Sunday Supper: Spaghetti (Squash) and Meatballs

You guys, I'm in meatball heaven!!  My apartment currently smells like an Italian Nana's house, and I'm not mad about it..

the meatballs in question.

I make sauce pretty regularly.  What can I say, it's part of my culture, and it makes for a super simple dinner.  My usual route is to make a pot of sauce on Sunday and then use it during the following week to make quick dinners.  Sometimes it's as easy as frying an egg and then topping baby spinach with the eggs and sauce.  Other times I'll sauté shrimp to top off my spinach and sauce deal, and when there's just a little bit left, throw it in a frying pan with some hot italian sausage, bell peppers, and onions, and you have one of my favorite meals in the world!  Today is my first time making spaghetti (squash) and meatballs, and oh man, it is so damn good I had to share the recipe!

First off, there's no reason to ever buy a jar of pasta sauce.  It's so easy to make and this way you don't end up with random ingredients and preservatives that are usually in the jarred variety!  Also, making a pot of sauce takes just about as long as heating up a jar of sauce, for what it's worth, so you're not really saving any time with that Prego, my friend.

As for meatballs, this is usually something I leave to my dad, but I have quite a bit of ground beef in my freezer (and my neighbor was cooking something that when filtered through my floors smelled like meatballs and gave me a craving), so I figured I'd give it a go.  My dad usually uses breadcrumbs in his, but since I don't really use breadcrumbs for anything else in my life, I couldn't justify buying a whole pack and letting it go to waste, so I decided to see how quinoa would work instead and they came out really well.

I've also never made spaghetti squash before, so this was an all around experimental dinner that ended up actually turning out great (you never know, sometimes these things are a total fail.)!

I ended up with about four servings with a few extra meatballs on the side, which is good, because if you're anything like me, you'll eat like four (or more) of them before you're even done making dinner.  I'm pretty sure this is why you never see Nana sit down to eat with the rest of the family, she's so full from testing everything while she cooks.. I mean, you have to make sure it's safe, right?

Step one: Meatballs! (makes about 16)

What you'll need:
1lb ground beef (I used 95% lean, you could also sub turkey or chicken)
1 egg
1/4 cup fresh grated pecorino romano cheese (this is a staple in my house, but if you're more of a parmesan person, that will work just fine)
1 cup cooked quinoa
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp olive oil (for the pan)
salt and pepper (I also added crushed red pepper)

- Preheat oven to 400F
- mix all your ingredients up really well in a big bowl
- use a tablespoon (the actual spoon not the measuring spoon kind) to form balls and space them evenly on a lightly oiled baking sheet
- bake for 15 minutes, and then turn them over and bake for another 15.  These are when mine were done, but crack one open just in case, they might need more time depending on how big you make them.

Step two: Sauce

What you'll need:
1 large can of crushed tomatoes (28oz)
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1 tbsp olive oil or butter (I use butter, my dad uses olive oil, do what you want)
salt and pepper
some people use basil and oregano and all that, but I never have it around so I just don't bother.

- in a small sauce pot heat up your olive oil and garlic 'til it smells all garlicky and awesome.
- dump in your tomatoes and stir
- season with salt and pepper to taste
- cook on medium-high heat until it's bubbling and then turn down the heat a bit and cover.
- simmer 'til you're ready to use it.  Some people say that the longer you cook it the less acidic it will be, but I don't have the patience to cook sauce all day, so I end up using it after about 20 minutes and it's fine.
- I did this while my meatballs were baking.

Step three: Spaghetti Squash

What you'll need:

1 large spaghetti sqaush
1 tsp of olive oil (for the pan)
salt

Like I said, I've never made this before, so I just kind of went for it.  I took the squash and cut it in half, then dug out all the seeds and stuff.  Then I cut it into 1" slices, put it on a lightly oiled baking sheet, and roasted it at 400F until it seemed "done".  After it cooled a bit I used my hands to break apart the little spaghetti noodle things into a bowl.

Once my meatballs had cooled I added them to the sauce so they could get a nice coating, and then topped my spaghetti squash with a few meatballs, some more sauce, and some freshly grated romano cheese!

Enjoy!

Nutrition Facts:

Serving size - 1.5 cups of squash, 1/2 cup of sauce, and 3 meatballs

Calories: 290

Fat: 11.5g

Carbohydrates: 21.4g

Protein: 24.3g

Let's Talk About: Being "Too Fat"! An Ode To My Bicycle On Its 1st Birthday

Trying something new can be really difficult.  Our minds get in the way so much that simply thinking about it can stress you out to the point that you end up putting it off for way longer than you should have, or just never doing it.  How many times do you stress and over think something, and then when you actually do it, you have this feeling of "what the hell took me so long?".  

I'm a pretty straight forward person, and I tend to not stress the inevitable, such as having to give a presentation at work, or going to the dentist, these are things that might make me nervous, but I know there is nothing I can do to avoid them, so I put on my big girl pants and I deal with it.  When it comes to things that I'm in control of, however, like signing up for a new class, or talking to a guy I think is cute, or joining the local food co-op (something I just recently tackled), I tend to build it up so much in my head that I make more of a thing out of it then it needs to be: there are probably going to be other beginners in the class with you, maybe the cute guy was too nervous to talk to you (maybe he wasn't, oh fucking well, you made a new "friend"), everyone at the co-op is super nice and welcoming and not at all "who is this basic fashion bitch shopping the bulk bins??" (that was an actual fear of mine, I was legit scared that everyone there would view me as a some sort of wellness tourist).

