Recipes

4 Paleo Recipes Get a Texas Makeover

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Tony Maples Photography

 

Waylon Jennings sang about getting back to the basics of life — enter the Paleo diet, the Luckenbach of lifestyle diets. Following the Paleo diet lifestyle means getting back to a less processed and natural diet, like our ancestors. Eating real food means that are ethically grown and harvested meat, fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds are all in! Grains, legumes, dairy and processed foods are out for those enjoying the Paleo lifestyle. Additional information on the Paleo diet can be found in a variety of sources, one of the most prominent experts in the field is Robb Wolf, whose website provides a wealth of information and the science behind this movement.

Recipes below take traditional and famously Texas flavors and marry those with the natural and unprocessed Paleo diet.

Recipe #1: Breakfast Casserole, Meat and Egg Heaven

Paleo sweet potato casserole

Photo: PaleoPot.com

Hungry Man Sweet Potato Casserole is a hearty dish of eggs, sweet potatoes, and meat all made in the CROCK POT! As a consummate one-upper, the Texas version of this Paleo Pot dish brings in brisket, hatch chilies and hot sauce:

Ingredients:

  • 2 pounds of brisket (if you ever have leftover brisket, toss that on in)
  • ½ pound of uncured bacon
  • 8 eggs
  • 3-4 large sweet potatoes
  • 1 red onion
  • 3-5 (depending on size Hatch chiles
  • 1-2 jalapenos
  • Spices: Cayenne, roasted red pepper flakes, pepper,
  • Hot sauce of choice

Follow the rest of the recipe, as modified from the original for all things Texas!

Food Prep:

  1. Peel sweet potatoes and microwave them for 2-3 minutes to soften them slightly
  2. Slice sweet potatoes into 1/8″ slices
  3. Dice bacon finely and brown it in a pan into crisp pieces
  4. Remove bacon from the pan and set it aside for later
  5. Dice onions into large chunks and add to the pan along with your brisket and peppers. Make sure you use a deep skillet or pan big enough for all of the meat, onions and hatch chilies.
  6. Make sure beef is fully browned and onions are translucent.
  7. Beat the 8 eggs in a bowl, blender, or food processor. Add some cayenne and pepper to your egg mixture if you wish.

Instructions:

  1. Grease slow cooker with some coconut oil.
  2. Line the bottom of the slow cooker with slices of sweet potato. Just enough so that you cover the bottom.
  3. Spoon in a layer of the seasoned brisket onto the sweet potatoes.
  4. Sprinkle some of the crisped bacon pieces on top of the brisket.
  5. Repeat. The goal here is to keep layering evenly until you use up your supplies.
  6. Once you have finished layering, pour the egg mixture over the top. The eggs will fall into place and make the magic happen. Sprinkle jalapenos and hot sauce on top of everything.
  7. Cook on low for 6 hours. Allow pot to cool. If your ceramic crock is removable, throw it in the fridge overnight. This will allow the dish to congeal and set nice. You can then slice the casserole into pretty pieces like in the picture.

Recipe #2: Smoked Chili Cilantro Lime Chicken

Paleo chili cilantro lime chicken

Photo: PaleoPot.com

All of the ingredients at play here work so well together and are complemented by the smoke flavor Texans know and love. This recipe was modified from a crock pot recipe at Paleo Pot, so it’s suitable to cook in the Crock Pot, or the Texas way, over a wood- fired smoker.

Ingredients:

  • One large free-range organic whole chicken.
  • Dry rub (black pepper, sea salt, chili powder, cayenne powder, ground cumin). About a teaspoon each of salt, pepper, cumin, and a tablespoon each of the chili powder and cayenne .
  • 1/2 cup of lime juice (about 2 limes).
  • 1 extra whole lime for stuffing inside chicken (yes that makes 3 limes total).
  • 1-2 jalapenos, seeded and diced
  • 2 generous handfuls of fresh cilantro.
  • 3 cloves of garlic.
  • 1 tbsp of olive oil.

