Simply Norma

These paleo Chipotle Meatballs were absolutely scrumptious.  I did change the recipe a tad so they wouldn’t be too spicy for me. The recipe makes a LOT of meatballs — well, for two of us it was a lot.  We ate the leftovers for breakfast and lunch — yum!

There are two sets of ingredients that you’ll need to get started …

This is the first time I’ve purchased clarified butter (also known as Ghee). It comes in a bottle and doesn’t have to be refrigerated.  Interesting, no?

The original recipe uses dried chipotles peppers but it says that we can also use canned chipotle peppers — I chose the canned. This is what they look like — make sure you remove the seeds.

Oh — here’s what the clarified butter looks like … smushed butter (laughing).

Prep your ingredients so you can have them ready as needed. Make sure you read through all of the instructions first — I know, I know, it’s a simple instruction but when I’m in a hurry I think I can wing it as I go along and sometimes it just doesn’t work.

This is what your meatballs will look like before you fry them. You can make them smaller so they will be bite-sized if you wish.

I used two skillets to fry the meatballs because I wanted them to be almost cooked at the same time.

Next you’ll be putting the meatballs in a large pot with the sauce and cooking them through.

Are you ready to try this delicious recipe? Don’t be afraid to make the whole batch — really and seriously, these are good. Just make sure you adjust the spices to your taste.

Ingredients (for the meatballs)

• 1 large onion, peeled and diced (reserve half of the cooked onion for the sauce)
• 2 pounds ground beef (I used 2.13 — that’s just the way the measurement came out)
• 2 canned chipotle peppers (seeds removed)
• 2 tablespoon chopped cilantro
• 2 large garlic cloves, diced
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin powder
• 1 teaspoon paprika
•  3  tablespoon virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoon sea or kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons clarified butter (ghee)

Ingredients (for the sauce)

• 1/2 of the onion mentioned above
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 2 canned chipotle peppers, seeds out
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin powder
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 1/2 cups diced canned tomatoes
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. In a large skillet, saute the onion in 2 tablespoons clarified butter until it’s clear.
2. You’ll be using half of the onion in the meatball mix and reserving the rest for the sauce in a side bowl.
3. While the onion is cooking, pre-chop all the other ingredients for the meatballs.
4. Slice the chipotle peppers in half, remove the seeds then chop the peppers finely.
5. Combine the beef with half of the cooked onion, garlic, chilies, paprika, cumin, coriander, salt and 1 tablespoon olive oil.
6. Use your hands to knead and combine all of the ingredients then make small balls from the meat mixture.
7. Set the meatballs aside until you’re ready to cook them.
8. Preheat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet (or two) until its hot. If you use 2 skillets, make sure you add olive oil to each one (I showed 2 tablespoons because I used 2 skillets).
9. Add the meatballs and cook on medium high heat for 3 minutes on each side or until well browned. You will not be cooking them all the way through at this point.
10. Add the sauce ingredients to a large pot along with the rest of the cooked onion (but not the tomato puree yet).
11. Stir the sauce to blend everything well, then add the diced tomatoes and stir completely.
12. Add the meatballs to the sauce and cook uncovered for 8-10 minutes stirring frequently as you want the meatballs to cook all the way through.
13. Once the meatballs are cooked through, taste the sauce to make sure you don’t need to adjust anything, i.e. more salt, cumin, etc.

And — that’s it!  This recipe really is worth trying.  You can make the meatballs without the chipotle peppers but they really do give it a nice little burst of flavor.  Want them spicier? Just add more chipotle peppers. And then … enjoy!

I served the meatballs on a bed of pumpkin ginger noodles with a side salad.

This recipe was adapted just a tad from Finger Lickin’ Chipotle Meatballs.

Here’s an improvised recipe — the original one had the lamb chops cooking on the stovetop.  That didn’t work too well for me as the house got very smokey and in our house the alarms are quite sensitive.

In the long run, I did my husbands lamb chops on the stovetop and I plopped mine in the oven until they were cooked the way I like them — no pink at all in the middle. Any hint of redness makes me gag. But my husband likes his meat medium rare sometimes. Ugh.

