Beef Patties with Garlic, Bacon, and Fresh Mozzarella

Another patty meal - these are my "easy" meals, where I use different kinds of stuffed ground meat to make a quick and cheap entree that still tastes awesome.  I asked my hubbie if he ever gets bored of eating ground meat and I got a pretty serious NO as a response.  Enjoy!

The Meat

- 1 pound ground beef

- 8 cloves garlic, sliced

- 2 mushrooms, sliced

- salt, pepper, dill, basil to taste

- 3 slices bacon

The Garnish

- green onion, sliced

- mozzarella cut into large chunks

The Veggies

- 1 zucchini, sliced

1 summer squash, sliced

- 2 turnips, sliced

- 2 cups spinach, raw

- 1 cup water, divided

- 1 tablespoon of olive oil

- salt, pepper, dill to taste

In a large mixing bowl, mix together the sliced garlic, mushrooms, and ground beef with the seasonings. Form the patties by picking up a fistful of the mixture and rolling it into a ball, then patting the ball flat on both sides.

In a large pan, bring the zucchini and turnips to a boil with the oil and 1/2 cup of water.  Season liberally and let cook for 15 minutes or until the turnips are soft.

Fry up 3 slices of bacon on high heat on a griddle pan.  Once cooked crispy, cut up the bacon and mix it with the zucchini and turnip mixture.  On the still greasy griddle pan, cook your patties, around 6 minutes a side - check with a knife to see how the centers of the patties look - you want them to still be a little pink in the middle so the meat is juicy and full of flavor, not dried out or burnt.

Wilt the spinach with the remaining half cup water.  Drain the spinach and toss it with the bacon, zucchini, and turnip mixture.  Layer the veggies on the plate, then the patties, and cover everything with green onion and mozzarella.  Yum-o.

Lemon Butter Salmon With Turnips and Zucchini

The combination of bacon grease and butter makes this meal so tasty.  Indulge in delicious fats!

The Meat

- 2 fillets of boneless, skinless salmon

- salt, pepper, dill to taste

- 1 teaspoon bacon grease for frying

- 1 teaspoon lemon juice

- green onion, diced for topping

The Sauce

- 4 tablespoons of butter

- 2 cloves garlic, diced

- 2 tablespoons lemon juice

- salt, dill to taste

The Veggies

- 2-3 turnips, thinly sliced and cut

- 1 large zucchini, thinly sliced

- 3 mushrooms, thinly sliced

- 6 Padron peppers, diced

- 1 tablespoon bacon grease

- salt, pepper, dill, basil to taste

- 1/2 heirloom tomato, sliced

- fresh mozzarella to taste

- 1 teaspoon olive oil

- salt, pepper, basil, oregano to taste

Begin by dicing the veggies and putting them in a large pan.  Add the bacon grease, season everything, and bring the heat up to medium.  Saute all the veggies for around 15 minutes, until the turnips and zucchini are soft.  

Melt the butter in a small saucepan on medium heat, and cook the chopped garlic until it is soft and has brown edges.  Add the salt, dill, and lemon juice, and bring it down to a low heat to let all the flavors meld together.

Cook the salmon on a griddle pan, using high heat.  Season the salmon while the bacon grease warms up in the pan.  Sear each side of the salmon, a minute per side, and sprinkle the seared sides with the lemon juice before letting them sit longer, around 4-5 minutes per side.  The salmon should be pinkish, opaque, and flake apart with a fork.  Watch it so it doesn't overcook and dry out.  

Toss the mozzarella and tomato in oil and the seasonings, then add them to the vegetables.

Put the cooked vegetables on the plates and place the salmon next to/somewhat on top of them.  Drizzle the salmon liberally with the lemon butter and garnish the dish with the diced green onion.  Enjoy!

So I Entered A Contest...

As many of you know, my husband and I try to eat Primally, and we love to follow Mark's Daily Apple, created by Mark Sisson.  Mark started a Primal Recipe Video Contest, and we decided that it might be fun if I participated.

