Paleotron

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

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.

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.

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.

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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Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Nopalitos Salad

From Nepalitos Salad

Ok, guys, it's been a couple weeks, but I'm back with a new quick and easy recipe to try. It's another chop 'n' mix type of side dish. I made fajitas again tonight, but wanted something exciting to put on top.

Nopales is the name of a cactus and when you chop them up into tiny pieces, you call them by their cuter name, nopalitos. It has a slimy texture that some might find off-putting, but a quick rinse in a strainer takes care of that. Check the Mexican food aisle at your grocer and I bet you'll find nopalitos in a jar or can.

Here are the ingredients:

From Nepalitos Salad

1 jar of RINSED nopalitos (2.99), 2-3 avocados (1.50), 3 tomatoes , 1 small red onion (0.25), 2 cloves of garlic(0.04), 1 jalapeño (0.05), a cup of cilantro (0.50), and the juice of 1-2 limes (0.16). That's $5.49 for enough salad to put on a few pounds of steak fajitas. Play with the proportions to your taste.

There isn't really much to tell you other than to rinse the nopalitos before you chop all of the ingredients and mix them together. It's like a chunky guacamole with pickled cactus.

From Nepalitos Salad

Friday, April 30, 2010

Grilled Lamb & Mediterranean Salad

As I said in my last recipe, I'm really trying to cut back on the dairy. I feel I've been a little to lax, starting to venture more towards Atkins territory than a paleo or primal way of eating. So this recipe is an attempt to get back to basics.

Let's start with the Mediterranean salad. You'll get better flavor if you let it marinate for a while, so I made mine a couple hours beforehand.

You'll need 20 grape tomatoes, 1 handful of chopped parsley 1/4 of a red onion, 2 cloves of grated garlic, 4 oz of sliced black olives, 1 cucumber, 1 tbs of lemon juice, 2 tbs of olive oil, salt, and black pepper. Basically, you just chop everything up and mix it in a bowl. Add the salt and pepper to your taste. It took about 5 minutes to make.

For the grilled lamb, take 1 lb of ground lamb and combine it with a handful of parsley and 3 grated garlic cloves.

A quick tip - When working with the chopped parsley, put it in the bottom of your mixing bowl and place the lamb on top. Chopped parsley has a way of getting everywhere, making a huge mess. It looks like an Italian Rip Taylor came through your kitchen. (Wait for the 20 second mark)

Mix up all the ingredients really well. If you leave big clumps of garlic, it might burn and get really bitter. If it's spread out evenly, the fat from the lamb will help infuse the meat with the garlic flavor. I like a good crust on my lamb, so I decided to make little lamb "balls" so I could get the most surface area possible, ensuring as much crust as possible.

Grill them until you're happy with how they look and plate everything up! You should be able to get about 3 or 4 servings with this recipe, depending on your appetite.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Thai Soup: Tom Yung Goong

My fiance and I were fortunate enough to get to travel all around the world teaching English for a year. One of the countries we went to was Thailand and while there, I fell in love with a soup called "tom yung goong."

It's a hearty coconut based curry soup. Don't leave yet! I don't usually care for coconut. I don't like pina coladas and I hate Mounds, but I love this soup. After a few weeks on a paleo plan, I realized that this soup was completely paleo from beginning to end, so I taught myself how to make it. This is a more involved recipe and takes a little time, making it a perfect weekend project.

Here is what I used:

Let's start at 6:00: Cocounut milk (1.09), 1 chicken bouillon cube (0.10), 1 lb of chicken breast (2.99), 10 sprigs of cilantro (0.10), 3 limes, 1 yellow onion (0.60), 1/8 cup of tumeric (0.05), 2 tbs fish sauce (0.10), 1 tbs sesame oil (0.05), lemon grass (0.99), 1/2 a package of button mushrooms(1.15), cauliflower (1.39), and 2 jalapenos (0.17). not pictured: 1 tbs of coconut oil (0.15)

That's a total of 8.93 and I got 4 servings from this batch, so that's a total of about 2.23 per bowl.

This recipe seems really complicated, but it's really just a matter of getting everything in the picture above mixed in a pot and letting it boil for about an hour, so don't be intimidated!

The first thing you'll need to do is chop up the onions. Start simmering those with 1 tbs of coconut oil in a large pot.

While those sweat, deseed one jalapeno and half of the other. Leave the seeds in half of a jalapeno for some heat. If you don't like spicy food, get rid of all the seeds. Chop those and add them to the pot. Next, chop and add the mushrooms. Finally, throw a tbs of sesame oil on all of that and stir it up. As these release their water, they'll create a little stock for our soup.

Next, roughly chop up the cauliflower and add that to the pot. Mix up your pot to make sure there is a little oil on most of the veggies so they don't burn. Make sure the heat is on low.

Mix 1 cup of hot water with the chicken bouillon and add that to the pot.

(You probably didn't need a picture of that....oh well)

As that comes to a boil, fry up your chicken breast and set it aside to rest.

Next, we need to get some flavor from the lemon grass. If you can find fresh lemon grass, just cut it, bruise it (crush it), and add it to the pot. It isn't edible, so make sure you pull it out before serving. If, like me, you have a hard time finding fresh lemon grass, you'll need to buy it dried. I like to boil it in water for a couple minutes to release the flavor. I use an emptied tea bag so I don't have to look for 100 pieces of dried lemon grass in the soup. I used the same pan as the chicken, hence the chicken bits in the water.

Once the water turns yellow, dump all of it into your pot.

Now, stir in a can of cocounut milk and 2 tbs of fish sauce (yes I know it stinks, but it adds necessary flavor). Next, add 1/8 of a cup of tumeric in small amounts, stirring it in as you go so it doesn't clump up. Tumeric will stain anything it touches, so be careful. If you aren't careful, you'll look like you washed your hands with French's mustard.

From Tom Yung Goon

Finally, zest the 3 limes into the soup and mix in the cilantro.

It will be about an hour before it's ready. It needs to boil on low heat until the cauliflower is tender. While this batch was boiling, I found a tomato that was about to go bad, so I added that to the mix. I like to make soups towards the end of the week to help use up ingredients that may go bad.

It's been an hour. Here is what your finished product will look like.

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**When serving, stir in the juice of half of a lime and some fresh cilantro. This last step is the most important as it makes the soup taste fresh and cuts through all of that coconut fat.

This recipe is also made with seafood, so feel free to experiment and get back to me with the results!

Monday, April 5, 2010

Lime Steak Fajita Wraps, Pico de Gallo, and Guacamole

Here is tonight's dinner:

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

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

Grab your limes and start grating/zesting them.

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.

Slice the meat and sprinkle the zest on top.

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.

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.

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.