We all have our favourite comfort foods, our go-to-crowd-pleaser meals for gatherings and special events, our must-have bits and pieces (pickled herring at Christmas, ugh), and our signature, day-to-day dishes. The signature dishes are generally easy to make, nutritious, and don’t take a lot of time to make. The fun meals, the ones that make us stand out in the crowd and bring massive raves from folks who taste them however, are the ones that might just likely be the food that adds to our demise.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not preaching here. I love things slathered in garlic butter, thick sirloin steaks on the bbq, with a good 1/4 inch slab of fat and intense marbling. I love gravy, especially on Yorkshire puddings and mashed potatoes. Pizza. Gyros. Chevapi. Burek. I could go on for hours.
My partner signed up for a bbq challenge at work on Feb 14, and it was her job to create a wicked sampler plate done on the bbq. She chose to make Onion Bombs. These are wicked. TRUST ME!
Fresh off the BBQ!
Beautiful!
All you do is take a pound of lean ground beef, a pound of ground pork, a whole bunch of spices (salt, pepper, paprika, Slap Ya Mama (available in hot sauce stores in Ottawa and the outlying area. Some stores, such as Pepper Palace no longer carry it due to price confliction with Amazon) basil, rosemary, Vegeta, cayenne, etc…whatever you have in the house). Hand mix the meats and spices, and roll into meatballs. Then, take a large number of onions (we prefer red), cut the tops and bottoms off, and peel them back to make onion shells. Next, put a meatball between 2 shell halves. Once that is done, wrap each shell in 2-3 pieces of raw bacon, hold together with tooth-pics soaked in water, then slather in bbq sauce and bbq, basting with more sauce.
The result is pure heaven.
The expulsion from the onion bombs however, is disheartening.
Ugh….so much flavour, and yet, so bad.
Fat. Lots and lots of fat. Sure, fat bleeds out as you cook, but how much remains? Yeah, we all need a percentage of fat in our daily diet, but not like this.
The morning after, congealed fat.
We both had onion bombs after the bbq competition, but it was one each (not a lot of leftovers) for 2 days. We went heavy on whole food/plant based add-ons to go with them, to try and balance out our meat consumption.
We are doing pretty good at maintaining a whole food/plant based diet, but we slip sometimes. Pizza one night, then 2 weeks later, sirloin steaks on the bbq, with lots of fat. It’s not an easy process to follow, when we both are over 40, and have those years of mindless consumption behind us, but we try.
If you are interested in eating better, you can check these websites and videos out. They really do give wicked alternatives to meat. Trust me on this…..I liked veggies before, but wasn’t a fan of the “salad with dinner” bullshit options. Faux tuna salad made with cashews? Wicked!
Make tuna melts…brilliant!
Avocado and tomato on toast for breakfast? Frigging brilliant!
I slice my tomato thinly, at work. people are curious, and jealous.
Vegan Mac n’ Cheese? Not too shabby (I went too heavy with the sauce). No picture for this one, as the picture and reality do not equate. The taste however, is pretty damn good.
Lentil Bolognese with sweet potato pasta? Heaven!!! (I also added tofu “spaghetti”. Wow. Yum).
Even the boy enjoys this. Weird….
Vegan/Paleo potato skins? Hell, yes! (i’m becoming a fan of sweet potato, since there is no maple syrup in this).
Yummly.co…thank you!!
BBQ cauliflower salad with ranch dressing? Hell, even my partner loved this!
Really damn good. Seriously.
So, yeah…..feeling sluggish and bloated? Want to do something for your body. Give them a shot.
If you want to learn more, and always take everything with a grain of salt, you can check out these videos, usually found on Netflix or YouTube:
A couple of websites with wicked and FREE recipes:
http://cleanfooddirtygirl.com/
http://www.yummly.co/how-it-works/
Don’t get me wrong, we will continue to bbq meat and make beef jerky in the dehydrator; albeit on a much smaller level, but we are evermore being mindful of what we as humans consume, and the damage it does to the planet as a whole, and ourselves.
Consume wisely.
Off Grid Thoughts 