The video below is me cooking a tasty chicken meal!  It is totally unedited (we watched it through and while it is long, we thought it'd be more fun to watch the whole process, like a cooking show, instead of editing it down) and kind of funny - the smoke alarm went off right in the middle of taping it!! But we enjoyed ourselves and I made another fun meal.  Hopefully it does well in the contest, but really, cooking the meal was reward enough.  

Without further ado, I give you:

Tenderized Yogurt Chicken With Fresh Veggies

Watch it to learn how to make this meal!

Another Great Lunch To Go

My husband loves bringing his salads to work.  He eats lunch in a local park and always texts me to tell me how much he loves his salads to go.  They are so easy to make, they only take me around 15 minutes in the morning to prep.

The Meat

- 1 lemon chicken sausage, sliced

The Veggies

- 1/2 cup spinach

- 1/4 cup lettuce

- 1/2 cup arugula

- 1 stalk celery, chopped

- 1 mushroom, sliced

- 1/4 onion, diced

- 1/4 yellow bell pepper, diced

- 1/3 pear, chopped

- 1/3 heirloom tomato, chopped

- a small handful of walnuts, chopped

The Dressing

- 1-2 tablespoons olive oil

- 1-2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

- salt, pepper, basil, marjoram, dill to taste

First slice the sausage raw and cook the pieces on a griddle pan, around 4-5 minutes, turning them so they cook evenly.  While they cook, you can start to chop your veggies.

Put the spinach, lettuce, and arugula in the main section of your Sistema Klip It Salad Box, and then put the meat on top of the lettuce.  Organize all the toppings on the upper section, so that way your salad veggies will stay fresh and your lettuce won't wilt.  Mix together the dressing in a little bowl and pour it into the dressing container.   Clip shut the container and off you go! 

Poaching Up Some Goodness

I love using my poaching pods, and try to bust them out every now and then to shake up our breakfast routine.  By layering some tomatoes. onion, and mushroom fried in leftover bacon grease and some creamy avocado on top of the poached eggs, I added a bit of a gourmet flair to our usual Wednesday morning routine. 

The Meat

- 2 breakfast links

- 2 pieces bacon

- 2 eggs

The Veggies

- 1/4 heirloom tomato, sliced

- 1 mushroom, sliced

- 1/8 cup onion, diced

- salt, pepper, dill to taste

The Garnish

- 1/2 fresh avocado

Fry up your breakfast links on high heat, turning them occasionally, for 7-8 minutes.  Cook your bacon in the same griddle pan, turning once, approximately 3-4 minutes per side.  In the leftover grease on the pan, add your onion, tomato, and mushrooms.  Season and lower the heat to medium.  Stirring often, fry up the veggies for 2-3 minutes, getting them soft but not too crispy.

Lightly grease your poaching pods and break open the egg into each one.  Bring a pot of water with at least 3 inches of water to a boil.  Once the water has reached a steady boil, turn off the heat, and slip the poaching pods with your raw eggs into the hot water.  Cover with a lid and let them poach for at least 4 minutes (I cook mine for 4 and then check to see if they are cooked enough - if they aren't, I leave them in for another minute).  

When your eggs are poached, pull out the pods and slip the eggs onto your plate.  Layer the veggies on top and then spoon all the avocado over them.  Plate your bacon and links and eat your morning meal!

A Marsala Meal

What. A. Meal.  

We had friends over for dinner on this beautiful, warm Friday night, and I decided to go all out, formulating a fantastic meal around a main ingredient - Marsala wine.  I use a sweet, superiore Marsala when I cook.  It is a versatile cooking wine, since it goes so well with tomatoes, cream, fish, veal, chicken, and so many vegetables that it is hard to go wrong.  I made boneless, skinless chicken thighs in a Marsala cream sauce and I also used the Marsala to make stuffed onions.  Since one of our guests was vegetarian, I separated some of the sauce and made some rosa bianca eggplant steaks as a substitute for the chicken.  Add some of my standard roasted sweet potatoes and turnips into the mix and we had ourselves quite the meal!

