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Smoky BBQ Beef Stew

Do you have foods that are so reminiscent of childhood they almost make you cry? I totally do. Like chocolate cake with vanilla icing, cherry pie, Belgium waffles, chicken legs and beef stew. Those were staples in our house. While I no longer eat chocolate cake regularly (but I do still have it because… balance), beef stew is a staple in our house. There is just something about the tender meat, creamy tomato sauce and soft potatoes and carrots that just make me happy. It’s one of my all-time favorites.

This recipe is a fun twist on traditional beef stew. I came up with it because I think my family was getting sick of traditional beef stew. Maybe it’s because we were having it once a week and consuming the leftovers throughout the week. Who knows? I personally was totally fine with that. Either way, I knew I needed to come up with something new.

This recipe was it! When my daughter said “What’s for dinner?” I said “BBQ beef stew.” She groaned “not again!” but when I explained it was completely different, she was willing to have another bowl of beef stew. She loved it! What really sold her was the rice. She’ll eat just about anything as long as it’s on a bed of rice.

I love rice, but when I’m trying to watch my carbs, I just swap out the rice for a bed of leafy greens. This is one of my favorite ways to get in more veggies and keep my blood sugar regulated.

This stew is grain-free and uses spices like turmeric, cinnamon and ginger so it’s also anti-inflammatory and gives you extra help to regulate blood sugar. Plus it tastes awesome. That’s my #1 priority when it comes to food. Why would I waste time chewing something that doesn’t bring me joy? That seems ridiculous.

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15 Minute Smoky BBQ Stir Fry

My favorite lunch is a salad. Not a wussy salad with veggies only and dressing on the side. I’m talking a salad loaded with veggies but also avocado and a nice , filling protein. YUM! But this week in Denver, we got snow. Cold, wet snow. So when it came time for lunch yesterday, I wanted something warm that didn’t take a ton of time or dishes. I decided on a stir fry.

As I’ve mentioned before, I love a to make stir frys. It’s a great way to mix together a ton of leftovers and have a great, filling meal. Yesterday my leftover addition was ribs. The day before I made ribs by covering rib meat in Diane Sanfilippo’s Smoky Spice blend (click here for recipe), topping them with my N0-Sugar BBQ Sauce (click here for recipe) and cooked them in my slow cooker on low for 8 hours. They were AMAZING!

So for my stir fly, I stripped some meat off the bones, mixed it with some veggies, a little more smoky spice blend and some coconut aminos. It was so warm and delicous! Plus with all those veggies it was loaded with great nutrients. I’ve listed the veggies I used but feel free to customize this how you like. You really can’t mess it up!

 

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No-Sugar Grilled Pineapple Rings

When we lived in Utah, we had a Brazilian neighbor. Every time she saw us, she’d invite us in for Brazilian food, which happens to be AMAZING! The meat and veggies were delicious, but my favorite part was the grilled pineapple. As it heats up, the sugars caramelize and the juices come out. It softens but somehow stays crunchy. It’s one of the most satisfying things in the world. The only problem was, it was covered in sugar. I was so sad to learn that she made it by covering it in brown sugar.

Fast forward to now. One day I had a hankering for that sugary, warm, juicy grilled pineapple. I decided there had to be a way to make it without the brown sugar. After all, pineapple is naturally sweet, so there’s no reason to add more sugar.

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The key is to start with a fresh pineapple. Canned rings just won’t do the trick. You need to start out with firm, crunchy rings to keep the nice crunchy texture after you grill them.

Then all I did was melt some coconut oil, add cinnamon and salt and brushed it on the pineapple rings.

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Then I passed them off to my manly husband to cook on the bbq grill next to some juicy steaks. Since this is both healthy and sweet, it works as a side dish, or a dessert.

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Healthy, Easy Cowboy Salsa

This is a recipe my mother-in-law made at a picnic. It’s so much better than a jarred salsa. It’s perfect with tortilla chips or crackers, but all I need is my face and the bowl. YUM!!!

