Tuesday 2 February 2016

What am I going to eat!!???

I'm truly loving this SCD (Specific Carbohydrate Diet) thing but sometimes it's really a challenge.I introduced Spinach on Monday and I've already exhausted all my options. The problem is that most scd recipes websites don't have a distinction between phases therefore I can find recipes with spinach but they are not necessarily suitable for Phase 1 (e.g. there is coconut/nut flour, parmesan - I'm not eating dairy, or at least not yet - they're fried...). 

What to do in this cases? Put your brain at work and SHARE!!! SHARE!!! Even if it's a culinary disaster! That might prevent other from making a disaster themselves! 
For example, yesterday I prepared what I thought it was going to be Spinach Pancake but it turned out to be... I don't even know how to explain it... a very green, very spinachy omelette. :) I don't own a food scale so unfortunately I'm not able to tell you where it went wrong but I can definitely tell you that the eggs/spinach ratio that I used did not work. :) I still haven't tried it but here is a recipe for Spinach Pancake 1/2 cup of spinach for 1 egg... mmm ... I feel I've done more or less that. Can someone try and let me know how it turned out?

Another thing that I did wrong - and that's why I didn't feel I should share the recipe - is that I was trying to use up 2 yolks that were left from a "SCD bread" I made the day before and I put no egg white at all... so: 2 yolks and a handful of cooked spinach... tooooo much :) (the "bread" was delicious! and here is the recipe for that one: http://pecanbread.com/new/recipes/nutfreedairyfreebread.html and a picture while it was still in the oven. I forgot to take a picture of the final product... oops. But I'm sure I'll make it again and I'll then update this post). 
You can see the 2 incriminating eggs at the back in the tupperware :)

The bread in the oven. Once done it's thin and brown and delicious!! 
It's very easy to find ways of using egg whites but not as many for the egg yolks. All you can find is pastry cream and stuff... not phase 1 :(

I've lost my thread of thoughts... how did I get here? oh yes, Phase 1 Spinach recipes.
Another experiment I've done is a Spinach Chicken/Beef Egg Muffin. And again, I have not much to share with you but this picture (it looked much nicer when I first took it out from the oven! :))

Now, what I want to make clear here is that I'm no chef! And I never thought I was creative either; but I find myself coming up with ideas - brilliant ideas in my humble opinion - to use up leftovers. I cook with a "nothing gets wasted" philosophy. And that's why it's so hard for me to share my recipes. I definitely need to buy a scale so that I can give you guys clear instructions. 
I made the muffins by combining 2 eggs, leftover boiled spinach and beef and chicken meat that I retrieved from the bone broth that I prepared yesterday (made with beef bones and 2 chicken legs bones - very little meat was left on the bone but as I said, I'm not going to throw anything and it's very healthy!). This is not the recipe I used but here is a good one: http://scdlifestyle.com/2012/02/how-to-make-nourishing-beef-bone-broth-to-heal-your-gut/ 
There is no use for me to give you these half recipes and I'm only going to get you confused. So I'm going to stop right there and tell you instead what I'm going to prepare now. Let's do it together. I'll measure with cups this time ;)

First of all, let's put some music on! Musique du Monde on Spotify... I don't understand a word but it's interesting.

We are going to call them Spinacheat balls as there is nothing of the traditional meat balls in them. They are dairy free, grain free, gluten free, no eggs... it's easier to say what's in it.

Ingredients:
1lb extra lean ground beef
1/3 cup carrot puree (made with 4 hour cooked carrots)
1/2 cup cooked spinach
Salt and pepper

Put some water to boil. Once boiling, add the spinach and let boil for 5 minutes.
Try not to burn down the house! 
Drain the spinach and let them cool down.

Mix the ground beef with the carrot puree. 
Add salt and pepper. (if you prefer you can leave this step till the end; I know lots of people like to salt their meat only when cooked)

Please note that the pic shows 2lb ground beef. 1lb will look like half of this (duh!)
Squeeze all the water out from the spinach.

Turn your broiler on.

Chop the spinach and add to the mixture. I use my hands to mix everything. You are going to get them dirty anyway to make the balls, might as well using them to mix everything well together. It has a calming effect on me :)

Make 1,5" - 2" meat balls (keep in mind that they will shrink a little in the cooking process) and place them on a broiler pan.

Place the broiler 4 inches far from heat source. 
Broil each side for around 8-10 minutes (or until it browns) for a total of more or less 20 minutes. 




Serve warm! If they get to the table. By the time I sat down to eat I already had 3. Well, one to see if they were cooked; the other 2 cause they were so delicious I couldn't stop eating them!!! 



I hope you will enjoy the recipe! Please let me know by adding a comment. 
Any feedback is highly appreciated. 

P.S.: I'm going to post soon the super easy recipe for that delicious scd soup I ate with the meatballs and... just in case you were wondering... I used 2lb of meat instead of 1lb cause 1) the package I bought was a 2lb pack 2) before adding in the spinach I divided the meat in half and used 1lb to prepare some delicious burgers that I froze and I'm going to use next week ;) NOTHING GETS WASTED!!! 
Ground beef and carrot puree burger. I use parchment paper to keep them separated so that it's easy when you defrost them. I'll tell you more about my "leftover parchment paper" in another post! ;)




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