Paleo Peach BBQ Sauce

When The Husband and I were in Pennsylvania for Labor Day, we stopped at my favorite orchard for fruit before heading back home on Sunday night. Amongst other things, we ended up with a half bushel of fresh peaches. Let me tell you, our car smelled awesome on the drive home. Fresh peaches = best car freshener ever.

The first few days it was easy to use some of our new stash. I packed one in my lunch each day, The Husband ate some at breakfast…but it soon became apparent that we’d have to do something with the rest of our peaches, and fast. I had a couple of ideas, but the one that wouldn’t go away also happened to be a bi-product of the Labor Day weekend.

BBQ sauce.

There isn’t a lot I miss from my non-paleo days, but one of the few things I do find myself craving is a sweet and spicy BBQ sauce. I’ve never made homemade BBQ sauce before and to be honest I don’t actually think I’ve ever eaten peach BBQ sauce before, but because I happened to have a whole bunch of peaches on hand, well…

You get the picture.

So we looked up some recipes online and after finding recipe after recipe that contained sugar, brown sugar, or honey, I finally found one that didn’t use any added sweeteners at all! The secret ingredient? Mango!

The combination of the super ripe peaches and the super sweet mango created the perfect blend of sweet to balance out the heat from the jalapeno and the tang from the apple cider vinegar and lime juice.

The recipe was fairly easy as well. I simmered the peaches and mango with some onion, jalapeno pepper, chicken stock and tomato pasted and cooked down for a while before tossing it into a blender to form a sauce. Then I added the sauce back to the pot on the stove, added apple cider vinegar, lime juice, ancho chili powder and a healthy dose of Stubbs BBQ spice rub, and let it simmer away!

Amazing.

While I was making the BBQ sauce, The Husband threw a bunch of pork ribs in the crockpot with some seasonings of his own. Once they were ready, we tossed them with the BBQ sauce and dinner was served!

PALEO PEACH BBQ SAUCE

adapted from this recipe

yields: approximately 2 cups BBQ sauce

prep time: 15-20 minutes

cook time: 1.5 hours

INGREDIENTS:

4 peaches, peeled and chopped

1 mango, peeled and chopped

1/2 cup onion, diced

1 jalapeno, diced

1/2 cup chicken stock

1 4.5 oz tube tomato paste

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1 lime, juiced

2 tbsp stubbs BBQ spice rub

ancho chili powder (sprinkle to taste)

2 tbsp olive oil

INSTRUCTIONS

Heat olive oil in a dutch oven and add peaches and mango. Cook to soften, about 5-10 minutes. Add onion, jalapeno, chicken stock and tomato paste and cook on medium heat for approximately 20 minutes, until all ingredients begin to combine and are soft enough to puree. Working in batches, puree your mixture in a blender to the consistency you desire – I left mine still slightly chunky because that’s how I wanted it, but you can puree until smooth if you’d like. Return the mixture to the pot and add vinegar, lime juice and spices. Reduce heat to medium low and let simmer for approximately one hour, stirring occasionally, until sauce darkens and thickens, again to the consistency you desire.

Enjoy!

I also highly recommend this with barbecued chicken on a grill. Nom.

Chili Lime Pork Tenderloin with Mango Salsa and Toasted Almond Cauliflower Rice (Whole30 approved)

Have you ever made one of those meals that is pretty time intensive and involved, but when it all comes together and you sit down to eat it’s like the entire meal comes together perfectly and you hear the Hallelujah Chorus playing in the background as you take a bite? No?

Well, that’s what happened here.

In all fairness, I can’t take too much credit for this meal. The Man made most of it – I just made the almond-cauliflower-rice-pilaf. After he had done most of the prep work, that is.

We bought pork tenderloin kind of on a whim – I love eating it, but I’ve never actually made it myself. And I was really feeling mango salsa, so we decided to go for it. (It didn’t hurt that the pork was on sale and the mangoes we bought were absolutely beautiful.)

The Man started searching for recipes, and he came up with one in particular from The Food Work: Emeril Lagasse’s “Pan-Roasted-Lime-Marinated-Pork-Tenderloin-with-Mango-Salsa-and-Almond-Rice-Pilaf.” How’s that for a mouthful? Anyway, because we are doing the Whole30 (and because The Man doesn’t really measure anything when he cooks), we made some tweaks to the original recipe.

We (and when I say “we” I mean “he”…The Man got most of this meal done while I was at work) started with the Mango Salsa – his was considerably better than mine, but I think hope that was mostly because his mangoes were way more ripe than mine. (Did anyone else just hear Meg Ryan say to Tom Hanks “I hope your mango is ripe – a la You’ve Got Mail? Anyone?)

