Healthy Spaghetti

So my last bloodwork showed that I'm low on iron. This isn't unusual for pregnant women, but it was really suprising to me because last pregnancy they were impressed at my iron levels. "Like that of a non-pregnant woman," they said.

I patted my carnivorous self on the back and grew rather smug.

I was pretty sure I was the poster girl for iron this pregnancy. I eat spinach and meat every day. I cook the majority of our meals in a cast iron pan. At least once a week we have red meat in a red sauce for that extra iron absorption that vitamin C gives you. I take my prenatals. Why would there be a problem?

Honestly, I still can't fathom why I'm so low; it's hard to imagine adding much more iron to my diet. Maybe it's because I went straight into pregnancy number two while still breastfeeding?

Anyway, we'll be having spaghetti with ground beef twice a week now because it's one of our favorite high-iron meals and it's easy for the lazy preggo woman.

During spaghetti squash season I use, wait for it, spaghetti squash instead of pasta, but we're not grain free at the moment, so I'm using rice pasta which is gluten free.

One jar of homemade tomato sauce from last year's garden (HA HA, kidding, a jar of the organic stuff from Trader Joe's...maybe next year...)
One pound ground beef
1.5 cups grated zucchini
1.5 cups frozen spinach
One onion
Four cloves of minced garlic
Sea salt to taste
Rice pasta

Start the water boiling for the pasta and dump the tomato sauce into a cast iron skillet along with the ground beef and chopped onion. When meat is about halfway cooked, toss in zucchini. In last five minutes, toss in spinach and garlic. Remember to cook your pasta. Top pasta with meat sauce.

Umm, yeah. Another entirely original culinary masterpiece. Shut up. But I do take pride in the fact that my kid has no idea that normal people don't have zucchini and spinach in their pasta...