"Well, it isn't the worst steak I've ever had.."

says my husband this evening after a horribly tragic grilling incident. Every 3-4 months a local farmer slaughters beef. Just a single one. When I get the message that beef will be available I call in my order using marginal German and then about a week later I pick it up, stock up my freezer, simmer some bone broth and enjoy my haul. This time I ordered a T-Bone. It was a splurge since they charge 28euro for 1kg (about 2.2lbs) but it's summer and we love to grill, so why not?

Well. Today was the day. We started defrosting it yesterday, he salted the steak so it would absorb it as it came to room temperature and he fired up the grill. One steak. Yes. Just one. It was a 19euro steak all it's own. I calculated it based on the per kg price and it's about 675grams - - 23oz. So he's got the grill prepped ready for this lovely 23oz steak, puts it on to sear at 500F+ and what do you know - the drip pan has residual oil in it. Shit. Shoot. We have a toddler and need to practice child friendly vocabulary now. So this oil basically catches everything on fire. Of course my husband is concerned about about the flames not shooting up and catching our house on fire so he rushes in to grab the baking soda and smother the flames...and the steak.

In an effort to fix this we decide to wash off the steak and hope all the baking soda is gone, re-season with some more montreal seasoning, and just bake it. At this point this is not going to be the worst steak we've ever had, but still. We were looking forward to a deliciously grilled medium steak. Mmmmm. I was even going to have him grill this lovely mango and give you a recipe for mango butter! Luckily my mango was ripe enough to just mash it with a fork so I'll still share the recipe with you. You're welcome. I also made a nice mango salad with hot honey bacon dressing. I can share that with you later. I even have a nice photo of it. Sorry for the crappy photo of this mango butter. I captured the salad beautifully and was out of creativity on how to make this look just as appealing.

Mango Butter

2T Grass-fed Butter
4T Mango Puree (Grill then mash or just mash a very ripe mango)
1/4t Garlic Powder
1t Fresh Parsley, chopped

Bring butter to room temperature for easy mixing. Mash mango and add to butter along with garlic powder and parsley. Serve with grilled steak, sweet potato fries, plantain pancakes...you get the idea.

Cabbage Rolls 2.0

Today I made cabbage rolls again. I made them for the first time over a month ago after having had them only once or twice before in my entire life. My friend Beth was kind enough to share her recipe with me and my first trial I was missing the cauliflower so I subbed in some shredded veggies and this time I changed it up a little more. The original recipe calls for sauteeing some cauliflower. Ain't nobody got time for that! Actually, I did, but I with one pot going for steaming the cabbage and another making my tomato sauce, I'd reached my pan limit for the day. I decided to go with my previous deviation and use a shredded zucchini and carrot in the mix again. I also added bacon. Of course. Why not? It's bacon. Mmmmm.

The beauty of cabbage rolls is that you truly can give it any flavor you like, season your tomato sauce in any way and stuff the leaves with endless combinations of meat, vegetables, and sauces. I've been missing out on this recipe staple for years!

Between dealing with my hungry, whiny toddler (Baby Grok angry! Rawr!) and trying to get it all in the oven for a reasonable dinner time I missed a few photos I meant to take, but it's ok. You don't need that much guidance with this one.

Ingredients:

Cabbage Rolls:
1 head cabbage, steamed 15-20min or until leaves are pliable
1 lb grass fed ground beef
1 zucchini, grated
1 carrot, grated
1/2 sweet onion, diced
6 bacon slices, chopped
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 egg
splash of tomato sauce (about 1/4 cup)
salt and pepper to taste

Tomato Sauce:

1.5 c tomato puree (just a plain tomato sauce/passata)
14 oz diced or stewed tomatoes, diced
1/2 tsp garlic powder
2 tbsp Worcestershire - or not, up to you.
Juice of 1/4-1/2 lemon

Preheat oven to 350F.

Combine ingredients for tomato sauce and simmer in saucepan while you prepare the cabbage rolls.

While cabbage steams, mix together the remaining ingredients for the filling. Voila! Separate steamed cabbage leaves, spoon in filling and roll up beginning from the thick stem end tucking in sides as you go. That's it.
 
