Italian Stuffed Peppers

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Looks good, right? Here's what you need:

From Stuffed Peppers

• 3 Bell Peppers cut in half
• 1 lb of grass fed beef
• 6 cloves of minced garlic
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• 8 oz of baby bella mushrooms
• paprika
• Italian seasoning
• Red pepper flakes
• Mozzarella cheese
• 4 slices of slightly overdone bacon (for crumbling at least that's what I told myself after burning it)

When buying your bell peppers, look for peppers with large flat sides. This will keep them from rolling around and spilling out their contents. Cut the peppers in half and pull the seeds out. Try and keep the stem intact. It isn't edible, but it helps to keep the juices from the filling from spilling. You'll want to rinse them and let them dry over a towel for a few minutes.

Think of the filling as a really chunky spaghetti sauce. Start by browning the beef and sauteeing the mushrooms. Use whatever fat you want for sauteeing. I just used the bacon grease and some of the fat that rendered off of the beef.

From Stuffed Peppers

The beef should brown just about the same time that the mushrooms are done. Add the tomatoes, garlic, crumbled bacon, and spices into a large pan or wok and stir. I rarely measure in the kitchen, so here is how much of each spice I used.

From Stuffed Peppers

From Stuffed Peppers

From Stuffed Peppers

Let that simmer for about 2 minutes. After that, I drained some of the liquid off to avoid making a stew. Finally, fill the peppers with the beef mixture, cover them with cheese, and throw them in the broiler for about 2-3 minutes.

From Stuffed Peppers

From Stuffed Peppers

Keep a close eye on the broiler. You don't want these guys to burn after all your hard work! I rotated my peppers halfway through since my broiler doesn't broil very evenly. I really enjoy the taste of a nearly raw pepper with that delicious, juicy filling inside. The crunch of the peppers is a nice addition to a pretty crunchless primal cuisine.

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Feta and Beef Stuffed Mushrooms with Tapenade

These guys may not look the best, but you're going to love the way they taste!

From Feta Cheese Beef Mushrooms with Tapenade

I've been excited about making this all week. Stick with me with the pictures, I didn't get everything photographed because I usually start off with a general idea about how to make a dish then make stuff up as I go.

Here is what I used:

From Feta Cheese Beef Mushrooms with Tapenade

Starting at the pepper grinder going clockwise: Pepper, 2 lbs of button mushrooms(4.00), olive oil (0.25), green olives (0.85), capers (0.10), anchovy paste (optional) (0.05), black olives (1.39), parsley (0.10), 5 garlic cloves (0.10), 85/15 grassfed beef (5.99), 1/4 lb of feta cheese (1.08), *not pictured 1/8 of a yellow onion (0.30), and red pepper flakes (0.02). That's a total of 14.23 for 4 servings @ $3.56 each.

Before starting, go ahead and get your oven preheated to 375. Start by removing the stems from the mushrooms. They should come out easily. Be careful to not break the mushroom caps as you'll want them to catch all the tasty beef juices later.

From Feta Cheese Beef Mushrooms with Tapenade

Put a little olive oil in your hand and dip each mushroom cap in your hand. This step may not be necessary, but it's something I decided to do. Like I said, I make this stuff up as I go. Next, lay out all your mushrooms on a cooking sheet with some parchment paper or foil underneath.

From Feta Cheese Beef Mushrooms with Tapenade

From Feta Cheese Beef Mushrooms with Tapenade

I ended up with 20 good mushroom caps, so I chopped up my feta into 20 small cubes and stuffed them inside the shrooms.

From Feta Cheese Beef Mushrooms with Tapenade

After that, I mixed my beef with 4 grated garlic cloves, 1/8 (1 slice) of an onion, a few shakes of red pepper flakes, and black pepper. Make sure you slice the onion up as fine as you can. If the chunks are too large, it will make the beef watery and it will fall apart. We want it to stay in one big clump on top of the mushrooms.

From Feta Cheese Beef Mushrooms with Tapenade

Portion out the meat and cover each mushroom. 1 lb of beef portioned into balls a little smaller than golf balls worked pretty well for me. When they're all covered, you can put them in the oven at 375 for about half an hour. Remember, your oven is different from mine, so check after 25 minutes and see if they look finished and adjust your time from there.

