Low Carb Chicken Margherita "Pasta" Bake

Here is another fabulous low-carb recipe that we LOVE! I happened to have a recipe for baked spaghetti squash "Margherita" style, but I also had some chicken breasts thawed and needed to use them. Note: I am not a food photographer. These pictures were taken with my iPhone, sorry they aren't more spectacular. The food is though! :-)

This is what I came up with. I don't usually "measure", so this is just an approximation of what I used. I have a Samsung convection oven, so I use the convection option. You may have to adjust your cooking time based on what type of oven you are using.

Ingredients:
1 spaghetti squash (instructions to prepare follow)
2-3 tbsp. olive oil
1-2 large Roma tomatoes, chopped
2 chicken breasts, pounded to 1/2" thickness & cut into bite size pieces
1 small zucchini squash, cut in half, sliced into half moons
2 gloves fresh garlic, minced
1 tsp minced onion or 1 Tbsp. fresh shallot, diced
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp garlic powder
1/4 - 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/4 - 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese


Preparation:
To prepare the spaghetti squash: Heat the oven to 400. Using a large knife or cleaver, slice the squash in half lengthwise down the middle (be careful! These buggers are tough.) Use a spoon to remove the seeds and center strings. Drizzle the two halves with olive oil (I used a brush to make sure the entire squash surface was lightly covered with oil.) Sprinkle the squash with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Place the squash, open side down, on a cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes.

While the squash is baking, heat a large skillet on med-high for the chicken. Add 1 Tbps. fat of your choice (I like coconut oil or olive oil) to the skillet until hot. Add the garlic and onion/shallot and brown for a minute or two.  Add the zucchini, and cook until just crisp-tender. Remove zucchini from pan and set aside. Add the chicken pieces, basil, and additional salt and pepper if you like. Cover and cook until the chicken is no longer pink. Add the zucchini back to the chicken.

Remove the squash from the oven, check to see if it's soft and easily comes up with a fork into spaghetti like texture. If it's too hard to remove, cook for another 10 minutes.

Remove from squash oven, scrape and fluff the stringy squash with a fork. (Note: I only used one half of the spaghetti squash for this recipe.) Put the squash into a mixing bowl with the ricotta and Parmesan cheeses, mix well. Add the chicken/zucchini mixture into the squash mixture.

Lightly grease a 2 quart casserole dish with olive oil. Pour the cooked "pasta", chicken & zucchini mixture into the casserole dish and top with the tomatoes and mozzarella cheeses.

Broil on high until the peaks of the cheese start to brown and crisp.

This is a very hearty and filling meal packed with protein and fiber. As you can see, I don't shy away from fat. You could reduce the fat content by lowering the amount of cheese you use and using lower fat cheeses. I find that if I use full-fat cheeses, I use less and they fill me up (plus it tastes better, duh.) Remember, FAT doesn't make you fat, SUGAR makes you fat.

Enjoy!

Beginner Crossfit-Style Workout

I am a CrossFit newbie; in other words, I hesitate to even use the word CrossFit when referring to my workouts. I truly admire the men and women who have made CrossFit a part of their daily routine; their commitment is inspirational and admirable.

I don't always do CrossFit, but when I do, I feel so good when it's over. Here's what I did today. We have an empty field behind our house; we run to a local restaurant and back which we figured is about 400 meters. It's fairly rough terrain with long field grass so it's definitely a challenge. 

The lunges were the hardest part for me, which surprised me. The last set I felt a little tweak in my left hip flexor so I had to cut back on the intensity.

Today I did knee pushups. I kept my knees way behind my hips, and did full push-ups fairly slowly.

My fiancee and I did this together. Instead of squats, he did box jumps on a 20" box. Instead of lunges, he did squats. Since we only have one ball, I did Mason's twists the 1st and 3rd rounds.

I labeled this workout a beginner's Crossfit workout, but for the person who is just starting to establish a regular fitness routine, this is probably a bit more of an intermediate workout. For a true beginner, I would cut back on all of the reps and maybe increase your resting between rounds.

During my 400 meter runs; my mantra was "Calm Mind; Calm Body" - I do love a good mantra. This came to me when I was on my final run: "Fear, doubt, pain, results; these things are all temporary. Personal victories and accomplishments are forever. KEEP MOVING."

In other news, my fiancee submitted a picture of him a rolling hay bale (yes, he really was able to move it, being the beast that he is) to CrossFit. They not only featured it on their Facebook feed, but also their main web site! Pretty cool, huh? Bonus: They paid him $150 for using it! We were pretty excited and proud. It's a great picture - don't you agree? That is Bandit in the foreground. He is an Australian Cattle Dog mix (possibly mixed with Canaan dog?) He is the most gentle, sweet, loyal companion and Jeremiah's best friend (next to me of course...)

Thanks for reading!