Ground Beef Frittata

I don't wanna be chicken, I don't wanna be a duck, so I changed my luck...

(My Ground Beef Frittata. Sorry.  Not a photographer. It's much tastier than it looks!)

That's what's going thru my head.  OK, anyway, I don't wanna be a pumpkin bread blog.  But that's pretty much what I'm turning into.  I realized looking back yesterday that I've got three posts on some form of pumpkin bread.  And I never posted any of my meals from my Whole30.  So here it goes.  How about a frittata?

This is probably my personal favorite of all the recipes I discovered and made while I was doing the Whole30.  Actually it wasn't so much a recipe.  It was a template.  In the back of the It Starts with Food book, the authors have WONDERFUL recipe templates to come up with meal ideas using the ingredients you have available.  I LOVE it!

When I say frittata I feel like I'm a butler serving a very wealthy family their breakfast, "Your fri ta ta sir."  In my hick-world, we call this an omelet.   One of these lasts in our house for two breakfasts.  I make it in the evening, cut it into wedges and store it in the fridge.  It reheats nicely and as much as I like cooking I'm not one to get up at 4 am to make a fresh fri ta ta.

You could use just about any combination of meat, veggies and spices you desire for your frittata.  Here's what I used in this one:


1/2 sweet onion thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper chopped
1 large handful of fresh baby spinach
1 lb. fresh ground beef
10 eggs
1/2 tsp. chipotle powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
3 T. extra virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  In large cast iron skillet (or oven-safe skillet) heat olive oil over medium heat.  Add onion and bell pepper and saute until the onions begin to turn translucent.  Add ground beef to skillet.  Break beef apart and cook until thoroughly browned.  In large bowl whisk 10 eggs with the spices.  (If your cast iron skillet is not well seasoned you may need to add some more olive oil to your meat and veggies before the next step.)  Top your meat and veggies with your handful of fresh spinach.  Pour eggs over the spinach and meat mixture.  Allow the the skillet to continue to cook on medium heat for a few more minutes, using a spatula to pull up the sided of the eggs off the pan, allowing more of the egg mixture to seep underneath.  After about 5 minutes place the entire skillet uncovered in the preheated 400 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes or until the eggs puff up and slightly brown around the edges and fork comes out clean when the middle of the frittata is pierced. 

Enjoy!

Simple {Paleofied} Pumpkin Bread

Ugh.  I don't feel too good.  But this virus-nasty-cough-thing didn't stop me from making pumpkin bread Saturday afternoon.

I'm new at playing around with grain-free ingredients to come up with baked goods.  Up until now I've basically picked a gluten-free recipe and substituted the GF flour with almond meal.  But for this recipe I browsed four or five different versions of the recipe I was looking for and got a general idea of how many eggs, how much flour, how much leavening, etc. should go in it.  I ended up finding this WONDERFUL series on the science and art of Paleofying.

Up until reading that lady's very helpful series of posts I had never heard the term Paleofy and I didn't know it was a derogatory term at that.  Apparently the real "righteous" Paleo-eaters don't qualify grainlessly baked goods as Paleo.  In their eye those goodies are just glorified, or Paleofied junk food.  Maybe so, but until eating pumpkin bread with almond meal, real pumpkin, coconut milk, eggs, spices and honey makes me sick, I'm still going to call it a real good treat that isn't a cheat.  As far as I know, there are masses of evidence that conventional wheat, sugar and other things whipped together to make the cookies, cakes and quick bread we all crave are bad for us.  But there are no such bodies of evidence for cookies, cakes and quick breads made with grainless, real food ingredients. I'm not really big on the paleofied label, but if you want to call it paleofied pumpkin bread that's fine with me.  I'm still calling it good and real.

Ok.  So this recipe is thanks to looking at this, this, this and this (all look delish!) and guessing at what was best to substitute with.

Wet Ingredients:

1- 15 oz. can pumpkin
4 eggs
1 t. vanilla
1/2 c. honey
1/4 c. coconut oil
1/2 c. coconut milk

Dry Ingredients:

1 c. almond meal
1 c. coconut flour
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. ground cloves
1/2 t. nutmeg
1/2 t. ground ginger
1/2 t. salt
1 1/4 t. baking soda

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix dry ingredients in one bowl.  Mix wet ingredients in another bowl.  Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture and stir until well blended.  The texture will be a thick batter you will spread more than pour into two bread pans which have been greased with coconut oil.  Pans should be about 1/3 full.  Bake in preheated oven for about 45 minutes or until a knife inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean.

This is a very moist, simple, feel-good bread.  I love it for breakfast along side my frittata.  I love it for lunch after my left over pulled pork and cole slaw.  I love it for an after work snack.  I think you get the picture. I love this simple, moist pumpkin bread.  I'm sure you could take it up a notch or 5 from simple to decadent if you added in some of your favorite chocolate, coconut flakes, nuts, fruits, etc.

Love.

My Whole 30 Pumpkin Bread

When you cut out the white cocaine in a 5 lb bag they sell legally and call sugar, you'll be amazed at the ways you can make something sweet without the white stuff.  Unlike the Whole 30 philosophy, I have nothing against honey.  I say it's God's sugar and was meant for us to enjoy and eat in proper proportion.  But this recipe won't even "cheat" on the Whole30 anti-honey rule.  And it definitely won't cheat on sweet pumpkin breadness!