From Feta Cheese Beef Mushrooms with Tapenade

From Feta Cheese Beef Mushrooms with Tapenade

Now, for the tapenade. Tapenade is a kind of like an olive and caper relish. It's super easy to make. It's a chop 'n' mix topping. Mix 4 oz of drained black olives (I got mine prechopped), 4 oz of drained and chopped green olives (I used the black olive can to measure 4 oz), a small bunch of parsley, 20 capers, and a clove of grated garlic. You may want to add a little olive oil to help keep everything moist. I used about a tablespoon. If you want, you can add a couple drops of anchovy paste or an anchovy fillet. I know a lot of people hate anchovies, so I kept it optional. Also, if you have basil, you can add basil to tapenade as well. It depends on what herbs you like.

From Feta Cheese Beef Mushrooms with Tapenade

When the mushrooms are finished, they should be releasing some delicious beef juices onto the feta, softening the cheese up. Plate the mushrooms up with some tapenade and eat up!

From Feta Cheese Beef Mushrooms with Tapenade

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Beef Bourguignon with Spaghetti Squash

I'm trying my first French meal today. Today's meal is a little more time consuming, making it perfect for a Sunday night dinner. You'll have to set aside a couple of hours if you want to make this taste right, but only about 30 minutes are actually spent cooking. The rest of the time is just waiting.

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Here are the ingredients:

From Beef Bourguignon

Starting at the big yellow squash and going clockwise: spaghetti squash (2.04), salt, ground pepper, Red Wine (I used Trader Joe's 2 buck Chuck @ $2.99), Worcestershire sauce (0.05), Thyme (0.05), Parsnip (0.49), carrot (0.10), yellow onion (0.80), beef bouillon cube (0.10), 2 lbs of boneless pot roast (6.70), 5 strips of bacon (1.85), and 4 cloves of garlic (0.08) - The total cost of this meal is 15.25 and you can get 4 servings for a total of 3.81 per serving.

Disclaimer: Worcestershire sauce is not paleo. It contains soy and HFCS. 2 tbs are used in the marinade, but I cannot find a way to get that flavor without using the sauce. 2 tbs contain 2 grams of sugar, which I think is fairly minimal. Wheat free soy sauce may come close, but I have not tried it yet. The carrots and parsnips are another point of contention among paleos. I find the occasional carrot to be ok despite its sugar content.

Begin by making the marinade: 3/4 of a cup of wine, a pinch of salt, 2 tbs of Worcestershire sauce, and some ground pepper. Cut the meat into 2 inch cubes and mix it into the marinade. Cover it and leave it for at least 30 minutes, but an hour or more is better.

From Beef Bourguignon

From Beef Bourguignon

While the meat marinates, we can get started on some prep work for the rest of the meal. Chop up the onions, parsnip, carrot, and garlic.

From Beef Bourguignon

Begin boiling 2 cups of water and add the bouillon. If you have beef stock, you can skip this step.

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Begin frying up your bacon! Bacon excites me. Cut the bacon into smaller pieces before frying it. It will be used as a topping when the dish is complete.

From Beef Bourguignon

Once the bacon is really crispy, pull the bacon out with tongs and leave the bacon grease in the pan on a medium-high heat.

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Lay your marinated meat on a paper towel and lightly pat it down. You need to remove the excess moisture so that the bacon grease doesn't explode all over your arm. Now take your meat and place it in the pan. I use the center portion of the pan so I can get a really quick sear and lock in the flavors of the marinade. Get a good sear on at least 2 sides.

From Beef Bourguignon

From Beef Bourguignon

Eventually it will look like the picture above. It will take a few minutes, though, so while you're waiting, get the spaghetti squash ready by cutting it in half length ways and preheating the oven to 375.

From Beef Bourguignon

Scoop out the seeds and slimy middle portion.

From Beef Bourguignon

Once they're clean, rub on some olive oil over the entire surface. Add salt and pepper to your taste, but you probably won't need much salt. The dish you're serving this with will be fairly salty on its own.

From Beef Bourguignon

Place the spaghetti squash face down so it can steam itself in the oven.

From Beef Bourguignon

By now, the meat should be about ready to pull out. Use the remaining juice in the pan to fry up your veggies. Add everything but the garlic.

From Beef Bourguignon

Once the veggies are a little brown, add the marinade from the beef, another 3/4 cup of red wine, 1 tsp of dried thyme, and the garlic.

From Beef Bourguignon

Once that is thoroughly mixed, add the beef.

