Cavemanwich Sloppy Joes (Paleo + Whole30)

I don't know about you guys, but I grew up eating Sloppy Joes made with ground beef (or ground soy "meat" once my parents went vegetarian, eiw) mixed with a can o' Manwich on white sandwich buns and loving every messy bite.  It's funny how, even after you clean up your diet and eliminate all those artificial ingredients, you can still crave that exact comforting taste.

Turns out, you can still have those delicious, childhood flavors without all the high fructose corn syrup and fillers.  What?  Real food can be just as delicious as artificially flavored, engineered-to-be-addictive, laboratory food?  Yes.  I'll prove it.

I've added back nightshades in the last few weeks and, boy, did I miss them.  There are just some things that I cannot replicate... YET.  I plan to try. Believe me.  So, for now, I present you all the comforting flavors of your childhood in all their nightshade-y glory.  Though please, cross your fingers and toes that I'll have a follow up in a week or two of these same flavors WITHOUT all their nightshade-y glory.  Yes, I want AIP Manwich.  Cus I can... I hope.

Oh, and it's Whole30 friendly.  You're welcome.


Cavemanwich

1/2 tbsp cooking fat (I used bacon grease, but anything will work)
1/2 red onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 lb ground beef
1 (6oz) can tomato paste
1/2 cup apple juice
1/2-1 cup water
1 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 tbsp coconut aminos
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
more salt + pepper to taste
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar (ACV) - optional

Melt your cooking fat in a sauté pan over medium high heat.
Once hot/melted, add your chopped onions and cook until translucent, approximately 3 minutes.
Add minced garlic and cook, stirring constantly, another minute or until fragrant (mmm, garlicky goodness).
Crumble in your ground beef and cook until browned.
Add all remaining ingredients (starting with 1/2 cup water) and reduce heat to medium low and simmer until desired thickness is reached (15-30 minutes), stirring regularly.
Add more salt and any pepper to taste.
Serve over baked sweet potato, plantains, greens or even bread if you're feeling frisky.

Note: if your mix has reduced, but the flavor is still tomatoey, add additional water and continue to simmer.
Note 2: I leave the ACV as optional because, though it makes a more authentic taste, we actually like it best without.  Try it both ways or start without, taste after its cooked down for a bit, then add it and simmer some more if you feel it needs it.  Taste is so individual, isn't it?

I particularly liked it served over a baked sweet potato with a side of lemony baby kale.  Like childhood, but better.

Horseradish Beef Stew (Paleo + AIP)

I am a terrible blogger.  I don't sit down and go "I have to come up with something amazing today to share with people, especially since I haven't blogged in a week (or two, or three)", I just occasionally make something I love SO much that I have to share.  Sometimes that takes a month or two.  Sorry, guys.  But guess what?  This is one of those occasions.
Ah man, stew.  I bloody love stew.  I grew up with my mom making typical beef stew.  Ya know, chunks of beef and potatoes and carrots in a thick gravy made with flour.  So simple, yet so delicious. Then she went vegetarian... so no more beef stew.  And it's really hard to find a good stew.  You see all these "stews" with a thin broth base.  That's not stew.  That's soup.  Like how Manhattan Clam Chowder isn't chowder.  I'm from New England, I know these things.
I learned how to recreate my mom's stew last year using cornstarch to thicken, so I could share with my gluten free roommate.  But now, with corn off limits, I haven't had much luck getting the right thickness with arrowroot.  It just wouldn't cooperate.
So, imagine my joy when I made this beauty.  I didn't really set out to make a stew like I remembered.  I just wanted a tasty combination of beef and horseradish.  Instead, I got magical stew.  Have I said stew enough yet today? Stew.  Stew.  STEW.

Anyway.  Yes, there are lots of ingredients, but I promise.  It's easy.  So easy, a caveman could do it (see what I did there?  PALEO).

Why is my stove always dirty?

Horseradish Beef Stew

Ingredients:

2-3 lbs stew beef/chuck roast
2 tbsp cooking fat
1 red onion, chopped
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup red wine (broth works too, but won't be as rich)
4 cups broth (I used chicken, but I bet beef is rich and amazing)
3 medium carrots
1 large sweet potato
1 cup green beans
3-5 tbsp prepared horseradish*
S&P

*aim for one with no additives except vinegar and salt.  I used Boar's Head

Note:  stew is amazingly flexible.  Don't worry about exactness of the ingredients.  I'm an "approximate" kind of cook anyway.  Don't even worry about cooking time.  You could probably tack on another hour before you add the green beans and it'll just get more tender and amazing.


Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 and move top rack down to bottom 1/3 of oven
If using chuck roast, chop into 1 inch cubes.  Apply lots of salt and pepper to beef (seriously, don't be stingy)
Heat fat in dutch oven to medium high
Brown meat in batches, remove to a bowl and set aside
Add chopped onion to dutch oven to soften, then add garlic for 1-2 minutes, until fragrant
Pour in cup of wine (or broth), stirring to get bits from the bottom
Simmer to reduce for 5 minutes
Add broth and bring to a boil
Add back beef, including any juice in the bowl, and cover
Place in oven for one hour
Meantime, chop carrots and sweet potato into small cubes, cut green beans into 1/3s
After hour, add carrots and sweets, cook for another hour (you can go longer, don't worry about over cooking), still covered
Finally, mix in green beans.  The sweet potatoes will be a falling apart mess.  THIS IS GOOD!  Let them do their thing as you stir.
Cover and put back in the oven for another 20-30 minutes, depending how soft or crunchy you like your beans.
Stir in horseradish to taste.  You can even leave it out and let individuals add to their bowls if you've got someone who dislikes horseradish (weirdos).  Add s&p to taste, but between the seasoning from the beef and the horseradish, you might be good to go.


The miracle of this stew is that 1.5 hours is way too long for those small chunks of sweet potato and they start falling apart and blending into the broth.  Boom.  Your broth is now gravy.  Now go forth and enjoy this deliciousness.

I usually add more horseradish.  Cus, yum.

Beef and brussel stuffed carnival squash

Well, today certainly had its ups and downs. I woke feeling just a little bit of that "new things!" excitement, took all my before measurements and pictures and moseyed down to make breakfast and lunch. Success.  I roasted come carrots and chicken legs and scrambled a couple eggs with smoked salmon. I took my vitamins, got dressed and headed to work.

That's where the down part came in. I hoped to ride the new things high through the day, at least, before the inevitable bout of cravings and miserableness hit me on day two or three. Unfortunately, the headache I've been suffering at work hit immediately and harder than usual (this is another thing I'm hoping to fix, for sure). The first half of this week was pretty rough, emotionally and I'm still regaining control. I was just enough distracted still to not accomplish much today. On top of that, I realized that I didn't check the ingredients in my vitamins before taking them this morning. Turns out, one of them has rice flour AND soy lecithin. Sigh. So now I have to decide if I am starting day one again tomorrow without the lawbreaking vitamins or if I continue taking them as a daily cheat... Hmm. 

But hey, upside! I made a super tasty and simple dinner tonight! Wanna see it?

Beef and brussel stuffed carnival squash

Ingredients

1 carnival squash

1/2 lb ground beef

2 cups Brussels sprouts

S&P 

Preheat oven to 400, cut squash in half and scrape out seeds (save them for roasting!). Place cut side down in a pan and bake for 30-45 minutes, until soft. 

Remove the hard nobs at the end of the Brussels sprouts and slice in half. 

Crumble and brown the beef in a pan. If using grass fed beef, reserve the fat in the pan and remove the meat to a bowl (if using regular beef though, drain the fat and add your own cooking fat to the pan).

Add the sprouts to the fat and cook until easily pierced with a fork. Add back the browned meat and season with salt and pepper to taste. 

Fill the hollow in the center of each squash half with beef and sprout mixture. 

Scoop out forkfuls of delicious!

Slow Cooker Mocha Pot Roast

Mmm, pot roast. You're probably looking at the title, thinking I'm crazy, but I assure you, I am quite sane... Well, ok, I'm sorta sane... But I am right about this! I got inspiration for this from my chocolate chili. Then I googled it and was both bummed and justified to discover that I wasn't the first to think of it, there are recipes all over! I went ahead with it anyway and was not disappointed. Cocoa might be my new favorite seasoning for beef. It adds a ...something... that I can't quite describe to it, but it's a smooth sort of flavor. The coffee seemingly did the same. I'm definitely going to be making this again, possibly during my detox! Anyway, here's the deal:

Slow Cooker Mocha Pot Roast

2lb beef roast

2tbsp cocoa

2tsp paprika

1tsp cinnamon 

1tsp sea salt

1/2tsp cumin

1/2tsp ground ginger 

1/2tsp black pepper

1/4tsp cayenne

1 med onion

2 cups strong coffee

Mix spices together to create a rub. Pat roast dry and apply spices on all sides. 

