Beauty and the Beef!!

I realize that not everyone loves curry and Indian food as much as I do. I am borderline obsessed, which is really funny considering I wouldn’t touch the stuff until about 3 years ago. While I don’t think many are obsessed in the same way I am, I do believe that one or two of you read my blog to get ideas for food you wouldn’t think of on your own. Big Eater Outside the Box!! No I’m not changing my name, but humor me and try this even if you don’t think you like curry. Because really, besides bacon, what could be better than beef?!?!

I’m especially excited about this particular dish because I’m going to keep pushing Stillman’s at the Turkey Farm on you folks until you either want to kill me or buy a CSA! *maniacal laugh maniacal laugh

Here’s the breakdown:

1 lb grass fed ground beef

2 cups fresh okra, cut

1 can coconut milk

1 Tbsp red curry paste

1 Tbsp hot madras curry powder

Generous sprinkle cayenne pepper

Sprinkle turmeric powder

¼ onion, diced

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 large acorn squash

Olive oil

s&p

Cut squash in half, scrape out the seeds and rub inside with a bit of olive oil. Sprinkle with s&p and roast at 425 degrees for 45 minutes or until soft. Meanwhile, sauté okra in a pan over low until it is soft. DO NOT RUSH OR SKIP OVER THIS!!!! Undercooked okras is almost inedible.  mix coconut milk, curry paste, curry powder, cayenne pepper and turmeric in a shallow but wide sauce pan and simmer on low for several minutes. Sauté onions and garlic for a couple minutes until soft. Then add onions and garlic to the sauce mixture. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes or until the sauce thickens. Brown the beef and strain it really well. Then put everything in the sauce pan and simmer for several minutes over medium-low heat. Spoon the squash into a bowl and smash into a … uhhh… mash? Yes, a mash. Then spoon the beef curry over the squash.

FACT: MY DINNER IS NOT PHOTOGENIC!

FACT: IT DOESN’T MATTER!

It was extraordinary. I mean really really really good. It was spicy though, so adjust accordingly to your taste. However, the squash wasn’t necessary albeit a good substitute for rice. Hope you’re ready to jump on the curry bandwagon and at the very least….Stillman’s!

Salud!

Orange Juice Glad I Said Shrimp

On Monday, I asked my trainer, Anthony, to give me one of those “hardest workout of my life kind of workouts”. To which he responded with exactly that. Then Tuesday night I went to Crazy 8’s class. Now for those of you who imagine pansy group classes, I’d like you to erase that from your mind. Then imagine the hardest workout of your life, double it and that’s Crazy 8’s. In fact, when I first started taking this class, I would come home and have to lie down in the shower for half an hour or so just to get enough energy to stand back up. That’s not an exaggeration! So after two crazy workouts, I believe my metabolism was in overdrive because I was STAAAAAHVIN Tuesday night after class. But when you do that much work, you really want to eat something healthy but filling because your body is going to burn right through it! So on my menu was citrus shrimp stir fry. Not exactly sure what inspired the citrus part, but I do love grapefruit and there are very few proteins delicate enough to suck up the grapefruit flavor. Now, you guys know I’m not making rice at my house, so this really needed to have big veggies that would fill me up! Additionally, I could barely move my arms and legs, so it needed to be easy! The result was exactly what I needed!

Here’s the breakdown:

20-25 large raw shrimp

Shrimp Marinade

Zest of:

      1 orange

      1 lemon

      1 lime

Juice of:

      1 grapefruit

      1 orange

1 Tbsp honey

½ tsp red pepper flakes

S&P

Veggie Mix

12 oz bag of fresh broccoli florets

12 oz bag of fresh stir fry mix (snow peas, grated carrot, grated red cabbage)

