Stuffing If You Please...

I have been on the Paleolithic Diet now for two months.  Do I cheat? Every once in a while...sure. My book says it's okay to do so.  Do I see me going back to the way I was eating before? NO!  I am feeling too good, have my energy back and not missing anything that I can think of.  My blood sugar has been wonderful.  As I loose more weight it is coming down even more.  I can't complain about it being in the high 90's or the very low 100's at this point.  My doctor is jumping for joy!  Another benefit has been that my Gerd has almost disappeared. Where I was having to take medication, I only take it if I am eating really spicy pizza with the crust. Most of the time I get a huge salad and scrape the fixins off the pizza crust and have no problems. 

I will not lie, switching to honey for my sweetener was tough for me for the first cup of coffee but after that I look forward to my coffee now and I find that most restaurants have honey on hand. 1 Tablespoon does it.  There has only been one that did not, however the coffee was just as good as ever without it.  It's interesting how one gets accustomed to sweets but how we can do without it if necessary.  I really am loosing my taste for sweets. One of the ladies brought red velvet fudge for everyone to have. I have yet to have a piece and it does not bother me. 2 months ago I would have been gloming it down. 

Since Thanksgiving is almost upon us I would like to share a dressing recipe that my daughter came across with a few revisions made to it. We had a luncheon in our office and I brought this to share.  We have several people who have dietary restrictions so instead of using sausage and bacon for the recipe I used
Godshalls Turkey Bacon and Jennie-O's ground turkey sausage.  For our family  dinner I will use the sausage and thick sliced bacon as recommended. Don't get me wrong I just want to see how it tastes.  What I fixed was wonderful and it reheats well. I even had it for breakfast today with a gently fried egg.

Paleo Thanksgiving Stuffing Gluten-Free by Juli of PaleOMG.com

Photo Courtesy  Juli of PaleOMG.com

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground pork sausage
• 5 pieces of bacon, diced
• 5 stalks of celery, diced
• 1 med. to large sweet potato/yam, diced
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 1 small container of mushrooms, diced
• 2 apples, diced  I used Fuji apples
• 2 Tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 1 cup pecan, chopped.  I ground mine up to a finer consistency
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/3 cup chicken broth, mine had no soy or corn starch in it.

Instructions

     1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, Cover a baking sheet with foil,  throw diced sweet potatoes/yams on it, sprinkle with olive oil and salt and pepper. Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until sweet potatoes are tender, then set aside.

    2. While those cook, pull out a large skillet, place it on medium-high heat and place  chopped bacon in it to begin to cook down. When some of the fat has seeped out and bacon has begun to cook, add chopped apples, celery and onions.

    3. When onions begin to become translucent, add ground pork and mushrooms and white wine vinegar. Let that cook down until pork is almost completely cooked through.  You will be placing it in the oven so you want it pretty close to done. Add salt and pepper to taste.

   4. Once the sausage is all done, add mixture to a bowl to cool.  Now beat eggs, add to sausage mixture, add chicken broth, along with the sweet potatoes, pecans and dried cranberries. Mix well.  Note here...I mixed my eggs and chicken broth together before beating.  Also, I hand chopped my pecans and in my estimation they were too big so you might want to  pulse them down a bit in a food processor

   5. Place stuffing in a 9 x 13 greased baking dish

   6. Bake at 375 degrees for about 15-20 minutes or until everything is a bit browned.

   7. Eat up!  Yum!

Thanksgiving is time for the three F's.  Family, friends and food.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone and may you be blessed with many blessings.

Drive Safe!

Peace, Love and Happy Eating…