Stuffing Pot Dinner

I found the original recipe to this "stuffing" on Caveman Strong, and even though Josee, the author, had not even tried it herself yet, I was determined to try it at my Thanksgiving dinner.  But then my appendix burst and I was in no shape whatsoever to start cooking up a storm, so I let my family all bring dishes of food, my husband made the turkey and stuffed it with old-fashioned bread stuffing (he makes an awesome turkey...) and promptly forgot all about this recipe.  Until Christmastime.  I was determined that I would have a paleo-approved dinner (in between stuffing my face with chocolates) so I hauled all the ingredients with me up to the cottage and cooked it up there.  It got the stamp of approval from several non-paleo family members, but the comment over and over again was, "there's so much in there that it could be a meal unto itself."  Well.  I freakin' love stuffing.  So why not?  It is a one-pot half-hour hastle-free dinner.  And it has everything but the kitchen sink in it.  So of course, me being me, I needed to go ahead and add a kitchen sink.  Ok, maybe not a sink, but I added even more stuff.  So here it is....

 

Serves 4 (as a main course)
Takes about 1/2 hour

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground pork
• 5 slices nitrate-free bacon
• 1/4 spanish onion, chopped
• 1 c mushrooms, sliced
• 2 ribs celery, sliced thinly
• 2 tsp dried sage
• 2 tsp dried rosemary
• 2 tsp dried thyme
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 apples, peeled and chopped
• large handfull unsweetened dried cranberries
• large handfull pecans, broken up

Instructions:

Chop bacon and saute in pan over medium-high heat until it begins to brown.  Crumble pork into the pan and continue to cook until pork is no longer pink.  Add thyme, rosemary, sage, onion, celery and mushrooms and continue to cook until onions become translucent.  Reduce heat to medium.  Add apples, cranberries and pecans, stirring frequently until apples just barely begin to soften.  

Serve with gravy, if you have any leftover from the holidays.... 

Ok, it is so darned flavourful that it simply doesn't need the gravy.  The gravy is distracting from the goodness.  Oh, you didn't have gravy, anyways?  I do.  I freeze mine in ice cube trays then move them to ziplock baggies for flavour bombs later.  Well, good thing you don't need them here.  There won't be any leftovers.