½ large sweet onion, sliced

Stir Fry Sauce

3 Tbsp coconut aminos

1 Tbsp honey

½ tsp hot sesame oil

Other

½” chunk fresh ginger, minced

Blood orange olive oil

Mix the ingredients of the shrimp marinade. Pull the tails off the shrimp and put all of it in a Ziploc bag. Let it sit for about 40 minutes. Not much longer or it’ll turn into ceviche. Then put blood orange olive oil in a wok or large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the minced ginger and sauté for a few minutes until infused. Then drain shrimp from the marinade in a colander and add it to the wok. Cook about 4 minutes or until they turn pink. Remove shrimp from the pan and cover with aluminum foil. Then add just a bit more oil into the wok, add the veggies and sauté until just barely tender. You DO NOT want soft soggy veggies. While it’s cooking mix up the stir fry sauce and pour over the veggies. Plate the veggies and then the shrimp. Don’t mix the shrimp in the pan with the veggies. The flavor of the citrus won’t overcome the sauce.

I ate mine with a little bit of Sriracha on the side for the veggies. Not the shrimp, again, the citrus won’t overcome the Sriracha. This was super yummy and with all the dense broccoli and cabbage, it filled me right up despite the rumbly in my tumbly.

Now let me side bar and quickly tell you about coconut aminos. This is something I’ve recently discovered as an alternative to soy sauce. You can’t taste the difference, but there are 339mg sodium in 1 Tbsp of coconut aminos versus the 920mg in 1 Tbsp of soy sauce! Plus if you’re Paleo, this makes takes care of the soy! Always looking for superior products, so that’s my schpiel.

Alright friends, enjoy!

I'm Cooking....No I'm Cooked!

Since Monday, I have cleaned out my closets which produced two garbage bags of clothes to donate, grocery shopped, attended boot camp, worked 12 hours, trained, stayed up for a ridiculously late UK game, subsequently attended 6:30 a.m. boot camp and worked another 12 hour day. I AM COOKED! But for the salted dark chocolate caramel I just treated myself to, I’d be face down. So folks, there is no witty or interesting story about the dish I’m blogging today. In fact, I cooked this meal a week ago. Thank goodness I have a couple back log recipes to share. But it was really good and I did invent it. So there you have it.

Here’s the breakdown:

2 mahi-mahi filets

2-3 tsp Chinese hot mustard

A splash of fish sauce

A splash of rice wine vinegar

½ tsp crush red pepper flakes

1-2 Tbsp olive oil

The truth is I did not measure anything except the fish, which is pretty easy. One Fish Two Fish. But it’s a marinade, so it’s all good! Mix all the ingredients together and put it and the fish in a Ziploc bag. Let it marinate for a couple hours. Then throw it on a screaming hot grill for about 5 minutes per side. Couldn’t be easier.

I paired the fish with a bok choy sauté that was also delish.

4 heads of baby bok choy, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

½” fresh ginger, minced

¾ of a fresh cayenne pepper sliced thinly

1 Tbsp Coconut oil

Sesame seeds

Melt coconut oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add garlic, ginger and cayenne peppers. Sauté for 2-3 minutes until aromatic, but not so long that you brown the garlic. Toss in the bok choy and crank the heat up to high. Sauté until the bok choy is wilted about 5 minutes. Add the bok choy to your plate and place the fish on top. Then sprinkle lightly with sesame seeds. I had it with a little extra of the mustard on my plate to dip the fish in, but I like spicy more than the average bear, so you might want to skip that!

Besides the marinating time for the fish, this dish is very quick. It’s also really light but satisfying. It’s a perfect choice if you’ve had a big lunch or even if you just don’t want a heavy meal. Thank you for the bye today and I promise to have more energy next week. I think ;)

Salud!

What Season Is It Again????

Last weekend it was autumn! I swear! Not that you could tell from the current weather! But since my southern butt prefers fall to winter ANY DAY, I’m still going to blog autumn inspired food. Ray was over for dinner on Saturday night and I had been to the farmers’ market that morning buying an unnatural amount of meat from Stillman at the Turkey Farm. However, that’s not all I purchased. I also found a bag of delicate lettuces that looked so good, I just couldn’t stop myself despite the pile of veggies already residing in my house. On the walk back up the hill to my house I decided since I had so many greens, I would make a giant autumn inspired salad with grilled chicken for my health conscious friend Ray! Who incidentally, lost about 15 pounds this summer. That’s right, go Ray! So before I ran into town to scoop him, I stopped at Whole Foods to pick up some of the other components for the salad. What I ended up with was really something!

