Pizza Stuffed Bellas

Sometimes your favorites come from what you have on hand in the pantry or fridge. In this case, both. I absolutely love mushrooms and we have an excellent selection at our local Farmer’s Market. This past week the portabellas looked irresistible and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them. I had a feeling they’d end up being stuffed with something delicious. I happen to love pizza flavors, so I decided on a pizza themed stuffed mushroom. The portabellas I had were, HUGE. So, adjust your recipe as you see fit. For one pound of meat, I’d say 4 decent size portabellas should work perfect with about ¼ lb of meat mix per shroom.

When cleaning a mushroom, never submerge or soak in water. Use a damp cloth and wipe off the dirt.

Ingredients:

4 Portabellas, cleaned - stems removed and gills scraped out
1 lb. Ground beef
1 jar pizza sauce or 2 cups homemade sauce (I love MIDS pizza sauce)
1 onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
Olive oil
Cheese optional (I used raw milk cheese and it was phenomenal)

Directions:

Heat olive in a pan and sauté the garlic and onions until they are translucent. Add in the ground beef and cook through. I like to cook mine until it’s a little bit crispy. Stir in the pizza sauce until combined and warmed through, so the flavors marry. Lightly coat a baking sheet with olive oil and also rub the outside of the portabella with olive oil. Lay down onto baking sheet with the cleaned gill side up and place pizza beef mixture into the shroom, being cautious not to overfill it. Top with a sprinkle of cheese and bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes.

These are gooey pizza imitations that outdo the real deal and are much healthier too!

Picture Source Here

Thought for the Day:

“Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drowned your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

Italian Swiss Steak - Crockpot

I love those days when you have a random assortment of food and think hmmm…I’m lazy and I need something that will cook itself.  All I want to do is pour stuff into the Crockpot! I also wanted to avoid the traditional way of cooking swiss steak and do something a bit different.  The artichoke Italian swiss steak was created and very much loved in my house.  Even our dinner guests enjoyed the creation!!  This wonderful (insert sarcastic eye roll) picture was of some leftovers that I took to lunch today.

2 Swiss Steaks (about 2 lbs)

2.5 cups red sauce (from a jar or homemade, just make sure it’s gluten free and paleo friendly)

1 can artichoke hearts, quartered

4 cloves garlic, minced
S&P
Garlic Powder
2 T Coconut Oil
Cabbage, shredded

Season meat with salt, pepper, and garlic; in a skillet (we love our cast iron) with 1 T coconut oil heated sauté until brown on both sides. Place meat into Crockpot and top with sauce, artichoke hearts, and garlic. Cook for 6-8 hours. Then take the meat out of the Crockpot and let rest before pulling apart and putting back in sauce, where it will cook for another hour to let all the flavors blend.

Heat 1 T coconut oil in large pan and add shredded cabbage seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Serve meat over cabbage and voila a delicious healthy meal from items in your pantry or freezer (we make sauce and freeze it).

Simple and Sweet

Chocolate, nut butter, and bananas are a match made in the clouds! Pure simple flavors that create an explosion of flavor. This little sweet treat was made to cater more toward a gluten free or paleo diet, but one could sub whatever kind of chocolate and nut butter that is most desired for his or her taste. I chose almond butter and "Enjoy Life" semi-sweet chocolate chips, which are gluten, soy, and dairy free. I like those chips better than Hershey's or Nestle,  I absolutely love those little morsels of goodness!



Resist the Urge to Lick Your Screen

Ingredients

1/2 C chocolate chips
1/2 C almond butter
2-3 bananas, sliced into large round chunks
Shredded coconut (I prefer "Let's Do Organic" shredded and unsweetened)

Melt the chocolate chips and almond butter over a double broiler. Once melted, drop in banana slices and coat completely, before placing on baking sheet lined with wax paper. Sprinkle coconut on top of banana chunks. Once all the bananas have taken their chocolate bath, place them in the freezer on the cookie sheet for a couple hours. They are delightful, so please enjoy!

Butternut Squash Lasagna Goodness

Mmmmmmm, mmmmm, great!  I've made this meal at least half a dozen times in the past three months and love it.  My husband, well he's not a convert yet from traditional lasagna noodles to other, healthier, options.  I really don't miss the noodles and actually prefer the squash to regular noodles.  I've made eggplant lasagna in the past and loved it, but this is even better than that!  I hope you try it and enjoy it as much as I do.

If this was the only meal I could ever eat again, I'd be okay with that! It has amazing flavor with the sweetness of the butternut and the tang of the tomatoes.  I've made this with pizza pork sausage, Italian sausage, and chicken sausage - none of them have disappointed me.  I recommend doubling the meat and sauce if your prefer a more meaty lasagna, but I like it just the way it is as I think the butternut squash and sausage balance each other very nicely. 