There are 2 ways to proceed from here. If you're using a casserole dish arrange cabbage leaves along the bottom in order to prevent scorching. Lately I've been using my french oven though and I have no problem spraying the inside with my olive oil mister and then covering the bottom of the dish with enough of the sauce for a light coating. Whatever you do, arrange the stuffed cabbage rolls in your dish, top with remaining sauce and bake for 45-55min. Enjoy!

Optional: top with sliced mushrooms before baking.

Perhaps one day I will actually put cauliflower in them or serve them over some riced cauliflower, but today was not that day.

Dieting for Two

The awesome thing about being able to share this paleo life with my dear husband is that it makes cooking a million times easier. The hardest thing about it is that sometimes I feel like I'm "dieting" for two. Since he gets up extra early for work and as much as he'd like to make himself a breakfast every day, the reality of it is he won't - especially on days where he has to get up at 430. Those are the days he'd be most likely to stop by the shoppette and grab one of those breakfast burritos full of "eggs", "sausage", "potatoes", and other "food" items.

To combat this I work really hard to make sure he has everything he needs for the full day of breakfast, snacks, and lunch. Luckily, lunch tends to be leftovers from the night before so that leaves a lot less to worry about. It's still hard to make dinner and realize I should pop some egg cups in the oven after making several other things all day. We recently (yesterday) found that a "green smoothie" holds really well in the refrigerator overnight so tomorrow is day two of an almond milk, banana, almond butter & spinach smoothie. We'll bring back egg cups later this week.

It makes it harder to put forth that same effort for myself, but it's important that I do. So for lunch if I don't have leftovers, baby Grok and I eat other things that the man of the house doesn't care for - like fish or shrimp or artichokes. I try to do things in advance like making a good batch of jerky and keeping assorted nuts and dried fruit on hand to whip up a little baggie of snacks for him to take. I'm also blessed that he'll eat things like celery (bleh) so that's an easy snack - but not stuff like hard boiled eggs(!!).

He's giving it an earnest try though and I don't want him to get bored with my cooking. I have so many little "recipes" that I am constantly recycling so I'm always looking for a way to shake things up.

Food wise nothing too exciting is going on here. No new recipes just some twists on old favorites. If I have a foodie breakthrough though, you'll be the first to know.

How do you keep your palate from getting bored? Do you get burned out from all of the prepping and planning?

Funny thing is

The funny thing is, I really went back and for on this blog idea thinking I'd have nothing interesting thing to say. Suddenly, I feel like there is so much I could talk about when it comes to paleo/primal and my life. There are so many positive aspects, challenges and just downright interesting information out there. The paleo "diet" is spreading like wildfire and friends are constantly popping up pinning recipes or sharing their paleo success. I even got my dad to adopt some paleo habits and he's feeling better and lost some weight which makes me happy. It makes me feel a little less crazy about spending the bulk of my time in my kitchen.

Speaking of my kitchen, I love cooking. So much. I hate cleaning it. Sometimes it's therapeutic scrubbing away if I'm slightly irritated and now it's sometimes even fun when Baby Grok "helps" me unload the dishwasher, handing me items and saying "thankyou" or putting all of the silverware into 1 - ONE - section of the silverware drawer.

Was I planning on sharing recipes? Eh. Did I make something worth sharing? Maybe. This one is easy because it's pretty simple. Sometimes I forget how easy it is to whip up dishes and add produce - especially veggies to my daily routine. I present to you, my "tortilla roja." Tortilla? What? No, it's not your typical flour tortilla, it's a Spanish (from Spain) style tortilla traditionally made with egg and potatoes which many people call a frittata or even just an omelet. However, my family - half of it - is Spanish, so in my book, it's a tortilla. I made my first tortilla when I was in college. I bought a bag of potatoes, some onions, a dozen eggs and got to work. I made two. They didn't look the best, but it was a start. I can't remember the last time I made a tortilla, but as I was getting hungry for breakfast the other day I decided it would be a great way kick start my day with veggies. It was delicious and I have many variations in mind - including one with sweet potatoes - and maybe chorizo.

