When our son was born, we were living in a one-bedroom condo in the city with the tiniest kitchen (like smaller than a closet). I did pretty amazing things in that small space before our little one arrived. But after, I found myself too delirious to cook. I really missed spending hours in the kitchen, but with a lack of sleep and takeout available from an endless supply of restaurants, we got really really lazy. We attempted to order salads from time to time, but not as much as we ordered our favorite chow mein, burritos, and burgers.
And while the city lended itself to lots of long family walks, our previous exercise regimens went slightly downhill. After a couple months, we felt pretty unhealthy and got amped to make a change. And luckily, our little one was going for at least 4 hour night-sleep stretches by then. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but you parents know that makes a huge difference!
My husband researched the Paleo diet and while I was not excited for the no bread, no dairy, no beans…I decided I could give it a whirl at least for a bit. After two weeks, we really did feel amazing, especially considering our exercise was limited. And we continued to do well for a couple more months. But as I predicted it wasn’t a forever diet. But merely a means to an everything in moderation diet. I am not the type to beat myself up over diets. In my opinion, as with life, you can always begin again.
Skip ahead three years…we live in Marin in a house now with a much bigger kitchen and cook all the time. In addition to being crazy gorgeous and full of green space, Marin county produces some of the best cheese on the planet. Maybe that’s just what happens when the cows making it are grazing on grassy hills overlooking the ocean. But seriously, in all of California there are ~60 cheesemakers and ~half are in the Marin/Sonoma area (an actual fact from the SF cheese school). Lucky us!
Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), over the last year, we let our bread and cheese special occasion nights become an every other night thing. So we were starting to reach another breaking point. And so we decided to take on paleo meals again, at least for the majority of our dinners. In addition to bread and cheese, one of our other vices is pasta. It’s just so good, isn’t it? I mean a pappardelle with a short-rib ragu is just heaven on a plate. But for the sake of being healthy, I do actually enjoy spiralizing a squash as a substitute. And luckily, spiralizing has become more commonplace. Technically, in the paleo diet, squash is a food you should only eat every once awhile. But if I’m not eating cheese or bread, I feel like eating squash as much as I want is more than acceptable.
For this zoodle dish, I really wanted to bring in some of the flavors of fall. And it turns out incorporating pumpkin was the best decision. It might sound weird, but the smooth thickness of the pumpkin puree made the sauce much more luxurious, akin to a bolognese (without the cream). And adding ground cloves really made it taste like fall.
For me, the one challenge with zoodles is getting them to texturally replicate pasta. For this recipe, the key is cooking them in the sauce like you would with regular pasta and giving them adequate time to soften. It takes just a bit longer with a zoodle than a normal noodle.
I hope you find this dish to be a surprising easy twist to a standard meat sauce. I like it even when I’m not trying to diet and it’s a great weeknight dinner. And if you would rather eat it with pasta than zoodles, you would receive no judgment from me. Your diet can always start again tomorrow…or the next day.
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
- ½ cup of onion (diced)
- 1.5 lbs. ground beef
- 4 cups zucchini (spiralized)
- 2 14.5 oz cans of diced tomatoes
- 1 15 oz can of pure pumpkin
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 tablespoon salt (I used sea salt)
- 1 tablespoon ground pepper
- Optional garnishes: Basil and parmesan
- In a large saute pan, add a tablespoon of olive oil and bring to medium heat.
- Add the diced onion and saute for 2-3 minutes.
- Add the ground beef and saute for 6-7 minutes. The meat will continue to be cooked in the sauce so we just want to start the browning process in this stage.
- Add the diced tomatoes, pumpkin, cloves, salt, and pepper and stir together.
- Add the zucchini noodles and toss to combine.
- Bring the mixture to a boil. Then reduce heat, cover, and let simmer for 15-20 minutes.
- Do a final test for salt/pepper to taste.
- Serve hot and top optionally top with basil and parmesan. Enjoy!
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