My Whole 30 Pumkin Bread

1 cup smashed pumpkin
8 pitted medjool dates
1 ripe banana
3 T. coconut oil
3 eggs
1 t. vanilla extract
1/4 c. coconut flour
1/2 c. almond meal
1 T. cinamon
1/2 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. ground cloves
1/4 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. baking powder

Coconut whipped cream topping

In food processor blend 5 pitted medjool dates,  1/2 can of coconut milk,  2 T. coconut oil and 1 t. vanilla extract.  Blend until well blended.  Flecks of dates will remain.  Allow to thicken and cool in fridge before serving.   Makes a good fruit dip too!

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Grease bread pan with coconut oil.  In food processor blend pumpkin, dates, banana, coconut oil, eggs and vanilla.  In separate bowl mix together coconut flour, almond meal, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, baking soda, salt and baking powder.  Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and stir until well blended.  Pour batter into bread pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until knife comes out clean.  Allow to cool for 30 minutes before cutting or removing from pan.  Serve with coconut whipped cream topping.

Enjoy!

Sweet Potato and Pumpkin Muffins

So my husband is doing the Whole30 now.  I think he's on his 7th day?  He's pretty much been eating like this for a few years with weekly "cheats" thrown in.  Unlike me, he doesn't crave sweets, he craves Burger King.  So this recipe, even though it qualifies as Whole30 (no sugar, no sweetener of any kind, no grain) and Paleo, it wasn't really much of a help to him. For me it was a hit!

My boys are slowly being integrated into this real-food diet.  As I use up the grain-flours and processed foods I have on hand for them to eat as snacks and use in their school lunches I am putting grainless goodies and fruits and veggies in it's place.  I really thought they'd like these, but they gave them a thumbs down.  So I guess this recipe is a win for me and no one else in my house.

I've always loved to cook, but I have no culinary education.  I learn as I go.  Fail often.  Spend way too much money on food.  And make do with what I have.  I can get away with this in the cooking category, but when it comes to baking, not so much.  Baking is a science.  You have to be exact with your measurements.  I don't know the science, so right now, I'm still looking at other food blogs and recipes as a template for my baked creations.

There are a good 10 or more EXCELLENT paleo/Whole30/grainless/sugarless/unprocessed/clean (whatever you want to call it) food blogs out there.  There is really no reason to read mine.  If you're looking for good recipes do a google search on paleo recipes and at the minimum visit PaleOMG and Everday Paleo (I also like Keeper of The Home- Naturally Inspired Living For Homemakers).  You'll find everything you could want to cook and more there.  For this morning's breakfast I threw together a leftovers omelet and used this recipe at PaleOMG as a guide for making my Sweet Potato and Pumpkin Muffins (My husband said I should make them in mini muffin tins and call them poppers since they aren't the typical, high-rising muffin. Good idea Music Man!)

Ok, onto the recipe and pictures (Confession: I don't know how to take good food pictures so bear with me).

Sweet Potato and Pumpkin Muffins

1 large sweet potato
1/2 cup smashed pumpkin (I used canned pumpkin)
5 medjool pitted dates
3 eggs
1/3 c. coconut oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/3 c. flax seed meal
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground cinammon
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375.  Pierce sweet potato and microwave using "potato" setting on microwave (most microwaves have this) or for about 4 minutes.  While the potato is getting nuked put the pumpkin, dates, eggs, coconut oil, vanilla and flax seed meal in food processor.  When the sweet potato is done that puppy is going to be hot, so cut it in half and let it cool for a few minutes until you can handle it without burning yourself.  Then scrape the soft potato out of the the skin into the food processor.  Blend until smooth.  Add the remaining ingredients and blend for a few more seconds. 

Use muffin tin liners and fill muffin liners about 1/2 full of batter.  Bake in 375 degree oven for 25 minutes.  (I ran out of liners, greased a bread pan with coconut oil and poured the rest of the batter in it, and sprinkled with unsweetened coconut flakes.  I baked it at 375 for 30 minutes.  It was fairly flat due to the amount of batter I used.  It's flatness spawned my husband's suggestion to bake them in mini-muffin tins and call them "Pumpkin Poppers". Either way both my man and I thought they were good.  For me it was a crave-curer.  For him it was just a good pumpkin dish.)

Enjoy!

My coconut milk test kitchen

My kitchen is fast becoming a coconut milk test kitchen.  Most of the dishes I've been trying involve coconut milk.

I made coconut milk coffee creamer using this recipe from Fast Paleo.  I added a teaspoon of coconut oil and 5 dates instead of 3-4.  I like it.  My guy doesn't like spicy coffee drinks (a.k.a pumpkin spice latte) so although I wanted to try adding some canned pumpkin and spices to the mix, I didn't.  But to my own cup I added a teaspoon of honey and a dash of nutmeg.  Next batch I'll make with the canned pumpkin.

This recipe qualifies as Whole30 if you don't add honey to your cup like I did.  But if you're a Paleo disciple then add the honey and enjoy!

I love it that your average cup of good, black coffee become a nutrient-dense, superfood dish when you use this "creamer" too.  I love real food!  It tastes good and it is good.

 

 

Last night I made this chicken bacon alfredo from PaleOMG.   I used leftover chicken patties I had made using a modified version of this recipe and butternut squash instead of delicata squash (I couldn't find any at Sprouts).  It turned out delish!