Elk Marrow Root Soup

Does anyone bother clicking on a link with such an absurd title? Has anything ever screamed more loudly, “Look at me! I’m different!” How obnoxious. A few years ago, I doubt I even knew that those three words before the word “soup” are in fact food items. And here I am blogging about it. Oh the hipocrisy.

But come on, I wouldn’t embarrass myself like this unless it was really tasty. I at least refrained from calling it “breakfast soup”, which is when I plan to eat it. This soup contains so many seasonal, locally produced, nutrient-packed delights; I figure why not have the best day ever by sipping it with my coffee?

Of course, it need not be made with elk marrow broth, although it sure does make for an attention-grabbing title. The only real reason for such an oddity is that at a farmer’s market last year I happened upon some friendly folks who were peddling a lot of strange looking bones. I was really riding that bone marrow tide at the time, and I asked if they had any marrow bones. Why yes they did, and for $6, I accompanied a kid to the deep freeze on the farm truck and filled three plastic bags full of elk marrow bones. I didn’t ask a lot of questions. It was a good deal. But root vegetables will be great no matter the kind of broth you use, so go wild and be creative!

Elk Marrow Root Soup

A bunch of root vegetables (enough to fill a baking sheet; parsnips, turnips, carrots, rutabaga!)

1 tbsp olive oil

~8 cups of broth

Salt

Pepper

(For marrow broth)

In an 8-qt crock pot, place a few small marrow bones and fill with water. Cook on low for at least 10 hours.

(For vegetables)

Drizzle olive oil onto a baking sheet and place the vegetables, cut into very small chunks, on the tray. Roast at 425 for 25 minutes.

Combine vegetables and broth in a blender and blend until smooth.

Fall Bounty Breakfast Hash

I stopped eating bacon a few weeks ago. This is kind of a monumental change. For a long time now, breakfast has been a daily Event, a drawn-out affair. I take, on average, two hours to get from my bed to my door. I use that time to languorously consume calories and coffee. I will always enjoy slow mornings and I will never skip breakfast, and I certainly haven’t changed my mind about fat being my friend. But it’s time to concede the pretty obvious truth that processed meat is not ideal. Unfortunately, even that “fancy” bacon I buy is the most processed food in my diet.

You know that big scary WHO study that was recently unfurled upon the innocent, fear-abiding public? I’m pretty skeptical of mainstream research in general and of meta-analyses in particular, but if I consider the study within the context of some other diverse perspectives that are floating around the internet, such as this one or this one, the take-away is pretty obvious and not very earth-shattering at all: Eat your veggies!

Eating less processed food is probably not a bad thing, and really piling up on veggies is probably a good thing. That’s all I’m saying! For the record, I recently had my cholesterol tested, after around two years of eating bacon and eggs… daily (I know, I know, it’s extreme). A+ in all categories! So I am still very convinced of the great cholesterol myth and all that. I just think it’s time to incorporate some nuance into my extreme breakfast habits. So, here is one delicious and seasonal one way to do that. Enjoy!

Fall Bounty Breakfast Hash

One big bunch kale, roughly chopped

2 cups cubed butternut squash

3 sweet potatoes, shredded

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp thyme

2 tsp salt

2tsp black pepper

Eggs, if you want

Thoroughly hand-mix everything together in a bowl and spread on a large baking sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Serve with a fried egg on top.

 

 

Driftless Stew

I chose to prominently display this attractive landscape shot instead of the obligatory foodie pic because, well, scroll down and you’ll see what I mean. But beef stew can’t be everything, right? Finger-lickin’ good, simple to make, as comforting as a wool blanket on a fall day, and photogenic? Come on, get real. That’s asking a lot. But this post isn’t really about beef stew. It’s about where this hearty grassfed beef came from.

The Driftless Area is the region of southwestern Wisconsin and a little spillover into Iowa and Minnesota that didn’t get leveled by glaciers a few eons ago. The rest of Wisconsin, bless its flat and unremarkable heart, was not so lucky. There are advantages to this I suppose. For instance, I can almost see Chicago from my 3rd story fire escape. It’s really just ninety miles of featureless lands dotted with an occasional wayside “gentlemen’s establishment” and a few relatively unobtrusive cheese castles. But back to the Driftless.

The Driftless Area is a place I dream about anytime I’m stuck in traffic, or when my next door neighbors ignore my Christmas party invite again, or when I literally cannot walk through the farmer’s market for fear of getting trapped between two $600 strollers. The Driftless of my daydreams is peaceful, simple, connected, and fulfilling. This may or may not be true but fortunately that’s not a necessary condition of daydreams.

