Asian Beef Stir Fry

Finally sitting down to blog about this awesome dinner I cooked up this past week!

I have been working on ways to eat all the ground meat we got creatively…you can only do so many meatloaves, burgers (my husband would disagree) and meatballs. Since we get our meat from a local farmer that does grass-fed beef, it can get quite pricey. That’s why basically all I can afford is the ground meat, sausage, and soup bones nobody else wants! So we end up with a lot of ground beef in our freezer and I have to come up with creative ways to serve it up. Poor me!

This is a variation on stir fry that I’ve played around with the ingredients for. This weeks combo was a winner.

Asian Beef Stir Fry Dinner

1 lb ground beef

2 large heads of broccoli, chopped

1-2 large carrots, shredded

1/2 can of diced pineapple

2 small heads of bac (pac?) choi, stems separated from leaves and chopped

1 large onion, sliced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

salt & pepper

1 tablespoon of coconut oil

1/4 cup of beef broth

Sauce/Spice:

1 cup of beef broth

1/4 cup of tamari (or soy sauce or coconut aminos)

1 tsp garlic powder

salt & pepper

2 tablespoons tahini

1 tbsp of minced ginger

**Preheat oven to 375

1. Spray a large cookie sheet with cooking spray or coconut oil and place chopped broccoli on. Salt and pepper it and place it in the oven (You could cook this by boiling, or adding right in the stir fry, but I LOVE the taste of roasted broccoli)

2. While broccoli’s cooking, brown the ground beef in a large skillet then drain (if you’re using grass fed beef there’s no need to drain. I hardly had any fat and what was there I used to cook with. But I would drain if using conventional meat).

3. Place tablespoon of coconut oil in the empty pan and let melt. Then add the garlic and let it become fragrant (I usually burn it. Don’t do that).

4. Add the chopped onion and the chopped STEMS of the Pac choi. Let them cook for 4-5 minutes or until softened. While you’re doing this, start the sauce. Combine all ingredients of the sauce, bring to a boil, then simmer.

5. Add the pac choi leaves and add some beef broth in there to get it cooking down (You could just use water).

6. After the pac choi leaves are wilted, add in your sauce to the pan. Let simmer for 3-4 minutes.

7. Add back in your ground beef and then the grated carrots. At this time, check the broccoli. You want to roast it for a good 15- 20 minutes. Take out when done.

8. Let the whole mixture simmer for 5-8 minutes until everything becomes incorporated.

9. Serve over the broccoli with pineapple on top. Drizzle with more tahini. Yum!

 

How do you get creative with ground beef?

How do you make inexpensive meat cuts yummy?

Paleo Apple Donuts

And so I continue with my baking experiments, as well as attempt to get as much use out of the donut pan I got for my bridal shower.

These happened in an attempt to make PaleOMG’s (do I link to that website enough or what?) apple cider donuts. After I got somewhat into it I realized I did not, in fact, have apple cider. Fail. So I decided to wing it. I’m really happy with the result. Especially since the apples I made these with are straight from our back field, that we FINALLY got a chance to navigate to yesterday. It took some climbing through thick brush and swamp, but we made it!

There were a few apple trees and after eating enough to give me a stomach ache sampling them, I shoved as many as I could into my pockets and headed out. They’re not pretty, but they’re delicious!

Since they weren’t aesthetically wonderful, I decided to peel some and do a little baking. You don’t have to use backyard apples for this recipe!

Paleo Apple Donuts

Makes about 15 mini-donuts

1/2 cup almond butter (or other nut butter)

1 cup shredded apple (about 1 large or two medium…or 5 backyard teeny ones LOL)

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1/4 heaping teaspoon of baking powder

1 egg

1 tablespoon of raw honey

dash of nutmeg

1 tablespoon of coconut flour

**Pre-heat oven to 375

1. Beat your egg and mix together with the apple and almond butter until incorporated.

2. Sift in coconut flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and baking powder.

3. Add the honey and mix everything together.

4. Spoon small amounts into a GREASED donut pan (these would work as muffins too you just have to bake them longer).

5. Bake for roughly 10-12 minutes. Be sure to check on them. Take them out when they are turning golden brown on the top.

 

What’s your favorite way to eat apples?

Giant Baked Paleo Pancake

I seriously sat down to type this blog post almost an hour ago…it’s so easy to get sucked into the interwebs! My cat has fleas. This weekend we finally moved into our new house and it looks like the old owner’s cat must have left some behind. Ugh. He didn’t leave us anything useful. Just fleas, old army memorabilia and the 100 billion stickers his son put on the wall in his bedroom. Great.

