the purple carrot: Originally Organic Vending [dot] com

Happy Monday, everyone!

First up on the Lesley Lifting Life storefront ….. we’re happy to announce the launching of:

We’re excited to have a website out there now for people to more easily hear about us, and who we are. Feel free to check it out, and if you haven’t already, come and “like” us on Facebook! (Here is Originally Organic Vending’s Facebook, and here is Lesley Lifting Life’s Facebook).
Thanks for all your support!!! Smile

Operation Motivation

I’m happy to report Operation Motivation was a complete success this week. My four days of working out this week were: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday, and this post is all about the two new recipes that I tried, one being a main dish, and the other being a baked good.

Bison Baked SpaghettiThis recipe was inspired by and adapted from a “Spaghetti & Meatball Casserole” found in the January 2011 issue of Clean Eating Magazine. This magazine comes very highly recommended by yours truly!

You will need:
-- 1 package whole wheat spaghetti noodles
-- 1 lb. ground bison (or other lean meat)
-- 2 TB minced garlic
-- Mozzarella cheese, as desired
-- Olive oil
-- 1 jar marinara or tomato sauce
-- 1 small onion
-- 1/3 cup low-fat cottage cheese
-- 1 TB milled flax seed
-- 1 cup fresh basil
-- 1 TB low-fat milkAnd here’s what you do with it:
-- Preheat your oven at 400 degrees. Cook your spaghetti al dente, draining it, rinsing it, and setting it aside.
-- In the meantime, using a food processor, blend together the garlic, basil, olive oil, and cottage cheese.
-- Chop your onion, and start sautéing it in olive oil
-- Mix together bison, milled flax, milk, and a spoonful of your basil mixture, and form these into balls.
-- Add the formed balls into your sautéing onions, and cook, flipping them, until they are brown.
-- Add your desired amount of marinara/tomato sauce (I diluted mine with some water to make the sauce go further and help out with the sodium content), and let cook for about 10 minutes while sauce thickens.

-- Grease a large baking dish, and start layering! First, spread enough tomato mixture onto the bottom of the baking dish to cover it.
-- Next, mix together your meatball sauce and spaghetti, and add half of the mixture into the baking dish.
-- Sprinkle on some cheese, along with a few dollops of the basil mixture.
-- Add the rest of the spaghetti/meatball mixture on top of that, then finish with another small layer of cheese, and the rest of the basil mixture.
-- Bake at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes, covering dish with aluminum for the first 15 minutes.And you’re done!Erik and I liked this dish, but found the buffalo got a bit dry since it’s such a super lean meat.

However, a definite success for Operation Motivation main dish #1! (And we had a lot of yummy leftovers!)I’ll post about the delicious baked good I choose to make for week #1 in my next post.