Meatza - a grain free pizza alternative

The original recipe we had for Meatza was on a blog that is no longer there.
In fact we adapted it to suit us, so it seems reasonable to put up that recipe.

Meatza (feeds 4 adults)

800 g minced beef
1 egg, beaten
herbs of choice
Pasta/pizza sauce - tomato, onion, peppers, mushrooms, courgettes, spinach etc
[we use 400g tin of tomatoes, 1 pepper, 1 onion, 1 courgette, 100g mushrooms]
220g mozzarella/cheddar cheese (we go for half and half)

• Preheat oven to 220 C
• Prepare pizza sauce - you want it to reduce it so it is quite thick, allow up to 30 minutes
• In medium bowl, mix beef with egg and herbs until incorporated
• Spread into a greased cookie sheet (12 inch square with a lip), press into the bottom of the tray.
• Once oven is up to temperature, put meat into oven and cook for 12 minutes until most moisture has cooked off.  It will reduce in size by quite a bit!  Make sure it is cooked enough, it should be pretty solid.
• Remove from oven and drain off excess fat.
• Spread vegatable sauce over the 'crust' and top with cheese.  You may want to add extra raw vegetables for extra crunch.
• Put back into the oven for 5 minutes to melt and brown the cheese.
• Remove and let cook briefly, slice and serve.
• Serve with salad or vegetable sticks
  

Meatball muffins

I had read something on Pinterest about making meatloaf in a muffin tin, on the same day I found a new recipe.  The recipe from What I gather is called Stuffin' muffins which are essentially a meatloaf mixture cooked in muffin tins.

The recipe are alright, although the children complained that there was too much vegetable in proportion to the meat.   I think that another time, it would be better to put the vegetables through the food processor to shred them much smaller.  Making a less 'lumpy' mixture and improving the taste.

However, the idea of using a muffin tin is good as it cooks quicker and is easier for portion control.  Although we did need all 12 holes to feed three of us, so not sure how we would manage feeding four?

Slow cooker beef stew

To make the best use of a weekend, we like to use the slow cooker.  Chopping vegetables at the same time as breakfast, means that there is only one lot of clearing away.

Today we had a tasty beef stew from Denim and Dots.  Adding mashed sweet potatoes and an extra vegetable took only 10 minutes, so it was quick to get everyone to the table to eat.

Low carb pizza = Meatza

We used to have pizza occasionally before, but my husband was not really keen.  Having meatza means we can make something is reasonably acceptable for everyone.

There are various recipes for meatza on the internet, but from a bit of experimenting we have worked out a good method. Ours is roughly based on one from Wellnessmama

The meat mixture needs to be cooked in a hot oven for about 12 minutes in a tray with sides.
It needs a hot tomato/vegetable sauce that is well cooked and thick, as it is only in the oven for the few minutes to melt the cheese. 

Edit: The blog this originally came from is no longer available, so I will try and load my recipe

Not-stuffed mushrooms

Although we quite like the idea of Stuffed mushrooms from Everyday Paleo, we knew that realistically it wasn't going to happen!  It had been suggested that you can just add all the mushrooms to the meat mixture to make burgers, and we have done this before.  But after the enthusiasm of the mushrooms with the pork burgers, I thought this may be worth trying.
So, I prepared the meat mixure as the recipe says (with the exception of the sausage), up to point of making burgers, when I made a giant 'tray bake' of meat mixture, as the mixture was not going to fit on one tray as burgers.  Then I chopped the mushroom tops with onion and fried them off as a topping.
Served with vegetables, it makes a filling meal.

Bacon wrapped meatloaf

Tonight's dinner was Bacon wrapped meatloaf from Mrs Paleo.  At least, that was what it started as.
However as we only had beef mince and we didn't need to feed a huge number of people, we halved the ingredients, and just used 800g of beef  mince.  As I don't add the tomato sauce to the meatloaf mixture, it doesn't need the almond flour either.  Just cook the meatloaf for about 50-55 minutes.
The sauce benefits from cooking gently for 30 minutes.  Serve with vegetables.

Meatloaf and Hungarian sauce

Meatloaf is a simple meal - mix it up and pop it into the oven.  We serve a curried meat loaf with a Hungarian sauce.  With 700g of minced beef, a tablespoon of curry powder doesn't over power the taste.

I'm not sure what makes a simple tomato sauce a Hungarian sauce.  This one has the usual tomato, onion and peppers, add a small chilli (or a spoonful of easy chilli), with a teaspoon of paprika, teaspoon of curry powder and a tablespoon of mixed herbs.  Cook it gently, so it thickens but doesn't stick to the pan.

Comfort food for winter

Thursday 3rd January 2013

We have found that Aldi sells a 800g pack of minced beef that still contains a reasonable amount of fat - a lot of the supermarkets have taken most of the fat out, so you need to add fat when cooking to prevent it sticking, which seems rather pointless.  Cauliflowers have been smaller this year due to the wet weather, but you need about 600g of raw cauliflower for the mash; you probably could use frozen cauliflower for this.

We had shepherd's pie from Mark's Daily Apple's Primal cook book, which uses cauli-mash as the topping.  There are various vegetables in the mince mixture - carrots, peas and green beans.  We use fresh carrots cut into small pieces and snap the green beans into shorter pieces while they are still frozen.  You could always use whatever veggies you had, and the mash could also been made from celery, celeriac or parsnips. 

This recipe is good as there is 30 minutes while it is in the oven that you can go away and do something else.  Easy and tasty, even for novice cooks - and they get to play with the food processor!