Todays Recipe. - This morning I loaded up the crock pot with a primal dish from Marks Daily Apple. The Crock Pot Pork-Stuffed Peppers recipe promised all the ease of a traditional slow cooker, comfort food meal with a paleo, or primal, spin. So, how did this recipe fare in my, sometimes, incapable hands? Read on to find out.
Ingredients - This recipe didnt require any hunting for veggies. Everything was well known to me and was easy to find. I did take my time in picking out the green peppers though. I wanted something with a good base that would support itself and a belly full of ground pork.
I changed up the recipe only to add 2 peppers because my crockpot could hold them. This allowed me to fill the peppers and not have extra filling to stuff into the cracks of the crock pot.
FitDay Calculations - FitDay Gave me the following macronutrient breakdown.
Entire Recipe
Total Calories:3,095
Fat: 212g
Carbs: 128g
Protein: 178g
Per Pepper (Total divided by 6):
Total Calories:515
Fat: 35.3g
Carbs: 21.3g
Protein: 29.6g
Cost - The total cost for all of my ingredients came out to about 18 dollars.
Preparation - Ok, this is getting ridiculous, the third review Ive done and this is the third time that Ive had to mash up ground meat of some sort with my hands! Not that Im complaining or anything, I think its fun to get all mucky, but I really need to pick something that doesnt have ground meat in the ingredients list. Mark's recipe mentions that you can either use the food processor or manually chop your veggies. After about 5 minutes of earlier morning, coffee driven conversation with myself, we (both myself and I) decided to go ahead and use the food processor. It's really not that big of a deal to clean and its pretty fast and convenient.
There really isnt much to this recipe in the preparation phase. The magic all comes later while you are at work and the peppers are magically cooking themselves. A word of caution though, be gentle when stuffing your peppers. I split one of mine open when I got a little too vigorous with the stuffing. In fact, I think I was thinking back to that scene in Little Mermaid (Dont judge me I have a 6 yo daughter) when the chef is stuffing the crab with lettuce, lol. Ahem, anyways, just take it easy on those poor peppers.
Cooking - The cooking step was as easy as plugging in the crockpot and turning it to low. The hardest part would be remembering to come back home in time to turn the crockpot off. If you arent going to be home for longer than 9 hours, I would suggest getting a timer at home depot to set the crockpot start time with (unless yours already has a built in timer)
Eating, tasting - This recipe was another winner for me. The peppers tasted great right out of the crockpot and actually only seemed to get better over the next few days as left-overs! I could have done with a little more spice and I would actually like to try a hybrid of this recipe using the Meatza seasonings. I think that would be fantastic!
Verdict - Another keeper! A delicious and easy to make dish that makes your whole house smell delectable!
Sources -
Marks Daily Apple
Crock-Pot Pork Stuffed Peppers
FitDay Nutrition Calculations
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
JT's Review of the Garden Fresh Meatballs
My name is J.T., I am nine years old, and this is what I thought of the Garden Fresh Meatballs. They were very good and almost sweet. They were also juicy. It took me a couple minutes to eat it because it was so HUGE! I've been thinking what if you could make one as big as your face! Any questions about the Garden Fresh Meatballs?
Friday, March 12, 2010
Every Day Paleo's Garden Fresh Meatballs
Todays Recipe. - Last night's meal Garden Fresh Meatballs came courtesy of Sarah at everydaypaleo.com. Sarah is, as she puts it, "a busy mother of three, wife, CrossFit coach, and well – totally human." I like Sarah's approach to cooking because her recipes are, by definition, every-day type meals. In essence, if you think you dont have time to cook paleo, you now have NO excuses! Sarah's recipes are easy to make, inexpensive to purchase, are hella tasty and are even attractive to kids. Being readily acceptable by kids is a big plus for me as I try to get my own kids on the path to eating healthily. I dont think Ive made one Every Day Paleo that my kids didnt devour included the veggies.
It was about 9:30 last night before I finally got home from working out and grocery shopping. I did make a commitment to make this recipe, however, so I buckled down and made it happen. And boy am I glad that I did! By 10:30 I was mowing down some down right tasty, albeit very hot, meatballs.
