Whole30 Balsamic Beef Bolognese Pasta Sauce with Zucchini Noodles

Although we aren't eating strict Whole30 right now, we tend to still do meals that are Whole30 complaint.  We will enjoy a glass of wine or desert, but we really loved how healthy our lifestyle was when we were eating Whole30.  I had a friend ask me if I would do it again so I will actually be doing another stint of Whole30!  It will be nice having the motivation of a friend doing it with me.  Joe will most likely join in for the most part so it will be fun to see how long we keep up with it this time around.  I made the below recipe a while back and never got around to blogging about it.  Since I was cooking for just 2 of us, we had a lot of pasta sauce left over so we put it in a container and froze it for a later date!  It will make for a super easy and quick meal when we are in a bind while doing Whole30!  This was one of my favorite recipes we have done so I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Balsamic Beef Bolognese with Zucchini Noodles.

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 10 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 1 c chopped yellow onion
• Sea salt + cracked black pepper
• 2 tablespoons dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flake
• 2 cups finely chopped mushrooms
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1/4 cup + 1/4 cup sulfite-free balsamic vinegar (easy to find at any grocery store)
• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 1-15 ounce can of plain 100% tomato sauce
• 1 pound (about 3 medium) vine tomatoes, diced
• Fresh basil
• 4 zucchinis

Method:
In a large sauce pot over medium heat, add the olive oil. When it warms up, add the garlic, onions, and a bit of salt and pepper, and cook until the onions are translucent, about 3 minutes. Add the oregano, red pepper flake, and chopped mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms are soft and browning, another 5 or 6 minutes. Add the tomato paste and stir for a couple of minutes, until the mixture is well combined. Pour in the first 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar, and use it to help you scrape up any brown bits at the bottom of the pot. Let is simmer for another few minutes to cook out the vinegar tang.

Add the ground beef and use a spatula to crumble it well and to combine it with the other ingredients. Add a bit more salt and pepper and continue to cook until the beef is no longer pink. Then add the sauce, the tomatoes, and the second 1/4 cup of balsamic. Bring the pot to a boil, then lower it to a simmer and cook covered for 15 minutes longer. Salt and pepper again as needed, and top with fresh basil.

For zucchini noodles use a spiralizer to create zucchini noodles.  Saute the noodles with a dash of olive oil and salt and pepper to taste for 4 minutes or until desired softness.  Enjoy!

Original recipe and image found here

Paleo Chicken Salad

Sometimes lunches for Whole30 are hard to come by.  It is a lot harder to go out to eat and find something that is Whole30 eligible, and salads can get boring (especially for Joe) and don't necessarily fill him up.  Because of that we had to come up with some creative lunch options.  It is always nice to be able to make a couple meals on Sunday for the week, so Joe found this Chicken Salad that called for ingredients that we already had at home.  He enjoyed it for two lunches throughout the week to make it more exciting.  It is quite flavorful so I hope you enjoy!

Avocado Chicken Salad

Ingredients
1 Pkg boneless, skinless chicken breasts (2 or 3)
1 avocado
1/4 of an onion, chopped
juice of 1/2 a lime
2 Tbsp dill (that was all we had at the house and it actually tasted good, the original recipe calls for cilantro)
some salt and pepper, to taste






Directions
Cook chicken breast until done, let cool, and then shred. Add all of the other ingredients and mix.

It's quick, simple, and yummy!

Original Recipe Found here

Whole30 Challenge

Diet - a word very much over used in the English language. 
Healthy LifeStyle - something often overlooked in today's society

I want to start by saying for my husband and I, being on a diet is not the focus of us participating in the Whole30 challenge (our goal is mentioned later).  Any person would be lying if they said they never wanted to change something about their looks.  No matter how fit you are or how healthy you are, there are day's that you simply do not feel the best.  Maybe you feel fat, your abs aren't big enough, or your muscles are too big as a female for a shirt to fit properly.  In the society that we live in today, everyone is conditioned to search for perfection.  The idea of perfection comes in different forms for everyone, and every day we should strive take a step closer to make us a better person. 

For Joe and I, we tend to live a healthy lifestyle.  We are active and work out regularly, whether it is a quick trip to the gym, a yoga class, or a tennis match. We also eat fairly healthy and don't eat out very often, simply because I love cooking.  That being said, I also love baking, ice cream, and Girl Scout cookie season.  I don't have a huge sweet tooth and we may lead a healthy lifestyle, but sometimes I simply have no self control.  It's easy for me to eat something unhealthy early in the day, then continue the trend simply because I already messed up a "healthy" day.  I also travel a lot, and sometimes it is simple to grab something quick on the go, not necessarily thinking about the nutritional value. I think it is easy to get in a cycle to have a desert after dinner every day, and slowly but surely you crave more and more sweets.  Plus, I am 26 and don't want to live my life not allowing myself to eat foods I enjoy for really long amounts of time!  I don't think I will be 80 one day and think back no how lucky I was to not eat my ice cream because I was on a diet!

