A Recipe... of sorts...

This is a first (and last?) for the blog, as today I’m going to share a recipe of my own with you.  Well, to be fair it’s much more of a general framework than a recipe.  See, I wanted to address some of the common objections people have with eating Paleo, or even eating healthier, and I thought one way I could do that is to simply show how I overcome those limiting factors.  I thought the way to do that would be to share a recipe I make at home, but the thing is that I don’t really ever cook with recipes.  I love to cook, but most of the time I start with a concept, and just start throwing things together till it’s cooked and tastes good.  I don’t really ever measure things.  So in this “recipe” you won’t see a lot of specific measurements, but I think this can easily used as a framework for you to make this dish at home.

So, what are the common objections to Paleo or healthy eating I wanted to address???  Today I wanted to address the “I just don’t have enough time to cook”, and “I don’t have to money to eat healthy” objections.  I feel like I hear these objections as much as any, so I thought I’d show how I could make a simple, yummy, nutritious meal in under 30-minutes and on the cheap.  What follows is a meal that we eat nearly every week because it’s so tasty, cheap, and easy…  Is it going to win any culinary awards?  No, but neither is the fast food you’d be substituting for this, because it’s the only thing faster and cheaper.  I love this meal and I think you will too!

            No-Sweat Paleo Stir-Fry

Ingredients:

• From The Pantry/Fridge:
• 1tbs Coconut oil
• 2tbs Coconut Aminos (a soy-free sub for soy sauce)
• 1tsp Gluten Free Siracha
• 1/2tbs White wine vinegar
• 1 clove Garlic smashed
• 1tbs grated Ginger grated
• 1 handful cashews
• Chinese 5-spice
• Salt
• Fresh ground pepper
• From The Grocery Store:
• 1lb Grass fed ground beef ($6.99)
• 1 container sliced mushrooms ($1.99)
• Small red onion ($0.45)
• Cilantro ($0.79)
• 1 lemon ($0.89)
• 1 med carrot ($0.09)
• 1 can bamboo shoot ($1.39)
• ½ cabbage head ($1.22)

Directions:

1. Heat a cast iron skillet over med-high heat.
2. While that’s heating up, chop the onion and carrot to desired size.
3. When the pan is hot, add 1 tbs fat (I used coconut oil), then add the beef. 
4. After a couple of minutes, flip the beef and season with salt, pepper, and other spices (I used some Chinese 5-spice).  Then begin to break up the meat with a spatula.
5. After a couple more minutes (now the beef is about 60% cooked), add the longer cooking veggies (mushroom, carrot, onion). Stir occasionally.
   
6. While that’s cooking prepare any other ingredients left to prep (garlic, cabbage, cilantro, cashews).
7. When the veggies are mostly cooked (5 minutes or so), add the rest of the veggies (cabbage, garlic, cilantro, ginger), as well as the sauce components (aminos, siracha, vinegar, the juice of one lemon).  Fold to incorporate, and increase heat to High. You’re almost done…           
   
        
8. After 1min add the zest of the lemon, and the cashews. Fold to incorporate, and turn the heat off.  Let the veggies finish cooking for another couple minutes while you prepare your plate.
9. Remove from heat and serve.  Garnish with cilantro and siracha as desired.
   

That’s it!  Pretty simple right?  And as you see in the final picture the whole thing (from putting the skillet on the stove, to plating) took me less than 29 minutes.  It takes you almost that long to drive to a fast food joint, go through the drive through, and come home!  What about the cost???  The groceries I bought for this meal came to $13.81!  This is enough food to easily feed two large hungry people, and could likely be 3 portions for many folks.  Even at only 2 portions, that comes to $6.91 per serving, which is less than most fast food value meals!  If money was particularly tight, I could have saved $3.00 buying regular lean ground beef at $3.99 a pound.  Would that have decreased the healthfulness of this meal? Yes a bit, but it still would have been better than anything you could get at a fast food joint or from a box for that matter!  I obviously have a stocked pantry/fridge because I’ve lived this lifestyle for a while, so there is some initial cost to getting going, but once you get stocked up your bill will be about the same.

This recipe is super simple, and can be adapted to whatever meat and veggie options you prefer and/or have available.  I’ve done this with ground beef, turkey, and pork.  I’ve also used snap peas, broccoli, and asparagus.  It just depends on what I’m feeling at the time.  Often times I actually cook a lot more cabbage in a separate pan, and serve the stir-fry over a plate of sautéed cabbage.  Sometimes if it’s after a workout and we need some carbs, I’ll serve this stir-fry with some white rice.  Try this out, and make it your own!

So, if you haven’t implemented a Paleo eating plan, what’s holding you back?  I hope I’ve proved here that we can all eat healthy meals while maintaining a tight budget for money and time!