Food Prep:

  1. Wash the chicken off under cold tap water and then dry with paper towels.
  2. Dust  chicken with salt & pepper, and apply an even coating of chili powder, cayenne, and cumin to taste. There is no magic amount or formula to use, yet do try to cover the whole bird with some spice. This also helps give the golden brown color.
  3. In a blender or food processor, combine lime juice, cilantro, garlic, about half of the diced jalapenos and olive oil. Pulse until an even consistency is reached.
  4. Take the extra lime and poke lots of holes into it with a fork. Now dust this lime with chili powder and stick it into the cavity of the chicken.
  5. Find a zip lock bag or crock pot liner large enough to hold the whole bird. Place the bird in the bag and pour wet marinade over it. Use your hands to make sure the marinade is applied evenly around the chicken and under the skin, this is the important part. You can puncture the chicken breasts a few times with a knife for the marinade to seep into, yet this is not necessary. Making sure you get the marinade well applied and under the skin will do the trick. Take the other half of the diced jalapenos and put some under the skin and some inside the chicken.
  6. Seal the bag tight so that the marinade is making contact with the chicken all over. Let your chicken marinade overnight.

Instructions:

  1. Prep your smoker as usual, and cook at around 400 degrees for 1.5-2 hours (depending on size of chicken). When putting chicken the barbecue, pour the marinade from the bag on top, then cook/smoke.
  2. When finished, move to platter, slice, and serve!

Recipe #3: Stuffed Mushrooms, A Cajun Super Star Appetizer

paleo crab-stuffed-mushrooms

Photo: PaleoLeap.com

Mushrooms are often an afterthought, something tossed in a Cajun boil or grilled on a skewer. Let’s take the cutest of the mushrooms and make them into a little bowl of delicious Cajun flavors using the original recipe on Paleo Leap, with a decidedly Texas flair.

Ingredients:

  • 20 button mushrooms, stems and gills removed;
  • 2 cups cooked crawfish meat, (if out of season, use Gulf shrimp)
  • 3 tbsp chives, minced;
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced;
  • 1/4 tsp dried oregano;
  • 1/4 tsp dried thyme;
  • 1/4 tsp homemade mayonnaise or the same amount of your favorite mustard;
  • Sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and hot sauce to taste

Instructions:

  1. Preheat your oven to 350 F.
  2. Mix all the stuffing ingredients together in a bowl.
  3. Scoop a generous portion of the stuffing into each mushroom cavity and bake in the preheated oven on a baking sheet for about 15 minutes.
  4. Let cool a bit, but serve when still warm.
  5. This dish is also easy to toss on the smoker, either on a baking or grilling sheet!

Recipe #4: Bacon, Enough Said

sausage-stuffed-bacon-wrapped-jalapenos

Photo: lanascooking.com

This last set of recipes is a bit of a stretch, but give them a try and you will not be sorry! Bacon is the featured star of these fun dishes, how could anyone be sorry? These two recipes pair well together for the fall, perfect partners for your football Sundays (and Friday nights, and Saturdays, and well, every day, Texas loves football!)

This first recipe comes from Paleo Pot, and is almost entirely original. The only changes are that I doubled the jalapenos and did not seed them, and added a “float” of habanero sauce on top of the bacon. I also used one large butternut squash (about 6 cups cubed; Costco has containers of cubed butternut squash, and two of these containers will fill a 6 qt. Crock Pot.)

Ingredients:

  • 1 can (14 ounces) coconut milk
  • 1 cup of chicken stock
  • 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
  • 1 granny smith apple, peeled, cored, and cubed
  • 4 jalapeno peppers, chopped (remove the seeds if you desire less heat)
  • 6 ounces of crisped bacon, chopped
  • 4 cloves of garlic, chopped
  • 2 tsp of Spanish smoked paprika

Instructions:

All recipes are to be cooked on low heat for 4 to 6 hours.

  1. Blend or puree when cooking is finished. That’s it. An immersion blender is ideal for this. If you don’t have one, let your mix cool before transferring it to a blender or food processor.
  2. Garnish with bacon, and guacamole with hot sauce if you’re feeling fancy.

The paired dish with this delicious soup is one that Texas is famous for, and Texans are very passionate about… jalapeno poppers! The Paleo version of poppers keep all the best ingredients; peppers, sausage, and bacon, like the recipe at Never Enough Thyme. Simply leave out the cream cheese, that’s it! Mix your ground sausage, stuff into the seeded (or unseeded depending on how hot you like your poppers), and then wrap in bacon! Cook as usual, and there you have it!

When Paleo meets Texas, we all win!