fit for a wedding; italian wedding soup

Belly up for veggies! Let me just tell you what freaks me out the most about food: the length of time it lasts in a can/bottle/jar. For example, I cringe when I watch those Progresso or Campbell's soup commercials. How do they make the meat in those cans last that long without going bad? How is that still edible? And people eat this junk because it's fast food? Barf.

Soup is one of the fastest things in the world to make. Well actually, any healthy meal can be super fast. And by healthy, I am excluding all the "organic" or "healthy" canned or frozen meals with all of those nasty chemicals that make the food last longer. Seriously gross stuff. Mallory and I made this soup in a pinch with no recipe.

This brings me to another issue... just because you do not have a recipe or have never made anything before does not mean you don't know how to make it! Simply throw some stuff in a pot until it tastes good. It really is that simple. It's called learning how to cook. Besides, cookbooks did not exist when many of the delicious staples were first created. They were passed down by word of mouth or by watching and doing.... which in turn changed all the recipes by a little bit each time they were recreated. So who cares if your recipe doesn't match Mario Batali's or your great-grandmother's?

Ingredients:
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups beef broth
2 cups water
1 cup carrots
2 cups spinach
dash of parsley, black pepper, salt, and crushed red pepper

Throw it all into a pot and allow it to boil, then decrease the heat a little and allow it to cook until meatballs  are done.

Meatballs:
1 lb ground beef
1 T minced garlic
1 diced yellow onion
1 tsp honey
1 T red pepper
1 egg
1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 cup chopped celery

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix all of the meatball ingredients together. Form them into balls, sizing them to whatever you prefer. Place them all on a slotted pan atop a baking pan and bake for 35 minutes. Remove from the oven and toss into the soup and serve!

mom-inspired steak

Again, not a fan of red meat. However, I can make an exception for this steak any day. I threw together a marinade inspired by my mom's carbi marinade, and it was phenomenal. And by phenomenal, I mean phenomenal. Best part? It only took 5 minutes to throw everything together (before marinating for an hour or so).

Ingredients:
rib-eye steaks (or flank, etc)
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup zevia ginger ale
1/2 cup liquid aminos
6 cloves garlic
1 jalapeno, chopped roughly
1 T black pepper

Put all ingredients other than steak into a small blender or food processor until pureed. Pour it over the steaks in a shallow dish and allow to marinate between an hour and overnight. Grill it until desired doneness and enjoy!! Serve with asparagus sauteed in garlic and olive oil for an awesome dinner :)

paleo philly burgers -the world's most lip smackingly delicious burgers

I am honest to goodness not a huge fan of burgers. The other day, I went to Ted's Montana Grill and they had a bison burger on the menu, so I had to have one. I love bison. The burger I had was topped with philly cheesesteak toppings, minus the cheese, and was so delicious I had to make one of my own. Don't you hate when you go to a restaurant, try to recreate what you had that tasted so good, and the restaurant food was so much better than what you created yourself? Well this was not one of those time. I didn't have bison, but beef worked just fine, and it was so tasty!

Burger:
75/25 beef, about 2.5 lbs
2 jalapenos, diced
5 cloves of garlic, diced
3 T worstershire sauce
2 T liquid aminos
dash of sea salt, dash of black pepper

Combine all ingredients together and throw on the grill until done the way you like.

Philly topping:
1 T olive oil
1 jalapeno, sliced
1 green bell pepper, sliced
1 yellow onion, sliced
handful of sliced mushrooms
dash of salt, dash of pepper

Saute it all together in a pan on medium heat until onions and peppers are slightly soft.

The rest:
sliced tomato
lettuce leaves

Wrap a bit of everything into lettuce leaves and you now have a load of a wonderful burger. No lie. 100% guaranteed delicious!

paleo jalapeno burgers

I'm not a fan of beef. However, I can use a great burger or some good meat balls every now and then. These were delicious and juicy and super easy. I'm pretty sure there is nothing easier in the world to make than burgers (other than super processed, nitrate-loaded hot dogs). So anyway this load of beef made 12 large burger patties.

Ingredients:
5 1/2 lbs hamburger meat
6 garlic cloves
4 jalapenos
1/2 yellow onion
2 T liquid aminos (or soy sauce)
1 pinch salt
1 T black pepper
1 T red pepper flakes
2 eggs

Place the hamburger meat in a large bowl. Puree the garlic and the next 6 ingredients in a food processor and pour into the hamburger meat. Add the 2 eggs. With gloves on, fold all of the ingredients together so that everything is evenly combines. Mold into large patties, remembering they will shrink a good bit once grilled. Grill for about 5-6 minutes per side, depending on how done you like your burgers.

To serve, place on a lettuce leaf, then top with tomatoes, onions, and whatever else you like on your burger. Roasted red peppers make a great hamburger topping, as well as goat cheese if you're not 100%p paleo! Fold it all in and you've got the ultimate paleo burger. Yum!

spaghetti and paleo meatballs

MMMMMMMeatballs!!! If you're truly paleo, A. don't add the parmesan and B. don't put it on top of a bed of noodles. I made these for my parents because my mom was craving meatballs randomly, and my dad loves my mother-in-law's real Italian red sauce. I'm not going to lie, it's the only red sauce I'll eat. .... I'm drooling. Yeah, it's that good, so this is definitely what should be putting together as we speak and throwing it in the crock pot to have for dinner ASAP. I used the crock pot but you can easily bake them in the oven and be done with it. I like to let things marinate, however.