But enough yammering on. This stew is hot off the crock pot and beckoning if not with coquettish good looks then with its sincere pledge of hearty and sustained satiation. So take a trip to the Driftless Area, park your $600 stroller between rows of Amish buggies, and get yourself a rump roast that was nourished by a land that refused to succumb even to the menacing force of a glacier.

Driftless Stew 

~2 lb grassfed rump roast

2 tbsp fat for frying (I used bacon drippings)

1/2 lb carrots, peeled and sliced

1 lb mini yellow potatoes, halved

2 tbsp thyme

2 tbsp parsley

1 tbsp rosemary

2 tsp salt (but really probably more)

3 garlic cloves, chopped

1/2 cup beef broth

3 tbsp tomato paste

1 1/2 tbsp arrowroot powder

Sear the rump roast in the bacon drippings on all sides and place in the crock pot. Add the chopped potatoes and chopped carrots. Mix the remaining ingredients (broth, tomato paste, arrowroot powder, and spices) in a separate bowl and pour the mixture over the meat and potatoes. Turn on low for around 10 hours. Eat.

Autumn Meatball Boat

Of the many skills to develop along the road to becoming Blogger Extraordinaire, perhaps the most important is to ensure that people will somehow find you among the billion or so others who also have something to say on the interwebs. Titles and tags like “autumn meatball boat” ensure in fact that no one will find you. As far as I know, meatball boats in general and autumnal ones specifically are not particularly common search terms. Nevertheless, I felt that this creation would be best captured with this name and this name only. All aboard the meatball boat and welcome to fall!

Sweet Potato Meatballs

1 onion, diced

3 garlic cloves, diced

1 tbsp olive oil

1 lb ground beef

1 lb ground sausage

1/2 lb ground turkey

2 sweet potatoes, grated

3 eggs

3/4 c almond flour

1 tbsp dried parsley

2 tsp black pepper

2 tsp coarse sea salt

1 tsp maple syrup

Get those onions simmering in the olive oil right away! While you’re putting the rest together, cook the onions down on, low and slow, adding the garlic at some point. Add that mixture last. The rest of the ingredients get thrown into a large bowl and mashed together, preferably with your hands. Roll one-inch balls and bake at 375 for about 40 minutes, turning at the halfway point.

Simple Acorn Squash

Acorn squash

Butter or ghee to your liking

salt and pepper

or

honey

I made one savory and one sweet acorn squash. Chop in half and scoop the seeds out. Add butter, salt and pepper, or butter and honey. Use ghee if you’re better at paleo than I am. Bake at 375 for an hour and 10 minutes, with foil laid loosely over the top. Let cool for ten minutes and proceed to construct your meatball boat. Enjoy!

Wisconsin Turkey Stuffed Peppers

Well, I finally did it. I visited a farm and met the very animals that I sear, slow-cook, and sautée. This is a part of meat-eating that naturally makes sense to me, and it’s not that I’m at all discomforted by the idea that my food has a face. I’ve lived among cultures that cohabitate with their food, all the while knowing it will contribute to their sustenance; I’ve even participated in the slaughtering and the slow simmering that followed. It made more sense in those places, though, which were supermarket-less lands of days long gone in the “modern” world. Here, now, meeting my food just makes me feel like I’ve joined the cast of Portlandia. I can’t help but make fun of myself just a little bit more than I used to. It goes right along with my description of this blog: “my long apology for having become one of those people who has a special name for the way she eats.” It’s also an apology for being one of those people who feels it’s important to look their dinner square in the eyeballs. Nevertheless, sigh, I am definitely one of those people.

The farm I visited is called  Dominion Valley Farms, and the kids who gave us the “tour” allowed us to explore a little on our own and let our imaginations run free. I envisioned my charmed life of living off the land, communing with cows, and watching the sun set every day over those rolling kettles that were miraculously spared by the ambling weaving path of the glaciers in an otherwise flattened land. Truth be told, of course, I don’t know the first thing about the hard labor associated with operating a farm, or even a windowsill herb garden. I am in awe of their skill, and the integrity of their work.

This meal was just one of many delicious meals that were the result of my visit to Dominion Valley Farms. Unfortunately, most of the others were as tasty as they were un-photogenic. These stuffed peppers, however, were simple and beautiful. To the turkeys of Dominion Valley Farms, I thank you!

