Meal Prep: Step Four - 9 Dishes!
If you are continuing from the last session, you should have a gorgeous Beef Stew with Bacon in the crock pot and it should be smelling SO good by now. We are going to continue to cook the stew for this session and swap it out after the four hours. If you are not continuing and are picking up fresh today, just skip to the bottom of the page and get that crock pot going first.
Here is what we will be covering in this session:
PF Chang's Lettuce Wraps
Chicken and Cranberry Stuffed Sweet Potatoes
Sweet Potato Waffles
Paleo Stacks
Oven Fajitas
Thai Pork and Veggie Meatballs
Paleo Shrimp and Chicken Sausage Gumbo
White Bean and Turkey Chili
Enchilada Chicken Stew
Prep Step:
Pre-heat oven to 350
Bake Sweet Potatoes for Cranberry Stuffed Sweet Potatoes
Shred sweet potatoes for the waffles (double batch)
Slice chicken for fajitas and make seasoning mix
Pre-Mix Sauce for Thai Meatballs
Step One: Begin the Meatballs (15 Min)
While baking the sweet potatoes, we are going to start our Thai Pork and Veggie Meatballs.
Place zucchinis and carrots in a food processor using the shredding attachment.
Remove shredded zucchini and carrots from the food processor and squeeze out excess water with some paper towels.
Place zucchini, carrots, pork, turkey, and the rest of the the meatball ingredients in a bowl and use your hands to combine.
Use an ice cream scoop to scoop out meatballs then shape in hands. Set aside on a plate. This should be 12-15 large meatballs.
Bake in 350 oven for 20 minutes or until browned and cooked through
Step Two: Gumbo and Fajitas (35 Min)
While the meatballs are baking, let's get a start on the Gumbo - Don't forget to check your sweet potatoes!
Place a large saucepan over medium heat. Add your bacon fat along with your 4 garlic cloves, onion, celery, and bell peppers. Cook until onions become translucent.
Then add all your spices and tomato paste.
Pour in your broth and bay leaves and let simmer for 10 minutes.
While the gumbo base is simmering, let's get our fajitas in the oven!
Sprinkle the seasoning over the meat and vegetables.
Drizzle the vegetable oil over everything and then use your hands to toss the ingredients until everything is well coated in oil and seasoning.
Bake in the preheated oven for 35-40 minutes, stirring once half way through.
Now to finish the Gumbo. Check those meatballs - they should be ready to come out and cool!
Next add your smoked sausage and shredded pork (I use Trader Joe's Carnitas).
Simmer for another 5 minutes.
Lastly, if this is dinner for tonight, add your shrimp and salt and pepper and cook for another 5 minutes. If you are freezing for later, go ahead and portion out your meals into the freezer containers. Once cool, just add the divided shrimp, still frozen, to each container to avoid overcooking in the re-heat process.
Step Three: Chili and Lettuce Wraps (40 Min)
After a quick clean up, let's get our next dishes started!
Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat.
Add onion; sauté 10 minutes or until tender and golden.
Add chili powder, garlic, and cumin; sauté for 2 minutes.
Add oregano and beans; cook for 30 seconds. A
dd broth; bring to a simmer. Cook 20 minutes.
While the chili base is simmering, let's get these lettuce wraps done and check on the Fajitas.
Heat olive oil in a saucepan over medium high heat.
Add ground chicken and cook until browned, about 3-5 minutes, making sure to crumble the chicken as it cooks; drain excess fat.
Stir in garlic, onion, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, ginger and Sriracha until onions have become translucent, about 1-2 minutes.
Stir in chestnuts and green onions until tender, about 1-2 minutes; season with salt and pepper, to taste.
Set aside to cool
Time to finish the Chili
Place 2 cups of bean mixture in a blender or food processor, and process until smooth. Return pureed mixture to pan.
Add turkey, and cook 5 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Remove from heat.