Anyway — here are the ingredients I used for the marinade.

And it will turn out looking like this …

And you’ll be marinading the lamb chops for a couple hours or you could just brush them on the lamb chops right before cooking if you forget to marinade.

Ingredients

• 5-8 lamb loin chops (I used small ones)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
• 1/2 Tbsp dried thyme
• 1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
  2 Tbsp olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Marinade the lamb chops in a mixture of garlic, rosemary, thyme, red wine vinegar, and olive oil for 1-2 hours. I put them in the refrigerator for this.
2. When ready, remove the chops from the refrigerator and allow them to sit until they are at room temperature – approximately 30 minutes.
3. Heat a cast iron skillet to medium heat and place the lamb in the skillet.
4. Cook the lamb chops for 4-5 minutes in the skillet then flip them over and cook them an additional 3-4 minutes.
5. Remove the lamb chops from the skillet and allow them to rest for about 5 minutes.

And that  is how you get medium rare lamb chops.  I didn’t realize they wouldn’t be cooked all the way so I gave my husband his portion and then I did the follow:

Baking Lamb Chops

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F convection (or regular bake).  Add the lamb to a baking dish and bake for approximately 20 more minutes.
2. Check for doneness with a meat thermometer which should read 170 degrees.

Keep in mind that the lamb was in the skillet first so it was partially cooked through which is why it doesn’t need to be in the oven longer. I just followed the additional step because I can’t eat meat that’s not well done.

And — after all this, my picture didn’t come out so great.

But the lamb sure did! That was quick thinking on my part, no?  Aww, shucks, I knew you’d think so. (laughing)

Here are the two recipes that I combined to get MY baked lamb chops.

Marinated Herb Lamb Chops

Herb Roasted Lamb Chops

These will be the second paleo brownie recipe that I have tasted. The first ones were made by my son awhile back when we first started eating paleo.

These brownies were not bad but could have been a tad better. My husband and I had different opinions of what more was needed though. I thought they were a bit dry but my husband thought they weren’t sweet enough. Interesting how two people eating the same food can critique it differently, no?

I had some problems with the original recipe as you’ll soon see. The ingredients were pretty simple though.

And once everything is put together, this is what the mixture will look like.

The original recipe calls for a 9×13 baking dish.  Uh, no. There is no way this batter will spread out into a 9×13 baking dish.  See?

I used an 8×8 baking dish and it worked quite well.

And the final product came out looking pretty good.

Alright so — I’m going to change the recipe just a tad to make it sweeter and to (hopefully) give it more moistness.  Let me know what you think. (Keep in mind I haven’t tried the variation yet as we’re still eating this first batch.)

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup coconut flour
• 1/4 cup almonds, ground
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder, unsweetened
• 5 large eggs (instead of 4), at room temperature
• 1/2 cup raw honey (instead of 1/3)
• 1/3 cup apple sauce, unsweetened
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup coconut oil

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350° degrees Fahrenheit.
2. In a medium sized bowl, combine the coconut flour and unsweetened cocoa powder then sift 2 times to lighten the mixture.
3. Add the almonds to the flour/powder mixture.
4. In another medium sized bowl, whisk the eggs then add the raw honey, apple sauce, vanilla extract and coconut oil.
5. Make a hole at the center of the dry ingredients and whisk in the liquid mixture until well blended.
6. Spray a non-stick baking spray in an 8×8 baking dish.
7. Put the batter into the baking dish and place it in the oven.
8. Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Set aside to cool then enjoy!

Note: In my convection oven, it took 25 minutes to bake but I tested it at the 20 minute mark. Convention ovens tend to cook things quicker.

Ahh … goodness!

This recipe was taken from Paleo Brownies Coco Nutty Recipes and they have more recipes there for you to try. Check them out!

If you like vegetables, this Orange Vegetable Gratin might be a recipe you’ll embrace.

With squash, sweet potatoes and carrots as the base, you can’t go wrong with using this as a side dish. The ingredients are pretty straightforward although I’ve made a few changes on the amounts and have paleo-ized the recipe by using almond flour instead of bread crumbs.

