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.

  

Maple Thyme Roasted Carrots

Photo: Martha Stewart

Easy and pairs perfectly with almost everything.  We had them with my modified version of Nom Nom Paleo's Green Sliders.  Yum!

Ingredients:

• a pound of organic carrots, cut into 2" chunks
• 3 T pure maple syrup
• 2 T ghee or butter, melted
• 1 t fresh, chopped thyme
• salt to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400˚F.
2. In a shallow baking dish mix all ingredients together.
3. Roast for about 20 minutes.

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!

Butter-Basted Cod and Vegetable Rice

Yum! Light and delicious! I'm really proud of myself.  I feel like I got all fancy with my cooking but it was super easy.

Vegetable Rice

Ingredients:

• chopped vegetables du jour - I used green onion, zucchini, and broccoli
• white jasmine rice
• butter
• salt to taste

Directions:

1. Prepare rice as directed.  I added a tablespoon of butter to the water when I put in the rice.
2. While rice is cooking,  heat a skillet with a couple tablespoons of butter.
3. Add vegetables and stir fry until cooked through and still crispy.
4. When rice is finished add to vegetable skillet and combine over low heat.  
5. Add more butter and salt to taste.

Butter-Basted Cod

Ingredients:

• wild-caught cod fillets
• 2 tablespoons ghee
• 1 tablespoon butter
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon thyme
• salt to taste

Directions:

1. In a skillet heat ghee on medium-high heat.
2. Add fillets.
3. Using a large spoon, baste fillets with ghee by tilting the pan, filling the spoon with liquid, and pouring it over the fish.
4. Continue for a couple of minutes then flip fillets.
5. Baste again for a couple of minutes, until cooked through.
6. Remove fillets to serving dish.
7. Add lemon juice, butter, thyme, and salt to ghee.
8. Pour lemon butter over fillets.
9. Serve over vegetable rice and pour remaining liquid over both.

Homemade Ghee

Photo: Brad Johnson

My husband made ghee.  I can't believe we've lived so long without it.  I seem to use it so much.  Any time I need an oil I consider, "should I use ghee?".  It's nutty, buttery, yummy.  It reminds me of drawn butter you would dip your lobster into.

Why ghee? Besides being delicious:

• It has butter's nutritional benefits, plus: 
• Excess moisture and milk proteins are removed, resulting in long shelf life with or without refrigeration. 
• Very stable saturated fat; great for high-heat cooking. 
• Good for those with allergies to milk protein. 
• Long history in Indian cuisine. 
• Nutty flavor due to caramelization of butter solids while cooking. 
• Yet another fun food experiment. 

Anyway, here are the three websites Brad referred to when he made our ghee.

Homemade Indian Ghee If You Dare

How To Make Ghee

How To Make Ghee (Indian Clarified Butter)

Now go out and make ghee!!!

Cauliflower Mash

Summer is so busy and most days I don't want to cook.  I end up serving tried and true dishes that I don't really have to think about, hence the few posts over the last couple of months.

We're getting down to the last few servings from our 1/4 cow (see my "we're buying a cow" post).  Last night I made a chuck roast from I breathe... I'm hungry... (which gave me the idea to do the Whole30, but that's another post).

Photo: Eating With Purpose

I served the roast over cauliflower mash.

Ingredients:

• 1 head cauliflower, cut off the stalk and broken into small pieces
• 2-4 tablespoons grass-fed butter
• 2 tablespoons ghee, butter, mct oil, or olive oil
• splash of raw milk or heavy cream (if dairy intolerant, use broth)
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Sauté all ingredients (except liquid) in a heavy stainless steel skillet until slightly softened 
2. Stir in a splash of liquid - I like my mash thick and lumpy, use more if you like yours thinner
3. Use an immersion blender in the pan to mash the cauliflower
4. Stir to incorporate all ingredients 

Serve alone as a side dish, as the topping for shepherd's pie, or in a bowl under a roast and all the yummy juices.