Since Josh was traveling last week (he was working in Denver while we were battling the crazy ice storm}, I didn’t expect to have any recipes to share this week. I thought for sure we’d be eating chicken nuggets all week! As it turned out, we stayed with my parents most of the week and they fed us, but I did manage to whip up two really yummy, pretty clean recipes for Josh on his birthday.First up was STUFFED PEPPERS. I’ve heard of peppers stuffed with rice and love corn-filled peppers, but I’d never seen a recipe like this with meatloaf stuffed peppers.
You’ll need 6 red or orange bell peppers to start. Lob off the tops and scoop out the seeds, then take a thin slice off the bottom so that they’ll sit evenly in your roasting pan. Don’t slice too much or you’ll have your stuffing running out the bottom!
In a large bowl, mix: 1.5 lb grass-fed ground beef, 1 medium onion, diced, 1 small tomato, chopped, 3 garlic cloves, minced, 3 TB Dijon mustard, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1 tsp onion powder, 1/2 tsp chili pepper flakes, 2 TB dried oregano, 1 tsp dried thyme, 2 TB dried parsley, 1 tsp ground coriander, shake of nutmeg, 1/2 cup sundried tomatoes, chopped, 2 eggs. I was able to mix it pretty well with a spatula, but you might want to get your hands dirty!
Be sure to spray your roasting pan with olive oil and place your peppers a few inches apart. Add the mixed meat mixture to each pepper and stuff full. Cut bacon slices in half and place in an X on top of each pepper.
Bake on 375* for 45 minutes, then turn off the oven and allow them to sit in the warm oven for 10 more minutes. I roasted potatoes and sauteed green beans, squash and zucchini to go alongside our stuffed peppers. It was SUCH a great meal and the meatloaf was just the right amount of spicy. As pretty as it was, I’ll probably just chop up a few red peppers to add to the meat mixture next time and bake in a loaf pan, but this would be really pretty for a dinner party.
I have NO idea where the recipe came from, so I can’t source this one. I jotted it down on a scrap piece of paper a few weeks ago and cannot seem to find the recipe on-line!
Last week, a friend at work baked clean blueberry muffins with no wheat! I was super intrigued, but I’ll be honest… I’m not really a fan of real fruit in my muffins. I guess it’s all those sleeves of muffin mix we used to buy, but I just can’t get behind those big blueberries!! In between trying to figure out a decent fruit substitute and dreaming of my mom’s banana nut bread, I decided to attempt to merge those two recipes and make some WHEAT-FREE BANANA NUT BREAD. It was really easy and very good!
In a mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients: 2.5 cups of almond flour, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp baking powder, 1/2 cup chopped walnuts and 2 TB flax seeds. Melt 1/4 cup of coconut oil in the microwave for 30 seconds. Add 3/4 cup of organic brown sugar to melted oil and mix well (you could sub honey to sweeten the bread if you prefer not to eat sugar). Add 2 eggs, beaten, and 1/4 tsp vanilla to the sugar and oil. Add wet and dry ingredients, mix well. Pour into loaf pan and cook on 350* for 60-65 minutes or until the top is lightly browned and you can pull out a clean toothpick.
The bread is a little denser than wheat bread and it doesn’t rise quite as much. It is very moist and tastes perfect! I had a few slices for breakfast with a dab of grass-fed butter over the weekend and it was pretty close to my mother’s recipe. Three cheers for breadless bread!!