After preparing your ingredients, they’ll be put in a casserole dish for baking.

Add the a tad of grated fresh aged parmesan cheese, almond flour, salt and pepper …

Then bake.  Ready to try it?

Ingredients

• 1 acorn squash, seeded, peeled and cut into cubes
• 1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into cubes
• 2 carrots, peeled and cut in half lengthwise, then into chunks
• 1 shallot, thinly sliced
• 3 Tablespoons Kerrygold butter
• 1/4 cup almond flour
• 1/2 cup grated aged parmesan cheese (if you’re not a strict paleo dieter)
• Salt & pepper (to your taste)

Directions

1. Heat the butter in a large skillet. I had to use two skillets for this step as the recipe says to keep them in a single layer.
2. Saute the vegetables for about 15 minutes until they start to brown and are just tender.
3. Preheat oven to 375.
4. Transfer all the vegetables to a baking dish.
5. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, almond flour and 1/2 the cheese but do not stir as you want this to sit on top and get crunchy.
6. At about 20 minutes, remove the casserole from the oven, stir the ingredients and bake for approximately 20 minutes.
7. You want to remove the casserole when everything looks golden and the vegetables are soft. Pricking a fork through one of the larger vegetable pieces and having it be soft is the best way to know if its cooked.
8. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese and serve.

That’s pretty much it. I used a whole acorn squash and reduced the sweet potatoes from two to one.

The results?

I served this with baked chicken and fresh sliced pineapple.

Enjoy!

This recipe uses Sole as the main ingredient but I was not able to find it locally so substituted halibut instead. It came out quite good.

I was also not able to find a small piece of Halibut so paid $19 for the piece I bought, however, we had it as leftovers for a couple of other meals so it worked out just fine cost-wise.

You’ll notice there aren’t very many ingredients for this recipe. I used aged parmesan cheese and almond flour as a substitute for the bread crumbs along with using parsley instead of cilantro (gotta use what you have in the kitchen sometimes).

See? This is one very large piece of halibut but fortunately the recipe re-heated quite well.

For me, the hardest part of the recipe (if you can call it hard) was dicing the onions.

This is what the topping will look like and it will be spread over the top of the halibut then baked.

You want to make sure you don’t over-bake the fish so it won’t come out too dry.

Ready to try the recipe?

Ingredients

• 1 pound Halibut
• Kosher Salt and Ground Black Pepper
• 1 cup Almond Flour/Meal
• 2 tablespoons grated yellow Onion
• 2 tablespoons dried Parsley
• 1/2 cup grated aged Parmesan
• 1/4 cup Olive Oil

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Arrange the fish on an oiled baking pan then season with salt and pepper. (I used aluminum foil on the top of a baking sheet and spread a little bit of olive oil on top of the foil before putting the fish on it.)
3. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a bowl then press the mixture evenly on top of the fish.
4. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the fish is cooked and the crust is firm and golden.

Sit back now and enjoy this great meal. I served mine with salad and steamed asparagus.

This recipe was adapted from Dinners and Dreams Parmesan and Cilantro Crusted Sole.

Parmesan and Cilantro Crusted Sole

Here’s a paleo Guacamole recipe I put together in a moment of inspiration. It came out quite nicely and I had all the ingredients in my kitchen already.

Since there’s only two of us who were going to eat at this meal and since I prefer fresh guacamole, I just made a small batch for two.  (Doesn’t that sound cute? A small batch for two …)

So — here’s the paleo recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 ripe avocado, smushed (did you know that smushed is an actual word — 🙂
• 1 ripe tomato, diced
• 1/2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice (or you could substitute with lime depending on if you want to pucker more)
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• Cumin – just a dash
• Cayenne — a smaller dash than the cumin unless you want it spicy
• 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper

Directions

1. Combine all the ingredients in a medium sized bowl.

Tada! You’re finished!

The avocado has monounsaturated fat (from what I’ve been reading) that may lower your cholesterol and help regulate your blood sugar levels. It’s also high in potassium which may help to regulate your blood pressure and prevent hypertension.

Enjoy on your favorite foods — I put a large dollop over beef stew and it was wonderful!