Beefy Soup

So many vegetables! I could just eat them raw.

I’ve been super lucky throughout my pregnancy. I’ve been very healthy through most of it. I’ve only had cravings for healthy food, mostly broccoli. I’ve been working on stocking up some pre made food for after I have my baby. I wanted to make something that would be great from before baby and recovery after baby. This soup is made with marrow bone broth and ox tail, along with a whole host of amazing vegetables. The extra iron and vitamins in the soup will really be beneficial for  any woman but especially the post labor woman in your life. After I made it I realized that I just and to have tomatoes! So I went back and added a few can of diced tomatoes, and some tomato paste. It really kicked up the heartiness of the soup. However, I don’t have any pictures of beefy soup 2.0 so just imagine how great it looks!

 

Beefy Soup

Bone Marrow Broth – go here for that recipe

7 ox tail pieces (give or take your own preferences)

1 medium onion diced

2 red bell peppers diced (about 2-2.5 cups for the next four ingredients)

1 small butternut squash diced

4-5 stalks of diced celery

4-5 carrots diced

a head of garlic chopped (yes a head, it’s recovery soup! garlic is good for that)

1.5 heads of kale ripped up.

1 tbsp black pepper

1 tsp hot peppers or cayenne (remember, recovery)

1 tsp parsley

1/2 tsp thyme

1/2 tsp smoky paprika

1/4 tsp majoram

1/4 tsp savory

(2-3 cans of diced tomatoes and 2 cans of tomato paste)

 

meat, meat, meat, yummy meat

Frist brown your meat in a very large stock pot. Everything will be going into this pot eventually so make sure it’s big. I like to brown the meat because it adds a lovely depth to the flavor. These ox tails had a thick side of fat, so I started with that side first to render some fat to cook them in. See? I’m smart. Brown all sides, and set aside.

This is where the magic starts. The bottom of the pan will have all sorts of meat and fat stuck to it. By cooking the onions, the moisture will help loosen up that deliciousness, giving that depth I was talking about. Cook onions until they are starting to become translucent. Note they are not actually browning, that’s the good stuff stuck in the pan adhering now to the onions. Lucky onions.

When your onions are soft, add the squash and the red peppers. Keep temperature at medium high and occasionally stir vegetables. Cook for about 4 minutes.

Add in carrots and celery. Continue cooking for another 5 minutes.

Add seasonings, meat, and broth. Look at all that dark rich goodness! Bring soup to a slow boil for about 15 minutes. Add in kale for last two minutes. You can also skip the boiling and cook on low for about an hour. When all the vegetables are soft and your meat is cooked through your soup is done. Now I said above that I decided this soup would be even better with tomatoes. I wish I thought of that first! Add about 2-3 cans of diced tomatoes and two cans of tomato paste when you add in your broth. It gives it a great rich color and really ups the flavor. But this soup was delicious just as it was, but even better with the tomatoes. I left the meat on the bones. It’s a preference thing. If you’d rather not have bones in your soup you can remove the meat after you boil it.

beefy soup

This makes a ton of soup. I planned on that because I wanted to freeze a bunch for post baby meals. This is a great fall/winter soup that’s super hearty and would make a great gift for a friend in need of a bit of an immune boost.

 

Burgerspiration

It’s hot. Oh you didn’t know summer was hot? *wink* Summer is for cooking outside and eating burgers! This burger more closely resembles a salad when done. I don’t really try to replace the bun with something paleo. I like to have lots of toppings on my burgers so it just ends up a mess anyways.

This glorious mess is tomatoes, onions, avocados, cheese (primal), bacon, lettuce, and a homemade mix of mayo and siracha. T had easy eggs on his too. The burger patties I seasoned with the quad of seasonings I use in EVERYTHING; garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, and salt. The grocery store had thick delicious patties on sale so I didn’t mix them or shape them. Sometimes when it’s so hot, it’s nicer to do nothing.

The orange spikes are some mango that was also on sale! If fruit is cheap its in season and delicious.

People will rib you for not eating a bun at first. They will understand when you pile all the amazing stuff on top. I’ve actually done this at a few BBQs and had non paleo eaters follow suit because they wanted to fill up on the yummy stuff and not bread. So grab a fork and knife and dig into a burger this grilling season.