In a colander, drain and rinse:

  • 1 can corn
  • 1 can black beans (I thought I had black beans and didn’t, so I used a can of pinto beans instead, which was also delicious. Despite my husband’s original claim that pinto beans are just a cheap imitation of black beans, he enjoyed it with the pinto beans as well).

Put the beans and corn in a large bowl and add:

  • 6 or 7 chopped roma tomatoes – They key to this part is to get the tomatoes about the same size as the beans and corn.
  • 1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
  • 4 or 5 green onions – The easiest way I’ve found to chop green onions is to clip them with kitchen shears, similar to how you clip chives.

Toss this mixture together.

Then in a small bowl, combine:

  • 1 package powdered Italian dressing mix
  • the zest of one lime (this is optional, but I think it makes it even better!)
  • the juice of two limes

Pour this mixture over the salsa and toss. Cover the bowl and put it in the fridge so all the flavors can combine.


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Healthy BBQ Beef Kabobs

My husband hates most vegetables. I on the other hand, love vegetables. This makes it very hard to cook dinners, especially when I’d like to make them a bit healthier with added veggies. We found a great solution to our problem: beef kabobs.

Beef Kabobs

I load mine full of vegetables, and his full of meat.

The first thing to do is pick a meat. I pick whatever is cheapest at the grocery store. I looked at beef stew meat, stir fry beef and flank steak. That day, stir fry beef was cheapest (I used one pound). If steak is on sale, ask the butcher to cut it up into stew meat for you. They always say yes.

I cut the pieces in half so they were about 2 inches long each. I then marinated the meat using the same marinade I use on my Round Steak

Then, I picked the vegetables. I used only tomatoes, onion and beef on my husband’s, but loaded mine with tomatoes, onion, mushrooms, green pepper, pineapple and beef. I originally wanted to buy cherry tomatoes, but decided not to when I saw how expensive they were. Good grief! Instead, I halved roma tomatoes and cut each half into quarters. It worked just as well. I then assembled the kabobs on skewers. Soak your skewers for at least half an hour in water before assembling the kabobs. This keeps them from burning and your beef kabobs probably won’t taste all that great if they go up in flames.

My wonderful husband grilled them on the barbecue on medium-high for about 10-ish minutes. All grills are a bit different, so grill them until your vegetables are roasted and a bit black on the edges. Roasted vegetables are, in my opinion, the best way to eat vegetables. YUM!

The best part about this dish is how versatile it is. Load it up with whatever you like. I made my husband one kabob that was purely meat. Enjoy your beef kabobs!!

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No Sugar BBQ Sauce

BBQ sauce makes any meat better. Pour it over chicken, that’s all you need for a great dinner. Pour it over a pork roast and, voila; pulled pork. Smear it on hamburgers and they’re suddenly the best hamburgers ever. My daughter DSCN0305uses BBQ sauce like most kids use ketchup, so we go through a lot of it in our house. While I’m totally okay with adding strange things to food to get kids to eat them, I’m not okay with the sugar content of most condiments. This is especially true for BBQ sauce. When we made the change to a healthier lifestyle, I knew we couldn’t give up BBQ sauce. That’s when I began the quest to make a no-sugar BBQ sauce. Not only did I succeed, but my husband says this is the best BBQ sauce I’ve ever made and my daughter gave it her stamp of approval.

First let’s look at a typical bottled BBQ sauce. The sauce we bought before we made our own, contains 32 grams of sugar in 1/4 C with high fructose corn syrup being the first ingredient. That is crazy. My BBQ sauce has less than 3 grams of sugar in 1/4 C and tastes delicious.

This is also an easy recipe. I didn’t want a recipe that required a lot of sauteing, dish washing and vegetable chopping, so I made it simple. Just throw all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk them together. Yes there are a lot of ingredients, but they are likely things you have in your pantry. If you don’t like an ingredient, leave it out.

I like to store it in a mason jar (or a washed, glass peanut-butter jar since we have a million of those sitting around) and stick it in the fridge. This will stay good for about a two weeks.

DSCN0314One night we had some left over pork roast and needed a quick dinner. I threw the roast leftovers in a slow cooker with the BBQ sauce and we had dinner. It’s almost too easy.

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