Chop up onion in wedges and add to the bottom of the pot, pour coffee over. 

Heat oil in a pan over medium high heat and sear sides of meat.

(Unless you have one of those large, oblong cookers, I don't recommend getting a huge, rectangle roast like I did. It barely fit in the damn pot and some bits were dry in the end)

Settle roast on top of onions and coffee and set slow cooker to low. Leave for 8 hours or until internal temperature is between 145-170. 

 

Goes very well with simple roasted butternut squash! Happy eats!

Slow cooker chocolate chili

Man, it's been a long day... Week... Month... Whatever. Preparing tasty food energizes me. There are lots of things that I'd never cooked before 6 months ago. Chili was one of those things. It always just seemed so scary and complicated. Not to mention I loathe cutting onions. Like, really. Eventually, I realized that onions are a necessary (delicious) evil. I'd still rather not cut them and am pretty good at wheedling someone else to do it for me (hint: bribe 'em with chocolate), but it has opened many doors for food. Like chili. 

I started researching chili and discovered, it's really not so hard. Meat, tomatoes, onions and spices and cook forever! Still, making really good chili is less easy. My first attempt was meh...this time... I think I fixed all the issues. Now, I didn't want the regular, most common chili flavor and I found a lot of recipes for chocolate chili in my searches. Needless to say, I was intrigued. Chocolate AND chili? Yes please. 

Wanna see what I came up with?

Bam. Bowl of delicious. Oh, and it's Paleo. 

Slow Cooker Chocolate Chili

1 large vidalia onion, diced

6 cloves garlic, minced

2 pounds ground beef

1 teaspoon oregano

1-2 tablespoons chili powder

2 tablespoons ground cumin

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

Optional: 1-2 tablespoons chili flakes for some BURN

1 teaspoon ground allspice

1 teaspoon salt

1 (28 oz) can diced tomatoes

1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and add ground beef, crumbling and stirring into the pan to brown.

Drain some of the fat from the ground beef and add contents of pan into your crock pot, then toss in your diced onions, garlic and spices, mixing well.

Add canned tomatoes.  Stir well and turn crock pot on low.  Let sit covered for 8-9 hours.  Perfect to leave for the work day!

Butternut Squash Lasagna

Fair warning: I'm currently OBSESSED with butternut squash. So, you're going to be hearing a lot about it. 

Particularly since I bought 4 of them last week. Also an acorn squash, just cus. 

That's a damn lot of squish. Ya know what? I'm gonna eat it ALL. Well, most of it, I'll share some...

I finally got to make the lasagna I've been dying for since early summer. Guess. What?! It was delicious!

This is a pretty simple and very tasty option. Wanna know how I did it? Of course you do!

Butternut Squash Lasagna

Ingredients

1 butternut squash

2 lbs ground beef, turkey or sausage

2-3 cups marinara sauce (from a jar or homemade!)

Optional: mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 400, brown meat in a skillet (we used ground beef and added spices to make it taste like sausage. Hint: the key is FENNEL), drain and set aside. 

Peel and slice squash into planks or medallions about 1/8-1/4 inch thick. I had a large squash and only used the neck to make medallions (with my trusty mandoline!) I reserved the peeled and seeded bulb for other tasty uses. 

Time to start layering! Spoon a layer of marinara onto the bottom of your casserole dish (as thick or thin as you like, I love LOTS of sauce. This will prevent your squish from sticking. Lay out your squash planks or medallions, let them overlap if you went on the thinner side and leave them side by side if thicker. Add half the meat and then top with more marinara. Add some cheese if you're into that sorta thing. Continue layering until you run out of room or ingredients...

Make sure the top layer is marinara (or cheese over that). Place dish in the oven for 30-40 minutes. 

I took it out at 30 for slightly more firm squash. The sauce should be bubbly. Let sit for at least another 15 to allow sauce to thicken. This'll help it stay together and look very pretty once plated. :)

This makes for fantastic leftovers too, by the way. Once the flavors have had a day to meld together. Make extra!