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?

Wednesday’s Meals

Breakfast today was 3 scrambled eggs, 6ish pieces of bacon, and 1.5 cups of broccoli. Breakfast was a bit larger than normal because there was a particularly killer WOD today. I upped the protein hoping it would help to give me the boost I needed. In the end I couldn’t finish all this and left some egg and bacon for later. The bacon I cooked all at once a few days ago for ease later in the week.

Snack was a mix of cashews, unsweetened coconut, and pecans. I don’t always snack, but on nights T coaches I find I need something to carry myself over until dinner which happens after 8:30.

Dinner was a mix of mustard and collard greens with chorizo and eggs. I love chorizo and eggs. We are running low on proteins and I haven’t gone grocery shopping yet. That’s why I had eggs twice today, plus they are super easy to cook. I know it’s not very creative but It’s okay. Tomorrow We’ll have something made from pork shoulder that can be made slowly in a crock pot or stove top.

As always I drink tons of water, a few cups of coffee (less today because I was so excited about rowing time trials), and a glass of kombucha.

I also thinned out the garden to make way for some new crops. I planted beans, peas, corn (I know it’s not paleo), two kinds of hard squash, watermelon, cantaloupe, and oregano. I tore out all but one cucumber because I honestly am kind of tired of them. I cut back the zucchini to four main plants, again getting a bit tired of zucchini. I have a freezer stocked with plenty of zucchini for the winter. Hopefully our new diversity will grow as well as the first round of plants.

Paleo tip 3- That bacon fat you drain off when cooking it makes for a perfect cooking fat. If you cook it like I do on a baking rack  the fat is much cleaner too. Just store it in an old glass jar with a lid. I  keep mine in the fridge but the counter is fine too. next time you roast your veggies use a little bacon fat to cook them, so good. (if you keep your fat in the fridge do not pour fresh super hot oil into the cold hard fat in the jar. It will shatter.)

Monday

Tuesday

What did you eat today?

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.

Paleo Buns

This recipe has been around a few times before but in case you haven’t seen it before, behold…

Paleo Bread

1/4 cup almond flour

2 tbsp flax meal

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp fat

1 egg

salt

 

Mix all ingredients. Oil a baking dish and our batter in. Bake at 350 until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Approximately 20 minutes.

What come out very closely resembles bread. I tried to build a grand hamburger on this bad boy and it couldn’t stand up to the test. However, I have used this recipe for breakfast sandwiches on a smaller scale and they were amazing. So if you are craving bread this is quick to make and is pretty spot on.

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.

Kibbeh part 2

In Wednesday’s post I said I made a variation of this recipe for dinner. If you are interested here is the variation. I’ve made this a few times with tweaks to the seasoning and filling. Essentially it is a meat paste with seasoning, green filling with nuts, and a nut flour crust. The preparation is time consuming so it is not a good week night meal. However, it freezes well so make a bunch and freeze in batches for when you want them. I served this with a coconut milk mint raita. Raita is an Indian sauce used to cool down spicy foods. With a little whipping in a food processor and some xanthan gum the coconut milk thickened up just like yogurt. I added fresh mint for flavor.

I put about 2 lbs of pork loin and 1 lb of chicken thighs into a food processor and blended until it made a paste. I know it sounds gross but when you’re done it won’t be. I added garlic powder, coriander, onion powder, ground ginger, salt, and black pepper. I didn’t measure the seasonings but if I had to guess I’d say about 1tbs of everything then adjust from there. I made a test patty to make sure the meat wasn’t dry or without flavor. With pork loin if there is not enough fat the meat will be dry which is why I added the chicken. You can also add bacon fat or trim fat off another cut of meat. Refrigerate the meat paste for a few hours. This allows the flavors to mingle and the meat to rest.

While that chilled, I sautéed a minced onion with ~4 cloves of minced garlic in some olive oil. When the smell became less pungent and the onions started looking clear I added a frozen block of spinach. I’ve found that cooked spinach is better than fresh because the fresh loses so much volume when in the oven. Cook until the spinach is no longer frozen, then pass a knife thorough the spinach a few times to break any larger leaves apart. Set this to the side in a bowl. Using the same pan, heat some olive oil and brown about a cup of pine nuts. Keep an eye on them because they go from tan to black very fast. When the pine nuts are browned add them to your spinach.

To stuff your kibbeh take a small chunk of meat roll it in a ball then flatten it out to a pancake size patty. In the middle add some spinach mixture being careful to keep it from the sides of your pancake. I keep a bowl of water nearby to rinse my hands in between spinach applications. Fold up like a taco and pinch the sides of the pancake smoothing and rolling out any seams. The seams will open up in cooking if you don’t take care to do this step. When you’re done your meat will look like a foot ball.  You can play around with the size of these but my favorite is about the size of my palm. Continue until all your meat is used up.

In a food processor or blender blend almonds and unsweetened coconut shavings until it resembles a fine meal. If you have coconut/almond flour you can use that too. I like the slightly crunchier texture of making it myself. Set up a bowl with whisked eggs and another with some of your almond coconut mixture. Dip a ball in egg, then roll in the nuts, place on an oiled cookie sheet, and repeat. When all your balls are coated with nuts bake in the oven at 350 for an hour. Give these a try and play around with the ingredients. I make them different every time and they are always very tasty.

 

 

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.