enjoy!

Also Tucker and I went for a walk at the town park today despite the dreary weather.  We clocked in 2.32 miles which is a good start to my 90 mile goal.  Plus I have a happy tired dog.  :)

I hope everyone had a nice relaxing Sunday!  Go Buffalo!

Let's do this

Hello Everybody!

I'm back and have a challenge for myself (and any of you that want to join) from tomorrow (November 17th) to the end of 2013.  Over the next 45 days I will eat healthy paleo friendly meals, I will walk a total of 90 miles, and I will do non-cardio exercise atleast 3 times a week.

Why am I setting this challenge up for myself?  Well my life has been crazy for the past 4 months and I want to take control over my food and health again.  It has been a whirlwind journey of moving to a new place and starting a new job but I feel like I'm starting to be more settled and want to get back into my healthy routine.  There has been a lot of pizza, wings over Albany, and beer over the past  4 months and my energy level and complexion are suffering.  Oddly enough I will admit that I have not gained much weight but I attribute this to having an office on the 2nd floor and having to constantly go up and down 3 flights of stairs.  (Old creaky elevators terrify me.)

Obviously exceptions to this are going to be Thanksgiving and Christmas Dinners because I love stuffing, pumpkin pie, christmas cookies of all kinds, and I'm not about depirving myself of these loves!

So join me if you want or just stop by for some more delicious recipes that I've been working on.  Either way thank you for reading and here's to the next 45 days!!

And now an adorable dog nose.  You're welcome!