Ingredients - I had a bear of a time trying to track down some of these ingredients. Not because they were super rare items or anything, but the first two places I went to didn't have Zucchinis! WTH?! How do you run out of Zucchini? And then, at Stater Bros I finally did find them BUT, they had them listed as "Italian Squash." I don't know why things always have to have complicated fancy names. Cant we just stick with what EVERYONE already knows?! Anywho, I got all of my meat, roasted peppers, and eggs at Trader Joe's and I got my veggies, and almond meal at Henry's. Henry's is Southern California's "Farmers Market" They have a lot of organic foods etc. I get my raw milk from them as well. You may have a Sprouts or Whole Foods in your area. So, other than not being able to find the zucchin....I mean Italian Squash readily available, sourcing the ingredients went fairly easily. The recipe said to salt and pepper to taste. I probably used 2-3 teaspoons of salt but I wish I would have added a little bit more, or added another ingredient to spice it up a little. Suggestions?
FitDay Calculations - I thought adding the macro-nutrient breakdown to the recipes that I post here would be helpful to me in the future. So, after plugging in all the ingredients to FitDay I got the following breakdown.
Entire Recipe
Total Calories: 4,304
Fat: 258g
Carbs: 139.7g
Protein: 358.1g
Per Meatball (Total divided by 21):
Total Calories: 205
Fat: 12.3g
Carbs: 6.65g
Protein: 17g
Cost - The total cost for all of my ingredients came out to about 17 dollars. Not bad for a meal that could feed the whole family.
Preparation - This was another recipe that would be a fun one for the kids because, like the Meatza, you get to use your hands to mix all the meat and ingredients together. It took me about 30 minutes to completely prepare this meal. At least 10 minutes of that time was from me running around the kitchen trying to find all the right utensils, bowls, and cookware. Having a food processor was a big time-saver on this one. The yam and zucchini were shredded in no time, and mincing the rest of the vegetables was a breeze. You will spend more time cleaning up the food processor than actually using it. After all of my veggies were minced and in the bowl ready to be dropped into the meat, I thought there was a mistake. The meat to veggie ratio seemed very skewed towards the veggies. I started to think that it was too much, but I trust Sarah and dumped the bowl of veggies into the meat and egg mix. In hindsight, these are Garden Fresh meatballs after all and the ratio of meat to veggies turned out to be perfect. The flavors blended well. That reminds me, I need to get my mom a new mixing container for her Cuisinart. The safety has broken on it and you have to use a knife to push the safety switch down. The entire lid can, of course, be left open!!! Its super scary watching a yam get obliterated and knowing that it could just as easily be your finger!
Since the meat is a bit sticky when its ready to be placed into the cooking dishes I found that doing a sort of back and forth rolling and dropping from one hand to the other worked well in making nice round balls. Basically, grab a chunk of the mix in your left hand, start rolling it between your hands until you can tilt your left hand sideways and the lump rolls off into your right hand. Now raise your right hand above the left and tilt your right hand so the ball falls back into your left hand. Increase the speed and the back and forth motion will continue to keep the lump in motion and form it into a perfect little ball!
Cooking - It took all of the 45 minutes suggested in the recipe to cook this dish. I would have preferred to use one cooking dish here, I couldn't find one dish to fit all of my meatballs. It was pretty late in the evening, and I didnt want to wake the house with all my banging and cursing, so I just grabbed two of the closest dishes I could find.
When I popped these into the oven I was dreading the 45 minute wait because I was tired. 10 rounds of 15x 135# deadlit and 15 pushups had me begging for a warm bed. But, my sister, Ruby Rocker of the OC Roller Girls roller derby league, popped in and we talked derby and food making the time skate by like the lead jammer in a roller derby bout. That is to say, that time went by rather quickly.
Eating, tasting - A word of caution before I get into how good this meal was. Be careful removing the foil from the dishes! It flippin hot in them there dishes and that steam is just looking for a finger or hand or face to scald! Seeing as I didn't learn my lesson when I opened the first dish, I scalded my hand twice. I had a plate of 6 of these tasty morsels and I felt adequately satisfied, but I'm kind of a big guy. One or two of these would feed my kids just fine and would be perfect in their lunches! As I said earlier, I could have done with a little extra salt to the recipe or some other spice. I would love to hear a suggestion about that, though, as I never know what spice would go well with certain dishes. As a complete meal, some kind of sauce would be quite delicious on these as well. Just drizzle a little sauce over the top and mmmmmmmm. I think some Parmesan cheese mixed would have been a nice touch too. Once these were cooled off and say, in a lunch container, they would make good finger foods and would be very portable.
