Government advice, good or bad?

Really? The government got it wrong.

Soap box time.  Food makes you healthier or it does not.  No in-between with food.  Learn what foods make you healthier and also learn what food makes you sicker.  Don’t rely on the government to provide you with answers.  I am talking about MYPLATE.GOV. This has slowly taken over for the food pyramid.  My plate is easier, I guess, to understand, but provides the same crapy recommendations.  My plate (see picture) wants you to eat the following recommendations: Fruit 2 cups, Grains 1 cup, vegetables 3 cups, protein 6 oz, diary 3 cups or 24 oz, and fat/oil 7 teaspoons (for a 30 year old male).  Let me put that in prospective for you; 1 chicken beast is about 6 oz, 3 cups of broccoli fits into a normal size bowl, two bananas, one avocado, 8 slices of bread and almost a 1/4 gallon of milk.  That is over the course of the day people.  I feel like that is almost prison food or a dietary recommendation from a guy that owns a dairy and wheat farm. So let’s get real, we choose the paelo diet because those food choices don’t make you more sick, and bottom line I like eating things that make me healthier.  If you want to continue reading about this I like this blog post from nomnom paleo. Her plate looks like this:  She also just came out with an amazing cookbook app

Skirt steak fajitas with grilled pineapple

I love this time of year!  Fire up the grill and pretty soon you’ve got a great meal going.  Jeremy is pretty handy with the grill so I leave that to him and I cook whatever side dish that needs to be prepared inside.

For the steak:

1lb or so of skirt steak, flank steak, or london broil

rub with the following:

garlic powder

chipotle powder

onion powder

salt

pepper

squeeze 1-2 limes into a ziplock back and marinate the steak for 30 min or even the night before.

Grill meat to desired doneness and then cut into small strips against the grain

For the pineapple:

Throw some sliced pineapple on the grill and flip until each side gets a turn on the grill.  No added sugar necessary!

for the veggies:

saute in a pan cooking fat of choice and  1 large sweet yellow onion cut into strips until it starts to caramelize.  Add in a few handfuls of sliced mushrooms.  Cook until mushrooms are done.  Set aside

While you are making the onions and mushrooms you’ll want to start on the cauliflower.  Add cooking fat of choice and a small handful of sliced onions (onions are optional).  Add in 1/2-1 head of chopped cauliflower and cover.  Check frequently and add a tiny amount of water if necessary.  Cook until soft.

We called this particular batch “blackened” cauliflower as I got distracted by some laundry, but it still tasted great!

for the guacamole:

3-4 avocados mashed

desired amount of garlic powder

tiny amount of chopped red onion

a small amount of diced tomatoes

Breakfast

Here is something I whipped up this morning and turned about AMAZING!  I am always looking for ways to change up my eggs+meat breakfast and this one is a definite keeper!  I am no food photographer, but just trust me when I say it was delicious, and give it a try this weekend!

Ingredients:

1lb sausage

1-2 Tbs coconut oil or clarified butter

1/2-1 sweet onion, chopped

2-3 handfulls sliced mushrooms (I used a mix of white and baby portobellos)

1/2 bunch kale, chopped

2 eggs per person

Start the sausage in one pan and put your cooking fat in another pan and start caramelizing the onions.

Once the onions are getting brown and yummy add the mushrooms and kale.

Once the sausage is done drain it if necessary and set it aside.  (the sausage and veggies should be done around the same time)

Add sausage to veggies once they are done, remove from heat and cover

wipe most of the grease out of the sausage pan and add 2 eggs per person.  I like mine medium-fried, but you could scramble them too.

Even though this is a two-pan meal, it was really easy to make.  I pre-chop all of my veggies, which made this really fast to through together!

Brisket and Roasted Broccoli

This was a pretty easy dinner and full of flavor!  I was thinking you could probably also use a roast instead of brisket depending on what you have on hand.  I think I’ll try it with roast next time since I  have a few in the freezer.