I always felt that way about biking.  Of course, when I moved to Williamsburg in 2008 I bought a vintage Raleigh and started day dreaming about riding up Bedford Ave on my vintage cruiser, skirt blowing in the wind, baguette in the basket, meeting my bearded tattooed manfriend for a picnic in the park, no doubt.  But that never happened because I never rode it!  The damn thing was an adorable decoration.  It moved from apartment to apartment, from Williamsburg to the Lower East Side, to Long Island, to Bushwick, and save for a few short rides or my roommate occasionally borrowing it (and once calling me pretending it was stolen as an April Fools joke, thanks Will!), it was never touched.

One thing I've noticed about losing weight, is that I've become more okay with actually admitting the way "Fat Lauren" thought.  And the way Fat Lauren thought, was that I was too fat for everything, I would lie, and say I didn't do x,y,z, because I didn't want to, or I was afraid, or I wasn't interested, it sounds lame, etc., anything to cover up for my insecurity.  But the truth is, in my mind, I was too fat to go to be seen in a bathing suit, I was too fat to go to yoga, I was too fat to talk to the cute boy, I couldn't go to that party because I'd be the fattest girl in the room, I was too fat to wear high heels (because then I'd look tall and fat, and then I'd just be the "big" fat girl!), and I was too fat to ride a bike!  Self loathing is a bitch, and it keeps you from being yourself, and having fun, and trying new things you might really enjoy, but, the silver lining is that it's all in your head!  If Fat Lauren got on that bike, I seriously doubt anyone I rode by would have been all "hey look at that fat girl on a bike!" but that's exactly what I thought would happen.

My first foray into exercise on my weight loss journey was walking.  I got a FitBit Zip step tracker, and I would walk everywhere.  It became addictive, beating my steps from the day before, my friend Evanne and I started meeting at the LES side of the Williamsburg bridge after work and walking home together, pretty soon I was walking the bridge to and from work almost every day, I ended up losing about 15 pounds over the course of a few months.  I started mixing in Tabata workouts from Sophie Gray and toning up.  This gave me the confidence I needed to try CitiBike.  I would ride a CitiBike from my office on 37th and 7th down to the bridge, and then walk the bridge home every night.  I did this until it got too cold, and then started back up in the Spring.

A few days before my 30th birthday I bought myself a present: beautiful and impractical Prada heels that cost $700.  I took them home and walked around my apartment in them, they were so pretty, I remember telling my mom that they were perfect, that I'd keep them under my desk and any time I had to go to a meeting, toss them on and immediately look and feel like a boss bitch.  And then I saw an Instagram of the Linus Mixte 3, and it was love.  I had seen it before: locked to a fence on Metropolitan Ave, coming out of a fancy apartment on Meserole St. with it's owner, I always thought it was a beautiful bike but this was the first time I saw it and felt that it should be mine.  So, I did what any newly rational, completely adult thirty year old woman would do: I said goodbye to my boss bitch shoes, and decided to invest in my ass instead.

Our first day together!

On the 21st it will be exactly a year since I bought my bike, and although I'm still partially in debt because of it, it's the best investment I could have made, and the best gift I could have given myself.  In the past year my bike and I have logged over TWO THOUSAND MILES and that's just counting my commute to work.  When I think about that, it's insane to me, I never would have thought I'd be able to do that.  The first morning I rode to work I had this feeling of "what the hell was I thinking?!"  I still had a bit of an inferiority complex: here I was with my dorky helmet, in my work clothes, huffing and puffing on the incline of the bridge, stopping at all the red lights, while the cool girls on their banged up fixies with their cut off shorts sped past me, but the more I did it, the better I got, and pretty soon I was passing people on the bridge, and although I still wear my dorky helmet, and stop at all the red lights, I feel really good about myself and what I'm doing and that's all that matters.  

Not only has riding my bike given me a cheaper and healthier way of getting to and from work, it's changed my outlook on fitness completely.  After riding consistently for a couple of months, I didn't like the excess energy I had on rainy days that I couldn't ride, so I joined the gym and found out that all of my biking, and walking before that, had left me in good enough shape that I could (for the first time in over ten years) run for over a mile without feeling like I was going to die.  This made me so happy that I started going to the gym a few days a week, just to see if I could do more.  The consistent exercise has also turned my once shitty "I stare at a donut and my double chin gets bigger" metabolism into a power house, to the point that one of the girls at my local pizza place asked me where I was "putting it all".  Last summer was the first time since I was a teenager that I wore a string bikini, or felt comfortable in anything short or form fitting, my clavicles, abs, and hipbones have also decided to make a long overdo appearance.  People may think that my style and my personality has changed, but that isn't true, this is just the person I never had the confidence to be finally coming out.  So if you think that my crazy nails, and my short skirts, and my love of crop tops are all a "new phase", just know that this is the girl that Fat Lauren always wanted to be, and if I'm not as self deprecating, or shy and quiet as I used to be, or don't worry as much about what other people might think of me, it's not that I've "changed", it's that I finally stopped feeling like I was "too fat" to be myself.

My reason in sharing all of this with you is that I hope that you know that there is no such thing as being "too fat" or too anything for that matter.  If you want to do something, try it, challenge yourself, it's not always easy to muster up the courage to do something new, but I promise you that it will be worth the risk, you might end up saying "well, now I know that's not for me," or it could end up completely changing your life.

This year went by so quickly, and my bike and I have both done quite a bit: Linus got a new basket and a headlamp (and a few scrapes from a taxi door), and I got a full time job and a boost of self confidence (and am constantly covered in bruises), and I can't wait for what this year has in store for us (I predict making the 12 mile trip to Fort Tilden a regular weekend adventure)!  So, the next time you see a fat girl on a bike, I hope you smile and think of me!