Category Archives: Beef

Beef, Main Dish, Mexican/Spanish Recipes, Recipes

Spaghetti Squash Tamale Pie

Sometimes reading a recipe will kick off and idea for a new recipe with similar ingredients. This one started as a Spaghetti Taco Pie recipe and quickly morphed to a spaghetti squash tamale pie. It isn’t exactly a tamale pie since there isn’t any cornmeal in sight, but most of the flavors are in it. I used the spaghetti squash to form the crust rather than cornmeal and added a little riced cauliflower to the meat mixture to fill in for the whole corn. The result? A wonderfully delicious pie that has all the flavor of a tamale pie and is lower in calories and carbs.

Spaghetti Squash Tamale Pie

Ground beef, lean, 16 oz
1 packet Taco Seasoning
2 1/2 cups Spaghetti Squash, (about half a medium-sized one)
1 cup Cauliflower, frozen and thawed or freshly cooked
1/2 cup Onions, chopped
1/4 cup chopped Black Olives (optional)
1 cup Mexican Style Four Cheese
1/4 cup Queso Fresco
1 can (15.5 oz) Diced Tomatoes,
1 tablespoon Chili powder
1 teaspoon Cajun Seasoning
1 large Egg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Cook the spaghetti squash, remove seeds and use about 1/2 for this recipe. Put the rest away for another dish. Put thawed cauliflower in a food processor and process for a few seconds until it is like rice. Set aside.

In a large skillet, add a tablespoon of olive oil and saute the onions. Add the grounded beef and use a spatula to break into small pieces while cooking. Add your favorite taco seasoning and mix well. When lightly browned, add the diced tomatoes, cauliflower, chili powder and cajun seasonings. Stir well and cook for about 10 minutes.

In a bowl, mix together the spaghetti squash, egg and half the cheese. Add a bit of salt, pepper and a little cajun seasoning. Spray a baking pan or pie pan with cooking spray and spread the spaghetti squash into it, smoothing it to form the crust and go up the sides of the pan. Fill this shell with the meat mixture. Sprinkle the remaining shredded cheese over the top and break the Queso Fresco into crumbled over that.

Use spaghetti squash mixture to form the crust or shell of the pie. Bring it up the sides as high as you can.

 

Spread the meat mixture evenly over the “crust”. If you want a thicker layer of the meat mixture, you can add more beef to it. It won’t increase the carbs, but it will increase the calories.

Bake for about 30 minutes until the cheese is melted and lightly browned. Let cool for about 10 minutes then serve. Makes 6 servings.

Nutrition Info:
Calories; 345.4 Fat: 23.6 g Net carbs: 8.7 g Protein: 21.3 g

Posted on 8/26/2013

Beef, Main Dish, Mexican/Spanish Recipes, Recipes, Soups and Stews

Pumpkin Adds A Twist to Chile

Again, this was the hint of a recipe I spotted over the weekend in a “what to do with your leftover pumpkin” article from Bon Appetit magazine. Being adventurous and having some pumpkin left over in the ‘fridge, I thought I would try it. The original recipe uses spicy sausage but I happened to have some left over stewing beef after making soup about a week ago that needed using, so this is a beef chile. I noticed when adding the pumpkin that, like adding tomato sauce to spaghetti sauce, the chile thickened up immediately. The recipe also didn’t give any amounts, so I added the amounts for mine. The result is a very tasty chile that I will definitely make again.

Spicy Pumpkin and Beef Chile

1 pound Beef, round steak, or stewing beef, cubed**
1 cup chopped Onions*
1/4 cup Carbquick flour (or other low carb flour)
1 tablespoon Red Chile Powder
1/4 teaspoon Seasoning Salt
1/2 cup sliced Bell Peppers *
1 cup Canned Pumpkin Puree
1 15 oz can Mexican style Fire Roasted Tomatoes
1 teaspoon Cumin
Pinch of Red Pepper Flakes
1/4 teaspoon black Pepper
1/1 teaspoon Garlic
1 tablespoon Olive Oil

*For a quicker version, you can use the same amount of frozen onions and bell peppers.

