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?

Thursday’s Meals

I’m so sad to report that I accidentally deleted most of the pictures I took today. Sad face. To make up for it I’m presenting two new recipes. Gasp! I know it’s been awhile but I’ve finally eaten something that I think is worth sharing. Head on down to dinner if that’s what you came here for, otherwise:

Breakfast- was left over chorizo and eggs with collard and mustard greens.

Lunchish- was some pulled pork that T had pulled from the freezer, and some sliced cucumbers. I said ish because it was slightly larger than a snack but not quite a meal.

Dinner- was pretty good. I made a huge shoulder roast also called a Boston butt. Sam’s club is currently selling two this size for $20. Guys that’s $10 for a huge chunk of meat! That will last these two carnivores several meals.  I served the pork over cabbage and onions. Below are both recipes. I apologize for the lack of pictures again.

Mustard Caraway Spice Rub

5 cloves of garlic

1 tbsp of fresh thyme

2 tsp caraway seeds

2 tsp ground mustard

1 tsp of coriander

1 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp ground oregano (I didn’t have fresh, if I did I’d go with a TBSP)

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cloves

1tbsp of salt

1 tbsp of olive oil

Blend all the ingredients in a food processor. Rub over the entire roast. Place roast in a deep pot or crock pot. Cook on low until tender. Mine cooked 8 hours. This is a meal for a busy day. The seasoning is quick and the cooking is long, perfect for a long working day work. If you use a crock pot or a stock pot with a tight lid you will not have to add any water. But if your crock pot cooks hot or your stock pot doesn’t have a good seal to keep moisture in you’ll want to add a little bit of water to the bottom to prevent burning. The juices will eventually start cooking out so only add a very little. About ¼ cup should be enough.

I made gravy from the drippings with the addition of a bit of xantham gum. It’s considered paleo by most accounts but if you are concerned just omit it.

Cabbage and Onions

1 small head of cabbage sliced thin

1 onion sliced thin

3 cloves of garlic minced

2 tbsp coconut oil

1.5 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup of water

In a frying pan sauté the onions on medium high heat in coconut oil (or any fat you like). When onions start to get clear add the garlic.  Cook for another 3-4 minutes. Add vinegar and cook onions until vinegar evaporates. Add the cabbage and water and turn the heat to medium low. Toss the cabbage a few times to evenly mix onions and garlic. Toss every few minutes and add water if the pan gets too dry. You don’t want to burn your cabbage just cook it until tender. This should take about 20 minutes.

Paleo Tip 4- Go big or go home. I bought about $100 worth of meat today. It took up most of my counter. All of it on sale and in bulk from Sam’s club. It took me 20 minutes to repackage it into meal size portions in freezer bags which involved cutting a huge pork loin into thirds ($20 for the whole thing), Trimming two large shoulder roasts like the one up there so they would fit into bags. Doling out bacon and sausages into smaller bags. We have a deep freeze which is amazing. But, with a little maneuvering you’d be surprised what you can fit in a standard freezer. Buying in bulk will save you money and stock your fridge and freezer until Armageddon. We are going to purchase part of a calf this summer which is another way to save money and get local meat. Find four friends and split the bill.

Past Meals of the Week-

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

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?

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.

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!