Inherent Appetite

Paleo-Mex Portabellos

What do you do when you’re fresh out of ideas for a new recipe?  Take an old one and tweak it a little bit.  A few different spices, different kind of meat and voila, a fresh new Paleo meal.

• Meals: 2
• Prep Time: 10min
• Cook Time: 30min

Steak-N-Veggie Bake

Remember the old Hungry-Man Meals?  This is my Paleo version.  Lots of wholesome vegetables mixed in with some grass-fed beef and of course, bacon.

• Prep Time: 10min
• Cook Time: 30min
• Meals: 3-4

Beef Enchilada Cabbage Rolls

Hot plate amigo!  This is not an original recipe of my own (this is my pic though) but one I have to share.  I found this on Healthy Living How to.  She has some other really good looking recipes on her site as well so check it out.

I followed her recipe pretty much how it was written minus actually measuring stuff.  It took me about an hour from start to finish and cleanup.  I served mine over a bed of sauteed peppers AND a Paleo Margarita to wash it down of course.

Test-Tube Burgers

Okay, you will get a new recipe soon, I promise, but I’ve seen two different articles on this now and had to finally share.

Post’s aim is to invent an efficient way to produce skeletal muscle tissue in a laboratory that exactly mimics meat, and eventually replace the entire meat-animal industry.

Forget about not being a scientist or a nutritionist and just use some good old fashioned logic here and hopefully you will agree that this is going to be BAD news.  You cannot recreate nature and pretty much every time that mankind has tried we have created an even bigger problem than the one we were trying to fix.

Post spoke at a symposium titled “The Next Agricultural Revolution” at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver.

You know what happened after the last Agricultural Revolution?  Gluten.  Awesome.  

The scientists claim that their goal is to overcome the “ongoing global catastrophe” with animal farming.  They should say more specifically, factory farming.  Animals have been around as long if not longer than humans and yet the world has survived.  The problem is not raising animals to be eaten, it is cramming as many animals as possible onto a small plot of land, feeding them shit, not letting them live a normal life, and then pumping them full of antibiotics to keep them alive just long enough to get fat.

The article claims that no companies in the meat industry have expressed interest but once this technology becomes aged enough to where it can produce meat cheaper than factory farms you can bet they will, so keep an eye out.

Ahi Tuna over Crimini Mushroom “Pasta”

I came across two nice wild caught Ahi Tuna steaks on sale at the grocery store and had to think up something delicious.  Some Crimini Mushrooms, a spaghetti squash and some spices later and I had the making of something BIG.

• Prep Time: 15min
• Cook Time: 15min
• Meals: 2

Ingredients:

• 1lb Ahi Tuna steaks
• 1 spaghetti squash
• 1/2lb sliced crimini mushrooms
• 1/2 sweet onion sliced thin
• 4 cloves crushed garlic
• olive oil
• butter (not super strict paleo)
• spices(sesame seeds, sea salt, crushed black peppercorns)

Heat a pan to low heat and pour in enough olive oil to just coat the bottom of the pan.  Throw in the crushed garlic for 2min and then the onions for 1min and then the sliced mushrooms.  Let this all sautee until the mushrooms begin to soften.

As that is going down take your squash and stab it a few times.  Here’s your chance to take out the days aggression.  Throw it in the microwave and cook it for 10min or until it gives a little if you push on it.  Slice it in half, remove the seeds and then scrape out the “spaghetti” with a fork.  Toss the “noodles” into a pot on low heat with a healthy amount of butter (yes, I used butter and the word healthy in the same sentence…because it is silly!).  Lastly toss in the mushroom and onion mixture and mix all together.  Throw in some salt.

Using the same pan turn the heat up to med-high.  Coat the tuna steaks with olive oil and a liberal amount of all your spices.  Toss on the pan to sear.  Tuna is best cooked med to med-rare so don’t get carried away.  Depending on the thickness this will only take 2-3min per side.

Plate your noodles and top it off with one of the tuna steaks.  I would pair this with the nicest bottle of white wine $4 can get you and call it a night.  Enjoy!

