Cottage Pie

Last week Alex made me Raman Prasad's Shepherd Pie from his book Recipes for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, we ate the whole thing in one sitting.  I was pretty annoyed by the lack of leftovers, so this week I decided to repeat the meal but beef it up with... not beef but vegetables.  This more than doubled the yield, which means that I have leftovers for the next two days- hoorah!

1 tbsp olive oil
1 lb ground beef
1 red onion- diced
4 carrots- chopped
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp lime juice
1 medium-large zucchini- spiralized or julienned
2 cups frozen peas- thawed
1 head of cauliflower- chopped into florets
2 tbsp butter
3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 325

Heat up a pan over medium heat.  Add olive oil, ground beef, red onion, and carrots and cook until the meat has browned.

Meanwhile, steam the cauliflower until it is tender.

Once the meat has browned, lower the heat, add the cumin and salt, and cover to allow the onions to soften up a bit more.

Once the cauliflower has steamed through, add the butter and mash it however you prefer- I have used both a food processor and an immersion blender.

Add the zucchini and peas to the pan with the ground beef in it and stir to combine everything.

Fill a large pie plate/pyrex container with the ground beef mixture, top it with the cauliflower, and sprinkle the cheese over the top.  Cook for 15-20 minutes and enjoy!

Bulgogi Wraps

Is this a pile of meat and green onions on a bed of lettuce?  Yes it is, and despite the bland look it is definitely worth making again.  Eating on the SCD diet is restricting in the sense that you have to do more prep work to get a satisfying flavor, but it definitely makes me appreciate every bite.  I have been instructed that the next time we make this we need to double the meat, but with a side dish/snack this is a decent sized meal for 2.

Ingredients

• 1 lb rib-eye steak
• 1/4 cup SCD Asian soy sauce (recipe follows)
• 1/3 cup sesame seed oil
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp chopped garlic
• 8 spring onions- chopped
• Pepper and salt to taste
• Lettuce leaves for serving

Cut the steak into thin slices, combine all of the remaining ingredients except for the lettuce into a bowl, add the meat to the marinade and let it marinate for 1 hour.  Add the meat to a wok and cook over medium-high heat (with sesame oil I find it better to add the meat and wok to the stovetop before I turn on the heat, otherwise you get a bunch of smoke).  Cook until the meat has cooked through and serve in lettuce wraps.

SCD Sauce

• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 4 tbsp honey
• 1/4 tsp minced ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 3 cups water
• 1 tsp salt

Combine all the ingredients on a small saucepan and cook over medium heat until it has been reduced by half- about 20 minutes 

Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie

SCD diet update- Alex and I have been struggling to stay on the diet- it's hard when you love Mexican food and the restaurants always keep on refilling your chips and salsa without asking, but we've been doing an excellent job abiding by the SCD laws in the grocery store!  We've been going by Trader Joe's a lot, which makes it easy to shop with their incredible organic meat supply and fresh fruit.

Notice that I got a new table?  If you're interested you can see more of it on my other blog

Ingredients

• 2 cups almond milk (or milk option of your choice)
• 3 ripened bananas
• 2-3 tbsp peanut butter to taste
• 1 tbsp honey
• 4 ice cubes

Blend together in a blender (this diet has me lusting after a Blend Tech or a Vitamix, someday...)

Zucchini Pasta- or How to Eat (and Enjoy) Two Zucchini in One Sitting

I'm currently trying to immerse myself in the Specific Carb Diet- the premise behind this one makes sense.  Certain foods create bacteria/yeast in your digestive tract which compromise your health, and you avoid such foods (wheat products, refined sugar, preservatives, potatoes...).  It is essentially gluten-free meets paleo meets raw, and I'm really enjoying how I feel on it.  It is so fabulous that a lot of people attribute it to curing autism/Crohn's/Ulcerative Colitis/ms/etc..

Now, I love pasta.  Noodles & Co was my to-go spot in high school, and even whenever I would wind up at the Mall of America I would always pass the more "exotic" eateries in favor of good old Noodles.  With that said, it is going to be hard for me to pass up pasta.  To cope with this loss, I bought a spiralizer

With said spiralizer I have had this same meal twice in one week, which testifies to the fact that it quick, easy, and crave-inducing.

You can make zucchinia pasta without a spiralizer of course.  You can use a mandolin to create wide and thin noodles, you can use a julienned (this would take longer of course), and you can just match stick the zucchini (this would be the least consistent and take the longest).

Ingredients

• 2 medium sized zucchini- spiralized
• 2 handfuls of grape tomatoes- sliced in half
• a few slices of roasted red peppers and a few tablespoons of their juices if from a jar
• 1-2 tbsp butter
• salt

Heat up a skillet over medium heat and add the vegetables and butter.  

Heat up until the butter melts and the zucchini warms up a bit (the less you cook it the crunchier it will be).

Adjust the butter and red pepper juice to taste and lightly salt to taste.  Yummo!