Tortilla Roja

3eggs
1/2 Zucchini,diced
1/2 Onion diced
1 Tomato, diced
4 Mushrooms, sliced
1 Tbsp Smoked Paprika
salt to taste
black pepper to taste
1/2 Tbsp Grass fed butter
Olive Oil

Over medium heat, melt butter in small pan (omelet sized) and sautee zuchini, onion and mushrooms until soft. Add tomatoes and sautee for another minute or 2, remove from heat. In mixing bowl, whisk eggs, add smoked paprika and sauteed vegetables. Add enough oil (or ghee, or whatever) to cover the bottom of the pan and heat to med-low/medium. Once oil is hot, add egg mixture and cover for 3-5 minutes. The trick to a tortilla - or frittata, whatever - is to make sure it cooks through. Swivel pan and use a spatula to make sure the egg mixture isn't sticking to the sides. If 5 minutes isn't enough, cover and let cook a bit longer.

Once the center of the tortilla looks like it's cooking through, it's time to get a plate ready. I use a dinner plate that's a bit larger than the pan. Cover pan with plate and as gracefully as possible, flip the pan so that the tortilla is now on the plate. Return pan to burner. If there is still plenty of oil remaining, holding the tortilla securely to the plate, return any oil to the pan and top off with fresh oil. Then, with as much finesse as possible, slide the tortilla back into the pan to cook the other side. 

Ok, not so red - also, difficult to make look interesting, but it was delicious. Trust me.

That's it! You can either flip it onto a plate which I think is easiest or finagle it to slide back out. I like to put the nicer looking side up so whatever it takes to get there is up to you. I topped mine with my favorite salsa - Muir Glen Garlic Cilantro and chowed down with Baby Grok.

Tortilla is meant to be a portable food. At least that's how I was raised. Eat it warm, or let it cool and slice it up for a picnic. There's no need to refrigerate it! There's also no need to top it. We always ate ours with mayo or ketchup, or plain - even in a sandwich.

What's your favorite picnic food?

Baby Grok Loves Jerky

Today was Father's Day, so in order to celebrate how loving and amazing of a father my husband is we did. . .absolutely nothing. To be fair, he's away for work the next few days, but I have a little something up my sleeve to celebrate and I plan on sharing that with you.

This blog comes after months of debating whether to dive into the growing world of paleo bloggers. My friend has her own blog and says that yes, I should in fact start one myself *ahem*. In all honesty, I have a lot of paleo going on in my life and sometimes I just feel like sharing it but don't have the right person to share it at the moment. Considering that my husband gets tired of listening to me talk, my son is much to young to engage in big conversations at the ripe age of almost 22 months, and many friends live in time zones anywhere from six to twelve hours behind me, this is happening.

Today was an interesting day which prompted me to decide that I really did need to do this because I had to share a hilarious series of events starring my son who for now we'll call Baby Grok (cute, right?)

This morning, shortly after waking up I took off his diaper because we are embarking in naked potty learning. I like learning instead of training, whatever, it makes me happy. Moving on. It was a fairly uneventful day because we were going to do this whole naked potty method right! I picked up beef from my local farmer on Friday, marinated strips overnight and today was jerky making day! Hooray! Fast forward a good 5 hours - because I may have sliced my brisket too thick this time - and we are sampling jerky. Baby Grok LOVES this stuff. He keeps asking for more and more. After we've finished sharing a piece he disappears into the kitchen and I hear a drawer open, the oven door slightly open then close and he comes running back. This is what a see: a toddler wearing nothing but a bright blue oven mitt (potty learning, remember?) and he tells me, "Hot. Hot. More!" Which I take to understand that the oven is hot and he wants more jerky so I go grab a piece and before I break it up for him he runs off with it.

Back in our living room, naked baby has the jerky. He's trying to rip it with his teeth and gets a tiny bite off. He grunts and flexes his "muscles"; I tear off a few more bites for him which he happily eats, then runs off to do some push-ups. I'm not making any of this up. I swear. Must be that delicious grass fed beef. Not funny? Eh, guess you had to have been there. Sorry.

Will I post my own recipes? Perhaps. I tend to look up recipes for ideas in my head but maybe I'll stop doing that and just work on creating my own. I made two kinds of jerky since I like variety. With my brisket I went with smoky and my round - I think (sauerbraten/rolle here in Germany) I did a sweeter variation.

This is enough for one day and I'm afraid I'll run out of stuff to tell you anyway. And the potty learning? An overall successful day. Hopefully Baby Grok keeps up his progress.