Verdict - I really enjoyed these meatballs (and will be enjoying them for lunch today). They were quite painless to make, other than getting scalded by the steam, inexpensive, and would work well as a lunch for me or the kids. I plan on making a few changes the next time I try them, more salt, cheese, etc. But on their own, they were still delicious! I also really like that each meatball packs in a bunch of veggies. Maybe its not a huge variety, but its like a paleo version of the chips ahoy cookies, bet you cant take a bite without getting some veggies!
Thank you Sarah for a great recipe!
Sources -
Everyday Paleo
Garden Fresh Meatballs
OC Roller Girls Roller Derby League
FitDay Nutrition Calculations
Organic Pastures Raw Milk
It was about 9:30 last night before I finally got home from working out and grocery shopping. I did make a commitment to make this recipe, however, so I buckled down and made it happen. And boy am I glad that I did! By 10:30 I was mowing down some down right tasty, albeit very hot, meatballs.
Ingredients - I had a bear of a time trying to track down some of these ingredients. Not because they were super rare items or anything, but the first two places I went to didn't have Zucchinis! WTH?! How do you run out of Zucchini? And then, at Stater Bros I finally did find them BUT, they had them listed as "Italian Squash." I don't know why things always have to have complicated fancy names. Cant we just stick with what EVERYONE already knows?! Anywho, I got all of my meat, roasted peppers, and eggs at Trader Joe's and I got my veggies, and almond meal at Henry's. Henry's is Southern California's "Farmers Market" They have a lot of organic foods etc. I get my raw milk from them as well. You may have a Sprouts or Whole Foods in your area. So, other than not being able to find the zucchin....I mean Italian Squash readily available, sourcing the ingredients went fairly easily. The recipe said to salt and pepper to taste. I probably used 2-3 teaspoons of salt but I wish I would have added a little bit more, or added another ingredient to spice it up a little. Suggestions?
FitDay Calculations - I thought adding the macro-nutrient breakdown to the recipes that I post here would be helpful to me in the future. So, after plugging in all the ingredients to FitDay I got the following breakdown.
Entire Recipe
Total Calories: 4,304
Fat: 258g
Carbs: 139.7g
Protein: 358.1g
Per Meatball (Total divided by 21):
Total Calories: 205
Fat: 12.3g
Carbs: 6.65g
Protein: 17g
Cost - The total cost for all of my ingredients came out to about 17 dollars. Not bad for a meal that could feed the whole family.
Preparation - This was another recipe that would be a fun one for the kids because, like the Meatza, you get to use your hands to mix all the meat and ingredients together. It took me about 30 minutes to completely prepare this meal. At least 10 minutes of that time was from me running around the kitchen trying to find all the right utensils, bowls, and cookware. Having a food processor was a big time-saver on this one. The yam and zucchini were shredded in no time, and mincing the rest of the vegetables was a breeze. You will spend more time cleaning up the food processor than actually using it. After all of my veggies were minced and in the bowl ready to be dropped into the meat, I thought there was a mistake. The meat to veggie ratio seemed very skewed towards the veggies. I started to think that it was too much, but I trust Sarah and dumped the bowl of veggies into the meat and egg mix. In hindsight, these are Garden Fresh meatballs after all and the ratio of meat to veggies turned out to be perfect. The flavors blended well. That reminds me, I need to get my mom a new mixing container for her Cuisinart. The safety has broken on it and you have to use a knife to push the safety switch down. The entire lid can, of course, be left open!!! Its super scary watching a yam get obliterated and knowing that it could just as easily be your finger!
Since the meat is a bit sticky when its ready to be placed into the cooking dishes I found that doing a sort of back and forth rolling and dropping from one hand to the other worked well in making nice round balls. Basically, grab a chunk of the mix in your left hand, start rolling it between your hands until you can tilt your left hand sideways and the lump rolls off into your right hand. Now raise your right hand above the left and tilt your right hand so the ball falls back into your left hand. Increase the speed and the back and forth motion will continue to keep the lump in motion and form it into a perfect little ball!
