Paleo Stuffing

At Thanksgiving, I made my preparations mostly from the website The Paleo Secret.  One of the dishes that we fell in love with was the Paleo "Stuffing".  Dinner tonight was a close approximation of a  double batch of the stuffing.  http://www.thepaleosecret.com/2012/11/15/the-paleo-thanksgiving-series-paleo-stuffing/

2 lbs Ground Pork 2x $2.73                                                                                          $5.46
2 onions     2x .20                                                                                                          $  .40
10 stalks celery                                                                                                              $1.00
8 sweet potatoes                                                                                                            $2.80
2 eggs                                                                                                                            $  .20
4 garlic cloves - pressed                                                                                                 $  .15
2 tbsp fresh thyme                                                                                                          $  .30
2 tbsp fresh sage                                                                                                            $  .30
4 tbsp fresh rosemary                                                                                                     $  .60
1 tsp salt                                                                                                                        $  .10
1 C. bone broth                                                                                                             $  .50
                                                                                                                        Total = $11.81
                                                                        
The original recipe calls for 3/4 C of butter, but I totally forgot to add it.  The recipe turned out fine, so I do not think I will add it in the future.

 I cut and pasted the directions directly from their site here:
"Cube sweet potato and cook in oven at 400 for about 20-30 minutes and let it cool.  Another option is to cook the sweet potato whole and let it cool, peel it and then cube it. Set aside.  Brown ground pork while adding herbs and salt.  While pork is browning, sautee onions, celery and garlic in butter until soft.  Using a slotted spoon remove pork.  Combine pork, onion/celery mixture and sweet potatoes in a 8×8 baking dish.  Wisk eggs together and add drippings or broth to mixture.  Pour over pork mixture and mix together.  Bake at 350 deg for about 30 min until starting to get brown on top.  Serve and enjoy!!"

My method is slightly different.  In a big pan, I saute onions, celery, etc, until soft.  Then, I dump in the pork, seasonings, and mix and mix until brown.  Then, I add the sweet potato cubes.  I turn off the burner and keep mixing for a bit, then I whisk together my broth and eggs, pour over the whole thing, give it one last stir, then slide into the preheated oven.  Since I do all the clean-up, I like to dirty as few pans as possible. ;-)

It made a double batch.  All 4 of us ate last night, and I have 3 more good sized portions for leftovers.

Earlier this week, as a bow to Thing2, I tried to make chicken nuggets, Paleo style.  Cubing chicken thighs, I dusted them with coconut flour and cooked at 400 degrees for 25 minutes.  They wound up dry as a bone.  The flavor was good, but they were dry, dry, dry.  I have made sesame chicken nuggets before, and felt confident that I did not have to refresh myself on the recipe.  I really should have, because then I would have remembered to drizzle butter over them before sticking them in the oven so that they would crisp up and stay moist.  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/melissa-darabian/sesame-chicken-recipe/index.html  Note: this is not the actual recipe I will use, just wanted to give an example of how/when I will butter up the chicken nuggets for maximum moisture.

The cost of the nuggets should be something like this:
2 lbs Chicken thighs                                                                                                 $3.00
1/2 C. melted butter to drizzle                                                                                  $  .25
1/4 C coconut flour                                                                                                  $  .50
                                                                                                                 Total =   $3.75

For the price of roughly one happy meal, the yield is 25-30 nuggets.  At least that is how many I got when I made the nuggets the other night.  You know, the failed recipe. 

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