What are you favorite burger toppings?

Tuesday’s Meals of the Day

For lunch I ate a mess of different things. It was a clean out the fridge sort of meal. I had the chicken and cabbage from last night’s dinner. A Stuffed bell pepper primal and not paleo because of the addition of cheese. One meatball with tomato sauce homemade from the garden. Actually all the vegetables in this meal are home grown!

I snacked on some raw zucchini. Rawr!

Dinner was Tandoori chicken with sweet potatoes (canned and gifted from my lovely friend Sarah) and zucchini. If you are noticing a zucchini trend it’s because we have tons of it the size of small babies coming from our garden. The tandoori was a paste I bought at the store. It doesn’t contain any sugar so I can recommend it to my paleo pals. I used a few spoonfuls to marinate the chicken overnight then added coconut milk and let it slow cook while did Helen in the rain.

Paleo tip #2 – use what’s in season. It’s cheaper, it’s fresher, and better for you. My general rule is that if you are paying much more than $1 a pound, it’s not in season. This of course doesn’t apply to certain veggies. I can never find asparagus or artichokes that cheap. If you can’t find it fresh go frozen. They freeze it in peak freshness so it’s pretty close to being fresh. Canned is okay if you watch the salt content.

A Week of Meals

I have several friends that are new to paleo eating. In honor of them I will be posting my meals for each day. I usually eat twice a day with tons of water in the middle.

This was breakfast:

I had leftover zucchini noodles from meatballs last night so I thought they’d make a good breakfast. I served that with two eggs, some tomatoes from the garden and bacon. I made extra bacon and had a few slices as a snack in between.

This was dinner:

The unfortunate theme of dinner was “oops I burned it!” The cabbage and the chicken are both a little toasty. I had grilled chicken, braised cabbage, and raw zucchini slices. Again all the vegetables are from the garden.

I also had a few raw unsalted cashews, and a glass of kombucha (fermented tea) but that would make for a boring picture so I didn’t take it.

I hope that by posting my daily meals I can help inspire a few of you to try paleo too. It’s really not that hard. One of the biggest suggestions I have right now is to stop trying to find substitutes for your favorite grain food. Don’t look for a paleo bread or muffin. Instead think about making meat and veggies the star. Up there for I mentioned that I use leftover zucchini noodles. I just take a whole zucchini and peel it with a juiliane peeler.

Homegrown

I have 4 zucchini/summer squash plants that are producing about 3-5 large squash every day. I have eaten a lot of zucchini and squash lately. I’m going to have to start freezing some to make space for more. I’m so happy for my produce abundance!

The plants were so large I actually had to prune them back a bit. Those were all stalks of leave where you see the tubes.

I’ve eaten it in hash for breakfast.I’ve eaten it in noodle shape for dinner.

I’ve eaten it grilled at least 4 nights a week.

My cucumbers are also quite happy and productive.

Mostly they are eaten in salad. I’m looking for some new interesting ways to eat them because they don’t freeze well. Do you have any ideas?

My tomatoes are just starting to ripen. I can’t wait for those. I also have some peppers popping up. Peppers take forever though so I’m not really crossing my fingers for anything soon there.

With Lola on the pest control my collard greens and cabbage are coming back. Tonight I’m having my first harvest of collard greens in a few weeks. The caterpillars took their toll on the leaves.

I also am very excited about these.

They are weeds!

I started letting them grow two years ago because I thought they were pretty and I realized they were berry plants. This year they have had their first berries. These are not ripe yet but I can’t wait until they are!

mmmm homegrown.

Are you tending a garden? How are your crops looking right now?

Gyros

My friend Brittany over at B-ing paleo fabulous and I had a friendly little cook off for a going away party. Two of our friends are moving to Georgia to open up their own crossfit gym and they had a surprise going away party. Brian had said he wanted gyros. I thought it would be fun to bring these to surprise them and see our two takes on the gyro, Brittany agreed.

These are my gyros that I brought to the party. Brittany’s gyros are here on her site. We got to the party late so I didn’t get to try hers but they looked really good. She went with the authentic lamb meat. I used a combination of beef and pork. She did a pulled meat and I tried to go with ground meat on a rotisserie.

