Tag Archives: Beef

Broccoli Salad – a summer favorite!

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Broccoli salad has been a staple in my family for as long as I can remember. We’d have it on holiday occasions and periodically in between, but makes a cool summer salad for when things start to heat up. It’d been sounding good to me for a while so I decided to re-create the traditional recipe to make it a little healthier. Rather than commercial shredded cheese, miracle whip, sugar and bacon bits, it’s no sugar added, uncured smoked bacon and Sir Kensingtons original mayo.

Re-vamped Broccoli Salad

  • 1 12 – 16 oz bag frozen broccoli (ran under cold water to thaw, and dry a bit)
  • 2 fresh ripe mangoes diced
  • 1/2 diced large red onion
  • Cut up beef (we had some leftover from our smoker, so I used kitchen shears and cut it up!)
  • Cut up cooked bacon
  • 1 cup Sir Kensginton’s original mayo
  • White vinegar (enough to get mayo to dressing consistency you prefer)
  • Salt/pepper

Toss everything in a large bowl and let refrigerate overnight. The mango adds the perfect touch of sweetness instead of a cup of refined white sugar, and the recipe remains dairy free! I really did not miss the cheese at all, and it’s full of healthy colors!

Enjoy (I apologize, I only took one photo, which is a pretty crappy photo)!

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Recipe Remake-Ham Balls!

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One of the things I’ve been into recently (possibly brought about by the holidays) is attempting to recreate my family’s traditional recipes into paleo-friendly recipes. My fave family recipe happens to be Ham Balls, already including the most important part, MEAT! 😉 They’re like little cooked salty meat balls drenched in a tomato based, vinegary, sweet sauce. Mmm. Recreation went great, except I forgot I normally cut the recipe in 1/2 (that’s about all Seth and I can eat ourselves…next time I’ll freeze), so my neighbors got a pan for their family!

Here’s the original recipe:

Ham Balls:

  • 2 1/2 lbs ground smoked ham
  • 3 lbs ground beef
  • 3 eggs
  • 3 cups crushed graham cracker crumbs
  • 2 cups milk

*combine and mix well. Form into 50-60 balls. Place in shallow pan.

Sauce:

  • 2 cans tomato soup
  • 3/4 C vinegar
  • 2 tsp dry mustard
  • 2 1/4 C brown sugar

*combine sauce ingredients and pour over ham balls before baking.

Paleo-Friendly Ham Balls

Ham Balls:

  • 2 1/2 lbs ground smoked ham (at the least, certified gluten free!)
  • 3 lbs ground beef
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 C grassfed dairy/cream of your choice (could maybe use butter too!)

*combine and mix well. Form into 50-60 balls. Place in shallow pan.

Sauce:

  • 2 BPA free cans of organic tomato paste (you know, with only tomatoes in them)
  • 1 1/4 C vinegar
  • 2 1/4 raw, organic coconut sugar
  • 3 tsp dry mustard

*combine sauce ingredients and pour over ham balls before baking. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour.

So comforting, and not overly sweet. It seemed like an awful lot of sugar to me (I don’t eat much), but when you spread that over 60+ meatballs, could be far worse! They keep a long time in the fridge too, so this would be a great weeknight easy reheat for any family! I’ve eaten them plain, with eggs, on a cheese board, at breakfast, lunch, etc.!

Pre and Post-bake! (looks like I was eating bacon while cooking).

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His and Hers Brunch

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Seth and I typically go out for breakfast at least once on the weekends, it’s our catch-up/talky time, and we enjoy getting out early and having the rest of the day. A couple of weekends ago on a Sunday, I slept in for much-needed Zzzzs and Seth went for a run. When he got back, he made this excellent brunch and I’m patiently waiting for him to make it again.

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His and Hers Brunch

Steaks (hers: filet w/grass-fed butter, his: NY Strip w/Worcestershire), one over-medium egg, sweet potato and pepper hash (that’s the first time he’s added bell pepper to his sweet potato hash, nomnomnom), and oven-burst campari tomatoes.

The steaks were marinated in Worcestershire, garlic powder, salt and pepper, then grilled. The hash is diced sweet potatoes cooked in reserved bacon fat with fresh garlic, diced mini tri-color peppers, salt and pepper. The tomatoes, super simple and fabulous (we’ll be doing this once we have more tomatoes than we know what to do with); simply toss the whole tomatoes in a little oil (of your choice), sprinkle with salt and pepper, and oregano (remember when I had more oregano than I knew what to do with, so I dried it in the dehydrator? Well, that’s what we’ve been using!), and roast at 450 degrees until they burst. The over-medium egg, well, he cooked them like we normally do, in bacon fat 🙂

Have some friends over and wow them with a super easy, flavorful and fulfilling brunch. Also be jealous my hubs cooks like this while I’m catching up on sleep 😀DSC_0952