Whole30 Day 7: Teriyaki Pineapple Burgers

Whole30 Day 6 was leftover Pepperoni Spaghetti Pie.  Day 7 was an amazing, delicious treat! Thank you, whole30recipes, for this one!

Photo: whole30recipes

I pretty much followed her recipe exactly except I grilled my onions.

Actually, I added extra bacon fat.  This is what I did:

1. cooked my bacon, poured off most of the bacon fat
2. sautéed my mushrooms in the bacon fat, set aside in a bowl
3. added more bacon fat to the pan, grilled my onions, set aside in a bowl
4. added more bacon fat to the pan, grilled my pineapple, set aside
5. then grilled my burgers

It really is so yummy!!!

Get the whole recipe on instagram: whole30recipes, August 14, 2014

Whole30 Day 3: OMG Sliders

Photo: whole30recipes

This is amazing! Thank you whole30 for this recipe.  I followed the recipe pretty much.  I just substitued turkey for leftover "beer can" chicken and avocados for guacamole.  Delicious!!

For the recipe visit whole30recipes on Instagram, August 27, 2014 and while you're at it, visit the whole30 website.

By the way, I've never made my sweet potatoes this way.  Why the heck not?  I'm thinking every time I cook bacon, I'm making these potatoes, too.  Yum!!

Cheeseburger Fries

Photo: Simply Potatoes

This dish was inspired by Everyday Scoop in Rachael Ray Magazine, March 2014, Hash Brown Heaven!

Ingredients:

• 2T bacon fat, ghee, or butter 
• 2lbs sweet potatoes, shredded - peeling is optional
• 1lb grass-fed ground beef, browned and drained
• salt to taste
• 1 cup raw cheese, shredded
• toppings, optional - pickles, onions, tomatoes, ketchup, mustard, guacamole, fried egg...

Directions:

1. In a large sauté pan melt your fat and add the shredded potatoes, ground beef, cheese, and salt.
2. Mix together and pan fry until potatoes are crispy, about 10 min each side.
3. Serve individual portions and add top each off with optional toppings.

  

Butternut Squash Risotto

My husband and I are of the paleo and bulletproof thinking that white rice is ok, as long as you can tolerate it.  For more info than you really want about rice you can check out FitBomb.  Fitbomb says,

If you stick with white rice (which doesn’t contain the phytate and trypsin inhibitor content of the less-milled brown rice) and you cook it properly (which neutralizes the haemagglutinin-lectin), you don’t have much to worry about from an anti-nutrient perspective... It is essentially a blank slate, nothing all that bad about it, but nothing all that great, either.

Chris Kresser, whom my husband and I both highly respect, shares his idea of a paleo template and the optimal diet for modern day humans.

If we are indeed asking what the optimal diet is for modern humans (rather than simply speculating about what our Paleolithic ancestors ate), there’s no way to answer that question definitively. Why? Because just as there is tremendous variation amongst populations with diet, there is also tremendous individual variation. Some people clearly do better with no dairy products. Yet others seem to thrive on them. Some feel better with a low-carb approach, while others feel better eating more carbohydrate. Some seem to require a higher protein intake (up to 20-25% of calories), but others do well when they eat a smaller amount (10-15%).

The only way to figure out what an optimal diet is for you is to experiment and observe. The best way to do that is to remove the “grey area” foods you suspect you might have trouble with, like dairy, nightshades, eggs, etc. for a period of time (usually 30 days is sufficient), and add them back in one at a time and observe your reactions. This “30-day challenge” or elimination diet is what folks like Robb Wolf have recommended for a long time.

As I try to figure out what my optimal diet is, I've begun to "experiment and observe" with a fodmap free template.  Cauliflower is a high fodmap food and so we've had to cut out the cauliflower rice recipes that have become so popular.  Fine with me.  I like rice and can tolerate it well.

With all that in mind here is a fodmap free, very yummy recipe for risotto.  Of course, if you would rather stick with cauliflower, substitute the arborio rice for a head of cauliflower (about 1 1/2 lbs).

Photo: The Italian Chef

Ingredients:

• 1 butternut squash (about 1 1/2 lbs), peeled and cut into chunks
• 4T ghee or bacon fat, divided
• 1 1/2 cups arborio rice
• 1 teaspoon asafoetida
• 1T fresh sage, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 4 1/2 cups grass-fed bone broth or organic, grass-fed beef or pastured chicken stock
• about 3 slices bacon, cooked, chopped, optional

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425˚F.
2. Place the butternut squash on a foil-lined baking sheet and coat with 2T bacon fat and sprinkle with salt.
3. Roast for 15-20 minutes, until tender.
4. Blend squash with 1/2 cup broth in a blender.  Set aside.
5. Heat broth in a small saucepan and simmer over low heat.
6. While squash is roasting melt 2T bacon fat in a large skillet.
7. Add rice, asafoetida, sage, and nutmeg, stir about 2 minutes.
8. Add 1/2 cup heated broth to rice.  Stir together until liquid is absorbed, about 5 minutes.
9. Repeat with remaining broth, 1/2 cup at a time, until all liquid is absorbed.  Rice should be cooked through and creamy.
10. Fold blended squash into rice.
11. Season to taste with salt.
12. Top with bacon.

