Zucchini Arrabiata

This is a truly simple dish suitable to make for a quick lunch or yummy dinner. The sauce is spicy and flavorful and the zucchini noodles hit the spot without being loaded down with empty carbs. It's easy to adjust the spice level according to how you like it by controlling the red pepper flakes and sausage. I am usually totally anti kitchen gadget, but in this case a mandolin slicer or julienne cutter works best to make the noodles.

What you'll need:

4 fresh zucchini

5 cloves of garlic, 3 diced;2 sliced

3 large hot Italian chicken sausage (make sure it's gluten free)

2 tsp olive or avocado oil, divided

1 large can crushed tomatoes (I use San Marzano)

1T dried Italian seasoning

red pepper flakes

black pepper

What you do:

Slice the zucchini on the julienne blade of your mandolin. No mandolin? You can still slice the zucchini into "french fry" size pieces with a knife.

In a large skillet use 1 tsp of oil and saute your sausage breaking it up into bits. You will have to remove the casing to do this. Add 3 cloves of the diced garlic and the Italian seasoning. Saute a minute more. Pour the can of tomatoes over the sausage and stir well. Taste for heat. Add a pinch of red pepper flakes if you want more heat. Turn the flame to low and allow the sauce to simmer down until it becomes thick.

In the meantime, heat another large skillet with 1 tsp oil. Throw in the sliced garlic, a small pinch of red pepper and a shake or two of black pepper. Stir the garlic and pepper around until the oil becomes fragrant. Now remove the garlic and discard it. Saute the zucchini noodles until soft but not mushy. You want them to have some body so they will stand up to the sauce.

Taste the sauce and adjust spices if necessary. Serve sauce over a bed of zucchini noodles.

Adjusting the spice:

There are a couple of options. For slightly less spice, omit the red pepper. For significantly less, use 2 sweet Italian sausages and 1 spicy. For more spice add more red pepper.

Enjoy!

I love a great success story. I love it even more when it has to do with the successful entrapreneurship of an 11-year old girl. I met Eva for the first time at our gym's B4B event in October. She is outgoing, beautiful and the future face of CrossFit. At 11 years old she knows what it means to be strong and healthy. I can tell she is a trailblazer. What makes Eva so unique at her age is that she already has a mind for business. You see...she's a bee keeper. Just the thought of getting that close to bees gives me chills. But with the help of her dad, Eva harvests honey up to four times per year. She and her sister label and bottle the raw honey. This honey is pure, unprocessed and never touched by human hands! I wanted to create a special recipe in Eva's honor. One that would showcase her hard work and at the same time be subtle enough to taste a variety of flavors. And so Eva's Honey banana pancakes were born!

What you'll need:

3 eggs

1tsp vanilla

1 tsp honey (of course I use Eva's!)

1 super ripe banana

1/4 cup coconut milk

3T coconut oil

1/2 cup coconut flour

1tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp sea salt

A couple of spoons of coconut milk refrigerated until solid (must be full fat!)

Fresh berries

What you do:

In a large bowl mix all the wet ingredients together. In a separate bowl mix the dry ingredients together. Don't skip this step. You don't want all the baking powder in one pancake! Now mix the dry into the wet. Do you have something that resembles yellow cement? Perfect! Start thinning the batter with water 1/4 cup at a time until you have it about the consistency of cake batter. I end up using 3/4 cup of water. Heat your pan with coconut oil. Now here's where it can get tricky so pay attention. Turn your flame down to low. Get out a large soup spoon and use that to spoon the batter into the pan. Use the back of the spoon to "swirl" the batter into a silver dollar sized pancake. If they get too big you will never be able to turn them and you will hate me forever. Be patient and let them cook almost all the way through on one side. Now ever so gently slide your spatula under the pancake. It takes a little practice and goes something like this: Slide, shimmy, slide, slide, quarter flip, cuss like a sailor, and giant flip! Inevitably your first couple will break, fold or land somewhere outside the pan. Stick with it! It gets easier and they are worth it. Plate them, top with a little solid coconut milk and fresh berries. These are pure heaven!

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Chili -- PALEO

I love the fall. From the colors outside to the heart warming stews and soups. Even though I am from sunny So Cal, we do have the occasional tree that changes color on my block. And now that the temperature has dipped into the mid 60's it's time to break out a great fall recipe. Yes, the mid 60's is downright cold, just in case you were wondering. I realize that we are rapidly approaching winter and fall is almost over. But I've been a little busy lately, so I'm a bit behind.

This recipe is originally from Trader Joe's. It's just tweaked a little to take out the sugar and beans, etc. I never knew one could put sugar in chili. That just seems weird. All ingredients are available at Trader Joe's. If you don't have a TJ's in your area these ingredients are all available at your local natural grocery store.

So let's enjoy a big bowl of fall (ok... almost winter) Pumpkin Chili.

What you'll need:

3lbs. Ground turkey (or grassfed ground beef)

1 onion, diced

1 bell pepper, diced (I like red, yellow or orange)

1 14oz can of canned pumpkin (make sure it's just pumpkin)

1 tsp pepper

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1 jar chipotle salsa

1 box of Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper Soup

1 tsp cumin

What you do:

Cook the ground turkey, diced onion and pepper in a large pot until the meat is crumbly and no longer pink. Drain. Add the remaining ingredients, bring to a boil and then simmer for one hour.

That's it! Enjoy!