Cooking - It took all of the 45 minutes suggested in the recipe to cook this dish. I would have preferred to use one cooking dish here, I couldn't find one dish to fit all of my meatballs. It was pretty late in the evening, and I didnt want to wake the house with all my banging and cursing, so I just grabbed two of the closest dishes I could find.
When I popped these into the oven I was dreading the 45 minute wait because I was tired. 10 rounds of 15x 135# deadlit and 15 pushups had me begging for a warm bed. But, my sister, Ruby Rocker of the OC Roller Girls roller derby league, popped in and we talked derby and food making the time skate by like the lead jammer in a roller derby bout. That is to say, that time went by rather quickly.
Verdict - I really enjoyed these meatballs (and will be enjoying them for lunch today). They were quite painless to make, other than getting scalded by the steam, inexpensive, and would work well as a lunch for me or the kids. I plan on making a few changes the next time I try them, more salt, cheese, etc. But on their own, they were still delicious! I also really like that each meatball packs in a bunch of veggies. Maybe its not a huge variety, but its like a paleo version of the chips ahoy cookies, bet you cant take a bite without getting some veggies!
Thank you Sarah for a great recipe!
Sources -
Everyday Paleo
Garden Fresh Meatballs
OC Roller Girls Roller Derby League
FitDay Nutrition Calculations
Organic Pastures Raw Milk
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
An Introduction and a Review...The Meatza! Only the Greatest Pizza Ive Ever Had!
This is my first post on a collection of recipes that I will be cooking and reviewing. I am doing this for a few reasons.
#1 I really enjoy cooking but I never really knew what to cook or I never had the time to do it. Five months ago I started to follow a strict Paleolithic type diet. I had started to listen to podcasts by Rob Wolf and Andy Deas, I read "The Paleo Diet" by Dr Cordain, and I was researching and learning from regular people and athletes all over the blogoshpere about the paleo diet. It was all so simple! Lean meats, veggies, fruits, and good fats from natural sources. Cut out all grains, gluten, legumes, sugars and dairy. No weighing and measuring, no worrying about trying to figure out my macro-nutrient ratio when I went out to dinner. The paleo diet (its really more a way of life) was so easy to follow and most important of all I showed AMAZING results in the look/ feel/ perform categories immediately! I leaned out, I gained muscle, I stopped being tired and lethargic during the day, I power output went up even as my weight went down. My stamina increased. etc etc etc. It really is the same story that you hear over and over again from people that go paleo and never look back.
#2 I need to add some variety to my daily meals. When I began with paleo, I started out very plainly. I would cook up a bunch of free range chicken thighs or pork loin at the beginning of the week and just eat that throughout the week with salads, spinach, fruits, avocados, nuts, etc. Nothing fancy AT ALL. And it completely sustained me. Like I said, I looked/ felt/ and performed better than I had every before. I did that for the first couple of months before I started to get bored. I started poking around the internet again and I came across a plethora of paleo recipe sites. The recipes looked delicious and very easy to make! I finally decided that I really wanted to expand my scope of knowledge into cooking. My family wasn't about to follow me down the path of paleo awesomeness if it only meant that they were going to eat chicken thighs for the rest of their lives! So, I started simply. I began with a recipe from everydaypaleo.com that was basically a big giant saute pan filled with meat and veggies. And.....It.....was......Amazing! Ill post my review about that recipe the next time I make it. Ever since that point I have made it a priority to end my week on Sunday with browsing the recipe sites and pulling out the recipes that I want to make that week and then going out and buying all the ingredients.
For instance, this week I will have made a Dijon Sirloin with Brussel Sprouts, a Meatza (today's review), Garden Fresh Meatballs, and Pork Tenderloin in a Cilantro Pesto Sauce. I know! Yum, right?!!!
#3 I want to have a place where I can always come back to and know what I cooked. Trying to maintain a list of bookmarks on multiple computers didn't excite me and if I made any changes to the recipe I wanted to know what I did, or what I would do in the future. I also wanted to remind myself how I, or how my family liked the recipe. Kind of a chef's journal if you will.
