Paleo Tex-Mex Casserole

Amazing recipe!! I can't rave enough about this one. Veggie goodness all the way through, and incredible flavor. Even better the next day packed in my lunch. The recipe is from Popular Paleo, which is a new blog I've started following. I need to see if her other recipes can top this one!

REVIEW: As expected for any dish with lots of veggies, there was a significant amount of prep that went into this one. If I didn't have my awesome food processor with a grater attachment, there is no way I'd make this recipe because it calls for 5 CUPS of shredded sweet potato. You'd have a serious wrist cramp trying to do that by hand. I used ground turkey instead of beef, just because I'm not a fan of the taste. I also think it'd be an excellent vegan dish, all you'd have to do is take out the meat.

RECIPE:
1.25 lbs ground turkey
2 cups spinach
1 onion, diced
2-3 carrots, diced
2 zucchinis, diced
2 small bell peppers, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 large or 5 cups sweet potato, peeled and shredded
1 can diced tomatoes, drained
1/3 cup taco seasoning
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp dried cilantro
coconut oil
olive oil
salt
pepper

Preheat oven to 375F. Spritz olive oil in a large skillet or sauté pan and add all the vegetables. Sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper onto the veggies, and cook until just tender. Remove veggies, heat up a bit more olive oil in the sauté pan, and add the ground turkey. Mix in the taco seasoning and brown the meat.

 

Once the turkey has browned, add the vegetables back in and mix until heated through. Transfer the mixture to a 9x11" baking dish.









 







Melt a small scoop of coconut oil in the sauté pan and add the sweet potatoes. Sauté until they are tender, this takes about 5 minutes. Sprinkle with chili powder and cilantro. Scoop the potato on top of the vegetable mixture and add a thick layer to the baking dish.

Cover the dish with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake for 10 more minutes, or until bubbly and potatoes are a bit crispy on top. Serve a heaping scoop topped with chopped cilantro.

Spicy Black Bean Chipotle Soup

It is definitely the time of year where I start craving soups, stews, and chili. Even though it's 60 degrees here in LA, apparently we celebrate fall anyway. Uggs with shorts, what?

REVIEW:
This recipe was from Fitness magazine, March 2012. It's easy and the ingredients are cheap. I like those for weeknight meals. Funny story illustrating what can happen when you misread the recipe...I read "1 canned chipotle chili in adobo sauce" as "1 can of chipotle chilis in adobo sauce".  Holy moly that soup came out HOT, haha! I do not recommend this unless you have tastebuds of steel. Seriously, I had to dump in sour cream, lime juice, avocado until it mellowed out a bit. However, I would use at least one chipotle chili because I have made it before with other chiles and the flavor was much better with the smoky chipotle.

RECIPE:
olive oil
1 chicken sausage link, sliced thin
1 large onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 cans black beans, rinsed and drained
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 (JUST ONE CHILI) chipotle chili in adobo sauce, or more if you like spicy, minced
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp oregano
Toppings: sour cream, avocado, lime zest, lime juice, cilantro

Heat a small amount of olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Cook sausage slices until browned, about 2 minutes on each side. Remove sausage and set aside to add in later. Add red bell pepper, onion to the pot, sauté for 4 minutes. Stir in garlic, cumin, and oregano, sauté for 1 minute. Add beans, chicken broth, and chipotle pepper. Bring to boil, then drop temperature to medium-low and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Here is the tricky part: Transfer 1.5 cups of soup into a blender or food processor, or what I did it is pour it into a bowl and use an immersion blender to make it smooth. Mix the pureed soup back in. Serve in deep bowls topped with a dollop of sour cream, avocado, lime zest, and cilantro. Squeeze a wedge of lime over the soup.

Time to play catch-up!

I'm back with some delicious recipes to share! In the time I've been away, I've actually moved cross-country to the City of Angels! As a foodie, I cannot get enough of all the unique and delicious restaurants to try, and as a result have been blowing my monthly restaurant budget quite regularly. "I'll do better next month!" I vow, as I feast my eyes and stomach on Argentinian-style skirt steak topped with a creamy mushroom sauce, or beer-battered halibut stuffed into a corn tortilla covered in crunchy cabbage slaw and smothered in a spicy creamy chipotle sauce, or perfectly crispy thick-cut French fries sprinkled with parmesan and drizzled with truffle oil. Am I making you hungry yet? Exactly my problem.

Time to reign in the restaurant spending, or at least try to. As a cook, living in an incredibly diverse city such as LA opens up endless opportunities to dive into any cuisine, find weird ingredients to experiment with, and seriously like 5 wonderful farmers markets within 5 miles! Since I tried the Paleo diet earlier this year, I've been pretty good about avoiding grains, most dairy, processed foods, etc. Having tons of fresh fruit & veggies accessible and CHEAP helps me stick to the diet, and I really feel better when I do!

I have a few winners to share in the next couple of posts. Enjoy.