Chorizo Stuffed Pork Loin

Cassie, what’s with all the stuffed meat lately? Well, glad you asked. It’s delicious and fun! Meat inside of meat? It’s like Epic meal time up in here. Don’t follow this link at work, some of the language is bleeped by a bird.

After the success of the spinach-bacon-chicken I searched my fridge for new ingredients to stuff inside a pork loin I had laid out. I found some chorizo in the meat drawer, score! Now what kind of vegetables go well with Chorizo? Why orange ones! Don’t ask me why it works, it just does. I wanted the seasoning on the outside  to match the chorizo inside. Read along for another amazing meat in meat recipe:

Chorizo Stuffed Pork Loin

1 pork loin ~5.5 lbs

1 package of chorizo 10oz

3 carrots diced

1/2 yellow onion diced

4 cloves of garlic minced

1 sweet potato cut in chunks

1tsp chili powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp garlic

1/8 tsp of cumin

1/8 tsp of ground oregano

In a frying pan cook the chorizo on medium heat. While that cooks dice your onion then add it to the chorizo. Dice your carrots and again add them to the pan. Cook this mixture for another 5 minutes.

While it cooks prep your sweet potatoes and cut your loin. I time my cooking by how long it takes me to slice up my veggies. If you feel the need to prep your veggies ahead of time, cook each for about 2 minutes before adding the next ingredient. Remove the mixture from the heat and let it cool down. When it is cool enough to handle, stuff inside your pork loin.

Fold meat back together.

Place loin inside of a ring of sweet potatoes (any one hear Johnny Cash right now?) In a well oiled baking dish. Mix all the spices together in a small bowl and sprinkle over top of loin and potatoes. Toss the potatoes a bit to coat with seasoning.

I baked the loin in the oven at 400 uncovered for 1.5 hours while I rocked Grace at the gym.

This was too hot and too long. The meat came out tough and dry. Next time I’ll cook it at a much lower temperature for a longer time. That’s usually my MO, but I wanted to try something different. If you are making this at home, and you should because the flavors are wonderful, make sure that the fat side is up. Bake it covered at 200 for at least 4 hours.  As always check internal temperature before eating. You could definitely make this in a crock pot or deep pot and let cook low and slow while you are at work. I will make this again but much slower.

The flavors were awesome and as I said before, orange vegetables go great with chorizo! Are you hungry why not try this out?

Scotch Eggs

Today I have a recipe for all those hardboiled eggs that are crowding your fridge right now. It’s simple, delicious, and paleo. Plus you can freeze the extras without going into egg salad overload.

These eggs have a fond place in my heart because my mom likes to make these for me and my brother when we come to visit. She also will make sure to pack a few for us for our trip home. They are so tasty and easy. Mom thanks for the food love!

I make my own sausage here in a food processor. I realized I don’t have to always go through all the effort of meat grinding after making Kibbeh. In a food processor you can quickly and easily make sausage. This is wonderful since almost all sausage at the stores have lots of added sugar, salt, and unpronounceables. If you are like me, buying the organic kind is just out of the question. So I make my own. Give it a try and I promise you won’t go back.

Scotch Eggs

~ 3lbs pork loin

1 onion

4 cloves of garlic

2 tbsp red pepper

1 tbsp garlic powder

1tbsp onion powder

1tbsp Italian seasoning

a few sprigs of fresh thyme

1tbsp salt

14 hard boiled eggs

In a food processor add all ingredients but the eggs. Blend until a paste.

Make a test patty to make sure it’s good. I know I say this every time but it’s an important step. This is the only way to make sure the seasoning tastes the way you like.

Refrigerate the meat for an hour. Most of my sausages are some variation of this spice mix. It’s a spicy Italian because it’s what I like. Don’t let this stop you from exploring your favorite tastes. I like the combo of fresh and dried seasoning which is why you’ll see it here. I think each lends a different flavor.

That’s it for homemade sausage free of all the stuff you don’t’ want to eat. It’s too easy to not do at home. Of course this is not cased. I don’t have a machine for casing sausage but most of the sausage I eat is loose anyway so this is perfect for me. If you don’t already have a food processor I would highly recommend getting a sturdy one. I use mine all the time. Next to my kitchenaide mixer it is the most used appliance.

While your meat chills, boil your eggs.

Place the eggs on the bottom of a pot and cover with cold water. Place pot on a burner over high heat. Let the eggs boil for a few minutes then remove from the heat. Pour out the hot water and pour in cold water, ice is also helpful here. Shake the eggs vigorously so they crack against each other in the pot. This helps loosen the shell from the eggs.

Then I like to peel them under running water or in a bowl of water. By no means am I an expert of cooking times or peeling methods. I still get a few terrible looking eggs like this one. But you will be covering these in sausage so the appearance doesn’t matter much.