The Meat

- 6-10 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (approximately 2-3 thighs per person)

- olive oil for cooking

The Sauce

- 1 1/2 cups of whole milk

- 1 cup of Marsala wine

- 3-4 tablespoons of tomato paste

- 4 tablespoons butter

- salt, pepper, marjoram, oregano, parsley to taste

- potato starch to thicken

The Veggies

- 1 medium sized rosa bianca eggplant,  sliced into steaks

- 1-2 tablespoons olive oil

- salt, pepper to taste

- 2 large sweet potatoes, chopped into bite size pieces

- 1-2 large turnips, chopped into bite size pieces

- olive oil, salt, pepper, dill to taste

- 7-10 small onions

- 2 stalks celery, diced

- 1 large scallion, diced

- 1 1/2 cup spinach, raw and chopped

- 6-8 lare white mushrooms, diced

- 6-8 cloves garlic, diced

- 1/2 cup Marsala wine

- 1 tablespoon tomato paste

It is a several step process to make the stuffed onions, and since they took the longest, that is what I started with first.  Begin by peeling the onions and cutting off the ends - don't cut off too much, though, because you don't want the layers to separate.  Bring a pot of water to boil on the stovetop and once you have a rolling boil, drop in the whole onions for 12-15 minutes.  

In the meantime, take your chopped celery, garlic, sliced scallion, and mushrooms and put them into a large pan with the tablespoon of olive oil.  Saute for a few minutes, then season.  Separate a small amount out to use in your Marsala sauce for your chicken. With what is left, add the walnuts, spinach, tomato paste and the Marsala wine.  Bring the whole mixture to a simmer and allow it to cook for around 8-10 minutes, helping the alcohol burn off and infusing the stuffing with flavor.

When the onions are soft from boiling, take them out of the water and let them cool for a little while.  Use a small paring knife and gently cut through the center layers - you are using the knife to help separate the inner layers of the onion, not butchering them!  I also cut a small X on the side I would be pushing the centers out from, to help create a larger opening for the onion inners to go out, and later, my stuffing to go in. Hold the onion in both hands, and using your thumbs, gently (GENTLY!!!) push the inner layers of onion out into a bowl.  You want to leave around 3 of the outer layers intact, as your stuffing "shells." Place the intact outer layers in an oven safe baking dish.

Return to your stuffing and bring the onion innards with you!  Chop up the cooked onion that was leftover from creating our shells, and mix it into the stuffing mix.  Saute on medium heat for only a few more minutes, and then spoon the mixture into the onion shells in your baking dish.  You will have to use your fingers to really get as much stuffing in there as possible, so watch out for burnt fingers, and try to be as careful as possible so you don't split your shells.  Layer any leftover stuffing on top and around the stuffed onions.  Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown and getting a little crispy.

I put the onions and my sweet potatoes and turnips into the oven at the same time, since they both needed around the same amount of time to cook.  I had chopped my sweet potato and turnips before, lightly brushing them with olive oil and seasoning them.  When you put the veggies into the oven, add a 1/2 cup - 1 cup of water to the bottom of your glass baking dish to ensure the veggies don't dry out during their cook time.  Cook them for 40 minutes on the center rack of the oven (right next to your onions!)

To prepare your chicken, you will need your meat tenderizer.  Lightly tenderize the chicken thighs with the smooth side of the tenderizer.  Set the chicken aside, they are ready to be seared.  In a large pot, pour the milk and Marsala wine together.  Add the butter, tomato paste and seasoning, and bring your sauce to a simmer, stirring often.  This will simmer the entire time you cook the rest of the meal.  You'll be dropping your seared chicken into the sauce as well, letting them infuse with flavor and in turn, help flavor the sauce.  When it was time to add the chicken to the sauce, I separated a small amount and kept it apart to keep it vegetarian for our guest.  If you aren't serving vegetarians, you can omit that step.

To cook the chicken, I took my largest pan and heated up some oil.  I sauteed some celery, scallion, garlic, and mushroom in the pan to get it all flavorful, then I tossed the sauteed veggies into the pot with our simmering Marsala sauce.  I seared my tenderized chicken thighs on high heat, adding oil as needed, and flipping them a few times to make sure they got nice and brown on each side.  

