#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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1 comment:
Yum! That sounds like a great recipe! Congrats! :)
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