But these steps seem to help me. If you can, don’t full cook the eggs because they’ll be going back in the oven very soon. But I fully cooked mine, and the finished egg came out great. So no worries if you do.

Take your meat out and form a large ball.

Flatten it into a pancake.

Put one egg in the middle of your pancake.

Close the meat all the way around the egg.

Place meat ball on a well oiled baking sheet with a lip.

Some juices will run from the meat so you don’t want them dripping into your oven. Traditionally scotch eggs would then be rolled into corn flakes or some sort of breading. But to keep this paleo I skipped that step. I did lay some bacon on a few just to try it out and they were tasty. But I wanted to keep the fat down so most of them don’t have bacon.

Bake these in an oven at 350 until browned on top. This will take about 30 minutes. I got to mowing the yard and lost track of time. ooops. But they came out excellent regardless.

These can be eaten warm or cold. Traditionally they were put in a workers lunch cold for them to eat at work. They are very hearty and one makes an excellent breakfast. They can also be frozen for a later date so you don’t get hard boiled egg overload.

Avocado egg boats on a sea of sausage with seaweed

I started working out at Crossfit Lumberton about two weeks ago. I’m still not a fan, but I’m going to keep it up because I certainly need the exercise. T has been a coach for awhile and I feel like I’ve been part of the family. I just took the next logical step and joined. (mmm Kool-Aid) Along with joining I’m getting back on the paleo wagon. This was a long time coming as I’ve gained a lot of weight and started getting sick again. Yuck. So Sunday will mark one week in to my strict paleo no cheats no alcohol 30 day challenge.   Mostly I’ve been eating a baked or grilled meat with broccoli or spinach, nothing creative. However, Friday night I guess running my behind off and using lots of curse words while working out made me creative, hence this crazy concoction.

I have to give credit to Cassi and Krissi for filling my FB page of talk of avocado boats. This was just one step further towards Ron Swanson. The entire thing was super easy to make. You can adjust the ingredients to your liking, but this is what I did. I made “seaweed” out of collard greens. (I omitted the butter and used water instead of stock) I love greens they are so delicious. If you don’t like greens make a salad or something. I think this meal needs something green on bottom.

Avocado Egg Boats on a Sea of Sausage

2 spicy sausages

2 eggs

1 large avocado sliced in half with peel removed

1 roma tomato diced

a few tablespoons of  fresh cilantro

dash of hot Cajun seasoning

Strip the casing from the sausage and pat down into an oven safe bowl.

If you have time go ahead and make your own sausage it’s much better for you. Bake in the bowl for about 15 minutes.

I hate eating runny egg whites so I partially pre cooked my eggs.

When they were that icky consistency of runny whites on top, I ungracefully slid them on to my avocados into the hole left by the seed.

Then I put them on the sausage and broiled them until they were my desired doneness. About 7 minutes. I sprinkled cilantro and tomatoes on top with a dash of hot Cajun seasoning.

These were super good and I will make them again. This meal could easily have fed two people but it was my one meal of the day aside from a protein shake for lunch and I was hungry.

Paleo Meatloaf

T sent me a text message today that said “meat puck s= f—-ing amazing”. I think that is as good an endorsement as any for this recipe right here. I used a food processor to grind up all the veggies and mixed a few different kinds of meat to make meatloaf. The hands on time is quick and would be a great make ahead meal that you can just pop in the oven when you get home from work. I made one regular loaf and 12 muffin sized (or meat pucks if you prefer). This is a great recipe for those of you keeping paleo and it’s great for kids who don’t like their veggies because there is a bunch in here, but you can’t tell.

Paleo Meatloaf

3 lbs of 80/20 ground beef (this was on sale but get whatever fat content you prefer)

16 oz hot Italian sausage

16oz ground pork

3 bell peppers (I used red and yellow)

4 small full sized carrots (mine were kind of thin for a full sized carrot)

2 yellow onions

1 head of garlic

4 eggs

1 can of tomato paste

3 tsp oregano

2 tsp salt

2tsp black pepper

2 tsp garlic powder

2tsp onion powder

1 tsp smoked paprika

In a food processor throw all of your veggies and blend. Make sure to trim off stems, seeds, and the skins first. In a large bowl mix the blended veggies with your meats, eggs, paste, and your spices by hand.

Transfer the mixture to a greased loaf pan. This will be where the bulk of your meat goes. In a muffin pan place the remaining meat. Cook at 400 until cooked through. Times will vary because of the size of each. The muffins/pucks will take about an hour, the loaf about 2.

Because there is a lot of vegetables in this recipe make sure to bake on a cookie tray to catch the drippings. I also advise to cover it with tinfoil because it will burn easier.

Everything is better with guacamole!

Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes

I love PaleoOMG. She is a foul mouthed gal with great taste in food. T made these recently using her recipe.