Wisconsin Turkey Stuffed Peppers

1 lb ground turkey

5 peppers (any color)

2 onions, cooked (in 1 tbsp olive oil)

3/4 c almond flour

2 tsp black pepper

2 tsp coarse sea salt

1 1/2 tbsp Italian seasoning

2 eggs

Cut the tops out of the peppers and remove the seeds. Steam the peppers for a few minutes and set aside. Sautée the onions slowly on low heat for at least 30 minutes. Place them in a mixing bowl, along with everything else. Mix together. Fill each of the steamed peppers with the turkey mixture and place the pepper tops back on the peppers. Bake the peppers at 375 for 55 minutes, or until a thermometer stuck inside the peppers reads 165 degrees. Enjoy!

Can’t-Get-Enough-Mustard Mustard Chicken

I’ve been lazily hanging onto a recipe for a while and I just realized that if I don’t get it out real quick I might be obligated to form the chicken breast into a heart shape, or call my marinade a “love potion” or something. So, phew! February 11th. Lookin’ good. And it’s not that I hate Valentine’s Day or anything, I just really wanted the focus of this post to be my mustard obsession.

This obsession has really come out of nowhere, since I spent my entire life saying that mustard is not really my favorite condiment. Now I have a lot of lost time to make up for. Unfortunately, I did not make it to the Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin like I wanted; I had planned to supply some photos of myself happily trolling the aisles of mustard and feverishly stocking up on loads of edible souvenirs in the gift shop. Maybe it’s better that those photos don’t exist. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been consuming a LOT of mustard lately. So even if mustard is not YOUR favorite condiment, this chicken is quite moist, tasty, and just the right amount of crispy on the outside. And if it IS your favorite, I recommend putting the baked chicken on a simple salad and dousing it in, well, a lot more mustard. Yum!

Can’t-Get-Enough-Mustard Mustard Chicken

1.5 pounds boneless chicken breast

(Marinade)

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp apple cider vinegar

1/4 c mustard of your choice

2 tsp black pepper

2 tsp salt

1 tbsp raw honey

Mix all marinade ingredients together in a bowl and dump the chicken in with it, covering it completely. Seal it up and let it sit in the fridge for at least a few hours, preferably overnight. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes or until the temperature of the chicken is around 165 or 170 degrees. Serve over salad, with a homemade dressing of olive oil, apple cider vinegar, a squirt of lemon juice, a dab of honey, some salt, some pepper, and a big glob of mustard. MORE MUSTARD PLEASE!

South African Braai Soup

Sometimes, like today, I blog outside of my realm of expertise. That realm is roughly the size of the cubicle I’m sitting in, though, so I think it would be rather dull if I stayed safely inside of it all the time. People would surely grow tired of posts like Hunk o Meat ‘n Sweet Potato, or Meat Surprise, or Just a Big Plate of Bacon (Er… two of those posts actually exist and one, sadly, does not. I’ll let you decide). These are the types of posts that could truly be said to represent my expertise.

So I stuck a toe outside my cubicle-sized realm and made this soup. I am no expert, but I do know that a braai is the (arguably) more meat-loving, Afrikaaner version of a barbecue. But excuse me, I am a lover of meat also, and so I figured I was up for the challenge.

Really, though, here’s all that’s going on in this soup: the sausage was labeled “African Braai Sausage” at the grocery store, and I added some accompanying spices to my carrot and celery purée. It was hearty and winter-y (not that Afrikaaners know much about that), and delicious.

South African Braai Soup

~1 lb carrots, thinly sliced

~1 lb celery, thinly sliced

1 medium yellow onion, thinly chopped

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp bacon grease (or any oil/fat)

~1 lb “South African Braai Sausage” (any sausage would do, but then you’d need a new name for it)

2 tsp cumin

2 tsp paprika

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cloves

2 tsp black pepper

2 tsp coarse salt

1/2 cup water

Simmer the chopped onion in the olive oil over low heat for a half hour or so. Add the carrots and celery and simmer another 20 minutes. Meanwhile, cut the sausage into small pieces and sear thoroughly in the bacon grease (or other fat). Turn the heat off while you finish the vegetables. After the carrot/celery mix has simmered, add spices and purée everything in the blender. Put the sausage and the purée in a pot together and add the 1/2 cup of water. Simmer on low/medium for about 20 minutes or until the sausage is cooked through.