** You can also use 1 pound of lean ground beef for a quicker version

Mix flour with seasoning salt in a pan and dredge the meat into it. Heat olive oil in a large pot and brown the meat. Add garlic and onions and sauté until just starting to get tender. Add chile powder, bell peppers, tomatoes, cumin, pepper flakes and black pepper and mix well, then stir in the pumpkin puree. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to simmer. Cover and cook for about 1 hour until meat is completely done. Add any additional salt or pepper to your preference.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream, cheddar jack cheese and chopped chives or green onions on top, if desired.

Makes 4 servings.

Nutrition Info (without toppings):
Calories: 303.4 Net Carbs: 10 g Protein: 42.3

Posted on 11/28/2012

Beef, Main Dish, Mexican/Spanish Recipes, Recipes

Super Tamale Pie Not Perfection…

…but it’s getting close. I expect I will be refining this recipe over the next few months, but I’ll go ahead and share it now for anyone else who wants to try a low carb version. When I was a kid, I loved my grandmother’s tamale pie. It was completely encased in a cornmeal crust — tops, sides and bottom of the pan– that is absolutely impossible to recreate in a low carb version. I looked at several recipes that others have tried when I started to make mine. Using a few ideas from these, I came up with this recipe. It has a thin corn meal and almond meal crust that gives the tamale pie flavor without adding many carbs to the dish.

Rene’s Super Tamale Pie

I used Dynasty canned baby corn, which has a very low carb count. Corn is not on the weight loss phase of Atkins, but eaten rarely, it isn’t a real problem.

Crust:
1/3 cup Carbquick
1/3 cup Almond flour
2 tablespoon whole grain Corn Flour
1 tablespoon Shortening
1 Egg
1/2 teaspoon Chili Powder
1/2 teaspoon Tumeric
1 cup Cheddar/Jack Cheese mix

Filling:
1/2 cup Onions, chopped
1 teaspoon minced Garlic
1 1/2 pound Ground Beef, lean
1/2 cup Sweet Peppers, chopped
1 tablespoon Olive Oil
2 tablespoons Red Chili Powder
1 (15.5) oz can Tomatoes with green chilies
2 tablespoons Black Olives, chopped
3 oz. Baby Corn, canned, drained and chopped (look for lowest carb count)

Preheat oven to 365 degrees F.

Prepare the filling first. In a large cast iron or oven proof skillet, sauté the onions and chopped peppers in a bit of olive oil until the onions are just translucent. Remove. Add the ground beef to the pan and cook until it just turns brown. Then add the tomatoes, red chile powder, olives and chopped corn. Mix together well and cook until bubbly. Stir onions and peppers back in. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix Carbquick, almond flour, corn flour, and seasonings. Cut in shortening, then add egg. Add enough water to make a spreadable batter. Stir in 1/2 the cheese. Spread over the top of filling mixture, covering as much of the surface as possible. The layer will be thin. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until the crust is almost done. Spread the remaining cheese over the top and return to oven for another 5 minutes until the cheese is melted. Serve with sour cream if desired.

Makes 8 servings:
Nutrition Info:  Calories 363.6  Net Carbs: 6.9 g  Protein: 21.8 g

Posted on 01/17/2013

Beef, Main Dish, Mexican/Spanish Recipes, Recipes, Soups and Stews

Tex-Mex Chile With Bite

As the weather is beginning to turn colder, my thoughts turn to chile, soups and stews. These are so comforting and warming on cold, rainy or snowy evenings in late Fall and Winter.

I’ve used this Tex-Mex Chile recipe for at least three decades. When I first started making it, I used diced jalpeno chilies in the recipe. Now days, my stomach prefers not quite as much spice, so I’ve started using a medium hot green chile. You can also make it with mild green chilies. This is a meat only chili, so it is a satisfying meal and you can serve a nice salad and pinto beans on the side if you like. I tend to avoid beans due to the high number of carbohydrates in them, so a salad or my Tex-Mex Spanish Cauli-rice work as good side dishes.

2 lbs. Beef Stew Meat
1/2 cup Low Carb Flour
1 large Onion raw
1/2 cup Chopped Green Chiles
1 tablespoon red Chili Powder
1 tablespoon minced Garlic
2 cups Stewed Tomatoes (1 lb can)
2 teaspoons Seasoning Salt
1 cup Beef Stock
Additional Salt and Pepper to taste
Shredded cheddar cheese for topping

Cut stew meat into bite sized pieces. Heat 3 tablespoons oil in a cast iron or heavy stewing pot. Dredge meat in flour, then put into stewing pot and lightly brown. Excess flour will fall off the meat into the pot and that is ok. Remove the meat to a plate, then add more oil if needed. Add the garlic and the onions and cook until the onions are just tender. Add beef stock, seasonings and stewed tomatoes and chopped chiles. Mix well and add the beef back to the pot. Stir it up, bring to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer and cover the pot. Let stew for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally until the meat is tender and the broth is thickened.