He added mango, onion, red pepper, jalapeno, garlic, lime juice and apple cider vinegar, sprinkling it with some powdered ginger and the barest hint chipotle chili powder before moving on to the pork marinade. Aside from some measurements, the only real change he made to the marinade was substituting fresh squeezed orange juice for the honey in order to make the recipe Whole30 approved. I’m guessing the honey might have made the marinade a little bit stickier, causing it to caramelize on the pork as it cooked, but ours was so good I really can’t imagine it could get any better!

Just look at that gorgeous piece of meat!

When I got home from work The Man had the add-in veggies chopped for the rice, all I had to do was grate the cauliflower and throw everything in the pan. Pretty simple! The recipe was quite similar to my indian pilau rice and my cauliflower fried rice. I had the added benefit of using fresh chicken stock leftover from the Roast Chicken we made for dinner on Tuesday night.

The recipe may have been a little more time-intensive than we’re used to, but WOW was it worth it!

chili lime marinated pork tenderloin served with mango salsa and cauliflower rice pilaf

Not only does it look gorgeous (if I do say so myself), but it tasted phenomenal. The pork had a delicate lime flavor that was balanced with the sweet and heat of the salsa, which paired perfectly with the rice. It just came together so well. We definitely put this recipe aside to make for the next time we have company!

Think we liked it?

Apple Cinnamon Sausage Patties

The grocery store near my parents house has this deal on meat – certain varieties/packages/products are 5 for $20, which equals out to $4 each. (I did the simple math for y’all because for some reason in my head I always think it equals 5$ each, and then I feel like a moron when my sister corrects me. True story.) Now, that doesn’t really mean much of a deal if you pick out a package of, say, ground beef that’s only $3.50 (you’d be surprised), or a couple of ham steaks at $2.98 a piece…but if you pay attention you can really save some money. For example, the last time I was home I snagged a 2 pound package of ground pork that was priced at $6.78, but with the deal I got it for $4! And I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my steal of a deal.

You may remember these from this post from last Wednesday, and you may remember I said I’d give y’all the recipe the next day? Well, that sounded like the perfect plan until I realized that all my pictures of these lovely little sausage patties were saved on my external hard drive on the East Coast…and I was on the West Coast.

Total blogger fail.

So instead you get the recipe today, now that I’m back from my week of vacation, from which I need another week of vacation to recover from my vacation. Funny how that works, huh?

Anyway.

I originally called these “Pork and Apple Breakfast Sausage” because more often that not I’ll eat them hot with eggs in the morning, but as you saw in the aforementioned last Wednesday’s post, they are also a great travel snack when you need a quick hit of protein. They taste just as good cold and you can easily eat them with your fingers, which is what I look for in a good travel snack. As long as I have a couple of napkins with me that is!

And have I mentioned they freeze incredibly well? I don’t normally eat meat with breakfast…I don’t particularly love bacon (sorry!!), and it’s generally just easier for me to scramble up some eggs and veggies and call it a day. But every now and then when I get that craving, I just pull a bag of these out of the freezer the night before (I bag them individually because I’m all about quick and easy) and the next morning I toss them into my skillet to heat through and voila! Plus they have my favorite sweet and savory flavor combination from the apple and the spices and the pork and the cinnamon, which turns out to be the perfect complement for pretty much any breakfast combination.

Oh, and another thing? You have two options for when you want to cook the patties – I pan fried the ones I used for this post because I like the dark outer edges and it takes a lot less time, but you can also bake these patties and they taste just as good. Plus, it’s a lot less mess in your kitchen. Completely up to you!

These are also incredibly versatile, and I love to play around with flavor combinations. However, the combination of pork and apple and cinnamon just…works. I can’t really explain it, at least not in any way that won’t make me sound insane, so you’ll just have to go try it!

WHAT YOU’LL NEED (makes about 12 patties, depending on size)

2 lbs ground pork

1 yellow onion, diced

1 small gala or pink lady apple, diced

2 tbsp savory or salt free seasoning (I used a McCormicks blend)

1/2 tbsp cinnamon

salt and pepper to taste

your favorite oil for frying (optional – I used coconut oil)

WHAT TO DO

In a large bowl all your ingredients and mix well – it’s easiest to use your hands in order to make sure everything is combined. Form into uniform sized patties (it doesn’t matter how large or small, but ensuring the same size patties will make for equal cooking time).

If frying, heat your oil in a large skillet and fry the patties, approximately 5 minutes per side until cooked through. Lay on paper towels to soak up excess oil.

If baking, line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and lay your patties out like cookies. Bake at 375 for 25 minutes or until cooked through (it depends on the thickness of your patties). If you bake these, they won’t get as dark as the ones in my pictures, so you may have to cut one open to make sure it’s cooked all the way through.

I should probably start doing something new with my photo editing, huh?

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