Here’s the breakdown:

Varied Lettuces

*mine were all in one bag, but if you can’t find that, mix your own

2 handfuls arugula

2 red beets

*boiled until fork tender, peeled and sliced

2 chioggia beets

*raw and sliced

Goat cheese

1 handful dates, chopped

1 cup dried cherries

1 cup pecans, chopped

Fig balsamic vinegar

Olive oil

Fresh pepper

Mix the greens and arugula in a large bowl. Sprinkle dates, pecans and cherries on top, but focus most of them in the middle of the bowl. Line the bowl with red beets, Chioggia beets and crumbled goat cheese taking up 1/3 of the rim with each ingredient. Grind fresh pepper over top. For the dressing, I totally eyeballed it. Simple: fig balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Make as much as you want, but just know you need about 33% more oil than vinegar. But always taste it to make sure you like it before dumping it on your salad.

Now, if this salad is nothing else, it is BEAUTIFUL! I found it to be quite tasty, but even if you don’t, others might and it’s definitely something you’ll admire sitting out on the table until you toss it all together. It's almost too pretty to eat.....almost!

The chicken was marinated in a mix of spices and pomegranate juice, yes pomegranates are in season. But the real star was the salad. Ray also made an amazing pear dessert that I’ll blog as soon as he sends me the recipe…..cough cough RAY GET ON IT!!!

Cheers to fall...I mean winter...I don't knw what I mean. It'll probably be 80 degrees tomorrow!!!

Falling for Fall

With Thanksgiving quickly approaching, I am in quite a festive mood! And for us southerners, festivity and holiday means food! Needless to say, I’ve been looking forward to last night’s dinner since I went shopping for it on Sunday. I wanted something warm and seasonal and that’s just what I planned for the future of a fabulous acorn squash! So just before I headed out to my training session, I put the squash in the oven to roast while I got my fitness on. In hindsight, maybe that wasn’t the best idea to leave the oven on with a highly sensitive smoke detector, but I was almost to the gym when I had that revelation, so I crossed my fingers! Anyway the cranky retired fireman next door would unhappily handle an emergency so no big deal! If you’ve ever heard stories of my neighbor, you know he’s crazy as hell! So back to my yummy festive dinner.

Acorn squash with mushroom mix:

1 acorn squash, cut in half and seeded

3.5 oz shitake mushrooms, diced

8 oz baby bella mushrooms, diced

1 small onion, diced

½ zucchini, diced

Dried Thyme

Ground sage

Coconut oil

Olive oil

s&p

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Rub olive oil onto the squash, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast the squash for about 45 minutes or until soft. When the squash is almost done, melt a table spoon of coconut oil in a skillet, add mushrooms, zucchini and onion to a pan. Toss in the oil and sprinkle liberally with salt, pepper, thyme and sage. Toss around and sauté until the veggies are cooked. About 8 minutes. Then scoop the mushroom mix into the bowl of the squash. This is seriously delicious! In fact, while I ate it, I decided that this would be a PERFECT alternative to stuffing on Thanksgiving!

We all know that I’m a protein eater, so I paired the squash dish with a poultry seasoning inspired piece of mahi-mahi. And I swear, it worked perfectly as a Big Eater Small Body early Thanksgiving!

Pre Cooked

Rosemary & Prosciutto Grilled Mahi:

2 mahi-mahi fillets

6 slices prosciutto

4 sprigs fresh rosemary

Olive oil

Pepper

Pre-heat your grill for about 1 minutes. Sprinkle pepper on each side of the fish. On one side place 2 full sprigs of rosemary on each fillet. Then wrap all of it up with 3 pieces of prosciutto each. Drizzle the outside with a wee bit of olive oil so it doesn’t stick to the grill. Finally grill on each side for about 4-5 minutes.