Ingredients:

Meatballs
3 lbs grass fed ground beef
1 yellow onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
3 eggs
1/2 cup almond meal
pinch of oregano, black pepper, cayenne pepper, salt
1 T honey

Chi Chi's awesome sauce
2 cups of peeled tomatoes, mashed
1/2 yellow onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 T olive oil
crushed red pepper, salt
handful chopped basil

For the sauce, put a medium sauce pan on medium high and saute olive oil, garlic, and onion for a couple minutes. Add the basil and tomatoes and spices. Allow the sauce to cook down for about 5 minutes.

For the meatballs, mix all of the ingredients together. Form large balls with your hands, then place close together at the bottom of your crock pot. Pour the sauce over the meat balls and cover the crock pot and cook on low all day so they are ready for dinner. Trust me, you will not be disappointed. I have always hated... actually, LOATHED meatballs until I tried this paleo version and with the help of my mother-in-law's recipe, I'm totally loving meatballs!

kabobs in carbi marinade

My favorite korean food is definitely marinated carbi. Carbi are korean short ribs. However, short ribs are incredibly expensive, and it's just as easy to marinate anything in the same delicious marinade and get similar and wonderfully satisfying results. Pick whatever veggies you want and add them to the mix!

Marinade:
1.5 cups GF low sodium Tamari
1 cup soda such as ginger ale, sprite, or coke
5 cloves garlic
1/3 cup honey or agave
1 T black pepper
2 T sesame oil
1/2 onion finely chopped

Combine all ingredients and place into a zip-top bag with 2 lbs of steak or chicken, shrimp or scallops or whatever you desire, chopped into chunks to be skewered. Marinate in fridge 8 hrs to all night and day. Turn every few hours.

Turn grill to medium high and skewer all veggies and meat and cook through. I served these with my favorite jalapeno-buttered corn, yum!

steak chimichurri

I'm a big fan of steak. No, I don't really like it because red meat for some reason just doesn't taste very good to me... but I'm a fan of the protein and iron that steak is packed with. This recipe is also loaded with antioxidants and doesn't have much sodium at all since it is topped with cilantro and parsley. As usual, the more spices and herbs added, the less salt necessary to make the dish taste good. This recipe only takes a few minutes... 3-4 minutes per side for the steaks on the grill and during that time, you can make the topping for them so that's pretty much 8 minutes! Now tell me you don't have time to make dinner! That's right, you can't.

Sauce: (this will be enough for about 4 steaks)
1/2 cup cilantro
1/2 cup parsley
3 T olive oil
3 cloves garlic
1 T red wine vinegar
1 T water
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
1/4 tsp salt

Blend all sauce ingredients together in food processor and put on top of steaks, once steaks are off the grill.

Steaks:
Season steaks with salt and pepper and grill for about 3-4 minutes per side, or to desired doneness.

garlic and herb rubbed steak

I dedicate this recipe to my dad, who makes some of the best steak. I usually marinate mine, but this was kind of a last minute meal, so I just rubbed it with some tasty stuff and threw it on the grill. For me, this was my post-workout protein-packed meal, and it was perfect.

Ingredients:
2 boneless ribeyes (you can also use filet mignon or whatever you want)
5 crushed garlic cloves
1.5 tsp basil
1.5 tsp thyme
1.5 tsp rosemary
.5 tsp salt
.5 tsp black pepper
1.5 T balsamic vinegar

Mix together everything except for the steaks. Rub the mixture onto the steaks and allow to rest while the grill heats. Grill on medium-high for about 5 minutes per side, for medium-rare steaks. Delicious!

Duk-kook (Korean Rice Cake soup) or Just Plain Old Beef Stew

Duk-kook is the traditional Korean soup eaten by Koreans on the Lunar New Year. I grew up on it, and still love it. It's packed with lean protein, veggies, and a some rice cakes, which can be found at any Asian market. You can enjoy the stew itself with plain old rice and it's delicious, but I like it with rice cakes because the texture is great.

5 QT crock pot
3 lbs boneless chuck roast
water up to 1 inch above meat
about 12 cloves of garlic (my blood is probably 50% garlic...)
2 bunches green onions
1 egg
Korean radish or any fat radish
Korean rice cakes (duk)
salt
pepper
Korean red pepper
drop of Gluten Free Reduced Sodium soy sauce
drop of sesame oil

Cook the meat on low in the crockpot overnight, with the water up to 1 inch above it, along with the garlic cloves. Remove meat the next morning, as well as the soup, put in separate containers and refrigerate for a few hours, until the fat in the soup rises to the surface, then use a slotted spoon to scrape the fat off of the surface of the soup and add the meat and soup back to the pot, after tearing the meat into pieces with your fingers. Slice radish and any other veggies into soup, and cook on low for 3 hrs. For the last few minutes add in rice cakes and cook on high, then add in 1 egg, pinch of salt, pepper, red pepper, and green onions and 1 drop of GF soy sauce and 1 drop of sesame oil, if desired. It's ready to eat once the duk rises to the surface and is soft and chewy and the egg is cooked.