Back in January, I shared a recipe for zucchini "fettuccine" and said that you can totally make Paleo pasta with just a vegetable peeler, which is totally true, but not nearly as fun as making Paleo pasta with a spiral vegetable slicer. The Paderno is still on my wish list, but Rob and I recently received this sweet hand-held spiral slicer that was on our wedding registry. It does a great job with squash and carrots, and as a result, I've been making noodles (and juice! we got a juicer, too) nearly every day.

This recipe is similar to the fettuccine one, but it has meatballs and marinara sauce. It's simple. And it's really good.

Ingredients:

• Four zucchini
• One pound of grass-fed beef
• About half of a 28 ounce can of marinara sauce
  • (I use Trader Joe's because it has no added sugar)
• One teaspoon each of garlic powder + onion powder
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• A couple tablespoons of olive oil

Instructions:

1. Heat a pan with olive oil over medium heat. Form the beef into meatballs and place in pan. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Spiralize the zucchini and set aside in a large bowl. Once the meatballs are cooked through, take them out of the pan and add the zucchini.
3. Sauté the zucchini for about five minutes. Add a sprinkle of salt and pepper and also the garlic and onion powder.
4. Once the zucchini softens a bit, add the marinara sauce. You can put the meatballs back in before plating if they've gotten cold.
5. Serve hot and enjoy!

I've been incredibly lazy on the recipe/cooking front lately. On Sunday night, the thought of making guacamole was almost too much to bear--luckily I had a hungry and determined fiance available to cut avocados in half. So, as I'm sure you can imagine, I've been all about the easy way out. What do I already have? What can I whip up in just a few minutes that isn't totally boring? Enter egg salad bacon bites. Fancy enough to make as an appetizer for friends, but easy enough to make because you've probably got the ingredients in your fridge already.

Ingredients:

Three eggs, hard-boiled

One tablespoon mayonnaise

1/4 teaspoon each of garlic powder, mustard, and crushed red pepper

Salt and pepper, to taste

Several slices of bacon

Cherry tomatoes and green onion for garnish

1. Pre-heat your oven to 375. Cut each strip of bacon into three or four pieces.

2. Assemble the bacon on a mini-muffin pan. Press each piece down so it bakes into a "u" shape.

3. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes.

4. In a medium bowl or mixer, combine hard-boiled eggs with mayo, garlic powder, mustard, and red pepper flakes. Season also with salt and pepper.

5. When the bacon is done, take it out and add a spoonful of egg salad to each piece. Top each one with half a cherry tomato and sprinkle the plate with sliced green onion, if desired.

I love cooking, and I love tortilla soup, but I don't always love going to the grocery store for a big list of things specific to just one recipe. While my brother was visiting, we vowed to make a big pot of it, and somehow made it work mostly with ingredients I already had in my kitchen.

Full disclosure: some cumin, chili powder, a habanero pepper, and paprika would have been nice. Feel free to add some of that to yours if you make it. But this was flavorful and perfect for a cold evening spent at home watching the Olympics, which is exactly how we did it.

  

Ingredients

One onion, chopped

About three chicken breasts + one or two thighs

One and a half tablespoons of marinara sauce

Two 32 ounce cartons of chicken broth
Half a tablespoon of crushed red pepper

Avocado, tomato, lettuce, cilantro, and lime as toppings

Salt and pepper, to taste

1. In a large pot, cook the chicken in a bit of olive oil. When the chicken is cooked through, remove from pot and let cool. Add chopped onions to pot.

2. Saute onions and add marinara sauce. Once those two ingredients are combined, add the chicken broth.

3. Once chicken has cooled enough to handle, pull the meat apart (like pulled pork or..chicken).

3. Get the soup to a boil and add the chicken and red pepper. Add salt and pepper.

4. Serve in bowls and top with chopped tomato and lettuce, sliced avocado, cilantro, and a wedge of lime.