Hot Dog!

Is it a secret that sometimes you need to be creative when you are cooking?  Going paleo I find I need to be creative to come up with ingredient substitutions and new ideas.  When I started avoiding FODMAPs I really needed to kick up the creative juices.

Thanks to the many bloggers, I can pretty easily find new, easy, yummy recipes.  My dear friend, Kindra at Bon Appetit Paleo, is brilliantly creative.  Hence, a hot dog!

OK, we're no strangers to organic, grass-fed, beef hot dogs.  We've been buying the Applegate hot dogs for a couple of years and eating them bunless.  We love them!  But when Kindra told me her idea for a bun, I HAD to make it.

It was perfect!  PERFECT!  I barely had to convince myself I was not eating a hot dog bun.

Ingredients:

• organic, grass-fed, beef hot dogs
• small organic sweet potato or yam (about the size of your hot dog)
• condiments

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400˚F.
2. Scrub potatoes and slather with ghee or bacon fat.
3. Bake sweet potatoes for about 20 - 30 minutes, until soft and skins are starting to crisp.
4. Grill hot dogs.
5. Remove potatoes and allow to cool, to handle.
6. Scoop out flesh.  This is your side dish.
7. Add hot dog to potato skin and top with condiments.

Love, love, love this dish!

Bacon Butternut Squash Soufflé

Thanks to PaleOMG for the inspiration for this one.  This would be a nice addition to your side dishes but also a great post-Thanksgiving creation using leftover mashed yams or sweet potatoes.

Photo: PaleOMG

Ingredients:

• 2 cups butternut squash, pumpkin, sweet potato, or yam, pureed
• 4 eggs, separated
• 1 heaping tablespoon arrowroot starch
• 4 slices of bacon, diced
• 2 tablespoons bacon fat
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 shallot, sliced
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme, chopped
• 1 teaspoon fresh sage, chopped
• salt and pepper, to taste
• butter
  

Directions:

1.    Preheat oven to 400˚F.

2.    Cook bacon until crispy. Remove with a slotted spoon and place on a plate with a paper towel.

3.    Add puree, 1T bacon fat, and egg yolks to the food processor. Puree until smooth, pour into a large bowl.

4.    Heat 1T bacon fat in a skillet over medium heat and add garlic and shallots.

5.    Cook until shallots are tender and translucent.

6.    Add shallots, bacon, arrowroot starch, herbs, salt and pepper to the bowl of puree and mix well.

7.    In a separate large bowl beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. With a spatula, fold egg whites into your squash bowl until no white streaks remain.

8.    Grease a glass baking dish with butter and pour in mixture. 

9.  Bake for 35-40 minutes.

Braised Short Ribs

So amazing!

Photo: Primal Palate

Here's my slight variation on Primal Palate's recipe.

Ingredients

• 3 pieces bacon, crumbled, reserve grease
• 1 1/2 Tbsp bacon fat
• ¾ cup beef broth or bone broth
• 8 cloves garlic, smashed
• 2 3/4 lb beef short ribs, about 8 ribs
• 1/2 tsp salt, to taste

Directions

1.    Cook bacon in a heavy skillet on medium heat until crispy.

2.    Remove bacon from skillet and set aside.

3.    Turn heat up to medium high and sear short ribs in the remaining bacon grease, about 1-2 minutes a side, adding more bacon grease as needed.

4.    Place the first four ribs in the bottom of the crockpot, season with salt and smoked paprika.

5.    Top with 4 garlic cloves and repeat with the remaining short ribs.

6.    Top all the ribs with the crumbled bacon and pour in the beef stock.

7.    Cover and cook in crockpot on low for 6-8 hours.

Bacon Glazed Chicken

We only eat chicken once in a while.  To learn why, see my previous post, Roast Chicken with Carmelized Shallots, delish, by the way.

Jan's Sushi Bar

When I came across this recipe from Jan's Sushi Bar, I couldn't resist.  We do love bacon!

Ingredients:

• 1 whole organic, free-range chicken, cut up or about 8 of your favorite pieces, we use Rosie Organic Chicken
• 1/4 cup melted, high-quality bacon fat, we use Applegate Sunday Bacon
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon cayenne
• salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350˚F.
• Place rinsed, patted dry chicken pieces in a baking dish.  
• Mix together syrup, cayenne, salt, and pepper.  Sprinkle over all the chicken pieces.  
• Drizzle melted bacon fat over pieces and rub into skin.
• Bake for about 45-50 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 165˚F.
• Allow to stand 5 minutes before serving.