#4 I want to share my experiences. I figure, if I'm going to create a journal of the recipes that I made for my own use, maybe someone else could benefit from it. Learn from my mistakes, incorporate some of my changes, let me know what changes YOU made. I will be testing and reviewing different recipes from a myriad of sites and blogs and put it all into one place. Keep in mind, that I don't think I'm a great chef or cook by ANY means. If I can do these recipes, anyone can! I will not be posting the recipes here, I will post the links to the proper owners of the recipes along with any changes or notes that I may have made and any impressions that I may have while making them.
#4 I love to write. Sometimes I drone on and on and sometimes I don't make sense, but ever since I was a kid I always liked to write stories, poems, thoughts etc. I'm hoping my creative side of my brain will get a chance to stretch and exercise through these reviews. I will be learning as I go, both from errors or changes that I find I want to make and from suggestions, so please feel free to comment and /or shoot me a tweet or email if you think there is something I should change up.
Todays Recipe. - So without further adieu I present my first review of a recipe that I found on Justin Owings Blog. It is the Meatza! Meatza! What we have here is basically a pizza without the bread. It does have a crust, but our crust will be made up of two pounds of beef goodness. Moo, my friends, moo. It will tend to be quite low carb without all that bread, but don't let that stop you from eating it with GOOD carbs like veggies and fruits. Now, I will state up front that I don't believe this to be technically "paleo" because of the dairy, and if I were to suggest this to someone who has eliminated all gluten, grain, and dairy from their diet, I would still recommend this recipe but without the cheese. In fact, I may make this next time as a legit paleo meal. But, I was the only one eating this, and for me personally, I have added dairy back into my diet after taking it out for over a month. I haven't found it to affect my look/ feel/ perform meter, and also, for me, I am trying add some bulk, so that's another reason I don't have a problem with the dairy.
Ingredients - The ingredients were pretty straight forward and I had no problem finding them all at my local Trader Joe's grocery establishment. I'm not sure what my total amount, dollar-wise, was for this meal, and now that I think about it, perhaps that would be a nice adder to my reviews here, but, I digress. In his recipe, Justin mentions that 80/20 beef is OK for this recipe, but I went with 96/4 because I didn't want my meatza to shrink too much and I figured I was already going to get a ton of fat from the cheese and pepperonis. I purchased two packages of the TJ's branded shredded Mozzarella and I used both of them in this recipe, in addition to nearly two packages of pepperoni. I only used one green bell pepper and one package of pre-sliced mushrooms. The next time I make this, I will add more veggies of some sort or other because that is one thing I found lacking in MY version of this recipe. I did not use olives in my recipe for no other reason than being in a rush at the store and not knowing which olives to get. If you have a suggestion of olive type for this recipe, please let me know. Also, I left off the feta cheese. For my sauce I used a 3 cheese garlic sauce from TJ's that I like a lot. Justin claimed that the caraway seeds were the "magic ingredient." to the meat crust, the ingredient that made this such a masterpiece, and I tend to agree with him. This is the second dish that I have ever used the caraway seeds on and I really enjoy their flavoring. Ive had them before in certain types of bread, but until now, I never knew that that was the pungent flavor that I was tasting.
Preparation - The preparation was very easy and even a little fun. I think my kids would have really enjoyed mixing the ground beef and the eggs together as it was extra messy and you get to use your hands. I did take Justin's advice and pre measure out all the dry ingredients, and people, believe him, and me, do this before mixing the beef! The mixing part is very messy and its so much easier to be able to just pour a bowl of dry ingredients and Parmesan cheese into your meat crust mix than to interrupt things to wash your hands off. Plus, you wont get clumping. Do not forget the Bam! step. This is very important, not only to your self-esteem, but is a great way to get a smile out of everyone around you watching you and your big mess. Flattening the crust out was not hard, per se, but at this point the meat is very sticky and so it required a little bit of work to flatten out the whole thing without it sticking to my hands. Perhaps putting a large sheet of wax paper on top of the meat and then rolling it out would be a good option to try.
The 10 minute cook time was just enough time to saute my mushrooms and bell pepper. I used coconut oil to saute instead of the pastured butter only because I love coconut oil. I have some really good New Zealand butter from Tropical Traditions that I will have to cook with next time I think.
