Paleo Lamb Stew

With the weather getting colder, I'm always in the mood for soups and stews.  For me, it's just comfort food!  The other week, I was wanting to try a nice cold weather soup.  I had picked up some lamb from Whole Foods that week, intending to marinate and grill it... but with my penchant for soups, I decided to turn it into a lamb stew.  I hadn't made a lamb stew before, so I turned to pinterest.  There weren't any recipes that really caught my eye, so I decided to make up my own concoction.  So here's :

 

Paleo Lamb Stew

 

 

 

 

 * 1 1/2 lbs boneless lamb (I used butterflied leg of lamb)

* 1 qt beef stock

* 1 cup mushrooms

* 1 tbs thyme

* 1 small onion, diced

* 2 bay leaves

* 1/4 lb of bacon (3-4 strips)

* 1 cup of baby carrots- cut in half

* 1 cup white wine

* 4 cloves garlic, minced 

 

First, I cut the bacon into smallish chunks and threw them into the dutch oven to brown.  I had the heat on medium low so that it would cook slowly and not burn, but get nice and crispy. 

 

While the bacon was cooking, I cut up the lamb into bite sized pieces and seasoned it with salt and pepper.  Some people like big chunks of meat, so if you're one of those people, go ahead and make huge pieces.  I just typically take small bites and like small chunks of lamb.

 

After the bacon was nice and crispy, I took it out and set it aside, but left in the yummy bacon fat.  I added in the lamb and let it all brown up.  Also, I didn't trim any of the fat from the lamb because through the cooking process, it broke down and added delicious flavor to the meat.  Also, the fat is good for you since the lamb was grass fed. 

 

 

Once the meat was browned, I added in the onion and the garlic.  I just stirred everything up so that the onions and garlic were coated nicely with the bacon fat/lamb juices. I cooked it all until the onions were soft. 

 

Next, I added in the beef broth.  I used store bought broth because I didn't have any home made broth ready.  Anyway, I brought the whole thing to a boil, then, reduced the heat to medium low, covered it, and let it simmer for an hour and a half.

 

After the hour and a half, I added in the mushrooms, bay leaves, and carrots.  

 

I also added in the white wine and the reserved bacon.  Then, I covered it again and let it simmer for another half hour.  The veggies had a chance to soften up and soak up all the flavors from the stew.  

 

When it was all finished, the house smelled amazing.  The veggies were soft and the lamb was tender and delicious!

 

I loved this stew.  I'd never made lamb stew before, usually favoring the classic beef stew.  Next time, I might try adding in more veggies.  The stew was a little thin, which I like.  If you like a thicker soup, you can always thicken it up with a little bit of tapioca or potato flour.  Also, if you eat potatoes, you can serve the soup with a scoop of mashed potatoes to give it a bit more thickness. I hope you like it!!

 

Enjoy,

 Jenn 

Paleo Beef and Lamb Meatballs with goat cheese

My hubby is Italian, meaning that before we went paleo, he LOVED eating a big bowl of pasta with meat sauce, lasagna, ravioli, or any other form of pasta.  I loved it too, but we made a choice to change our eating habits.  One of the good things, though, is that meatballs are still a delicious paleo treat!  I just decided to get a bit creative.  Instead of serving the meatballs over spaghetti squash (which is definitely a yummy alternative), I served these over a bed of sauteed spinach.  I also made a cream sauce rather than a marinara sauce.  My little baby is still growing and needs the grass fed, full fat dairy, so I added a bit with the goat cheese and the cream sauce.  To make these "true paleo," just make a different sauce and don't add in the goat cheese.

Paleo Beef and Lamb Meatballs

 with Goat Cheese

* 1 lb ground beef

* 1 lb ground lamb

* 1 cup minced onions

* 2 egg whites

* 3 tbs minced garlic

* 1 tbs parsley flakes

* 1 tsp salt

* 1 tsp pepper

* 1 tbs garlic powder

* 1 tbs onion powder

* 8 oz goat cheese (optional)

For the sauce

* 1 pint heavy cream

* 1 tsp salt

* 1 tsp pepper

* 1 tbs garlic powder

* 1/2 cup parmesan cheese (grated)

First, I mixed pretty much everything up in a big glass bowl.  I mixed the ground beef, lamb (I like the taste of both mixed together, but you can certainly change it up with pork or just using all lamb or all beef... whatever you like). I also added in the onions, garlic, spices, and egg whites.  You could also use a whole egg, but I had egg whites that I needed to use. I just used my hands and mixed everything up.  Make sure not to work the mixture too much because the last thing you want is the meat turning rubbery and tough.

