Holistic Instincts

This recipe calls for beef cheeks.  Yes, beef cheeks.  And before you run away, know that beef cheeks are one of the most unappreciated cuts of meat.  Beef cheeks require long and slow cooking but when prepared this way, they are the most tender cut of beef you will ever try.  I love beef cheeks because of the amount of connective tissue in them - and cooked down, this dish provides the same skin and gut-nourishing benefits as bone broth. I gave beef cheeks a try when I found them sold by the folks at U.S. Wellness Meats and discovered how cheap this cut of beef is, compared to other grass-fed meats.  And recently, they kindly featured my social media post  in a recent newsletter! I topped my beef bowl with a simple guacamole, but this dish lends itself to many other toppings and options. Leftover shredded beef makes a amazing burrito bowl, a great omelet filling or a Paleo taco! Slow Cooker Shredded Beef Bowls with Simple Guacamole For the sh...

Oh boy, I love a good burger!  But who really doesn't??  I need my burgers to be delicious, messy, filling, and flavorful.  But I quickly realized that a bun-less and dairy-free burger is basically a just ground beef salad, and really not that tasty. At home, we tend to have burgers when I am too lazy tired to cook.  And my husband is always nice enough to grill our dinner outside on those days.  And if I learned anything from Rachel Ray, it is that burger options are endless because you can make a burger out of anything! In this recipe, I combined a spicy chorizo along with ground beef, and then upped the flavor with an avocado ranch dressing for the topping.  I love chorizo but since cleaning up our diet, it has been hard to find a sausage that is both clean AND delicious. A typical commercially available chorizo package has an ingredient list that looks like this : Cacique Brand Beef Chorizo:  Beef (salivary glands, lymph nodes, fat (che...

The thought of a dairy-free life once seemed impossible to me.  I mean, burgers are just naked and without cheese.  Cheese-less breakfast sandwiches or salads are boring.  And a hot wings without blue cheese are just useless. Kite Hill  produces a wonderful line of cultured almond milk products and I use Kite Hill almond milk ricotta often in my Family Lasagna (recipe  here ), and I occasionally splurge on their yummy strawberry almond yogurt.  I was really happy when a local health store began to carry a few of their cream cheese-style  products and I can say that everything this company makes is delicious!  The cream cheese-style spread tastes just like the real thing, and behaves like thing real thing, too. The other day, I invited a friend to lunch and realized I didn't have a clue as to what to make.  It is still fairly hot here so I threw this dip together at the very last minute.  I am glad I did!  This dip is as crea...

Breakfast cookies are such a treat in our house!  Our standard weekday breakfasts usually consist of uncured bacon or ham and eggs.  Sometimes, we have leftover steak or chicken from the night before, along with an egg.  During warmer weather, we may have smoothies made with plenty of eggs.  Always, eggs! I wanted to play around with a breakfast treat would break up the egg rut and could hopefully be made ahead of time.  If the treat was portable, all the better.  So after many tries, this cookie was born. I used a combination of nuts for the base, but just one type of nut or seed works well!  I have also kept the sweetener to a minimum, using only a few dates and a touch of maple syrup but more can added if the wet batter does not seem sweet enough for your palate. I hand-blended frozen blueberries into the wet batter before baking but I have sometimes dolloped all-natural fruit spread in the center of each cookie before baking - both method...