Cooking - The cooking of this feast was about as easy as anything you could ask for. Pop the meat crust into the oven for 10 minutes, and then for another 5 with the toppings and you're good to go! The crust, as cooked, came out well-done. It was slightly overdone for my tastes but it was far from dry due to all of the other ingredients. I think perhaps the dryness was due to either the 10 minute cook time or from using the convection oven for 10 minutes. I will have to play with this to see how to get a crust that is a tad more rare.
Honestly, sauteing the veggies was the most labor intensive step to the cooking process. But, I enjoy sauteing and you can always use practice on your veggie flipping skills.
Eating, tasting - Ok, I wish I would have taken a picture of this beast as I pulled it out of the oven because it was just so awe-inspiring and so beautiful. Im pretty sure I blurted out "Shit yeah!!" when my eyes and nose started feasting before I could even get the pizza cutter onto this work of art. Instead, you'll just have to do with a picture of a slice of the Meatza! Meatza! on my plate. It all held together very nicely and the oil from the beef crust acted as a nice non-stick base while it cooked. I was able to cut through the meatza and slide a slice off onto my plate with a regular spatula. I thought I was going to have a huge mess on my hands transferring the pie onto my plate, but I was pleasantly surprised. Even cleanup wasn't as bad as I expected it to be!
I should have tried to pick up the pie and eat it with my hands, as I think it would have held together just fine. But, I ended up fork and knifeing it. The crust was nice and dense, but like I said earlier, I would have liked it just a little bit less well-done. With all of the cheese and toppings it was not dry at all though, so, score! The meat was amazingly delicious and I think I would definitely make meatballs from that recipe. They would be good on their own or over a bed of spaghetti squash. Justin was spot on in regards to the caraway seeds. I wanted to see more veggies on this, but that was on me and shouldn't be seen as a dig on Justin's recipe. Cutting this into six pieces seemed about right, though, for smaller eaters or for kids, an even smaller piece would make a huge dent in any hunger pangs. Everything else seemed perfectly cooked, with the cheese being perfectly melted. The sauce was another hit with my senses, but there were so many choices at the store, I would like to try some others next time just for the heck of it. Just get a good quality sauce and I don't think you can go wrong! I think that this would also taste good with some avocado on top or even some pineapple to give it a little sweet side. If anchovies are your thing, who am I to judge. I layered pepperoni, cheese, then more pepperoni on this pie. The top layer of cheese and pepperoni did slide around a little bit which I would like to correct next time, so perhaps the layering itself should have a different order. Something more conducive to cohesiveness.
Verdict - This recipe is definitely going down as a keeper in my book. Since I ate this one on my own I had a TON of left overs. I was going to make this for a Bible study group but it got canceled at the last minute. Im not sure that there would have been enough to feed everyone if this was the only dish, but with whatever else they might have had at the potluck, it would have probably sufficed. I would have probably cut it into at least 8's, or, I would just make two Meatzas. TOTAL realistic time involved in making this was probably about 45 minutes. I could probably get that time down by 15 minutes with some practice, but I would plan on 45 minutes on your first go around.
It was definitely easy to make, was not too expensive to buy all the ingredients, didnt require a lot of time to make, and was very very tasty.
Bravo Signore Justin, Bravo!
Sources -
Justin Owings Blog
Meatza! Meatza! recipe
Trader Joe's
#1 I really enjoy cooking but I never really knew what to cook or I never had the time to do it. Five months ago I started to follow a strict Paleolithic type diet. I had started to listen to podcasts by Rob Wolf and Andy Deas, I read "The Paleo Diet" by Dr Cordain, and I was researching and learning from regular people and athletes all over the blogoshpere about the paleo diet. It was all so simple! Lean meats, veggies, fruits, and good fats from natural sources. Cut out all grains, gluten, legumes, sugars and dairy. No weighing and measuring, no worrying about trying to figure out my macro-nutrient ratio when I went out to dinner. The paleo diet (its really more a way of life) was so easy to follow and most important of all I showed AMAZING results in the look/ feel/ perform categories immediately! I leaned out, I gained muscle, I stopped being tired and lethargic during the day, I power output went up even as my weight went down. My stamina increased. etc etc etc. It really is the same story that you hear over and over again from people that go paleo and never look back.