Serve in a bowl, top with shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream, if desired, and warm tortillas. (There are several brands of low carb flour tortillas available at the market.)

Makes about 6 servings. Nutrition per serving:
Calories: 243 Net carbs 7.6 g, Protein: 36.3 g
Posted on 11/16/2012

Beef, Main Dish, Pork, Recipes

Pizza On the Menu – Yes!

When you’re eating low carb, you automatically assume that there are some foods you just can’t eat… like pizza. Wrong! You just can’t eat pizza from Papa Murphy’s or Papa John’s or Pizza Hut or … you get the picture. The real culprit is the bread crust. You can either order a pizza with lots of meat and vegetables on it and just eat the toppings, or you can make your own at home with several options for a low carb crust.

Over at Your Lighter Side, there is a really good chicken crust. Yep, odd as that sounds, ground up cooked chicken mixed with mozzarella cheese and Italian seasonings fills in remarkably well for bread. In fact, it almost tastes like bread. I really can’t improve on the recipe there, except to say that I add in the seasonings when I am processing the chicken and cheese in the food processor.

If you like, or at least don’t mind, cauliflower, it can also be processed to a rice-like consistency with mozzarella cheese and pressed into a pan to become a very good crust. I like it and it is sturdy enough to stand up to the pizza toppings. Again, the recipe is on Your Lighter Side for cauliflower pizza crust.

I also use a flax meal crust, which is more of a bread made from flax meal and almond flour. This version is mine and is on this blog, so find it here.

Now for the toppings — here’s where you can get creative! I recently found a product called Montana Redneck Cottage Bacon that is a smoked bacon from the shoulder butt and it is delicious. It is similar to the bacon you find in England and Ireland, which is more like Canadian bacon, only it’s in strips. So I used this to create my great bacon pizza. If you can’t find it at your stores, use thick sliced bacon instead. I used Classico Alfredo Sauce for the base sauce to make a delicious white pizza. There are other low carb Alfredo sauces, so just check for the lowest carb one you can find.

Bacon with Alfredo Sauce Pizza

1 8″ pizza crust (chicken, cauliflower or flax)

2 slices of Montana Pork Shoulder Bacon or thick sliced bacon
2 oz Italian pork sausage
1/4 cup bacon bits
1/2 cup onion, diced
1/4 cup mushrooms, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped black olives
1 tablespoon butter
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
1/2 cup fresh Spinach leaves, torn
1 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded
2 tablespoons Parmesan or Reggiano cheese, shredded
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
1/2 cup Classico Alfredo Sauce

Preheat oven to 375 degrees (F). Prepare your favorite low carb pizza crust and partially cook it as stated in the recipe for that crust. Let crust cool a bit while preparing the toppings. I use a cake pan with parchment paper on the bottom to spread the crust on and it makes a nice size for 4 slices.

In a skillet, melt butter and add onions. Cook and stir until they are tender. Add the mushrooms and cook a couple of minutes longer. Remove to a paper towel. Add the bacon to the skillet and cook it. If you’re using pre-cooked bacon, you can skip this step. Crumble the sausage into small pieces and brown in the skillet. Break the bacon into smaller pieces.

Spread the Alfredo sauce over the pizza base evenly and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of Italian seasonings. Sprinkle the onions and mushrooms over the sauce, then add the sausage, followed by the bacon pieces, then the bacon bits and olives. Spread the spinach leaves over the top, then cover them with the mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle the Parmesan cheese and pepper flakes, if you are using them, on last.

Bake for 25 to 35 minutes until the cheese is lightly toasted. Let sit for about 5 minutes to set, then cut into 4 slices and serve.

Nutrition Info 1 slice (toppings only)
Calories: 270.8 Fat: 14.7 g Net Carbs: 4.3 g Protein: 14.3 g

Posted on 4/1/2014 2:09 PM