Today started out at the gym, Sundays are leg days – deadlifting, squats, hamstring curls and leg extensions. This all seemed like a great idea at the time. Today, I deadlifted 150lbs (more than my body weight!) and squatted 65lbs. I felt great…. Until I got home and sat down!
As much as I wanted to spend the rest of my Sunday sitting on my ass watching TV with the boys, I knew that today was my only chance to meal prep if I want to maintain my sanity this week! So, like I said leg day was a great idea at the time until I spent 6 hours standing in the kitchen cooking. Pretty positive that I am not going to be able to walk tomorrow. Love my hubby though, after I finished cooking, he helped me clean up the kitchen and then drew me an Epsom salt & bubble bath to help my muscles. What a guy!
Back to the food. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post – I didn’t food prep enough last week and I suffered through Thursday and Friday without enough food. Because of this, I may have gone just a little bit crazy today in the kitchen but I am super excited about what I made. I tried out some new recipes today and made some variations to them because I have a hard time following recipes and/or reading them fully before going to the store for ingredients. For example, when I thought I was covered because my Chicken Garlic recipe called for garlic and I already had minced organic garlic in the fridge but in reality, it called for whole garlic heads for roasting. Oops. At least it still turned out delicious.
So here is what we have to look forward to eating this week.
Tomato Cream Chicken Sausage w/ Spaghetti Squash | Chicken Fajitas | Taco Rice Bowls | Buffalo Chicken Salad | Garlicy Zoodle Pasta
I didn’t taste the Mexican Rice Bowls yet because I may have been too full from tasting everything else. But they look and smell delicious so I am going to make the assumption that today’s kitchen adventure was a huge (and delicious) success.
Here are my variations on the recipes if you want to give them a try!
Paleo Garlicy Zoodle Pasta (derived from a recipe found on paleomg.com)
Here is what you need
1lb chicken, diced
2 zucchini, julienned
2 yellow squash, julienned
3 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp minced garlic
½ sweet yellow onion, diced
¼ cup tomato paste
¼ tsp crushed red pepper
¼ tsp italian seasoning
2 cans diced tomato
Salt and pepper, to taste
What to do
- First, julienne your zucchini + squash – I use this amazing tool called the Vegetti from my friend, Dawn but you can also use a potato peeler. I do this first because it is the most time consuming.
- Then, dice your chicken. I do this second because it is also time consuming. And gross. So I like to get it over with so I don’t have to think about it too much.
- Add olive oil to a large saucepan then sauté onion and garlic over medium heat until onion is translucent.
- Next add tomato paste, diced tomatoes, crushed red pepper, Italian seasoning, and salt/pepper and cook for 1 minute.
- Add diced chicken directly to the sauce mix. Cook on medium-low heat for 15ish minutes until chicken is cooked through.
- Once chicken is cooked, add in 1 more tbsp garlic and your veggie noodles then mix well.
- Cook a few more minutes until the “noodles,” are tender.
- Top with dried basil
Taco Rice Bowls
What you need
2 cups white rice
1lb ground beef
3 tsp minced garlic
½ sweet yellow onion, diced
1 tsp dried oregano
4oz diced green chiles
Juice of 1 lime
Salt and pepper
Salsa of choice
Guac
1 avocado
Lime juice
Sea Salt
What to do
- Put two cups of white rice in a large stock pot and add 1 ½ cups water for each cup of rice. Bring to a boil then turn heat down to medium-low, simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand until rice has soaked up all of the water (5-ish minutes).
- Brown ground beef in a large skillet. Once beef is almost cooked, add in onions and minced garlic then add oregano, salt, pepper, green chiles and squirt of lime juice.
- While meat cooks, mix together guac ingredients to taste.
- Fill bowl with rice, top with beef mixture and guac, add salsa.
- Enjoy!
We decided to join #teamwhiterice because with my weightlifting, I need to be getting more carbs into my diet or I’ll have a really hard time keeping my energy up. The trick to being Paleo is to do it in a way that works for you. I’m strict Paleo 90% of the time and feel that it is okay to add in some grains every now and then.
I was too tired, too focused on the sore muscles knocking on my door (meaning, I could feel them getting sore from the moment I stood up to cook) so I unfortunately, didn’t take a lot of fancy progress pics of the dishes. But try the recipes, I promise that you will like them!
Try them and tell me what you think!
Goodnight peaches!
-M
