Pork Burgers with Beef Bacon

I bought beef bacon the other day and I am in love. I've been putting it in my omelets ever since. I was trying to think of other things I could eat it with. Bacon Cheeseburgers are an American Classic, but I don't eat cheese (well, rarely) because I'm a lactard. I thought putting beef bacon on a beef burger would be redundant, so this seemed like the only solution.

I went to Whole Foods and explained to Andy, the seafood guy that I wasn't buying any seafood because I had made crab cakes for lunch and I was making Pork Burgers with Beef Bacon for dinner. He was floored. He thought it was an awesome idea and he would be thinking about it all night. He didn't even know Whole Foods stocked beef bacon. So I brought him to the bacon section to show him. . . and they were out of beef bacon so he started to curse me.

The whole way home I was trying to decide what seasoning to use for the burgers. I thought Turkish Seasoning would be hilarious, but I went with Tsardust Memories instead. Whatever seasoning you choose is irrelevant because these burgers are transcendentally awesome by the mere juxtaposition of the beef and the pork.

I was only able to buy 3/4 of a lb of ground pork because that was all they had.

3/4 lb ground pork (do yourself a favor and double the recipe)
2 tsp seasoning of some sort
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar (or Red Apple Balsamic if you happen to have it)
beef bacon

combine first 3 ingredients in a bowl. Shape into patties. Grill baby, grill. Cook beef bacon and put on burgers.

I did mine with homemade ketchup, grilled onion, roasted red peppers and avocado.

Mushrooms and Goat Cheese

The 9am class at Crossfit Arizona is Combat Conditioning. Monday I got the t-shirt. That T-shirt is earned, not bought. Combat Conditioning is Coach Mike's baby. It's hard core and he plays all metal, all morning. We're talking Slayer and Suicidal Tendencies. It can't get anymore awesome than that. I roll out of bed, drive 2 minutes and I'm there and he always says, "you're going to hate this" when I show up. I'm almost becoming a morning person. Well, not really. I wake up when the sun rises but I'm not always happy about it. We have 4 shifts at work and right now I'm on noons. Come April I get to pick which shift I go to. When I say I get to pick, I really don't. I'm still pretty low on the totem pole so it's midnights or midnights. This will adversely effect my Crossfit schedule since I work on average 10 hours a day. Either Coach Mike has to change his work schedule just to train me or I have to find a way to just work 8 hour days M-F. Neither scenario seems realistic.

This isn't exactly a sauce and it isn't exactly a side dish. More like a topping. A topping for beef, or lamb, perhaps bison, maybe even chicken. Or if you're one of those non-meat eating types, you can eat this as your main course.

Ingredients:
1 Tbsp fat (I used goat milk butter and I highly recommend)
3 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
10 oz baby bella shrooms
4 sprigs fresh thyme
1 oz goat cheese (I used Trader Joe's Goat Gouda)
1 tsp balsamic (I used Dark Chocolate Balsamic) 
Salt and pepper

In a sauce pan, heat fat.  add garlic and cook for about 30 seconds then add shrooms, thyme, salt, pepper - in that order. cook for about 20 - 30 mins. Shrooms should be watery and simmering. Turn flame down to low and add goat cheese. try to mix it up evenly, then add balsamic. Serve on top of meat! Drink wine, preferably something earthy and red. I'm having Casillero del Diablo Malbec. If I still drank beer, I would be having a Dogfish Head Chicory Stout. But I don't and this saddens me.

Curry Fisherman's Pie

There's eggwhites in this. I must have used the yolks for Hollandaise. Sometimes I can't think of anything interesting to write about. So, on to the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 lb Mahi Mahi or really any fish will do
2 lemons, juiced
3 tsp madras curry powder separated
4 eggwhites
2 whole large eggs
2 cups frozen spinach
2 cups pumpkin fresh pumpkin puree, or 1 can
1 tsp salt, separated
1 sweet onion
4 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp coconut oil (or any fat)
1/2 tsp salt separated

Marinate Mahi in lemon juice and 1 tsp curry powder.

Preheat oven to 350.

Heat oil in sauce pan. Saute onion until translucent. add garlic cook for 30 seconds, then add 1 tsp curry.  cook 30 more seconds, add marinated Mahi and 1/4 tsp salt. cook for about 5 -10 minutes, then add spinach cook until spinach is thawed.

In a mixing bowl, beat egg whites until fluffy. Pour Mahi mixture into baking dish, then fold in egg whites. In a mixing bowl beat 2 whole eggs, then add pumpkin puree and 1 tsp curry and 1/4 tsp salt. Blend thoroughly and top mahi egg mixture. bake for 45-1 hour.

Chicken Di Nocce

I've been MIA for a while due to AC Adapter issues. My laptop battery has been dead for a while. Not really a problem until my AC adapter decided to not work. It was working sporadically, and then my 45 lb pit bull/bull dog, Hazel, stepped on it. Only one paw, and it was a step, not a pounce. It was a sassy step because she's a sassy dog, but just a step none the less. Who knew what awesome power was contained in her little body.

I made this a few weeks ago, but I'm finally getting around to sharing it now. It was pretty freakin' awesome. I ordered the Hazelnut Butter from Fastachi. If you have a nut butter addiction like I do, you might want to be careful while ordering. Their Pecan Butter is ridiculously addictive.

