Weeknight Eats
Lately I’ve been trying to find recipes that don’t take as much prep and involvement for our weeknight dinners. You’d think this would be an easy task, but wow, it’s not. In my quest for easy fast paleo recipes, I happened upon a new site, FastPaleo.com. It’s a blog of sorts where any person can upload their paleo recipes to share. Ingenious! Why didn’t I think of this? I am a software engineer and all… oh well, enough with missed opportunities and onto the recipe we tried for dinner tonight.
Mexican Bell Stuffed Peppers (Original Recipe found here)
1.5lbs grass fed ground beef
2 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp paprika
1 tsp ground red pepper
Salt & Pepper to taste
3 cloves garlic
1 onion
6 bell peppers
1 handful fresh cilantro
1 can diced tomatoes w/green chilis
1 can tomato paste
A spoonful of grass-fed sour cream (optional)
Pre-heat the oven to 350. Brown the meat, adding the diced onion, cilantro, and spices once the meat starts to let off its juices. While the meat mixture is cooking, cut off the tops of the bell peppers and remove the seeds. Dice the leftover pepper tops and add to the meat mixture. Once the meat is cooked through and the veggies are soft start stuffing the peppers. Bake for 30 minutes.
While your peppers are baking, cut up the avocado and blend with a hand mixer. I like to add a spoonful of sour cream to give it that really creamy texture. Add whatever spices you’d like to the spread (we add garlic powder, salt, pepper, and cilantro). Serve the peppers with a dollop of avocado spread.
Breakfast! Is what’s for dinner..
The stomach flu really takes a toll on your cooking habits. Last Sunday night I came down with a very nasty virus, which soon spread to Michael. It wrecked havoc on our appetite and kept me from the grocery store for quite a while. Luckily, we’ve been starting to feel a lot better so we’re trying to get back into our cooking routine. Since I still haven’t created a menu or made it to the store, tonight we opened our fridge and accepted the challenge in front of us. I felt a little bit like I was on an episode of Chopped, given the 3 following ingredients: a pound of ground beef, an avocado, and eggs. Of course, this magic combination screamed BREAKFAST, and oh what a wonderful breakfast for dinner it was! I decided to cook the ground beef with a mexican kick, top it with an egg, and finish it off with a dollop of avocado goodness. Here’s how to re-create our Chopped episode…
Huevos Rancheros w/ Avocado Cream
4 eggs
1lb grass fed ground beef
1/2 green pepper, diced
1/2 red pepper, diced
1/2 red onion, diced
2 roma tomatos, diced
1tsp red chili powder
1 1/2 tbsp cumin
1/2 tbsp paprika
2 cloves crushed garlic
Salt & Pepper to taste
1 avocado
1 tbsp grass fed sour cream
1/8 tsp garlic powder
Salt & Pepper to taste
Huevos Rancheros:
Cook the meat with the vegtables until all the meat is cooked through. Add all the spices and simmer until most of the liquid in the skillet is gone. Remove the mixture from the pan and set aside. Cook the eggs in the remaining beef fat until desired consistancy is reached.
Avocado Cream:
Using a hand mixer, beat the avocado, sour cream, and spices until fluffy.
Serve each egg sitting on top of a spoonful of meat and a dollop of avocado cream.
Taco Tuesday, I Love You
Michael and I were talking the other day, and we both agreed that we need to have more fun in our lives. By fun, I mean something new and exciting, an experience involving the use of some brain power and movement of muscles. Coming to terms with this idea was extremely easy, we accepted the challenge and moved on to deciding what we could do to have more fun. That’s when the blank stares masking our empty imaginations set in. Why can’t we think of something fun to do after work one day? Everything we came up with involves spending money or going out to eat. Yes, those things are fun and make me very happy, but I don’t want to have to let go of the green or fill up on non-paleo goodies. Michael suggested skiing….. We live in Kansas City, that’s a no go. I suggested working out…. But we both know we’re kidding ourselves into thinking that would be fun. I guess we need to do something like take cooking classes or try leaving the house to watch a movie. Eventually we came to the conclusion that the most fun we could have on a Tuesday night just might be making tacos.
We used my goulash recipe for the taco filling, with the following modifications:
2 tbsp chili powder
2 tbsp cumin
2 tbsp garlic powder
1/2 cup green salsa
We then served the filling in some lettuce leave topped with salsa, avocado, and a tiny bit of full fat sour cream. So very delicious!
