Sweet Potato Chili Fries

I stole this recipe from PaleOMG, although I suppose since I'm telling you this it's sharing, not stealing? Anyway, I made these tonight and they are delicious. What they lack in the crispiness of real fries they make up for in flavour.

EDIT: did you know there are sweet potatos that aren't bright orange?? I got some various brands of sweet potato from the farmers market this week, and some were purple, while some were red on the outside and white inside! These non orange sorts seemed to crisp much better (sometimes the orange ones are a bit soggy).

They don't even have any gluten in them which, since it's Wheat Month, is actually a problem right now. Which brings me to the real reason Wheat Month is going to make me fat, aside from the wheat. It's because my thought process, when I'm allowed to run about consuming wheat products at my leisure, goes like this: "Hm....what shall I have for dinner? I know, paleOMG's chili fries. Oh shoot, there's no gluten in those...." at which point I wandered around the grocery store looking for a gluten product worth consuming and left with a box of President's Choice Decadent Peanut Butter Icecream Sandwiches. I won't tell you how delicious they were because that would be mean.

NOTE: Nick points out I did not have to buy junk food to get my gluten, I could have thickened my chili with flour like a normal person. Touche. I'll remember that.....once the cookies are gone....

paleOMG's Sweet Potato Chili Fries

I did mine slightly differently than Juli (i.e., I did less work because I'm lazy). Also she somehow has sweet potatoes that aren't bright orange....dunno where to get those.

Ingredients

• One large sweet potato. Pick one that's stout and round not long and warped for optimum fry size
• Ground beef or sausage
• 2-3 tomatoes, diced
• seasonings to taste (salt, pepper, paprika, chili powder, garlic/onion powder, a dash of cayenne pepper)
• half a sliced avacado

1.  Start browning your ground beef or sausage
2. Slice your potato into fries (cut in half and quarters lengthwise, etc, until you have somewhat even fry sized strips.
3. Dust the fries lightly with olive oil. If you put too much they won't crisp.
4. Salt the fries and bake on ~400 until squishy (cooked) and then broil for a few minutes (to crisp) until your smoke detector tells you they're done.
5. Meanwhile, add diced tomatoes to the meat and season. Simmer until the tomatoes are all juiced and the chili starts to thicken again.
6. Make a nest with your fries and plop the chili in the middle. Serve with a sliced avocado to cut the heat of the cayenne and get some tasty fats.

Tim Lim's Tasty Every Time Burgers. And a Bowl of Vegetables.

Tim made these most excellent burgers for a Paleo potluck last summer. Actually, he prepared the beef for the burgers, which somehow never got cooked over the course of the party. Those of us who deemed ourselves too full of wine to go home benefited enormously from this lapse the next morning. Burgers, salsa and scrambled eggs: Breakfast of Champions, I tell you.

Imagine my happiness to discover that these gourmet delicacies are super simple! This is now my standard burger recipe, and it's all thanks to Tim Lim. He told me I didn't have to give him credit, but it's too late, Tim. You're in the title now, and there's nothing you can do about it. :)

I topped this particular burger with my first attempt at guacamole. It is only very lightly spiced, and therefore would not be Tim Lim approved. I ate it with my standby bowl of vegetables.

Tim Lim's Tasty Every Time Burgers

Ingredients
1 or 2 eggs per lb of beef
hot sauce (I use tabasco)
Wheat free Tamari (a fermented soy sauce that Mark's Daily Apple says is ok...some people use coconut aminos instead but I have yet to try them)
salt and pepper to taste

Squish it all together (you know you want to use your hands) and grill/fry. Top with salsa, guacamole, mustard...all that good non-bun stuff. When I next have my planning hat on, I intend to try portabello mushrooms as a bun....

Not-as-hot-as-Tim's Guacamole

Ingredients
1 ripe avocado
1 small tomato
a bit of hot sauce
lime and/or lemon juice
salt and pepper

1. Extract your avacado from its casing and smoosh it all up with a fork.
2. Dice the tomato and add it in.
3. Add a few shakes of hot sauce, several more shakes of lime juice, and some salt and pepper until it tastes good.
(I added a bit of cumin. Don't do that, it wasn't good, I had to drown the cumin flavour with more lime)

Bowl of Vegetables

Ingredients
Vegetables
Oil and Balsamic vinegar

I realized very early on in the Paleo challenge that I get really bored of chewing on lettuce, and that I was using the lettuce more as a vehicle for all the more substantial stuff. So one day, I just left the lettuce out. I felt so free! This is an extra easy side when you come home from a WOD and can't imagine mustering the effort to cook a vegetable to go with your slab of meat.

My standard vegetables to have on had for this purpose are:
Bell Peppers
Cucumber
Radishes
Mushrooms

I dice up the veggies, top with some grated beats, and dress with ground pepper, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. I don't even mix the dressing together before I add it, because I'm kind of lazy, but it all works out.

Internet ingredient search says: Sausage and Kale Soup!

Today I had planned sausage for dinner with a side of kale, but didn't feel like eating them in the usual way. The internet suggested I make soup, and happily I took google's advice because it was delicious! I've never made soup before so I am disproportionately pleased with myself :D The recipe below is an amalgamation of various internet suggestions.

Sausage and Kale Soup

Ingredients
4 sausages, any kind
1 bunch of kale
1 onion
1 or more tomatoes
a bit of ginger, for fun
about 4 cups of water
sea salt and ground pepper
paprika, cumin, chili powder

other vegetables that I will consider adding next time: turnip, brocolli, cauliflower, carrot, leek....

1. Brown the sausages. I used Tomato and Basil Chicken sausages from VG Meats. They were tasty, but my favourite is their fennel sausages. Check out this place (in Stoney Creek) for awesome, well priced, hormone free meats, and grass fed (!) beef.
2. Set the sausage aside, dice the onions, and saute in some oil (I used my big wok).
3. I added a splash of red wine here.
4. When the onions are translucent, add a diced tomato (I think I'll add more next time) and the ginger (optional)
5. Slice the sausage and toss back into the wok. At this point I realized I had misplaced my chicken stock, which is what the internet recipes all called for next. Not to be discouraged, I decided to just add a bunch of water, spice the crap out of the thing, and hope for the best.
6. Add water, I think I used about 4 cups, but I kept adding throughout to make sure all of the contents were covered.
7. Season with lots of sea salt and ground pepper, some garlic salt, and my usual three spices (lots of paprika, a bit of chili powder, and a pinch of cumin). I think the salt/pepper/paprika was the important flavour here.
8. Let that simmer (I left the lid on) for about 15 minutes.
9. In the meantime, cut the kale from its stems and coarsely chop
10. Add the kale to the wok.

KALE

Don't be alarmed, it shrinks

While I let everything simmer I attempted to address the disaster zone in my kitchen. By the time I'd finished my dishes the kale had been simmering for about 25 minutes. I think 15 would have been fine, just taste it to see if it's wilted to your satisfaction. The longer it simmers, says the internet, the mellower its flavour. I also added more spices part way through so be sure to taste your broth as you go along.

Serve! (My batch made enough for two meals)
I hope you have a ladle for this part. Having never made soup, and having previously had roomates who owned ladles, I did not. Being rather afraid of trying to pour from the giant wok directly into a bowl, I stood in my kitchen for a full minute, panicked that I would never figure out how to eat my dinner, before I came to my senses and realized that ladels aren't the only scoop shaped containers. I used a mug, and have updated my shopping list accordingly.