Beef Stew - Keto

There are so many beef stew recipes, at least a few on this blog alone. This NomNomPaleo one is lower carb & keto - no potatoes and limited carrots, and includes a good number of mushrooms. It was delicious, aided by the fact of cooking it on a wood stove amidst snow flurries up north after having hiked some miles. What would not be delicious under such circumstances?! I love something cooking on the woodstove, wafting up the house with good smells, especially after a walk or ski or whatever, requiring no other heat or energy source than what is already happening.

Here is a photo of an all important protective orange hat ("I am not a grouse!") with me underneath it. (The hunters I talked with were empty-handed. The grouse, presumably, were staying put with the snow.) This stew was SO good - lots of umami - the cremini mushrooms were a perfect texture/flavor addition, the turnips were creamy, and the meat melted in my mouth. I had two big bowls, where the broth was nice and shimmery with the fat. It was so satisfying.

This recipe is also easy. I didn't brown the meat, I didn't chop up tomatoes, or use wine. I followed the NomNomPaleo recipe, but she makes hers in an InstaPot. I used some broth in mine to compensate for the longer cooking time and need for more liquid; I also added some apple cider vinegar. With weather like today in Minneapolis (5 or 6 inches of snow!), this stew is all I want. 

*Note part of why I think this was so good is that I did use Michelle Tam's magic mushroom powder (that I also use on chicken). I highly recommend it - it adds an extra boost of mushroomy/umami goodness. 

Ingredients: serves 6-8

• 3 pounds beef chuck roast, boneless short ribs, or beef brisket cut into 1½- to 2-inch cubes
• Kosher salt or Magic Mushroom Powder
• 1 tablespoon ghee, avocado oil, or fat of choice
• 2 medium onions, thinly sliced
• 1 pound cremini mushrooms, cleaned, stemmed, and quartered
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 6 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
• 2 tablespoons tamari
• 1 teaspoon (Red Boat) Fish Sauce (I did a long pour on this tsp!)
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 2 fresh thyme sprigs
• 1 dried bay leaf
• freshly ground black pepper
• 2 c beef/venison bone broth
• 2 turnips, diced (or daikon radish/sunchokes/any combo)
  
• 2 large carrots, diced
• ¼ cup Italian parsley, roughly chopped for serving
  

1. Toss beef cubes in salt (or magic mushroom powder) and set aside. 

2. Melt ghee/fat in a dutch oven or large pot. Add onions, and saute until soft, about 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and saute another 5 minutes. Stir in tomato paste and garlic, cook for several more minutes.

3. Add to the pot: the salted beef, tamari, fish sauce, apple cider vinegar, thyme, bay leaf, pepper, and bone broth. Bring to a boil, then set the heat to low and let simmer 2-3 hours, until beef is tender. You could also put it in a slow cooker, or move your pot to the wood stove, if you have one. 

4. 30 or so minutes before serving, add diced turnips and carrots to the stew. Continue simmering until they are soft. Taste for salt, and add more (or magic mushroom powder) until delicious. Ladle heaping chunks of meat and veggies into bowls, with just enough broth to sip at the end. Top with chopped parsley. Or sauerkraut. Or eat as is. 

Coconut Tilapia Chowder

This is another recipe courtesy of my pandemic podmate. She told me about this dish a few times over the years, and we finally made it (twice!) in the last several weeks. It's delicious, really easy, and very keto friendly. To me it is almost like an oyster stew - somehow the onions and the tilapia come together to be oyster-like. This soup is rich and delicious, with chunks of fish that sort of melt in your mouth.

I did my best to quantify these amounts. She says, "use enough paprika until it is the right amount of red" which you know, is less precise. 😂 See photo for redness - it is quite red!

 Ingredients (serves 3-4):

• 1/4-1/2 cup avocado or coconut oil
• 1 red onion, sliced thinly
• 2 roma (or other) tomatoes, chopped
• 2-3 T paprika
• 1 T chicken or beef boullion/stock flavoring
• 1 tsp "garlic and herb" seasoning 
• 1+ T black pepper
• 1 can coconut milk
• 3 tilapia fillets 
  
• salt to taste

Directions:

1. In a large pot, saute onions and spices in oil over medium heat. You are going for a saucy texture: you want plenty of oil, and will cook onions down 8-10 minutes. We started with about 1/4 c coconut oil and added some more as it cooked.

2. Add tomatoes. Cook until they soften, another 5 minutes.

3. Lay tilapia fillets in a single layer on top of onion sauce. Cover and cook for 5 minutes.

4. Add coconut milk and turn the heat to low. The tilapia will have broken apart in large chunks in the soup. Stir gently to mix the coconut milk with sauce. Heat through for flavors to blend, and add more paprika to get to the "right amount of red." Salt to taste (this soup can handle a lot of salt, so don't be shy!) and serve.

Keto Savory Porridge with Dukkah, Eggs and Greens

I wanted to make a keto/paleo porridge that was more like kongee or grits - a creamy, savory sort of breakfast porridge to have with eggs and greens. It was so successful! Such that I will also use this for my liver on grits recipe that I keep wanting to make again. Yum. This is modified from a sweeter "fauxt-meal" recipe that I ended up liking better than the recent one I posted because it is less chia-pudding like and more toothsome. I happened to have homemade dukkah spice (an Egyptian roasted nut, sesame seed and spice mix that is ground up) that I used for this that was stellar, but you could also use ground up pumpkin seeds or ground sunflower seeds, or another nut, no problem. The latter would also give less flavor, allowing you to top this with seaweed and kimchi and get other flavor profiles. I include an easy dukkah recipe below.