Meaty Italian over Kale

Yes, I am still alive!  Sorry for the long hiatus but life took over there for a bit.  I loved spaghetti as a kid and I’ve posted Paleo spaghetti on here already but this is a different spin and I did the sauce differently this time.  Enough so that you need this new recipe.

• Prep Time: 10min
• Cook Time: 20min
• Meals: 3

Ingredients:

• 1lb ground italian sausage
• 2 vine ripe tomatoes
• 2 bunches of kale
• 1/2 large sweet onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 small can tomato paste
• olive oil
• spices (italian seasoning, s&p)

Heat a pot to med-low and a skillet to med.  Toss in the sausage and while that is browning begin chopping the tomatoes, garlic, and onion.  Throw the tomatoes and garlic into the pot to cook along with a healthy dose of italian seasoning.  The tomatoes will cook down into more of a “soup” which is fine.  Once the sausage is brown remove it from the pan and place it in a strainer to drip off the excess fat.

Keep the pan at med heat and add some olive oil and then the onions.  Once they become translucent add the tomato paste and mix in with the onions.  Next add the tomato mixture from the pot and mix everything together evenly.  Add in the sausage, move everything back to the pot, turn the heat to low and let this simmer.

Lastly, add some more olive oil to the pan at med heat and then toss in the torn bits of kale.  Throw in some salt and better and cook until kale becomes soft.  Remove, plate, and add a large portion of the tomato and meat mixture on top.  Combine that with a delicious glass of red wine and a hot date and you have yourself one happy night.  Enjoy!

Roasted Red Pepper Sauce Tenders

There are two things that I’ve found that make Paleo food WAY better and you WAY more likely to stick with it: texture and sauces.  I’ll talk about texture some other time but today’s focus is sauce!  Sauces take a little time and prep to make but they can make ANY recipe better.  Let me know what you think about this one.

• Prep Time: 10min
• Cook Time: 45min
• Meals: 2-3

Ingredients:

• 1-1.5lbs chicken tenders
• 3 red bell peppers
• 1 jalapeno
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 egg
• almond flour
• lard
• olive oil
• s&p

Preheat the oven to broiler on high and heat a skillet to med-high heat with the lard.  Rub the peppers, bell and jalapeno, with olive oil and place under the broiler.  While that’s going on whisk the egg and pour some almond flour onto a plate.  Begin battering the tenders by first dipping them in egg and then rolling them in the almond flour and finally placing in the hot skillet to pan-fry.

As the peppers begin to burn keep turning them so they’re burnt evenly then remove from the oven.  Place the peppers in a bowl and cover for 30min to cool.  The steam will help make it easier to peel the skin later.  Finish up with the tenders, clean the skillet, turn the heat to med-low and pour in some olive oil, about 3 tbsp.

Peel the pepper skins off, remove the stems and seeds, cut into bite-size pieces and toss in the skillet.  Break up the garlic and throw it in as well.  Let this all cook to blend the flavors, about 10min.  Transfer this mixture to a food processor and blend to your desired consistency and then transfer back to the skillet.  Bring the sauce back to a boil and begin adding coconut milk until the sauce is to your desired consistency.  I used 1/2-2/3 of the can.  Add in the salt and pepper and any other spices you’d like and let cook for 5min.  Pour this mixture over the tenders and serve.

This will probably be a lot more sauce than you need but I like to use it all to make it almost like a soup with chicken tenders.  Afterall, the pepper sauce is the only vegetable to this meal.  I’ll be experimenting a lot more with sauces but this was a good start.

Fatty Foods Addictive as Cocaine

I ran across this article a few weeks ago and wanted to share.  It’s got some good info but the title is a bit disappointing.  To me, the title implies that foods involving fat have been found to be as addictive as cocaine, but as you read the article you’ll find that the foods being discussed are actually “processed foods and sugary drinks.”

So it appears its foods that make you fat, not fat itself, that is the culprit being debated.  Fat can be used as a noun or an adjective and it’s a shame that too often in our country it is used as an adjective and confused as a noun.  They are not the same, nor does one necessarily lead to the other.  In fact, the fatty (adjective) foods addressed in this article, on average, are probably very low in dietary fat (noun) compared to a real food such as meat.

Anyway, it’s nothing new to most of us but it’s a pretty good article so give it a read when you have a few minutes.