Add diced tomato, chopped cilantro, lime juice, salt, and pepper, stirring well. Set aside to cool
Step Four: Sweet Potatoes
Now it is time to get our sweet potatoes ready for the week. We will be making waffles that are great to freeze and eat sweet on their own or savory under your morning eggs, and the Chicken and Cranberry stuffing.
Melt some cooking fat in skillet placed over a medium-high heat.
Cook the diced chicken until just cooked through.
Add the cranberries to the chicken and cook until soft.
Add the spinach and nutmeg. Sauté until the spinach has wilted and remove the pan from the heat. Let cool
Now for the sweet potato waffles. We are going to make a double batch and season half for waffles and half to go under the delicious Paleo Stack.
Mix the sweet potato, eggs and coconut oil in a large bowl.
Divide the mixture in to two bowls.
In one bowl, add the seasonings for the Sweet Potato Waffles.
In the other bowl, add salt, pepper and diced bacon.
Cook in batches on your waffle maker the same as you would with regular waffle. But keep the waffles on the thinner side or they don’t cook well.
Step Five: Crock Pot Swap!
By now, the Beef Stew is done and ready to be put into your storage or freezer containers. After cleaning the crock pot insert, we can start our Chicken Enchilada Stew.
Paleo Chicken Enchilada Stew
2 lbs chicken breasts
1 yellow onion, chopped 1 green bell pepper, chopped 1 (4oz) can chopped jalapenos 1 (4oz) can chopped green chiles 2 tablespoons coconut oil 1 (14oz) can diced tomatoes 1 (7 oz) can tomato sauce 3 garlic cloves, minced 1 tablespoon cumin 1 tablespoon chili powder 2 teaspoons dried oregano salt and pepper, to taste cilantro, bundle of - to garnish avocado, to garnish
Set crock pot to the high setting for 4-6 hours.
Layer the chicken breasts in the bottom of the slow cooker.
Then add the rest of the ingredients on top, in any order.
Cook on high for 4-6 hours.
After it’s done cooking, use tongs to pick at the chicken to shred it in with all the ingredients.
Top with cilantro and some avocado.
Eat up!!
Now you can begin to divide up all of your dishes into the aluminum freezer containers or prepare them for refrigeration. There are a load of ways to do this. I use small aluminum freezer containers for the freezer items and glass snap lid containers for the refrigerator.
-For the Lettuce Wraps, just portion out the chicken mixture and freeze in baggies or aluminum containers. Just reheat at 350 for about 25 min or microwave (times vary) until hot. Serve with fresh butter lettuce.
-Cranberry and Chicken Sweet Potatoes - Two options, freeze individual potatoes wil filling and reheat at 325 in the oven, or freeze the filling and make the potatoes in the crock pot on the day of.
-Thai Pork and Veggies Meatballs - Portion 4-5 meatballs into each container and pour sauce over evenly. Reheat in a 325 oven for 30 minutes.
-Oven Fajitas - drain chicken and veggies and freeze in a single layer until mostly frozen. Divide into baggies for individual servings and use in a tortilla, breakfast burrito or quesadilla.
-Gumbo- by following the above suggestion regarding the shrimp, this gumbo can be reheated in the oven at 350 for approx 20 minutes or until heated through without overcooking your shrimp. The shrimp can, of course, always be at the time of reheating.
-Turkey Chili- warm over the stove, in the microwave (defrost first!) or in the oven at 325 for 25 minutes.
-Enchilada stew-warm over the stove, in the microwave (defrost first!) or in the oven at 325 for 25 minutes.
-Sweet Potato Waffles- freeze individually with wax paper between or in a single layer until solid. Warm in the toaster oven or microwave. Individual times may vary.
-Paleo Stacks - SO EASY! Warm up a savory waffle, top with a poached or over easy egg, bacon, chives and avocado. Delicious!
One more session to go! Go have a glass of wine and relax - OR- Start Session Five!