 

 

Molasses Cookies

In all honesty, these were meant to be ginger snaps. There are two reasons, having to do with the name “gingersnap”, why they are not. One, it turned out I was out of ginger. Two, making paleo cookies “snap” without blackening them is not a dream easily realized on the first try. But you know when you’re trying to find your favorite old sweatshirt in your parent’s basement and you can’t find it but instead you find that adorable vintage tin you used to keep tea in and you forget about looking for the sweatshirt? These cookies are like that.

A word about my raw honey supply. If you’ve never been to “the U.P”, or perhaps you know not what that is, I’ll tell you that it’s a lovely place characterized by experiences like the one I had buying this honey. A handmade sign invited me to the private property of a man who told me that if no one is around the next time I come through, I can leave my money and make whatever change I need to from a hiding place he showed me, where they keep the cash. Who says times are a-changin’? For what it’s worth, I dedicate these scrumptious cookies to that man’s faith in humanity, and his delicious honey. If you find yourself somewhere north of Green Bay and south of Canada, do pay him a visit!

Molasses Cookies

2 cups almond flour

1/3 cup tapioca flour

2 tbsp coconut flour

2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

2 tsp ground cloves

1 1/2 sticks butter, softened (for strict paleo use palm shortening)

3/4 c raw honey

1/2 tsp stevia, dissolved into honey

2 large eggs

1/4 c molasses

Preheat the oven to 350. Combine flours, baking soda, salt and spices in a bowl and stir well to mix. Combine honey/stevia mixture and butter in a bowl and blend with a hand blender (a regular blender would work great too) for five minutes until whipped. Add the egg and continue blending. Add the molasses and blend some more. Place parchment paper onto a pan. Scoop one-inch globs of dough onto the pan, spacing 1-2 inches apart (they spread out). Bake for 11 minutes. Remove from pan to cooling rack immediately.

Happy 1st Birthday WiscoPaleo!

And instead of a birthday cake, a paleo recipe that captures the true essence of this blog. A recipe that required almost no effort whatsoever, one that was born of a bare refrigerator and one loan chunk of meat in the freezer. A recipe that makes up for being un-photogenic with nourishment and yummyness. A recipe that really isn’t a recipe at all, but rather a couple of items just hanging out in a crock pot over night. I shall call it Hunk o Meat and Sweet Potato. Because that’s what it is. Enjoy!

Hunk o Meat and Sweet Potato

1/2 pound grassfed chuck roast

1 sweet potato, peeled and halved

1 tbsp leftover bacon fat

1 tbsp dried parsley

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp cumin

3 tsp coarse sea salt

Salt the meat a couple hours ahead of time if you can. Sear the meat in the bacon fat. Place in the crock pot. Add spices and sweet potato. Turn on low for 8-10 hours or more. Eat.

Reluctant Reduction Pot Roast

When I created this blog, my aim was to be as un-fancy as possible, to convey to my throngs of fans that following a paleo diet is easy. For this reason, I made choices like using the delightful colloquialism “ain’t” in the tagline, much to the chagrin of my brother, who told me he wouldn’t be visiting Wisco Paleo until the offending “ain’t” was removed. So there went 33% of my fan base…

The point is, Wisco Paleo “isn’t” fancy. So you can imagine my extreme hesitation when I was told that the leftover sauce from a slow cooked pot roast is better when reduced. I am not afraid to admit that when I see “red wine reduction” on a menu at a restaurant I really shouldn’t be eating at while in graduate school, I ignorantly trust that it’ll be good without knowing exactly what it means.

That is why it is with great reluctance that I confess to my readers: I reduced this sauce. I even did a pre- and post-taste test, and the snooty sauce reduction wins in a landslide. So my apologies for this one, folks, but I now present to you the fanciest pot roast I have ever made. And judging by the photos, it still ain’t all that fancy.

 

Reluctant Reduction Pot Roast
3-lb grassfed beef shoulder
1 lb carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
1 large sweet potato, peeled and roughly chopped
1 large yellow onion, roughly chopped
1/2 c red wine
1 tbsp oregano
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
2 tsbp fat (I used bacon fat for the meat and butter for the veggies)

Simmer the onion on low for at least 20 minutes in a fat (I used butter), then add the carrots for another 5 minutes or so. Add to the crock pot. Simmer the red wine in the pan and scrape the bottom of the pan while it simmers, then dump that into the crock pot. Sear the beef shoulder (I seared it in bacon fat). Add to the crock pot. Add the sweet potato and the spices. Turn on low for at least 8 hours.

Remove the meat and veggies and pour the liquid into a pan. Simmer on low for at least 30 minutes. The longer you simmer, the more flavorful the sauce will be. Pour the sauce over the meat and veggies and enjoy!