Local fitness enthusiast Jason Murphy remakes favorite meals of his youth into healthy dishes. See the full list of his recipes at www.mysaline.com/shirtless.
Almost as easy as a box of chemicals
The truly hard part about not relying on the pre-packaged “box ‘o mystery chemicals” dinner kits is the time it takes to make food from scratch. I think that is probably the biggest factor that derails people from clean eating and drives them back into the arms of big corporations happy to sublet your time and health for convenience.
I myself sometimes find I question the amount of time I spend in the kitchen on meal prep days. It can feel like an extra workout as I fly around the kitchen working hard and fast, with chopped veggies flying through the air Swedish Chef style.
I made this recipe trying to find the best balance I could between the time and ease of a boxed meal, but with all the healthy benefits of making it without heavily preserved and processed items. Several of these items, like the chicken meatballs and cauliflower garlic bread, can be made a day or two before, so you can spread out the workload.
Combining that with a chemical-free off the shelf sauce and low carb noodles gives the actual meal cook day a big head start, and will make it feel almost like you just opened a carton of suspicious powder and flavorings.
The garlic bread was featured in a previous article, and it is definitely not a quick process, but it’s so good it is worth the effort to make a day ahead of time to have with your pasta. I will include the link to that article below if you are so inclined.
I prefer Heart of Palm noodles for stove top pasta dishes. Usually I try to find noodles for this one, but if all they have at the mega mart is lasagna style, no bother, just cut them into strips with a chef’s knife as I did for this meal.
I usually make my own sauce, but I found this Primal Kitchen Alfredo sauce and the ingredients are clean. It’s also dairy free for those of you that get bubble gut from the moo juice. This sauce is made from pumpkin seeds of all things. Pretty cool stuff.
Make the meatballs and garlic bread a day or two before, and then throw the “noodles” and sauce in a slow cooker to heat up, and this will cut down on your kitchen time without compromising taste or health. Chicken Helper boxes? We don’t need no stinking Chicken Helper boxes.
Cauliflower Garlic Bread:
Chicken meatball pasta:
2 lbs ground chicken
2 packages Heart of palm noodles, drained and rinsed
1 jar Primal Kitchen Alfredo sauce
1 yellow onion, diced
1 package baby bella mushrooms
1/2 tsp salt, pepper, onion, and garlic powder
1/4 tsp dried red pepper flakes
Instructions:
Mix the ground chicken with the spices and roll into meatballs. I usually shoot for about .75 ounces per meatball. Place on a baking sheet sprayed with non-stick and bake at 400 degrees for 17 minutes. Take the pan out and rotate the meatballs over and cook for another 10 to 12 minutes.
Drain and rinse the heart of palm noodles well, and place in a slow cooker or pasta pot on the stovetop over low heat. Add the jar of alfredo sauce and the meatballs to heat through, and keep at a simmer. Heat a skillet with a pat of butter and cook the onions and mushrooms until soft with a pinch of salt and pepper. Drain any excess moisture and add to the pasta pot:
Serve with roasted broccoli and Shirtless Chef garlic bread:
See the list of all the Shirtless Chef recipes at www.mysaline.com/shirtless.
MYSALINEAPRIL2022