• 2 T dukkah spice (or ground up pumpkin/sunflower seeds or nuts)
• 1 T chia seeds
  
• 1 T ground flax seed
• 1 tsp sunbutter
  
• 1 tsp almond flour
  
• 1/8 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 c water
•  2T butter

Directions: Add everything but butter to a small saucepan over medium heat. Simmer and stir frequently. After a few minutes and as porridge is thickening, add butter. Stir and turn off heat. Let sit several minutes, stirring occasionally. 

Serve with 6 minute eggs and greens, or whatever other savory toppings you like. My greens were just chopped up kale and onion, sauteed in coconut oil. I cooked them with a bit of water to soften things.

Dukkah spice - Typically this would include hazelnuts, or I've used pistachios, but you can use whatever you have on hand. I always have pumpkin seeds, and that is what I made most recently. This mix is good on just about anything: veggies, fish, salad, etc.

Ingredients

• ½ cup hazelnuts (or other nut or pumpkin seeds) 
• ⅓ cup sesame seeds 
• ¼ cup whole coriander seeds 
• 2 tablespoons cumin seeds 
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt or sea salt 
• 1½ teaspoons black peppercorns

Toast nuts and seeds separately on a cast iron skillet until they are brown or starting to pop - each will roast for different lengths of time, hence doing them separately and not together. If using hazelnuts, after toasting, rub them with a kitchen towel to try to remove the outer skin as much as possible.

Put all ingredients in a spice grinder (I use a coffee grinder) and blend until the texture is coarse crumbs. You could also do this in a mortar and pestle if you have one. Store in an airtight jar in the fridge. Makes about 1 1/4 cups.

Egg Roll Bowl with Dandelion Greens

It is Ramadan and I am fasting, which means I pretty much just make one bigger meal at sundown, called Iftar. It is funny that the recipe I am posting at Ramadan is a pork recipe, something no Muslim would be eating! (This would be good with beef too.) I was especially happy to toss in a bunch of dandelion greens and some green onions from the garden. I wish I had collected more greens because the subtle bitterness was really nice in here - a good match to the sweetness of the green onions and sauteed cabbage/carrots. I'll have to pick some dandelion greens to eat as a salad to do them proper justice.

I stumbled across the notion of egg rolls sans wrapper sometime back - apparently it is a keto and paleo super recipe, which I wasn't necessarily going for, but I do like to go high veggie content. Really it is a very easy stir-fry that is slightly bland but is reminiscent of egg rolls, which I enjoyed. Also I was working pretty late, so an easy meal prep was handy. I liked it best with the inclusion of fancy hot sauce.

Egg Roll Bowl
1 lb ground pork (or beef)
2 T sesame oil/coconut oil
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1" ginger, grated
half medium green cabbage, sliced thinly/shredded
1 small carrot, grated/julienned
1 small jalapeno, minced
3 tsp apple cider vinegar
3 T tamari
1 T dijon mustard
salt/pepper
(opt) dandelion greens - as many as you want
2 green onions, chopped for garnish

1. Cook pork in a medium skillet over medium heat. Break up pices with a spoon as it cooks. When done, set aside to add to veggies.
2. While it is cooking, heat oil in a large cast iron pan on medium heat. Add onions, garlic, and ginger and saute until onions soften, about 5 minutes.
3. Add cabbage, carrots, vinegar, tamari, mustard. Cook and stir for 5-10 more minutes until cabbage and carrots soften. Add dandelion greens, cooked pork, and salt and pepper to taste.
4. Serve with green onions and your favorite hot sauce.

Keto/Paleo pumpkin pancakes

I was having early fireside musings with my friend this morning, and we started dreaming up ideas of blueberry pancakes, fried eggs and bacon. Realizing I had bacon in the freezer and some maple syrup in the fridge, and that she had blueberries and a little left over whipped cream, this breakfast idea seemed like a good start to the solstice. I went to the interwebs to seek out a recipe. Because there was some leftover pumpkin puree needing to be used up, pumpkin pancakes seemed the way to go.

A bite of this modified pumpkin pancake with bacon, syrup, a blueberry, butter and whipped cream was decadent. Totally decadent. I changed the recipe some, eliminating the nut butter, reducing the coconut flour (next time I will try it with no coconut flour at all, which I suspect would be just fine), using coconut milk, and eliminating the sweetener. The trick to these is cooking them on even heat quite slowly. Like, just hunker down to do some slow pancake cooking. I found it was better to center pancakes on 2 skillets than to cook 4 in a larger cast iron one. *I did try some with blueberries inside the pancake and it worked!

Paleo Pumpkin Pancakes (makes 10-12 pancakes)
3 large eggs 
1/3 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup coconut milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup super fine almond flour
2 tablespoons coconut flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
(coconut oil/bacon fat/ghee for griddle)
*opt: blueberries 

1) In a large bowl, beat the eggs then whisk in the pumpkin. Add the milk and vanilla and mix until smooth. Add remaining dry ingredients and mix. Batter will be quite thick. 
2) Heat a skillet or two to medium-low heat and melt cooking fat of choice. Spoon scant 1/4 cup batter to center of skillet/s and cook slowly: 3-5 minutes for each side. *If adding blueberries, add just before you flip. Be gentle with the flipping, and wait a little longer than you think. 
3) Keep warm in the oven, and serve with whatever toppings you like.  
*These apparently also freeze well. I'll try that with the leftovers to toast another morning.