From Beef Bourguignon

Cover the pan with foil. The meat is still a little tough, so letting it simmer for a while will help tenderize the meat. If you have the means to buy ribeye, you don't need to worry about the texture of the meat as much. I've been trying to keep paleo affordable, so I went with the cheaper cut of meat and the free ingredients time and patience.

From Beef Bourguignon

Wait for about an hour. The spaghetti squash and beef will take about this much time until they're ready. We watched a couple episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm and had some seltzer water with lime.

From Beef Bourguignon

After about 50 minutes to an hour, the squash will look wrinkled, indicating it is finished.

From Beef Bourguignon

You can now see the strands of "spaghetti" beginning to seperate. Scrape the squash perpendicular to the "spaghetti" to remove the strands.

From Beef Bourguignon

From Beef Bourguignon

From Beef Bourguignon

Remove the foil from the beef. At this point, you just need to check the beef for tenderness and the sauce for your preference of thickness. I was still stuffed from lunch, so I decided to wait so I could get the sauce to a near gravy-like thickness

From Beef Bourguignon

Serve it on top of the spaghetti squash so the squash can soak up the tasty juices. Sprinkle some of the bacon around, and here is what you'll end up with! (I cheated and dusted 1 tsp of parmesan on mine)

From Beef Bourguignon

In the future, I will probably add in mushrooms since I love to add mushrooms to everything. If you try this, please let me know what you think.

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Lime Steak Fajita Wraps, Pico de Gallo, and Guacamole

Here is tonight's dinner:

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Hungry? Thought so. Here's what you need:

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Starting at 9 o'clock: 1/2 a red onion (0.30), 8 sprigs of cilantro (0.08), 3 tomatoes (1.81), 1 jalapeño (0.09), 2 limes (0.50), 2 cloves of garlic (0.05), an avocado (0.79), a head of Boston lettuce (0.79), and 2 lbs of skirt steak (7.70) - Total costs and per serving costs are at the end

There is some logic to the order of doing things here, so follow me on this. We'll start with the pico de gallo since it gains flavor as it sits. Pico is a really basic chop and mix recipe. First, slice the tomatoes and squeeze out the seeds and juicy center. Once the juice is gone, chop them up.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Now chop the jalapeño (seed it - check the chili post for how to do this), onions, and cilantro. Use all of the cilantro. The stems have a ton of flavor that most people miss out on. You just need to chop it up well.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Don't mix them yet, just let them sit in a container layered. Next, grate the garlic on top and add a pinch of salt. Here's what you should have:

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Throw your steak on the grill at this point. We had our butcher tenderize the meat twice. It can be tough if you don't. Marinating is also an option - try Mexican beer, squeezed lime juice, squeezed orange juice, chili powder, and cumin. We did that a long time ago and got good results. This time we were in too much of a rush. Make sure your grill is nice and hot so that you can get a nice sear on the meat.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Sprinkle on salt, pepper, and some garlic powder if you like those flavors. While the meat cooks, take your head of Boston lettuce and peel back each layer. Each head of lettuce should yield about a dozen usable wraps. I use Boston lettuce instead of iceberg because it works so much better for wraps. Iceberg tends to tear and retain too much water. Rinse those off and set them aside.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

At this point the steak should be ready to flip and then pull off the grill. Set the steak aside and let it rest for a few minutes. It's important to not cut the meat right away. Cutting too soon lets out all the moisture and the meat will be dry and tough.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Grab your limes and start grating/zesting them.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Only remove the green layer of skin. The white part is too bitter. The two limes should give you a nice line of shavings that would make Tony Montana proud.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Slice the meat and sprinkle the zest on top.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

Roll the limes around on the counter applying firm pressure until they're soft then cut them in half. Rolling them around bursts all of the juice pockets in the lime and helps get more juice out of each piece of fruit. Squeeze the juice into your pico de gallo mix and stir.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

The beauty of making pico de gallo is that you're only an avocado away from having guacamole. Take a little less than half of the pico and mash it in with an avocado.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

I looks ugly but tastes so good. All that's left to do is plate it all up. Start with a leaf of boston lettuce, add some meat, and top it off with the pico.

From Lime skirt steak, pico, and guac

The total cost of this meal was 12.11. My fiancé and I ate half of it for dinner, meaning we could get 4 meals out of it. My MENSA level math skills tell me that averages out to 3.03 per meal.