Stupidly Easy Potroast

This is a variation on the recipe from Tim Ferriss' 4-Hour Chef. As the name indicates, it is stupidly simple to make. You will need:

Two pound chuck roast
Two pounds of baby carrots
Two onions, diced
Five to ten stalks of celery, diced
Eight ounces of mushrooms (I had two or three large portobello mushrooms and diced them)  
48 ounce can of beef broth
Four or five cloves of garlic

1. Season the meat the night before. This simply means salt, black pepper and granulated garlic sprinkled on the top of the meat. Turn said meat over, and season the other side.
2. I line the crockpot with a cooking bag. I like to cook; I hate the cleaning up part.
3. Throw a bunch of baby carrots in the bottom of the pot (or bag, as the case may be).
4. Set meat on top of carrots.
5. Throw in onions, celery, mushrooms and garlic and as many more carrots as will fit in your crockpot.
6. Pour in the broth.
7. Let cook for four or five hours on high.

That's it, and it was fabulous.

Notice the mashed potato-looking stuff on the plate? That's Great Northern beans. Here's how Beth made that:

Mash up some beans in a pan, add one tablespoon each of ghee and olive oil, add black pepper and garlic to taste.

Next time we may try adding some red wine to the broth, but I'm not sure that it's necessary.  

Slow Carb Bread That's Not Really for Sandwiches

I forget which blog I first saw this referenced, but on the My New Roots blog, it's called The Life Changing Loaf of Bread. Now, I don't know about life-changing, but for fiber and bread-like consistency, it's pretty good, pretty tasty, and really easy.

The link above gives the recipe and reasons why the bread is good for you. Because (for six days a week, anyway) I adhere to a slow carb diet, I modified the recipe to replace oats with beans. My recipe is below, with the original recipe ingredients in parenthesis. You will need:

1 cup of sunflower seeds
½ cup of flax seeds
1 cup of almonds (MNR uses ½ cup of hazelnuts or almonds)
½ cup of cashews (not in MNR recipe)
2 cans of black beans (MNR calls for 1 ½ cups rolled oats)
2 Tbsp. chia seeds
4 Tbsp. psyllium seed husks
1 tsp. fine grain salt
5 or 6 drops of liquid sweetener (MNR = 1 Tbsp. maple syrup (for sugar-free diets, use a pinch of stevia))
3 Tbsp. melted coconut oil (MNR also says you can use ghee)
1 cup of water (MNR uses 1 ½ cups; I uses less because the beans seem to have additional moisture that you want to bake out)

Directions:
1. Mash up the beans in a bowl. MNR's recipe says just mix in the rest of the ingredients in a flexible, silicon loaf pan. I find it better to start with a bowl, mix everything in, and then pour that into the loaf pan, smoothing out the top. MNR says let it sit for at least two hours; I generally let mine sit overnight.
2. When you are ready to cook, preheat oven to 350°F and place loaf pan in the oven on the middle rack when temperature is 350, and bake for 30 minutes. Here's another part where I do something different from MNR: when I first tried removing and flipping the bread, it was still moist and started dripping through the rack. Now, when I remove the loaf from the pan and flip it, I flip it onto parchment paper which is sitting on top of a pizza stone. Bake for another 40 to 60 minutes. MNR says bread is done when it sounds hollow when tapped; not sure I ever got to this level, but ok.
3. Let cool and then slice.
4. For best results, I freeze it and then toast it when ready to eat. After coming out of the toaster, I put a little coconut oil on it.

It's kind of crumbly; my mom had a great idea to use the crumb parts and larger chunks that may fall off as croutons.

Fiesta!

When I first read about the slow-carb diet and decided to embrace it, this is the first recipe that I thought about that would work. My sister-in-law Victoria introduced me to this recipe. 

Over the past couple of years, I’ve modified it, especially now that Beth and I are on the Slow Carb Diet.  It tastes good, it’s not too complicated, and you get lots of leftovers making meals for the remainder of the week pretty easy.



Ingredients:

One pound of ground turkey
Three cans of black beans
Two cans of kidney beans
Two large cans of diced tomatoes
Two cans of Rotel tomatoes (we use the one with mild chilis)
Can of chopped chilis
Taco seasoning (four tablespoons of the 'bulk' seasoning mix that you get at warehouse clubs)
Kale (quarter pound) (optional - see notes below about kale)
Turmeric - one tablespoon (optional - see notes below about turmeric)
Avocado
Onion
Can of sliced black olives

Directions:

If using kale, I would recommend running it through a food processor before doing anything else, mincing it thoroughly. Even though kale is considered a 'superfood,' I'm kind of done with it. It really takes over a meal. I believe adding it to the Fiesta, while getting the massive benefits of the kale, it adds a lot more work and detracts from the taste. If you must have kale, I recommend it as a side.

For turmeric, it's a spice that's supposedly fabulous for you.  Just be forewarned - plastic utensils will become discolored with an orange tint. It has a mild flavor, so it doesn't detract from the overall flavor of the other ingredients and seasonings.

1. Brown turkey in a pan.  We use a really medium-sized skillet and then dump the turkey in a crockpot. During the browning, we season the turkey with black pepper and granulated garlic. 2.   Add one of the large cans of diced tomatoes.  Add can of chilis.
3.   For the taco seasoning, we bought one of the larger containers from Costco.  I use four tablespoons.  You can just buy some of the individual packets if you want. Add turmeric.  Stir everything up so that the turkey is coated with the spices.  
4. Add beans.  I empty the cans into a colander and rinse before adding.  
5. Add cans of Rotel.
6. Add that second can of tomatoes.
7.  Add kale.  Again, this is optional, and it’s added because kale is one of the most nutritious foods on the planet.  When I first did this, I used about a pound of kale - that was too much.  A quarter pound would be much better.
8. Mix everything up real well.  Cover, and let it cook.
9. While cooking, dice up the onion.
10. Dice the avocado.  
11.  Periodically stir.  I usually consider it done when I see everything boiling a little bit.
12. Serve in big bowl.  Add some onion, avocado and olives.  
13. I also add some hot sauce.  I prefer Habanero Tabasco.  Beth likes the Chipotle Tabasco.
14. Mix this last bit up in your bowl and eat!

As I mentioned earlier, Victoria introduced this to me.  Before we were on the Slow Carb Diet, we served it on a bed of rice and added cheese, as well as Fritos for texture.  Eliminating these items and adding the kale, I’m not sure if you can find a more nutritious one-pot meal. Even without the kale, it's still pretty darned nutritious. 

In place of the rice, see this site's recipe for cauliflower rice.