Clean Eating Recipe: Beef Burgundy Pot Roast & Veggies

I was inspired by this recipe that I ended up at when I was reading the Paleo Blog.  I've been researching the whole "Primal" or "Paleo" diets for a while, because carbs have always been a... bad thing for me.  I like reading about diet, nutrition and health regardless, but since I'm soon going to be doing the 90 Day Challenge, I think the issue is more in the forefront of my brain lately.  This recipe is NOT Primal/Paleo, the above recipe IS... but it definitely inspired me to want some pot roast:)

I added a lot more carrots and potatoes, because I have vegetarians in the house, and those are their preferred veggies when it comes to a pot roast type meal.

My kids are SO weird.

It has been SO nice lately, we've been having our meals on the back deck.  I'm loving this weather!

Ingredients:

2-4 lbs.* of Steak, Roast, basically BEEF!:)

*I use less meat because I'm cheap and because two of my kids are vegetarians, so we don't need as much. Plan accordingly if you have a bunch of carnivores in your house or they might revolt.)

1 tablespoon of coconut oil

1 bottle of Red Wine

1 32 oz. Box of beef brother

1 32 oz. box vegetable broth

3 16 oz. cans of tomato sauce

3 lbs. onions quartered

2 lbs. of potatoes quartered

2 lbs. of baby carrots (or regular carrots, chopped)

1 tsp. garlic salt

1/2 tsp. worchestershire powder

2 tsp MsDash Garlic & Herb seasoning

OPTIONAL:  2 Tbsp of Almond Flour or Corn Starch for thickening

First: Heat the oil in a skillet on high

Add the steaks and sear for just a minute on each side to help seal in juices.

Second:  Toss everything else in the crock pot, except the potatoes (unless you don't mind slightly mushier potatoes... and I don't, but if you do, add those later because they cook faster than everything else:)

Next, you have three options:

A) Use a big enough pan in the first place

B) Use half the ingredients so that it all fits in your 5 qt crockpot.

Or C) The option I inadvertently chose:

When its time to add the potatoes, realize that you don't have any room left.

Transfer half of the ingredients to your spare crock that you have from the last crappy crock pot you had.  The base doesn't even exist anymore because it was so crappy so you have to use the oven and heat the entire kitchen because you didn't think ahead.  

*I don't recommend this one unless its really cold outside, and then I most definitely do.

Cook on high in your crock pot for 4-6 hours or in the oven at 350 for 3-4 hours.

If you add cornstarch or flour, put that in a separate bowl with some of the liquid and make sure you have all the lumps out before adding to the stew.  Leave the lid off for the last half of the cooking time to let the sauce thicken.

Optional step #3:  While that's cooking, realize at 4:50 that it is indeed Thursday and that your youngest child has gymnastics at 5:00.  Rush out the door... get back and still have dinner cooking because crock pots are awesome that way.

Finish with a lovely family dinner with your crazy children on your pink and brown deck.**

YUMMY!!!

 I am SO in love with our yard!  And this weather!

**If you don't HAVE a pink and brown deck, I apologize profusely for getting your hopes up.  If you don't have crazy children... you can borrow some of mine.  They'll rub off on yours and soon you will have your own crazy children.  Really.  I've seen it happen.

Almost Clean Crock Pot Baked Beans w/Dried beans

Almost Clean Crock Pot Baked Beans

I have tried making truly "clean" baked beans, but I can never get it to taste... right.  We love our baked beans and we've had them for years, so I guess maybe we're just spoiled.  These are pretty close to "Clean" though, other than the BBQ sauce, everything else is good.  Here are a few that at least don't include HFC:

Stubbs Bar-B-Q Sauce
Bulls-Eye Barbecue Sauce (recently changed to no HFCS) -*note, it does have honey in it, but I'm fine with that.

Anyone have any more to add??

We are really enjoying family dinners in our new house!

Anyway, I appear to have finally gotten the right combination of a good crock pot and just the right beans.  My last crock pot had a hot spot and always burned everything in one section and didn't get hot enough throughout the rest of it to ever bake dried beans.  You can just use a pot in the oven if you like, but I am in love with my new crock pot and its... interesting settings, so I've been using it for everything I can.

I also use a variety of beans.  I don't know why... I'm just weird that way.  Using the crockpot takes ALL day.  I would recommend starting them the night before with the water, then adding your broth, BBQ & seasonings first thing in the morning so they'll be all nice and cooked up for dinner time.  These are odd measurements because I had random bags of beans half gone and I lost ALL the rest of my photos, so I can't even look back at them to see:(  Use whatever you want, you'll want to only fill up your crock pot or pan 1/3rd of the way full, because these suckers GROW.

Ingredients: (This filled my 5 qt crock to almost overflowing:)
1/2 bag of white beans
1 bag of black beans
1 bag of Great Northern beans
1 carton of beef broth or vegetable broth
1 medium-large onion
1 bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce
1 Tbsp. Chili Powder for a tiny bit of kick
*My meat eaters love it when I add bacon, sausage &/smoked sausage to theirs.

I LOVE this crock pot.  Seriously, it fits my A.D.D. nature perfectly:)

Directions:
1.  Put all dried beans in the crockpot.  Fill with water.
**Do not add salt or salt containing ingredients until the skins are soft**

2.  Cook on medium/low for 4-6 hours until the skins of the beans are soft.
**Our crock pot "low" seems to be much closer to the medium on my old one**
***If using the oven, bake COVERED on 300 for 4 hours or until skins are soft***

3.  Once skins are soft, drain 1/2 the water, then ADD broth, onions and barbeque sauce.  If you have meat lovers, you can add sausage, bacon, ground beef, hot dogs... but remember, these are NOT "clean" foods (My husband and 17 year old son don't really care about clean eating when it comes to meat:) To keep it clean, you could use chopped flank steak.