The brisket recipe is from The Food Lovers Kitchen:

Ingredients

• 2 lb Beef Brisket
• 15 oz Tomato Sauce, (no salt)
• 1 tsp Dried Basil, to taste
• 1 tsp Dried Oregano, to taste
• 1 Onion, chopped
• /2 tsp Salt and Pepper, to taste

Process

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Cover the bottom of a braising pan with chopped onion.
3. Place brisket over the onion.
4. Sprinkle the brisket on either side generously with salt, pepper, dried basil, and dried oregano.
5. Place brisket in the oven for 1 hour, uncovered.
6. Remove brisket from oven, and reduce oven temp to 325 degrees.
7. Pour tomato sauce over brisket, and sprinkle again with salt, pepper, basil and oregano.
8. Cover braising pan with a lid, and cook for a remaining 4 hours at 325 degrees.

**If you are a cooking novice like me, a braising pan looks like this:  Mine is from Costco which is much cheaper than the Le Crueset brand.

Roasted Broccoli comes from Paleo Comfort Foods cookbook and is by far my favorite!

Preheat oven to 500

Put adequate size casserole dish in oven while it’s preheating.  Use the lowest rack setting your oven has.

• Fat of choice (I have used olive oil as well as clarified butter, both are good, but the butter is better)
• 1-2 cloves garlic (I use 1-2 cubes of the awesome frozen garlic)
• enough broccoli for the 3 of people you are feeding.

note: If I am making this just for myself I will fill a 9 x 6 pan with broccoli and have no problem eating it all

• In a large bowl coat the broccoli with fat of choice and garlic
• When oven is preheated carefully remove hot pan and place broccoli in it
• Return to oven and cook for 11 minutes

CFUV’s very own paleo cookbook

A few weeks ago, I did a call out for your favorite paleo recipes.  We gathered the recipes and Paul has made this amazing cookbook for everyone!  You can either download it from the App store onto your iPad or you can get the PDF version.  I can’t believe how great this turned out!  Take a look at it and if you like it share it with your friends!  Best of all it’s free!

App

PDF

If you download it from the app store, don’t forget to rate and review us!

Meatballs

Once again this turned out so good that we put them all on one plate and just about devoured the whole thing in one sitting!  We paired this with sweet potato fries, which are one of my favorite paleo treats!  My favorite recipe for them comes from Paleo Comfort Foods cookbook.  *note: restaurants that serve sweet potatoes fries are most likely not approved as the oil and/or batter they use will not be paleo.

I got this recipe from Outside Ordinary

• 1.5lbs ground beef (or any other ground meat you see fit)
• 6 slices of bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1/2 yellow onion, diced
• 1 egg, whisked
• 1/4 cup almond flour
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• salt and pepper, to taste
• For the dipping sauce:
• 1 mango, peeled and cut away from seed inside
• 2-3 tablespoons ground old fashioned mustard (in the jar)
• 1-2 tablespoons yellow mustard
• 1 tablespoon raw honey
• dash of chili powder
• salt, to taste

Spaghetti

One of the things Jeremy misses the most is pasta.  We made this with spaghetti squash and I warned him, that if he expected it to taste like pasta he would be disappointed.  Well, I was wrong because he ate two huge bowls.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 lb sausage (this time we used the leftover brats from the BBQ)
• 1 large spaghetti squash or 2 small ones
• 2 jars of spaghetti sauce (no sugar or other sneaky ingredients)
• 1-2 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp dried basil
• herbes de provence seasoning or italian seasoning

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350
2. Cut spaghetti squash length wise and remove the seeds and stringy stuff
3. put some olive oil on a cookie sheet and place squash face down.  Cook for 20-30 mins, until you can put a knife through it easily
4. Once they are done, let cool slightly, then just start working at the fleshy part with a fork and presto, you have noodles
5. While the squash is cooking brown the meats and add spices.  Make sure you use a big enough pan that everything will fit in.  I don’t measure the herbes de provence I just eyeball it, drain if necessary
6. Add the sauce and noodles to the meat and simmer for 20-25 minutes