#2 I need to add some variety to my daily meals. When I began with paleo, I started out very plainly. I would cook up a bunch of free range chicken thighs or pork loin at the beginning of the week and just eat that throughout the week with salads, spinach, fruits, avocados, nuts, etc. Nothing fancy AT ALL. And it completely sustained me. Like I said, I looked/ felt/ and performed better than I had every before. I did that for the first couple of months before I started to get bored. I started poking around the internet again and I came across a plethora of paleo recipe sites. The recipes looked delicious and very easy to make! I finally decided that I really wanted to expand my scope of knowledge into cooking. My family wasn't about to follow me down the path of paleo awesomeness if it only meant that they were going to eat chicken thighs for the rest of their lives! So, I started simply. I began with a recipe from everydaypaleo.com that was basically a big giant saute pan filled with meat and veggies. And.....It.....was......Amazing! Ill post my review about that recipe the next time I make it. Ever since that point I have made it a priority to end my week on Sunday with browsing the recipe sites and pulling out the recipes that I want to make that week and then going out and buying all the ingredients.
For instance, this week I will have made a Dijon Sirloin with Brussel Sprouts, a Meatza (today's review), Garden Fresh Meatballs, and Pork Tenderloin in a Cilantro Pesto Sauce. I know! Yum, right?!!!
#3 I want to have a place where I can always come back to and know what I cooked. Trying to maintain a list of bookmarks on multiple computers didn't excite me and if I made any changes to the recipe I wanted to know what I did, or what I would do in the future. I also wanted to remind myself how I, or how my family liked the recipe. Kind of a chef's journal if you will.
#4 I want to share my experiences. I figure, if I'm going to create a journal of the recipes that I made for my own use, maybe someone else could benefit from it. Learn from my mistakes, incorporate some of my changes, let me know what changes YOU made. I will be testing and reviewing different recipes from a myriad of sites and blogs and put it all into one place. Keep in mind, that I don't think I'm a great chef or cook by ANY means. If I can do these recipes, anyone can! I will not be posting the recipes here, I will post the links to the proper owners of the recipes along with any changes or notes that I may have made and any impressions that I may have while making them.
#4 I love to write. Sometimes I drone on and on and sometimes I don't make sense, but ever since I was a kid I always liked to write stories, poems, thoughts etc. I'm hoping my creative side of my brain will get a chance to stretch and exercise through these reviews. I will be learning as I go, both from errors or changes that I find I want to make and from suggestions, so please feel free to comment and /or shoot me a tweet or email if you think there is something I should change up.
Todays Recipe. - So without further adieu I present my first review of a recipe that I found on Justin Owings Blog. It is the Meatza! Meatza! What we have here is basically a pizza without the bread. It does have a crust, but our crust will be made up of two pounds of beef goodness. Moo, my friends, moo. It will tend to be quite low carb without all that bread, but don't let that stop you from eating it with GOOD carbs like veggies and fruits. Now, I will state up front that I don't believe this to be technically "paleo" because of the dairy, and if I were to suggest this to someone who has eliminated all gluten, grain, and dairy from their diet, I would still recommend this recipe but without the cheese. In fact, I may make this next time as a legit paleo meal. But, I was the only one eating this, and for me personally, I have added dairy back into my diet after taking it out for over a month. I haven't found it to affect my look/ feel/ perform meter, and also, for me, I am trying add some bulk, so that's another reason I don't have a problem with the dairy.
Ingredients - The ingredients were pretty straight forward and I had no problem finding them all at my local Trader Joe's grocery establishment. I'm not sure what my total amount, dollar-wise, was for this meal, and now that I think about it, perhaps that would be a nice adder to my reviews here, but, I digress. In his recipe, Justin mentions that 80/20 beef is OK for this recipe, but I went with 96/4 because I didn't want my meatza to shrink too much and I figured I was already going to get a ton of fat from the cheese and pepperonis. I purchased two packages of the TJ's branded shredded Mozzarella and I used both of them in this recipe, in addition to nearly two packages of pepperoni. I only used one green bell pepper and one package of pre-sliced mushrooms. The next time I make this, I will add more veggies of some sort or other because that is one thing I found lacking in MY version of this recipe. I did not use olives in my recipe for no other reason than being in a rush at the store and not knowing which olives to get. If you have a suggestion of olive type for this recipe, please let me know. Also, I left off the feta cheese. For my sauce I used a 3 cheese garlic sauce from TJ's that I like a lot. Justin claimed that the caraway seeds were the "magic ingredient." to the meat crust, the ingredient that made this such a masterpiece, and I tend to agree with him. This is the second dish that I have ever used the caraway seeds on and I really enjoy their flavoring. Ive had them before in certain types of bread, but until now, I never knew that that was the pungent flavor that I was tasting.
