Celebration Lasagna

Celebration Lasagna

To celebrate the end of the eight week nutrition challenge, I decided to prepare a special meal. I wanted to make something delicious and satisfying but still within the bounds of primal, low-carb, paleo-ish nutrition. Lately, I have dreamed [literally] of oatmeal and english muffins so I toyed with treating myself to some grains! I even briefly considered having a real dessert made with lots of refined sugar, but quickly decided that was not what I wanted. Recently, while reviewing the Everyday Paleo blog, I stumbled across a recipe for lasagna. That was it! Lasagna! Even without the pasta, it is a rich, luxurious meal.
Here's the link to the Everyday Paleo Lasagna recipe if you want to check it out. I opted not to go with this version since it is strict paleo, without any dairy, and I wanted cheese in my Celebration Lasagna.

Celebration Lasagna
Ingredients:
2 lbs grass-fed ground beef
1 jar of organic, gluten-free, sugar-free pasta sauce
4 medium zucchini
fresh baby spinach
small package of sliced mushrooms
olive oil
sea salt
cracked black pepper
1 cup cottage cheese
1 egg
1/2 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese

Pre-heat oven to 425.

Slice the zucchini length-wise, using a mandoline, to about an 1/8" thick. Place the sliced zucchini in a zip-loc bag with a little olive oil, sea salt, and cracked black pepper. Toss, shake, and smush the zucchini around in the bag until all pieces are coated. Place the zucchini on a baking sheet and roast for 15-20 minutes, or until the zucchini starts to turn a little brown.

While the zucchini is roasting, brown the ground beef. Add the pasta sauce and mushrooms. Bring to a simmer and cook for a few minutes until heated through and most of the liquid has reduced.
In a separate bowl, combine 1 cup of cottage cheese with 1 egg, salt and pepper.

Reduce the oven to 375 degrees.

Line the bottom of a 13x9 baking dish with the roasted zucchini. Next layer with fresh spinach leaves. Top this layer with 1/2 of the ground beef mixture. (If the ground beef mixture is "soupy" don't add the liquid to the lasagna or you will have soupy lasagna). Dot the ground beef with 1/2 of the cottage cheese mixture. Repeat these layers and finish with the 1/2 cup of shredded mozzarella.

Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until bubbly and heated through.

Hamburger Soup

When I was a little girl, my mama would sometimes make what she called "Hamburger Soup." She did this when she was "too tired to cook" since my daddy didn't consider soup a real meal. Even so, it was one of my favorite suppers. In a big soup pot, she tossed leftover ground beef, onions, okra, corn, peas, potatoes, and tomatoes. Or whatever vegetables we had, but those were the common ones. To go along side it, she always made a large pan of corn bread and a gallon jug of sweet tea. With the table set, usually by me, the whole family would gather in the tiny kitchen around the rickety dinette set, "say the blessing," and then dig in. The soup was a steaming bowl of goodness. The warm cornbread, a slice of mama's love. And the sweet tea, a nightly staple as routine as the setting sun.

Inspired by this memory and the promise of cooler fall temperatures, I made a big pot of "Hamburger Soup" last night. I went heavy on the ground beef and chose all low starch vegetables: onion, bell pepper, tomato, okra, broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots. The result was a complete, satisfying paleo meal in a bowl (with lots of leftovers). As for the cornbread and sweet tea, the memory of those two will have to suffice.

There's No Going Back

"Food for Thought"
by Duy Huynh

Seven weeks ago I made a pledge to eliminate refined sugar for eight weeks. At first I couldn't even entertain the thought without my mind immediately flooding with phrases like "IMPOSSIBLE!" and "here you go again." I couldn't think it, and I certainly couldn't say it out loud or admit it to another person. But somehow in a moment of total frustration, I summoned the courage to make the pledge anyway. I wrote my promise on a sheet of paper, signed it, dated it, and stuck it on my refrigerator door. A week later, I shared my pledge with other people in the nutrition challenge that my gym was sponsoring. After two weeks, I realized that I would actually honor my commitment -- that it was POSSIBLE for me to succeed. And now, here it is seven weeks later. Only one week remains in the 8-week challenge. The heavy-handed depression that I experienced during weeks 3 through 5 has eased. I'm starting to get my energy back. I've lost some weight. Sugar no longer has me by the throat. Oh, I'm well aware that it is waiting in the wings, ready to pounce in a weak moment -- to enslave me again. So there's no going back for me. The end of eight weeks will be a milestone for celebration. A beginning of the rest of my life. Not the end of anything.