Brian was of course very diplomatic and said they were both great. So we may never know who won. It was; however, fun, challenging, and delicious. I think we might have to pair up again to try something else exciting Brittany makes such good food that she’s a good motivator.

Gyros

2.5 lbs of beef

.5 lbs of pork jowl (pretty much bacon)

1 onion finely processed and drained

1 tbsp of fresh thyme

1tbsp of fresh rosemary

1 tbsp of parsley

1 tsp of marjoram

1 tsp of red pepper

1 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp black pepper

7 cloves of garlic

juice of one lemon

Tzaziki Sauce

1 can of coconut milk

¼ red onion

1 tbsp fresh mint

4 garlic cloves

juice of one lemon

To me authentic gyros are the kind that are ground and cooked over an open rotisserie. Then when you want some you shave off some meat and add fresh veggies, feta, and tzaziki sauce. So that is what I tried to do here. After some research into how to achieve this method I set forth. I blended all the ingredients until it was a paste.

Then I tightly wrapped the meat in plastic wrap.

It was kind of like twisting a candy wrapper to get it tight.

Then I placed a heavy cook book on top of that.

The point of all this is to make a tight compact loaf that you can then skewer and rotisserie. I refrigerated my meat loaf over night to let the flavors meld and to squish the daylights out of it. The next morning I skewered the meat and placed it in my rotisserie.

T had very pessimistic views about the meat staying on the skewer. I had my fingers crossed. I mean it worked for Alton Brown! But, T was correct. It fell off after a few minutes of cooking.

So I left it on the tray and let it cook for 1.5 hours at 350 until cooked through.

When it was done I sliced it thin. Traditionally you’d eat this with pita bread. I went with romaine lettuce to keep it primal.

To assemble you take a leaf of romaine, some slices of meat, red onion sliced thin, tomatoes, cucumbers, feta crumbles (omit if you are paleo), and the tzaziki sauce (traditionally a yogurt based dressing but again, I wanted to keep it as paleo as possible). Here is Brian enjoying his second gyro of the day. I was really happy with the final product. I think it had all the flavors that I was looking for in a gyro. Next time I might try to just cook it in a loaf pan.

Brian and Sabrina we will miss you and wish you the best of luck in Savannah!

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!

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.

 

Mary’s Stuffed Peppers

I was sent this message the other day. “I have a great recipe for stuffed peppers. How about we come over and make it at your house and drink sangria?” How in the world do you say no to that proposal? Someone wants to come over make me food and bring tasty wine? Uh why hasn’t this happened sooner? Hehe. Well Mary did come over. She brought delicious food and wine. It was a great time. It felt strange to do nothing but take pictures and drink, but it was worth it!

Below is her recipe and a few of my comments.

Stuffed Bell Peppers

1lb of ground beef
2 TBS minced garlic
2 TBS Basil
2 TBS Oregano
2 TBS Onion Powder
1 TBS Chili Powder
1 TBS Paprika
2 large bell peppers
1 medium white onion, chopped
1 medium zucchinni, chopped
6 small mushrooms, chopped
1 can petite diced tomatoes
1 small can of tomato sauce
1 cup of parsley, chopped

Mix ground beef with half of the garlic, basil and oregano, all of the onion powder, chili powder, parsley, and paprika.

“Check out the proper crossfit wear on Stephen! Sicfit and meat. Goes great together.“
Cut the tops and bottoms off of the bell peppers, strip of seeds and membrane and slice into thick rings. You should get two rings from one large bell pepper.

You can cut up the tops and bottoms to saute in with the onion for the sauce, but if my kids are around, I just give it to them.

These kids loved veggies! I’ve never seen kids fight over peppers and guacamole.

Stuff the meat mixture into the peppers.

Put in a hot pan with olive oil to sear on both sides, and load into a baking dish.

Glass works best.

Get them as close to each other as possible. Saute the onion in olive oil until clear.

You can use the same pan. Add the zucchini and mushrooms and saute for a few minutes. Mushrooms will be soft and the squash may start to brown a little. Add the remaining seasoning and tomato products and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat and simmer for a few minutes, pour on top of the peppers, and bake at 425 for about thirty minutes.

You should be able to cut the peppers with a fork when they’re done.

This was a super tasty meal and so pretty!