4.  Bake on high (oven 350-375) for 4 hours or until beans are soft.

5.  After two hours on high, uncover the beans and add the remaining seasoning.

DRIED BEAN TIPS:

Adding the broth as soon as you can AFTER the skins are softened gives them a LOT more flavor.  I used to make the mistake of cooking them in the water too long and they were always bland.

Stir at least every hour.  This helps the beans always cook evenly so you don't have annoying little hard beans in there.

Stir frequently when cooking for the last couple of hours uncovered.  This will prevent the beans on top from drying out, whilst allowing the sauce to cook down to a nice, thick consistency.

These beans cook down to a nice, thick, full of flavor texture that you will LOVE!   Let me know how it worked for you!

Sweet & SPICY Chicken with Broccoli & Rice

Sweet & Spicy Chicken

*You can find the original recipe here on My Recipes

Ingredients: 

(*I tripled the original recipe and made extra sauce for the rice & veggies)

• 6 boneless chicken breasts
• 2 Tbsp Coconut Oil
• 1/2 cup lime juice
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 2 Tbsp Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
• 2 Tbsp grated fresh ginger 
• 
  
• BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
• I am SERIOUSLY LOSING IT HERE!!!!  
• OMG.  I just read the recipe on the computer screen and it says, "1/2 teaspoon of honey"
• When we printed this off, the / didn't show up so we thought it said TWELVE teaspoons of honey!!!  We adjusted it a little bit, but still, that is hilarious.
• Lol.  Wow.  Well, the recipe DID turn out yummy and seriously didn't taste all that sweet to me... so, onward...
• 
  
• 1/2 cup of honey or agave nectar
• 1/4 cup stevia or xylitol (although if you want less sweet, leave this out!)
• 6 Scallions/green onions, finely chopped
• 6 Tbsp cilnatro, finely chopped.
• 2 cups brown rice
• 1-2 bags of frozen broccoli

This is where I veer off even more from the recipe.  I was in the process of reading the recipe, and I have a BAD habit of getting distracted.  So I read, "Put the chicken on the stove and sautee..." I thought it was strange that it wasn't to be cooked in the sauce, but I wanted to follow the recipe, so I put the chicken on the stove, then noticed that it was time to pick up my girls from their friend's house.  I turned to my husband, who was right there, washing dishes anyway, and said, "Honey, can you watch this and make sure it doesn't burn?"

And out the door I went.

Thirty minutes later, I come home to find my husband turning off the stove.  "Well,  I imagine the chicken is done now.  How odd that the sauce isn't meant as a marinade or something, though"

So I get the recipe and read the rest of the sentence "Sautee for 2-3 minutes on each side... then add the...

Oops.

So we got busy making the sauce:

Paris helping me chop up the green onions

Using a pizza cutter for herbs works SO much faster than trying to use a knife!

I cut the now super tender chicken into small cubes and poured the sauce over.  YUM.

This was a disaster.  My son would come in the house and eat it all in one sitting.  

So, we made another double batch of the sauce and I made some brown rice to mix it in with.  

This stuff definitely has some kick to it!  It almost reminded me of a Thai food dish that I used to get at Pei Wei, but I can't remember what it was called.  I think its like a blend of sweet and sour and their spicy chicken.  I think it would be fabulous with those little white button mushrooms and some pea pods.   If I could figure out tofu, this would be a fantastic vegetarian dish!  I think I'll add this recipe to my once a month cooking list.  It would freeze & crockpot well, I think!

Viola!  My husband's lunches packed for a few days and my sons container to eat at home.  Now to make something vegetarian for my non meat eaters!

Verdict:  This recipe is GOLDEN.  I will definitely add it to our OAMC, because the sauce was a little tedious to make, so I'd rather make a BUNCH at once and freeze it, rather than have to get all that stuff out each time.  Besides, we never use a full bunch of cilantro, and I hate to see it go to waste!

What are your favorite go to dishes for freezing?  I'm going to try doing at least our dinners in freezer meals so I can just have one big cooking/cleaning day a month and save a LOT of work other wise.  Do any of you do this?  

Clean Eating Super Yummy Spicy Goulash

Spicy Goulash

Ingredients:

5-6 carrots (my carrots were pretty puny:) sliced thin

1 16 oz. bag of frozen corn

3 zucchini, sliced thin

5 cans of diced tomatoes

**You can add some white beans or lentils, especially if you're making this for the vegetarian version.

1/2 carton of beef broth

1 capful of Mrs. Dash Extra Spicy seasoning

1 capful of Mrs. Dash "Garlic and Red Pepper" seasoning (I would have generally used actual garlic and red pepper, but I was out)

few shakes of black ground pepper and you should be good!

*You can use simple spices like chili powder instead, if you prefer.

I used my grater for slicing the carrots and zucchini

Mmmmm... spicy!

Dump all of the ingredients together in a pan (again, I pureed some of the diced tomatoes... not even sure why we HAD cans of diced tomatoes in the first place!) and cook on medium heat for at least an hour.  I left mine cooking for probably 3?  It would be fabulous in a crockpot if I had one that didn't burn half of everything I make!

Serve with whole wheat pasta for a "Clean Eating" vegetarian meal...

Or, you can serve with the Spicy Meatballs for the non vegetarian in your life.

This recipe turned out REALLY well.  It was a little watery, because I forgot the beef broth until it was almost done, but it was SO full of flavor, we loved it!  We had a nice big salad and some garlic bread with it (the garlic bread was NOT clean eating, but my kids aren't terribly concerned with being THAT clean!)