But other than that I am THRILLED to finally be in our new house. I will do another house specific blog post but here are a few pictures from moving this weekend.

Celebratory drink…been waiting for this one!!

Last week I talked about blogger recipe development and it got me to thinking that normally when I bake things, I have to follow a specific recipe. But recently I have been experimenting with “winging it” when baking and have finally come up with one I could share!

I often throw together some sort of bread/muffins/quiche to eat for breakfast that I can quickly warm up. I was about to make zucchini pancakes to warm up one night last week but decided I didn’t want to bother with the griddle so I just poured the entire batter into a loaf pan and came up with this recipe: the Giant Baked Paleo Pancake. This would be approved on the 21 day sugar detox if you used a green tipped banana. The 21 Day Sugar Detox book comes out soon…so does Well Fed 2! AND I just saw today that Juli at PaleOMG and George at Civilized Caveman are joining forces to write a book. So many Paleo books..what do I do?!?!? Hello Christmas list!!!!

Giant Baked Paleo Pancake

Makes 2 servings, Prep Time: 5 minutes, Bake Time: 25 min

3 eggs

1 cup of shredded zucchini (take the measurement AFTER you squeeze the water out)

1 banana

1 tbsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

2 tablespoons of coconut flour

dash of salt

handful of Enjoy life Chocolate chips

**** You COULD add 1 tablespoon of honey and I highly suggest you add sweetener if you aren’t used to naturally sweetened baked goods. I thought of this more as a savory dish than sweet so I didn’t need it.

1. Pre-heat oven to 375. Shred the zucchini in a food processor and squeeze all the water out (I used a paper towel).

2. In a mixing bowl, add eggs and bananas and mix well. Then add zucchini.

3. Add the cinnamon, coconut flour, and baking powder and salt. Then add chocolate chips. Mix until incorporated.

Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Make sure to check on it because my oven is really weak.

I ate mine topped with sunbutter- duh. I was talking to a friend about substitutes for ketchup and salad dressing…..and I came to the realization that I don’t really use these two things anymore. And I got to thinking what I could tell her to use instead and what I used. Then I realized I literally put nut butter on everything….including carrot and sweet potato fries….eggs….and THEN I realized why I PROBABLY have gained a bunch of weight since my wedding. Woops. Oh well. At least it’s not a mystery….

Do you ever experience with baking?

What challenges did you face moving into a new house?

Paleo “PB & J” Pancakes

Okay, so I know I’m not supposed to be eating pancakes buuuuut I figured since they were Paleo, it’s Sunday, and my blog is indeed called Pencils and Pancakes, that these would be an acceptable decision.

I’ll admit I was inspired by PaleOMG’s PB&J pancakes, but really my recipe looks nothing like hers. I just stole her idea. These don’t taste like regular pancakes in case you’re wondering. But if you’re trying to eat clean, on Paleo, or just want to try something different and don’t mind an eggy taste give them a shot!

Peanuts and peanut butter are NOT Paleo or allowed on Whole 30- I substituted Sunbutter- which is sunflower seeds turned into a butter. If you’ve never tried it you’re seriously missing out. Stop buying expensive nut butters and just make your own. Seriously, I spent $4 on organic sunflower seeds and made about two cups of delicious, sugar and sugar substitute free, ‘sunbutter’. Win-win. Make it now! Then makes these pancakes:

“PB &J” Paleo Pancakes

1 banana

2 eggs

1 scant tbsp coconut flour

sprinkle of cinnamon

a couple drops of organic almond extract (for flavor, optional)

For syrup:

1/2 cup strawberries

2 tbsp black cherry balsamic vinegar (plain would work fine, but of course I’ll use my fancy flavored ones)

1 tbsp water

1 tbsp sunbutter

 

1. Heat your griddle to 350 degrees. Mash the banana with a fork until you get a smooth consistency.

2. Add two eggs and whisk together.

3. Add coconut flour and whisk more.

4. Add almond extract and cinnamon and mix to combine.

5. Meanwhile, place strawberries, water and vinegar in a small saucepan on the stove and bring to a boil.

6. Pour pancakes on the griddle (keep them under 4” in diameter) and cook until bubbly on one side. Flip and finish.

7. After syrup comes to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until thick, approx 4-5 minutes.

8. Top pancakes with sunbutter and strawberry syrup. Enjoy!

I ate mine with a side of crispy kale; random but good. If you try this recipe let me know! It’s definitely a great one! And go make sunbutter NOW.