It was at this point that I separated out some of the sauce and put it in a smaller pot to continue simmering.  I placed my seared chicken into the larger pot with sauce, allowing the chicken to finish cooking in the sauce.  Add to both pots some potato starch to help thicken the sauce a bit.  I added a teaspoon to the smaller pot and a tablespoon to the larger pot.  I let the chicken and both sauces continue to simmer on lower heat for around 20 minutes until my meal was all set to be served.  During that time I used my griddle pan and some olive oil to cook the rosa bianca eggplant steaks.  Season the thick slices of eggplant lightly and brush them liberally with olive oil.  Cook on medium heat, turning every so often, for around 15 minutes or until the eggplant is soft to cut and golden brown on the edges.  When it is time to serve then, pour the Marsala sauce all over the eggplant steaks. Garnish both sauces with green onion.

This meal was so great, we scraped all the dishes clean!  Enjoy!!

Coffee and Spice Rubbed Lamb Chops

This lamb recipe is to die for, especially if you like coffee.  The marinade is easy to make, and it only takes around 30 minutes to totally infuse the lamb with the rich flavors of the coffee and spices, but you can marinate the lamb for 3-4 hours if you want it to be really bursting with flavor.  Rub the marinade liberally all over both sides of the lamb and let it sit before cooking.

The Meat

- 2 bone-in lamb shoulder blade chops

The Marinade

- 1 tablespoon ground coffee beans (your choice of roast)

- 2 teaspoons crushed garlic

- 1/4 cup of olive oil

- 1/4 cup Port wine

- savory, crushed mint, thyme, sea salt, pepper, cumin, rosemary, and bay leaves to taste

The Sauce

- 1 tablespoon olive oil

- 1/4 cup whipping cream

- 1 tablespoon butter

- 1/4 cup Port wine

- 1/4 cup vegetable stock

- 8 crimini mushrooms, sliced

- 1 stalk fennel, diced

- 1 shallot, diced

- the leftover marinade (especially the coffee)

- 1 tablespoon tapioca starch, dissolved in a teaspoon of water

The Veggies

- 4-5 yellow potatoes, peeled

- 1 1/2 cup water

- salt, pepper to taste

- 1/4 cup whipping cream

- 1 tablespoon butter

- 1/2 head of broccoli, chopped

When it is time to make dinner, scrape off as much of the marinade as possible and save it for your sauce.  To start the sauce, melt the butter and put the olive oil, fennel, mushrooms, and shallot into a simmer sauce pan.  Saute for 3-5 minutes on medium low heat and then pour in the Port, cream, leftover marinade, and the vegetable stock.  Let this cook for 30-40 minutes on low heat.  In the last 5 minutes, add the dissolved tapioca starch to thicken the sauce slightly. 

Cook the lamb chops on high heat on your griddle pan.  I cooked mine for 8 minutes per side, keeping the inside a little pink since the lamb will continue to cook for around 5 minutes after you remove it from the heat.  You want the internal temperature to reach 125 degrees.

Boil the potatoes for 25-30 minutes on high heat in a covered pot.  Drain and put the hot potatoes in a mixing bowl.  Add the cream and butter, mash them up into some fantastically creamy potatoes.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Steam the broccoli for 10 minutes until the leaves are bright green and the stalks still maintain some firmness.  Place the broccoli on your plates, and spoon some mashed potatoes next to it.  Layer the chops partially over the mashed potatoes and generously cover the lamb with the sauce, making sure to get the potatoes too.  

I hope you'll love this lamb dish as much as we did!

Supreme Poached Eggs

I used my poaching pods to make my eggs this morning!  They are so easy to use and make such delicious poached eggs.  It's fun to shake up the breakfast routine every now and then - while my husband never seems to get bored, he does get a lot of the same ingredients presented in different ways.  It's an excellent challenge for me to use the same things over in new ways (if you look at the last three breakfast meals, they all use almost the same basic ingredients, but each are different and awesome in their own way!)

The Meat

- 2 slices bacon

- 3 breakfast links

- 2 eggs

The Veggies

- 3 slices of sliced tomato

- 1/3 cup raw spinach

- 1 mushroom, sliced

- 1/2 green onion

The Sauce

- 1 teaspoon French dressing (it's mostly primal...I'm a bad Grok)

- 1 teaspoon hemp seed oil based mayonnaise


The Fruit
- 1/2 pear, sliced
- 3-4 strawberries, sliced

Cook up the meat on your griddle pan, on high heat.  Flip your bacon at least twice and keep rolling the breakfast links around so they don't char too badly.  After I cooked up the meat all delicious and crispy, I put the spinach, mushrooms, and tomatoes on the griddle pan for around 3 minutes to make them all soft and tasty counterparts to the meat.