Knowing all of this, I had seen/hear/read about a lot of diets/cleanses/etc. Although I had entertained many in the past, none of them seemed to speak to me, since my focus really isn't to lose weight.  A lot of them I questioned, and for that reason I never decided to do them.   I do want to say that I am not judging others that have done any of the mentioned challenges or diets below, they simply are not for me (just like Whole30 may not be for you). A lot of my friends have done one or many of the below, and experienced great results!  Everyone's body's are different and everyone's lifestyles are different, so I really don't believe diets or healthy lifestyles can be "one size fits all".

Juice Cleanse - This is something that I don't this is a "healthy" approach to life.  Overindulging for a couple days/weeks/months, and think you can reverse it in a couple days by only drinking a "cleansing juice".  It may work for some people, but it simply doesn't seem appealing to me.  I cannot force myself to drink something that doesn't taste good to me for days without any solid foods.  I had also heard some horror stories (including one from my mom when she did it years and years ago) that gave the cleanses a bad taste in my mind.

Gluten Free - This is simply a fad diet that somehow caught on like wild fire.There are people out there in the world that are forced to have a gluten free diet for medical reasons.  Without getting into too many details, I have family members that are Celiac, and they will be the first to tell you that it is something that you simply could not life through without knowing you had the intolerance at a young age.  Joe and I have always prepared whole wheat pastas, made whole wheat breads, and enjoyed whole grain granola, and there so many great nutritional aspects of whole grains that people seem to forget.  Looking at ingredient lists of gluten free pastas and breads show that there were even more processed chemicals thrown into these foods in order to make them taste good. For this reason, gluten free never even crossed my mind.

Paleo -  I have a lot of friends that do CrossFit and have gone through the Paleo journey.  Although the concept makes sense, some of it never made sense in my mind. The main obstacle I had in my head was all of the Paleo recipes that simply mimic regular food.  I don't think our ancestors were trying to make bread out of almond flour and dates, and brownies that taste like brownies with the use of some crazy ingredients.

There were several others that have come up, but none seemed to work.  After having a friend do Whole30 (a variation of it) I started reading about it.  A lot of what I struggled with in the Paleo diet was mentioned in the introduction to the challenge.  It was kept simple and straight forward. No grains, sugar (natural or man made), legumes, dairy, processed foods, or preservatives.  Although they emphasize to not edit what they write is approved and unapproved, it didn't match what I wanted to do perfectly, so we made some changes.  We decided that we wouldn't eat potatoes during the duration of the challenge, although they have recently been approved in Whole30.  I am not a huge potato eater anyways so this was a simple decision on my end!  Something I couldn't buy into was smoothies.  Although they aren't labeled off limits in Whole30, they advise against them.  Their reasoning simply did not make sense to me, so we will continue with our smoothies in the morning.  I think they keep me full longer than eating the fruit whole, which is what their argument was for not having smoothies, and in the end, they are just something I was not willing to give up.

So, with these minor changes, and Joe's buy it, we were set to go!  Here are my thoughts so far...

• First, I will say, it makes it much easier to do it with a friend, roommate, or significant other.  We are only in day 2, but seeing Joe's enthusiasm about the journey makes it that much easier for me!
• Prepare Meals - Joe's biggest concern is what will replace his daily yogurt and granola for breakfast.  At times he also goes out to eat for lunch, and he wanted to know what he could eat for lunch!  We took about an hour on Sunday to prepare some breakfast and lunch for the week, as well as really plan out dinners!  Quite frankely this was so fun for me but makes the work week much easier!
• Don't think about what you can't eat, focus on what you can eat!
• READ all labels!  I tend to read a lot of labels but I have never notices just how many things have sugar in them!

As we go, I will post what we eat, new recipes, and my thoughts!  The last thing to do is set a goal!  So here we go.

GOAL:  Become more aware of what goes into my body, even when I think it is "healthy".  Take 25 days (we are only doing 25 days since Joe's birthday is the 26th of the month)  to truly enjoy simple foods and let my body take a rest a bit and not have to process any preservatives or processed food!  Enjoy 25 days of clean eating to help refocus on the healthy lifestyle we try to lead.

So with that, here we go!  Link below for the program!

Whole30 Instructions