Deliciousness right here, folks!!

Paleo Butternut Squash from Health-Bent

1 lb hot Italian sausage, casing removed
1/2 red onion
3 cloves garlic
16 oz jar pizza sauce (I prefer Mid's)
1 roasted red peppers
1/4 c extra virgin olive oil
1/4 C couples leaves of fresh basil
1 small butternut squash

Preheat your oven to 400ºF.

Roast your red pepper by placing it on a cookie sheet and turning it until all sides are black and it's sort of collapsed into itself.  Then put in a bowl and cover with plastic which will allow for easier removal of the red pepper skin.  After about 15 minutes, remove plastic wrap and take the skin off of your peppers and pull out the seeds (if a few get left behind, no worries, they get processed)!

In a saute pan crumble the sausage and brown it, along with the onions & garlic. While that’s going, cut the top and ends of the squash off and peel it. Split it into 1/4′s. What I mean by that is, right where the squash starts to turn bulbous, cut it in 1/2, width-wise. Split those two halves in half, lengthwise. This will make it much easier to cut into planks. Pull out the seeds. Don’t be anal about getting out all the strings, as you won’t even notice those when they’re cooked. Slice the squash into the aforementioned planks.

Make the sauce by pureeing the pizza sauce, red peppers, olive oil and basil.

Using a 9×9 oven safe baking dish, put down enough sauce to lightly cover the bottom of the dish. (This keeps the squash from sticking to the pan.) Next add the squash, trying not to overlap the pieces, then spoon on the sausage mixture, followed by the sauce. Repeat until all your ingredients are used up…trying to reserve enough sauce to cover the top of the lasagna.

Bake for 45 minutes. You’re looking for a bubbly pan with a crispy, browned top. Stick a fork into it to check your squash to make sure they are fork tender.

Skillet Eggs with Squash

I hope everyone is enjoying a long holiday weekend as we celebrate America's birthday and our freedom!  I love the 4th of July for many reasons.  One, I love what it represents, two it was my grandmother's birthday (my momma's mom may she rest in peace, and lastly because we usually have a big ole' cookout.  This year we are foregoing the cookout, which bums me out but there has been way too much going on for us personally to do it this year.  I was hoping to get my dad over for marinated steaks on the 3rd (which are AWESOME), but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.  There's some strangeness going on since my momma's passing.  I suppose we are all forming a new normal, but I feel I need my dad more now than ever. So, tomorrow won't be as I want it to be, but it'll still be a great day.  I hope you all have a wonderful celebration of the USA!!

This recipe is courtesy of Food Network Magazine, July/August 2011.  It was absolutely delicious and I ate it all week long with it reheating very nicely.  I undercooked the eggs just slightly (except for the one egg I broke when placing it in the skillet), so when I reheated it the eggs wouldn't turn to rubber.  It worked out absolutely perfectly and some avocado smashed up was the perfect companion to this recipe.  Next time I will add some pancetta to it because it would add an excellent depth to the dish.  However, if I didn't have any pancetta on hand, I would not hesitate to make it as posted again.  The best thing was that I only used my cast iron skillet...who doesn't love having less dishes!

Skillet Eggs with Squash

6 medium zucchini

Kosher salt

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

4 scallions, thinly sliced, white and green parts separated

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced

3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley (I used 1.5 T of dried parsley)

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Freshly ground pepper

1 tablespoon unsalted butter (I did not use the butter as the original recipe did)

6 large eggs

1/2 cup grated pepper jack or sharp white cheddar cheese (I did not use the cheese)

Grate the squash into a colander using the large holes of a box grater (or use a food processor fitted with the shredding attachment). Toss with 1 tablespoon salt, then let drain in the sink, 30 to 40 minutes. Squeeze the squash to remove as much liquid as possible.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Heat the olive oil in a large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Set aside 3 tablespoons of scallion greens. Add the remaining scallions (white and green parts), the jalapeno, and salt to taste and cook until the scallions are soft, about 3 minutes. Add the shredded squash and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 7 minutes. Stir in the parsley, nutmeg, and pepper to taste. Cook until the mixture is slightly dry, about 1 more minute. Remove from the heat and let cool, 5 minutes.

Spread the squash evenly in the skillet. Make six 2 1/2-inch-wide indentations in the mixture with the back of a spoon; put 1/2 teaspoon of butter in each one. One at a time, crack each egg into a small bowl and pour into an indentation. Season with salt and pepper, and sprinkle with the cheese.
Transfer the skillet to the oven and bake until the egg whites are set and the yolks are cooked to desired doneness, 10 to 12 minutes. Scatter the reserved scallion greens on top.

"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others." ~ Pericles