Most people add some sort of breadcrumb, white bread soaked in milk, or some other jazz... I've made several batches of meatballs without them and really haven't missed them.  These are moist enough without having to add bread to make them soft.

Once everything was thoroughly mixed, I took the goat cheese and put it into a small dish, getting it ready to stuff these bad little meatballs!  Like I said before, if you don't do well with dairy or don't like it, then just leave this part out.  The meatballs will still be delicious without the goat cheese.  You could probably use a different type of cheese here too.  Those little buccatini (mozzarella balls) would be perfect for this! I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but now I want to try it... I'll save that for another post, though!

Next, I took a small bit of goat cheese and rolled it into a little ball. 

Then, I took a pretty good amount of the meat mixture, rolled it into a ball, then flattened it so the goat cheese ball would fit in the middle.  

 Next, I put the goat cheese ball in the middle of the meat mixture.  I then wrapped the meat mixture around the goat cheese.  You have to make sure that there is enough meat to cover the whole thing because you don't want the goat cheese to melt and leak out of the meatball when you cook it.

I just repeated this process until I was out of goat cheese and meat mixture.  I lined them all up on a foil lined cookie sheet to get all situated.   

These meatballs turned out to be HUGE, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. 

You can bake these in the oven, but I like mine browned on the stove.  I didn't even need to add any butter or oil to the pan because the meat had enough.  I just turned the stove to Medium High and threw in a few meatballs at a time.  I let them brown and kept moving them so they would cook evenly and not burn.

 So here are the yummy little meatballs, just waiting to be eaten.

As I mentioned before, I served these over a bed of sauteed spinach.  I just threw the fresh spinach in the same pan that I cooked the meatballs.  That way, it didn't need any oil or butter.  It just cooked in the leftover juices from the meatballs.... talk about delicious flavor!

Here's what they look like with the cream sauce.  If you want to make the sauce, it's super easy.  Basically, you put the heavy cream, parmesan cheese, garlic powder, salt, and pepper in a small saucepan and heat everything on Medium heat.  Keep stirring it all so that the sauce won't burn on the bottom (which can happen quickly if you aren't careful).  Eventually, the cheese melts and you have a yummy alfredo sauce that is amazing with the spinach and the meatballs.

I loved this dish.  It was delicious and it was relatively simple.  The best thing about this is that you can double or triple the batch of meatballs and freeze them before you cook them.  Our little Peanut is due to arrive in two weeks (so any time now).  I'm planning to make a batch of these suckers and freeze them so we'll have some food during those first few hectic weeks. 

Enjoy,

Jenn 

Martha Stewart Challeng #1 - Pastitsio

This week, I decided to do a Martha Stewart Challenge of my own... I decided to open to a random page in the Martha Stewart Cookbook and choose one recipe that I hadn't had before.  The choices were : Linguine with two-olive tapenade, oyster mushroom and chard ravioli, and pastitsio.  Of the three of them, pastitsio seemed like the best option.  I'd heard of pastitsio before, but I'd never had it and I wasn't quite sure what it was.  It turned out pretty well, just like Martha would have liked, I think. :)

Here goes!

Martha Stewart's Pastitsio

For the Meat Sauce

* 2 tablespoons EVOO

* 2 white onions, diced

* 2 lbs ground lamb

* 2 tsp coarse salt

* 2 tsp ground cinnamon

* 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

* 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

* 1/2 cup red wine

* 1 (6oz) can of tomato paste

* 2 bay leaves

For the Bechamel Sauce

* 6 tbs unsalted butter

* 9 tbs all-purpose flour

* 2 tsp baking powder

* 3 cups milk

* 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

* 2 tsp coarse salt

* 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

* 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

* pinch ground nutmeg

To assemble

* 1 pound elbow macaroni

So I wasn't too sure about how much I would like this... the cinnamon and nutmeg were kinda throwing me off... I love cinnamon and nutmeg, but I wasn't sure about ground lamb with it.... but I figured that I committed to the idea, so I was going to go through with it!  Also, I didn't look at the recipe well enough, so I only bought 1 pound of ground lamb, so I cut this recipe in half... I didn't worry too much about it because this original recipe serves 10-12, so if it didn't turn out well, I wouldn't be stuck with a ton of it!  Luckily, that wasn't a problem.