Preparation - The preparation was very easy and even a little fun. I think my kids would have really enjoyed mixing the ground beef and the eggs together as it was extra messy and you get to use your hands. I did take Justin's advice and pre measure out all the dry ingredients, and people, believe him, and me, do this before mixing the beef! The mixing part is very messy and its so much easier to be able to just pour a bowl of dry ingredients and Parmesan cheese into your meat crust mix than to interrupt things to wash your hands off. Plus, you wont get clumping. Do not forget the Bam! step. This is very important, not only to your self-esteem, but is a great way to get a smile out of everyone around you watching you and your big mess. Flattening the crust out was not hard, per se, but at this point the meat is very sticky and so it required a little bit of work to flatten out the whole thing without it sticking to my hands. Perhaps putting a large sheet of wax paper on top of the meat and then rolling it out would be a good option to try.
The 10 minute cook time was just enough time to saute my mushrooms and bell pepper. I used coconut oil to saute instead of the pastured butter only because I love coconut oil. I have some really good New Zealand butter from Tropical Traditions that I will have to cook with next time I think.
Cooking - The cooking of this feast was about as easy as anything you could ask for. Pop the meat crust into the oven for 10 minutes, and then for another 5 with the toppings and you're good to go! The crust, as cooked, came out well-done. It was slightly overdone for my tastes but it was far from dry due to all of the other ingredients. I think perhaps the dryness was due to either the 10 minute cook time or from using the convection oven for 10 minutes. I will have to play with this to see how to get a crust that is a tad more rare.
Honestly, sauteing the veggies was the most labor intensive step to the cooking process. But, I enjoy sauteing and you can always use practice on your veggie flipping skills.
I should have tried to pick up the pie and eat it with my hands, as I think it would have held together just fine. But, I ended up fork and knifeing it. The crust was nice and dense, but like I said earlier, I would have liked it just a little bit less well-done. With all of the cheese and toppings it was not dry at all though, so, score! The meat was amazingly delicious and I think I would definitely make meatballs from that recipe. They would be good on their own or over a bed of spaghetti squash. Justin was spot on in regards to the caraway seeds. I wanted to see more veggies on this, but that was on me and shouldn't be seen as a dig on Justin's recipe. Cutting this into six pieces seemed about right, though, for smaller eaters or for kids, an even smaller piece would make a huge dent in any hunger pangs. Everything else seemed perfectly cooked, with the cheese being perfectly melted. The sauce was another hit with my senses, but there were so many choices at the store, I would like to try some others next time just for the heck of it. Just get a good quality sauce and I don't think you can go wrong! I think that this would also taste good with some avocado on top or even some pineapple to give it a little sweet side. If anchovies are your thing, who am I to judge. I layered pepperoni, cheese, then more pepperoni on this pie. The top layer of cheese and pepperoni did slide around a little bit which I would like to correct next time, so perhaps the layering itself should have a different order. Something more conducive to cohesiveness.
Verdict - This recipe is definitely going down as a keeper in my book. Since I ate this one on my own I had a TON of left overs. I was going to make this for a Bible study group but it got canceled at the last minute. Im not sure that there would have been enough to feed everyone if this was the only dish, but with whatever else they might have had at the potluck, it would have probably sufficed. I would have probably cut it into at least 8's, or, I would just make two Meatzas. TOTAL realistic time involved in making this was probably about 45 minutes. I could probably get that time down by 15 minutes with some practice, but I would plan on 45 minutes on your first go around.
It was definitely easy to make, was not too expensive to buy all the ingredients, didnt require a lot of time to make, and was very very tasty.
Bravo Signore Justin, Bravo!
Sources -
Justin Owings Blog
Meatza! Meatza! recipe
Trader Joe's
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