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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Grassfed Gorgonzola Burgers on Portabella Mushrooms and Mashed Cauliflower

Disclaimer: I am not a food blogger. I understand that the small amounts of butter, cream, and cheese skirt around the edges of hardcore paleoism, but I have found a happy balance for myself and you'll have to search your caveman soul long and hard to decide if small amounts of dairy are right for you.

Ok, with that out of the way, let's get started. To keep you interested, here is the final product:

From Gorgonzola Topped Burgers with Cauliflower Mash

So Here is what you need to get started:

From Gorgonzola Topped Burgers with Cauliflower Mash

Starting at 6:00 - 2 Portabella caps, button mushrooms, 1 lb of ground beef, pepper, cauliflower, a yellow onion, butter, cream, gorgonzola, salt, and about 8 cloves of garlic.

Chop up the cauliflower and start boiling it. You'll need it to be tender to mash it and that can take a little while, so I like to start it right off the bat. Here is how roughly I chopped it up:

From Gorgonzola Topped Burgers with Cauliflower Mash

Now that that's boiling, take your time and get everything else prepped. I started with the button mushrooms.

From Gorgonzola Topped Burgers with Cauliflower Mash

Next, I used a microplane to get the garlic into a paste. I filed down 8 cloves of garlic, seperating half of it for the burgers and half of it for the cauliflower. I love garlic, so feel free to cut that down by as much as half if you're not such a fan of the stuff. Quick note - this microplane is awesome for quickly prepping garlic and also making lemon or lime zest for Mexican dishes.

From Gorgonzola Topped Burgers with Cauliflower Mash

Next, roughly chop the onions. Roughly chopping them will help give some texture to the burgers. Ultimately, it's up to you how many onions you put in the burgers. I used half an onion for a pound of meat.

From Gorgonzola Topped Burgers with Cauliflower Mash

Mash the onions and half of your garlic into the meat. I prepare the meat on parchment paper for 2 reasons. For one, it helps with contamination (although I rarely worry with beef) and it also helps keep the burgers in nice thin patties while transferring them to the grill. After mashing the meat together with the garlic and onion, portion it out into a few equally sized balls then mash them down into imperfect little discs. After that, you can transfer them directly onto your grill by flipping the parchment paper over.

From Gorgonzola Topped Burgers with Cauliflower Mash

From Gorgonzola Topped Burgers with Cauliflower Mash

From Gorgonzola Topped Burgers with Cauliflower Mash

At this point, you should be able to poke a fork into the cauliflower and it should come right back out. If it sticks in the cauliflower, wait a couple more minutes and try again. Once it's tender enough for the fork to come out, strain the water and toss a small cube of butter into the pan to start melting. Looks like I left some paper on the butter. Oops. Begin mashing the cauliflower into the butter. Once you've gotten the cauliflower broken down quite a bit add about a tablespoon of cream. Continue mashing adding a small amount of cream to the mix until you get the texture you like, but be careful. Boiled cauliflower holds a lot of moisture and if you add too much cream, you'll just get soup. Next, add the garlic, some salt, a few grinds of pepper to your personal taste and mix. Let that sit for a few so the garlic has some time to mellow out a little bit.

From Gorgonzola Topped Burgers with Cauliflower Mash

From Gorgonzola Topped Burgers with Cauliflower Mash

At this point, the burgers should be ready to flip. After you flip them, press them down, but only a little bit. We'll need the fat to sautee the mushrooms. Add the button mushrooms to the greasy areas of your grill. Add your portabellas at this time as well, but you may need to rub them in the oil of your choice to keep them from burning. If you have a nice pool of beef fat somewhere on the grill, feel free to use that. I know I would.

OK, we're almost done. Pull the burgers and mushrooms off as they're ready and put the gorgonzola cheese crumbles on ASAP. I like my gorgonzola to melt a little before serving the burgers.

From Gorgonzola Topped Burgers with Cauliflower Mash

At this point you're ready to plate everything up.......and now we've come full circle to that first picture of the post. Eat up!

From Gorgonzola Topped Burgers with Cauliflower Mash