Seasame grass fed beef and broccoli

Lame pan shot of an amazingly easy dish

The idea for this dish is basically make some version of beef and broccoli that is amazingly simple and tastes amazing, without the MSG that so many of you all love. Simply dice an onion and saute it in coconut oil, ground ginger, crushed red pepper, 1T of fish sauce, salt and pepper. Add a little toasted sesame oil and cook onions for five or so minutes. Add a pound of grass fed ground beef and cook until almost done.

Now, take a head of broccoli and I want you to cut it in this manner: holding from the thick stem with the crown down on a cutting board, take a chef's knife and while slicing away from you, slowly rotate the stalk around as the florets fall off. You should notice that they fall away cleanly and easily, leaving you with the majority of the stalk left. Depending on how much broccoli you want to eat, you can either dice the stalk and saute it, or toss it. I tossed it this time.

So add the broccoli and cover. Steam for about three minutes. Salt and pepper this bad boy, and dust with sesame seeds. It should be pretty good.

Notes: One thing should stand out to a beginning or non-paleo cook: we don't serve this with soy sauce at all, but if you follow this recipe exactly, you would never notice. Every time I add a little Fish Sauce to anything while sauting initially it is to get the perception of fermentation in my final dish (which is what soy kinda tastes like, since it is actually fermented soy, much like fish sauce is fermented fish), while cooking off the over powering fish taste and smell. Its really common in my cooking and I would say, very misunderstood and certainly under utilized on other paleo blogs.

(Pasta-less) Primavera

Spring vegetables in fall

Super interesting dish.

I conceptualized this dish by spinning off my favorite pasta dish that has a ton of veggies in it. My favorite pasta dish had butter, snow peas, lemons, cauliflower, shrimp, carrots, onions, parmasean cheese, salt, pepper, pasta and more! The taste is really fresh, and the butter-lemon combo is amazing. So here was the challenge: I only have almost one chicken breast (which was baked with Italian seasoning), two horse carrots, a head of broccoli, and a can of organic tomato sauce. I actually had pasta in the cupboard but couldn't bring myself to make it.

The key, in my mind, to make this dish successful would be to somehow get the background flavors correct, and then try to match forward flavors of course. So the background flavors are actually what cook out of, or into, the veggies. See if you can follow me: onions, once cooked, have very little flavor when not completely caramelized yet they are in virtually every dish. Why? Because they form the complex background taste we demand of almost every dish. Also, I know that the dish I normally makes steams the veggies in chicken broth; that would mean I need the background flavor of celery, even though its no where to be seen on any recipe. Also, I need to do something to compensate for the lack of hard, pungent Italian cheese. Get it? Match flavor profiles/ perceptions, match the reception of the dish, regardless of what you actually have.

McDonald's does this too, but they use chemicals.

Okay, so using extra light olive oil instead of butter (remember, extra light olive oil adds a rich taste which almost exactly matches the response you would get from cooking with butter) saute dehydrated onions, salt, pepper, ground mustard, celery salt, and, if you can believe this, plain old white vinegar. Saute this down a little. Add 2oz of water and simmer the chopped head of broccoli and the two sliced carrots uncovered for a couple minutes. Once the water is cooked off almost entirely, add a can of tomato sauce, simmer and reseason. Slice the small amount of chicken that you have (I had to add more vinegar and readjust the oil here to make those flavors stand out (which is the lemon-butter flavor)) and add it to the pot. Season, heat then eat.

What was really critical was the mustard and vinegar addition to cover the lemon and cheese missing. It was really a cool discovery, and a really cool dish.

Pineapple Pork Stir Fry

This is something amazing

To make this, what you want to do is basically take your understanding of Thai flavors and turn it into an amazing pineapple dream dish. The pork I used is simple pork shoulder cut into bite sized pieces removing a lot but not all of the fat, because, lets face it, there is a lot of fat in pork shoulder. You want to cook it in coconut oil with ground ginger, ground lemon grass, salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper until almost cooked through. Add 1T of fish sauce to this. It will smell like shit, but it will cook off and you wont even notice it. Trust me. This comprehensive flavor combination will give is a slight citrus flavor (from the ginger and the lemon grass) with a little fermented back while bringing out the flavor of the pork meat, and the pork fat. And its kinda spicy, but not too spicy, which is nice. We are going to add some thinly sliced serranos later on, so be aware.

And be afraid.

Meanwhile, you want to cook more coconut oil in a separate 5 quart pan, with more salt, pepper, and ground ginger. Once those flavors combine, add a head a chopped broccoli and 2oz of water and steam briefly (about 5 minutes on very low heat). Once the pork is almost cooked, take the juice of a 20oz can of pineapple chunks and pour it over the pork for it to stew in. Take a few chunks and throw them in too. Then, add the majority of the pineapple chunks to the broccoli. Continue to simmer uncovered while doing the next steps.

Take two serrano peppers and very thinly slice them. With a minute left of cooking (you'll know when this is when the pineapple juice becomes something like pineapple syrup) and add the peppers. Finish the minute out.

Plate the broccoli and pineapple. Scoop pork and sauce over it. Garnish with cilantro and squeeze lime over it.

This dish is a dream if you do it right.