Basically, you need to make 2 different sauces for the dish.  There's a meat sauce and a bechamel sauce.   For the meat sauce, you heat the oil in a saucepan and add in the onions.  You have to cook the onions until they are pretty soft.  Like I've said before, Curt doesn't really like onions if he can feel the texture, so I made sure to cook them until they were pretty soft.  Then I added in the ground lamb, salt, cinnamon, pepper, and nutmeg.  

I waited a while until the ground lamb was pretty much cooked all the way through.  Then I added in the red wine.  Curt and I had opened a bottle of Shiraz the night before, so that was perfect for this dish.  I was supposed to wait until the red wine had evaporated, but I didn't remember that part... I immediately added in tomato paste, bay leaves, and the water.  Then covered and simmerred for 30 minutes, while I was preparing the bechamel sauce.  I also had the elbow macaroni cooking too, so I could have everything ready to go after the bechamel sauce was ready.

I was a bit nervous about the bechamel sauce because I hadn't really made one before and I tend to burn white sauces.  It turned out really well though!  First, I melted the butter in a pan over medium heat.  Once the butter was melted, I added in the flour and baking powder.  You have to add it in slowly and make sure you whisk it all together continuously or else it will burn and taste gross!  This time, though, the sauce turned out really well!  

Once the butter and flour were well combined, you have to "cook" the flour/butter mixture... you have to cook it  a bit so that it doesn't taste too much like raw flour.  After a minute or so, you slowly pour in the milk while whisking.  I started getting nervous because the sauce started clumping a little bit, but just keep pouring in all the milk and keep stirring and it all works out and turns into a nice smooth sauce.   Keep stirring the sauce until it thickens a bit and then remove it from heat, and add in the Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper.  Whisk it all together until you have a smooth, semi thick sauce.  Then remove it from heat. The sauce tasted really yummy... I'm definitely going to have to make it again and use it in other dishes.

By now, you should have everything all set for the dish... you should have the lamb red wine sauce and the creamy bechamel sauce!  You'll need to preheat the oven to 375 and butter a casserole dish.

 

Take this time to add the pasta to the meat sauce.  I don't think I mentioned it before, but you should have cooked the pasta al dente... so cook it before it is completely finished because it will continue cooking in the oven.  Mix the pasta and meat sauce together until it is well combined.

At this point, the dish reminded me of a fancy sort of hamburger helper (don't tell Martha I said that!).  It smelled really good, though! 

Once the pasta/meat sauce was in the casserole dish, I poured the bechamel sauce over the top.  Then I tapped the dish a little bit to make sure it was all evenly distributed. 

Then, once the oven was to temperature, I threw the dish in and waited.  The dish needed to cook for 45 minutes, so I made a quick trip to the gym (I knew I was going to have to work off the calories in this dish!).  By the time I came home, it was time to take out the pastitsio.  When I walked into the house, I was hit by the smell of nutmeg, lamb, and cheese.... it was heavenly!  I opened the oven and this is what I found!

The pastitsio was perfectly browned on the top and smelled delicious.  You have to let it sit and rest for 10 minutes... I tried to let it rest, but Curt was getting antsy, so I scooped out a decent sized serving, and onto a plate it went.   Again, I was somewhat nervous about the cinnamon and nutmeg with the lamb, but it turned out really well.  It had a nice flavor and the bechamel sauce on top was a little bit crunchy, which I think added a nice texture to the dish.

After Curt had 1 bite, he added a LOT more to his plate... he told me again, "This is one of the best meals I've ever had." So I know that he really did like it. 

And... this is how much he had for lunch the next day.  Overall, I'd say my first Martha Stewart Challenge went pretty well!  I don't know that this would be one of my all time favorite dishes, but it was pretty good and it was something that I don't think I ever would have made otherwise.  Curt liked it so much though, that I think I'll have to make it a few more times :)