Meanwhile, put around 3-4" of water into a simmer pot and bring it to a boil.  Once you get a rolling boil, grease your poaching pods, crack your eggs into them, turn off your heat and slip them into the water.  Cover the pot with its lid and set your timer for 4 minutes.


Put the fried tomato slices on the plate first, then layer the spinach and the poached eggs on top (imagine the tomato slice is an English muffin).  Mix up the French dressing (don't judge me for my small indulgences) and the mayonnaise and spoon it onto the poached eggs.  Cut up the green onion over the top (you could substitute chives if you wanted!) and arrange your fruit in a pretty pattern so you feel all special like.  

A Deconstructed Omelet

Sometimes you want all the parts of an omelet, but not the omelet itself.  I was in one of those moods today for my own breakfast, so I made a single serving breakfast that satisfied my non-omelet cravings. 

The Meat

- 1 turkey sausage

- 1 egg
- salt, dill to taste

The Veggies

- 1/4 cup slicing tomato, chopped

- 1/2 cup raw spinach

- 2 mushrooms, sliced

- 1/2 green onion, sliced

The Fruit

- 2-3 strawberries, tops sliced off

- small handful of blueberries

- spoonful of Galia melon, sliced


This is simple and straightforward.  First I sliced up the fruit and arranged it on a plate.  I cooked the sausage on my griddle pan on high heat, and after around 10 minutes it was ready.  Make sure to flip your sausage at least 3-4 times so it doesn't get too charred.  


Next I lowered the heat to medium low, and I cooked the spinach, mushrooms and tomato for only around 3 minutes on the griddle pan, in the grease created from the sausages.  I wanted the spinach to wilt but not burn or turn brown.  


The egg went on last, around 1-2 minutes for the first side and barely a minute on the other.  As soon as I crack them onto the pan I sprinkle a little bit of salt and dill on my egg, season yours how you like.  Also, I like my egg yolk to be practically raw, so if you'd prefer an over-medium egg, feel free to leave it on the griddle pan longer.  

Pan Fried Mahi Mahi With Roasted Vegetables

This meal was great!  Fish is so tasty, we love eating it!  The roasted vegetables were great with the fish and the spinach with our lovely garlic butter was fantastic, as usual.  

The Meat

- 1 pound (2-3 fillets) of mahi mahi
- salt, pepper, dill, thyme, sage, lemon juice to taste

The Veggies

- 2 heirloom carrots, sliced

- 1/2 head cauliflower, chopped

- 1 turnip, chopped
- 1/2 cup water

- salt, pepper to taste


- 3/4 pound of spinach
- 3 tablespoons of water

- 1 green onion, sliced

- 2 mushrooms, sliced

- 1/2 slicing tomato, chopped
- 1 tablespoon olive oil

The Garlic Butter

- 3 tablespoons butter

- garlic (looots of it)

- salt, dill to taste


Preheat the oven to 380 degrees.


Dice up your veggies and put them into your baking dish with the water and seasoning.  Prep your garlic butter (like in this post) and cook the garlic butter for around an hour.  The vegetables will cook for 40-45 minutes.  If you want to get crazy, you can add crushed red pepper or some seasoning salt into the vegetables.  





The fish was cooked on my griddle pan, but you could also bake it for 25 minutes in the oven with your veggies.  Season your fish and sprinkle some lemon juice on top of the fillets.  I cooked it for around 8 minutes per side.  You want the fish to cook until it is opaque, flaky, and still a little juicy.  Mahi mahi is so tender and full of flavor, it doesn't really need much!








I wilted the spinach in my saute pan with the water on medium low heat for around 6 minutes and then tossed it with the garlic butter.  In my smaller saute pan I cooked up the mushrooms and tomato for around 4 minutes, until they were soft but not mushy.   I placed everything on the plate and then it was time to eat!