They were so good after I ate them all I had to have more. I ate them almost every day for breakfast and a few nights for dinner. I love them with an egg and some spinach like you see here. Seriously you need to go over to her site and try this recipe! I ground up my own sausage for the second batch but if you don’t have a meat grinder store bought is good too.

Sausage, Meatballs, and Red Sauce

I got to visit my grandparents for Christmas this year. My grandma is Italian. Needless to say my pants do not fit now. My grandma makes wonderful Italian food. When we showed up there was a big pot of sausages and meatballs simmering on the stove. They’d been cooking all day. It was so good I think I ate half of it. This is my paleo version of it. This recipe is not quick and requires a lot of hands on time. You could take a short cut and use premade sauce or meatballs, but then you’d be cheating yourself on the taste.

Meatballs

3 lbs of ground beef (2 was 90/10 and 1 was 93/7 if you like more or less fat adjust accordingly)

3 eggs

2 tbsp of fresh Italian seasoning (I found this in a squeeze tube next to the fresh herbs)

2 tbsp garlic powder

1 tbsp onion powder

1 tbsp salt

1tsp black pepper

 

Mix meat and seasonings until combined.

Roll out meatballs. I like a larger meatball so this made 22 for me.

In a large stock pot brown all the meatballs in about 1 tbsp of olive oil. I used 10 store made (gluten free) sausages and cut them in half and browned them too. The meat is just browned not cooked through.

I had to freeze about 6 balls and 5 slices of sausage because they wouldn’t fit!

Place them on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven on warm. I wasn’t trying to cook them just keep them from cooling off.

Red Sauce

3 lbs of fresh tomatoes diced

3 cloves of garlic minced

1 onion minced

½ cup of red wine

2 tbsp of fresh Italian seasoning

1 tsp of garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

2 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

1 small can of tomato paste

That right there is the beginning of delicious!

In the same pot you browed your meats add about 2 tbsp of olive oil and the onions. Cook on medium high for two minutes. At this point there should be lots of bits stuck to the bottom of your pot. Add the wine in carefully and begin to scrape the bottom of the pot. If you have enamel pots like this one please use a wooden spoon to scrape so you don’t ruin the enamel. Continue to cook until the wine is almost all cooked off.

This will take about 5 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and cook covered on medium until the tomatoes are cooked down. This takes about an hour.

You’ll know when it is done because it looks like tomato sauce. I removed half of the sauce and blended it smooth. If you prefer a chunkier sauce don’t blend. If you prefer a smoother sauce blend it all. Make sure to remove the center piece in the lid of your blender and cover with a towel. This keeps the sauce from exploding all over the counter. Add the blended sauce in with the unblended sauce, mix in the paste. Add back your meat and any juice that may have cooked out. Cover and cook on low for another two hours.

We ate these just like this. If you like, some spaghetti squash would be good too. Enjoy and feel like you are in your own Italian grandmother’s kitchen.

 

Stephen’s Sausage Fest

Hehehe okay, sorry for the raunchy title. My friend Stephen was lamenting about store bought sausage not being super paleo. I told him that he needs to start making it for himself instead. He came up with the title.

With a meat grinder you can make super tasty sausage that you can feel happy knowing what exactly you are eating. I don’t use casing for my sausage but if you decided to go that route double check the ingredients because a lot of casings are full of food products and strange additives that you might not want to put in your body. Natural animal casing is the best way to go there.

You need to work with frozen meat.

Hot Italian Sausage

1 pork loin diced in inch cubes and frozen

1tbsp 1tsp garlic powder

1tbsp 1tsp Italian seasoning

1tbsp 1tsp red pepper

1tbsp black pepper

1tsbsp kosher salt

2tsp thyme

2tsp rosemary

2tsp oregano

3tbsp bacon fat

Cut your loin into smaller chunks ~1 inch cubes. Freeze the chunks and the meat grinder unit. What will happen is the pork fat, when warm, junks up the grinding plates and you are stuck scraping them every few minutes. It’s a huge pain and almost not worth it. If everything is frozen you bypass this problem. I grind it once on the large setting. Then I mix all the remaining ingredients in to the meat with a fork. You want to try and not warm it up too much. If it’s totally unfrozen just put it on a cookie sheet and set it in the freezer for a few minutes while you enjoy some tasty sangria and the fine company.  Then regrind the meat with the seasonings. I use the same size grinding plate so it’s not so fine.

That’s it. You now have tasty sausage you can use to stuff vegetables or eat for breakfast. Always make a test patty to make sure the seasoning is what you want. The adding of fat is important to keep it moist. If you have a fatty cut of meat you don’t necessarily have to add fat. Again, a test patty is key in trouble shooting your delicious sausage.

I made patties the next morning. I browned them in a pan then finished cooking them in the oven with some brussel sprouts for breakfast. It was super tasty!