These two dishes went perfectly together and with all the seasoning it was as comforting as Thanksgiving, but muuuuch healthier! And the prosciutto gets crispy….BONUS!!!! 

Salud!

Junot Diaz Night

If you know me, you know I love to read books, real books. So much so that I only started reading books on my iPad a few months ago! If you know me really well, you know that I went kicking and screaming into the ebooks mostly because I like to hold the real books. I like to smell them. Alright, so maybe I’m creepy….I prefer to use the term “old school”. If you know that my favorite book of all time is To Kill A Mockingbird, you are of the select few. And if you are of these select few, you may or may not know that my beloved copy is one I stole from one of my High School English teachers, has her notes in the margins and that I’ve read it close to a trillion times. I’ve got a lot of “stuff”, but this book is my most prized possession. That said, a close second on my list of favorite books is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Because you presumably read my blog for food, I will not get into the details of why I love this book so much. What I will tell you is that the biggest reason I love it is because of Junot Diaz’s use of Spanish to paint a picture that cannot be adequately described with English words.

So you can only imagine my excitement to find out Junot Diaz would be at my local book store IN THE FLESH! Which is where I parked my happy a$$ for 3 ½ hours last night. I’d love to get into how amazing he was, but you read my blog for food. So what I’m leading you up to is that I didn’t cook last night due to my temporary residence at Porter Square Books. It was Josh’s night to cook! If you know Josh, you know he doesn’t come up with recipes, but he can execute pretty well. So I gave him a Real Simple recipe and he nailed it! And it was yummy enough to share with ya’ll.

Here’s the breakdown:

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 pork tenderloin

Borsari

¼ medium head red cabbage, thinkly sliced

½ Tbsp red wine vinegar

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

1 cup applesauce

salt

Heat oven to 450 degrees. Heat the oil in a large cast iron skillet (or whatever pan ya got) over medium-high heat. Season the pork with Borsari and cook, turning occasionally, until browned. 8-10 minutes. Add the cabbage and ½ tsp of salt to the pan with the pork and toss to coat. Transfer the pan to the oven and bake until the pork is cooked through. 10-12 minutes. Remove the pork and let rest for 5 minutes before slicing. Add the vinegar and parsley to the cabbage and toss to combine. Serve with the pork and applesauce.

The meal was terrific and I was on cloud nine! Winning evening!

Salud Junot!

Squash the Squash!!!

So it’s been a pretty uninspired week of cooking. Frankly, between work and my workouts and family in town plus Strides, well, you get the picture! That said; I wanted to share a delicious recipe that I cook often in the fall. It really drives home the happy autumn vibes and warms the heart as well as the tummy! Last week in my organics box I received a beautiful Delicata squash. If you’ve ever seen a Delicata, you know that by itself, it’s really not much food. Especially when you have a husband with an empty leg! So I picked up another squash to go with it. I grabbed a Red Kuri squash, mostly because it was pretty. But pretty much any winter squash will work with this fantastic recipe with the exception of spaghetti. Besides being yummy and getting you right into the swing of fall, this is a fantastic choice of veg because likely your farmers’ market is still open and you should be able to get some locally grown! So try there first!

Here’s the breakdown:

1 Delicata Squash

1 Red Kuri Squash

1 Tbsp Hot Madras Curry Powder

2 Tbsp Butter

Olive Oil

¼ cup milk

s&p

Cut the both squashes in half and spoon out the seeds. Then rub olive oil on it and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast at 425 degrees for about 30 minutes. Check with a fork at 20 minutes and take them out when a fork easily pierces into the inside. The key is for this to be soft. When the squash is soft, spoon out the insides and put into a bowl. Smash the squash to a mashed potato consistency. Then add milk, butter and curry powder and mix well.

And that’s it folks! I absolutely love this dish and I know you will too! Don’t be afraid of the curry, it is the most essential ingredient to making this an amazing treat! Try it out with any protein, but especially beef, chicken or pork. I’ve never tried it with fish, but hey, I’d try anything once!

Salud!