B2B Beef & Broccoli

ha-ha--you thought I'd fallen off the Back to Basics bandwagon?  Wrong!  Still going strong, and the cravings are substantially subsided these days....

I think it's going to be beef "surprise" night around here for a long time.  With the half-cow order, and the bison order now both received, my freezer(s) are stuffed to the gills.  There's no such thing as looking for something specific.  You open the freezer door, and whatever tries to fall out and attack you is what you're going to eat that night.  Between that and going a little hog-wild at the farmers markets, we are overflowing.  Now I get to try to think up what I can pull together based on what I have on-hand.  This is not how I normally do things.  I'm more of a "plan the meals, then shop for the ingredients" kind of girl.  This is all backwards.  Ah, well, I love a good challenge.

So the other day I was at my usual Hakka restaurant, and I demanded a gluten-free meal.  Yes, demanded.  In fact, i refused to go until it was agreed that I'd get a special meal.  I got my own plate of food and everyone else got to share multiple plates of junk food.  Try telling a man at a Chinese restaurant that you don't want anything with gluten.  Gluten?  Gluten?  He couldn't even pronounce the word.  I'm pretty sure he didn't understand me.  So I did the best I could.  I ordered the broccoli with beef.  The sauce was mild and not sweet, and not terribly abundant, either, and it tasted pretty darned good.  I think I ate a whole head of broccoli, the serving was so large.  But as I tasted mouthful after mouthful, I kind of thought I could make this myself at home pretty easily.  This is my attempt.  I think it came out pretty tasty, too!

Sauce:

2 Tbs gluten-free tamari sauce
3 Tbs coconut aminos
2-3 tsp chili-garlic sauce
1 tsp fresh ginger
1 tsp fresh minced garlic
1 Tbs fish sauce
1 Tbs sesame oil
1 Tbs tapioca
3 Tbs beef broth

1 head broccoli
1 1/2 lbs cheap cut of steak
1/2 red pepper
1 large carrot
1/2 cooking onion.

Prep everything:  Shave the beef as thin as possible.  Chop broccoli.  Slice the peppers, carrots, onions.  Mix the sauce in a small bowl.  Taste for sweetness/spiciness.  Add coconut aminos for sweet, or chili-garlic for heat.

In large skillet on medium heat, saute onions until translucent (in fat of choice).  Remove.  Turn up heat to med-hi.  Saute broccoli, carrots and peppers until broccoli is just al-dente.  You may want to keep them covered so they steam a bit, and you may need to add a Tbs of water to help it steam a bit.  When it begins to get tender, remove from heat.  Let pan get good and hot again.  Add a bit more fat to pan and sear beef, in batches if necessary, removing from pan when its still somewhat pink (and cover it to let it finish cooking).

Turn pan back to medium.  Add all the veggies and sauce, stirring to coat and thicken, heating through, and add beef and juices at last minute, tossing well to coat in sauce and make sure its warm throughout.  It won't be pink any longer, but its ok if it is a bit pink still.

If you're like me, serve with sriracha sauce.

Back to Basics Day 1

Well, there are no eggs in my house.

Yesterday was a stat holiday, so everything was closed.  No worries, though--it was not so much poor planning on my part as it was complete laissez-faire attitude.  I'd survive.  I'd find something to eat.  Into the freezer I dove at 5:45 this morning, bleary-eyed and in a hurry, and found half of a frozen meatloaf.  Not just any meatloaf, either.  My Offally-Good Meatloaf.  Ground pork and beef liver mixed together.  Good enough.

So, my day in food looked like this:

• 2 cups coffee with homemade coconut milk and coconut oil coffee creamer
• breakfast; 1 1/2 slices offal meatloaf with a handfull of grape tomatoes, a splash of salsa, and one very small, slightly underripe pear
• coffee with homemade coconut milk and coconut oil coffee creamer
• lunch; big bowl of beef heart stew, 1 cup home made ginger-lemon kombucha, 1 small peach
• coffee with homemade coconut milk and coconut oil coffee creamer
• snack; 1 Tbs pureed coconut flakes mixed with 1 tsp coconut oil and 1 tsp almond butter
• dinner; swedish meatballs, from The Foodie and the Family recipe here, served over mashed cauli

....And as promised, my starting stats (which despite today being my hormone poison day, I will not re-measure for the rest of the month)

Weight: 129.5 lbs

Waist: 27.5"

Hips:  37.5

A Simple Scallop

Sometimes its the simple things that taste the best.  In this case, juicy, fatty pork shoulder and good old-fashioned scalloped vegetables.  But how do you make a good scallop without potatoes and milk and cheese?  Don't fret.  It doesn't have to be complicated.  My scallop included only 5 ingredients.  Seriously.  And they're delicious.  It went like this:

Ready in 1 1/2 hours
Feeds 6 as a hearty side-dish

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups sliced sweet potatoes
2 1/2 cups turnips, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup home made garlic-basil mayonnaise (recipe here )
1/4 cup parmesan cheese (optional)
1 Tbs dried parsley

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Using a food processor, slice your sweet potatoes and turnips fairly thin.  Don't forget to peel the turnips.  It doesn't matter with the sweet potatoes, but definately peel those turnips.  Throw them in a big bowl, add salt and pepper to taste, parsley, mayonnaise and most of the parmesan, if you're using it at all.  Don't worry, even without it, these will be delicious.  The homemade mayo will convert back to olive oil in the cooking process and will leave your veggies tasting rich and buttery/creamy and very faintly garlicy.   Sprinkle remaining parmesan on top (if you use it at all)

Bake, uncovered, 1 hour and 15 minutes. 

That's it.  It's even better if you already threw your hunk of meat in the crockpot that morning.  Simplicity at its finest.