Easy Chili or Meat soup

Chili is such a great staple and can be done many ways.  I really like this recipe because it is super easy.  This recipe is from Everyday Paleo cookbook

Ingredients:

• 7-10 celery stalks, diced
• 1 white onion, diced
• 6 cloves garlic
• 4 T EVOO (extra-virgin olive oil)
• 2 lbs ground beef
• 1 lb spicy italian pork sausage
• 1 t salt
• 2 T dried oregano
• 1 T cumin
• 3 T chili powder
• 1 t cayenne pepper
• 1 (16 oz) can diced tomatoes with juice (I like to use 2 cans)
• 16 oz chicken broth

Directions:

1. In a large soup pot, sauté the veggies in the EVOO for about 1 minute, add the beef and sausage, and brown
2. Season the meat mixture with all of the spices
3. Add the tomatoes and chicken broth and simmer for 35 minutes

Spices

Spices are what makes your chicken or beef taste just a little bit different from one day to the next.  Building up a good selection of spices is pretty easy.  If you try one or two new recipes each week, then you can buy whatever spices the recipes call for that you don’t already have.  Some spices can be pricey, this helps to stretch out your budget so that you don’t have a cupboard full of fancy spices but nothing to put them on.

Everyone will be a little different, but I will give you our top 10 most commonly used spices:

• Kosher salt, you can put this on steak with nothing else and it is amazing!
• Chipotle powder
• Garlic powder
• Onion powder
• Pepper

All 5 of the above ingredients make a great rub for just about any meat.

• Cumin
• Herbes de provence (this is basically a better version of Italian seasoning)
• Oregano
• Chili powder
• Cinnamon

Frozen stuff:

We found these at Sunflower market and they are quite the time saver.  The garlic is a little potent so even though the package says one cube is 1 clove, we count it as 2.

Albondigas Soup

Recipe from Delightful tastebuds

Don’t let the long list of ingredients scare you off from making this.  It didn’t take that long to make, it makes a lot so there will be leftovers, and it was really good!

Ingredients:

For the meatballs:

• 2 lbs ground beef (or 1 lb ground beef and 1 lb ground sausage)
• 1 Tbsp avocado oil
• 1-2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper powder
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh mint
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 2 large eggs-lightly beaten
• 1 tsp coconut flour (or 1-2 Tbsp almond flour/meal)

For the soup:

• 1 lb small carrots- diagonally chopped
• 1 sweet potato – peeled and diced
• 2 roma tomatoes – chopped (or 1 can diced tomatoes with juice)
• 6 oz tomato paste
• 1/2 cabbage head -cut into small wedges
• 1/2 big onion – chopped
• 3-4 garlic cloves -minced
• 1 quart beef broth
• 2 quarts water
• 1 Tbsp clarified butter or coconut oil
• 1-2 tsp salt to taste
• 1 tsp black pepper to taste
• 1 tsp chipotle powder
• 1 tsp oregano powder
• Mint leaf for garnish (we did not do this, I don’t have time to be fancy)

Directions:

1. Lightly beaten 2 eggs
2. Then mix in the ground meat, stir until everything combined. Mix in the chopped parsley, mint, salt, pepper and avocado oil. Set aside.
3. Heat 1 Tbsp clarified butter or coconut oil on heavy-bottomed stock pot in medium high heat. Saute the chopped onions and garlic until translucent.
4. Pour in 1 quart of beef broth and 2 quart of water (if not using any broth, use 3 quarts of water), tomato paste and chopped tomatoes. Cover and bring to boil. When the soup is boiling, reduce heat to medium.
5. Using your hands, form about 1″ meatball (a bit bigger than ping pong ball size) and dunk them into the simmering soup. Try not to overwork the meatballs. Let them simmer in about 10 minutes.
6. Next, dump in the chopped sweet potatoes and carrots or any root vegetables of your choice. Let them simmer about 10 minutes – covered in medium heat.
7. Lastly, dump the cabbage or any leafy vegetables of your choice. Add oregano, salt, pepper, and chipotle powder to taste. Remove from heat and let it cool a bit.