For the marinade: 
1 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs
2 lemons, juiced
nutmeg, dry mustard, pepper

Cut Chicken into cubes, and marinate in other ingredients. I didn't measure out the other ingredients, just sprinkled them on the chicken.

My sassy little puppy princess

For the Hazelnut Sauce:
1 cup Hazelnut butter (or 8oz of roasted hazelnuts)
1 cup coconut milk
1 lemon, juiced
1/2 Tbsp nutmeg
1 tsp dry mustard
1/8 tsp anise
1/8 smoked paprika
dash of hot pepper flakes (not too much, you don't want it to be spicy)
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a food processor. Blend until smooth.

Everything else:
1 Tbsp of fat
10 oz sliced crimini mushrooms

Heat oil in pan. Add marinated chicken and cook for about 5-10 minutes then add the mushrooms and keep cooking until the chicken is cooked and the mushrooms are tender. While that's cooking, make the Hazelnut Sauce. remove chicken from heat and put in a large bowl. add Hazelnut sauce and mix together. Serve on top of Spaghetti Squash or Zucchini Linguini.

Tzatziki Sauce

I made this to go with the gyro, but I thought it deserved it's own page. Even though this is a paleo food blog, I have several vegetarian and vegan friends I would like to share recipes with. It's really easy to be a good cook when you're an omnivore, but true talent is making due with limited ingredients. My friend, Kristy, is a vegan and she is one of the best cooks I know. Christmas dinner at her place rocks. I do like a good challenge and going out to eat with Kristy requires research. How do you find a restaurant where you can get both vegan and paleo meals? It's difficult. Z'Tejas has a gluten free menu, but they're only vegetarian entree, mushroom enchiladas, has lots of cheese. I found a BBQ place that has a gluten free menu, but absolutely nothing on their menu was meatless. Ethiopian and Indian cuisines have lots of vegetarian options, but bread and lentils are almost unavoidable. We went to a hockey game  last week and found a restaurant near Jobing Arena that has a huge vegetarian menu. I ordered a steak. There was butter on top.

Right before I started cooking, I ran out to the store to get a few thing. I meant to get fresh mint, but I forgot it. So I used dry spearmint. 

Ingredients:

2 cups yogurt (I used goat. If someone wants to try it with coconut yogurt, let me know how it turns out.)
1 medium cucumber
4 cloves garlic
juice of 1 lemon
1/2 tsp dried mint (or 1 Tbsp fresh mint, minced)
salt

Place yogurt in cheese cloth and drain excess water. This is going to take a while so leave it in the fridge and go and do some other things.

Peel cucumber. Slice in half and scoop out seeds. Chop finely, add salt and strain out excess water.

Since I used dry mint, I rehydrated it in the lemon juice for about 10 mins. I pressed the garlic into a mixing bowl then added cucumber, lemon, mint, some more salt and lastly the drained yogurt. Mixed it all up and put it back into the fridge while I was having rotisserie drama with the lamb.

Gyros

There are things I like about living in Arizona: It never snows, I can afford my mortgage payment, I can grill 90% of the time (and when I can't it's because it's too windy, not because it's too cold.) and my job is pretty cool most of the time. However, I was born and raised in New York City and spent a few years living inside the D.C. Beltway, so I'm more accustomed to things like great restaurants and ethnic diversity - things you can't find in Arizona. In NYC, every diner is open 24-7 and you can get gyros any time of the day. And there was that place, Fontanas, on Northern Blvd that had the best gyros. You could watch them cut slivers of lamb off a slab of gyro meat on a stick. This recipe was inspired by homesickness. I did a google search and found Alton Brown's gyro recipe. It had a video. I recommend you watch it. I didn't do mine exactly like his, but close enough. Close enough to wonder why they heck mine fell off the spit and his didn't. It got messy. I ended up cooking it on foil on the grill and flipping it on four sides. It tasted awesome, but the presentation was lacking. I just couldn't slice it thin enough.

Ingredients:
1 lb ground lamb
1.5 Tbsp Penzey's Lamb Seasoning
1 small onion, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed.

Place chopped onion in food processor until it turns to mush. Strain excess liquid. You want it as dry as possible. put onion back in food processor with garlic, lamb and seasoning and process for about 5-10 minutes, scraping the sides periodically.

Set plastic wrap on counter and place lamb on plastic wrap. Wrap tightly and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, preferably more.

When ready, put meat on spit and roast over fire for about 30-45 minutes.

Slice thin and serve with tzatziki. I made Spinach Scallion Pancakes to have instead of pita bread.

Spinach Scallion Pancakes

My friend called me the other day and asked me about coconut milk. He wanted to know if he could have it with cereal. He said he was allergic to cow's milk so he switched to almond milk and now he's allergic to that. Just now I got an email from him saying he's going to have to try rice milk because he's allergic to the coconut milk. I replied, "Maybe you're allergic to cereal".

For those of us who don't eat grains, it's difficult to obtain that full ethnic cuisine experience. I was never really a big bread eater, except when it came to things like naan, injera, pizza and pita bread. So when I made gyros, I needed something flat to eat it with. I couldn't really wrap the gyro in these pancakes, but perhaps with a little work, one day I'll have something reasonable.

3 eggs
2 tbsp coconut flour
1 16oz bag frozen spinach, thawed
2 bunches scallions
1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp salt
pepper to taste
olive oil

Beat eggs. add all other ingredients and beat together. Heat a pan with olive oil. Scoop out batter to desired size. cook for about 3-5 minutes and flip, cook for another 3-5 minutes.