Monday, November 5 – Paleo Thanksgiving Stuffing

Ingredients:

• 1 pound extra-lean ground beef (we used the 95% lean, organic, grass-fed beef from Whole Foods)
• 2 cups walnut pieces, very finely chopped/ground and soaked overnight (rinse several times before using)
• 1 medium sweet onion, diced
• 4 stalks of celery, diced
• 1 apple, cored and finely diced (we used a Minnesota Honeycrisp)
• Several springs of fresh rosemary, sage, thyme, and marjoram (poultry mix), finely chopped
• ½ tsp garlic powder
• ½ tsp sea salt

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Chop all the veggies, the apple, and herbs.
• Saute the beef and celery for 3-4 minutes on medium heat, making sure that the beef gets broken up into really small pieces as it cooks.  (Big chunks are not very stuffing-like!)  We used a big saucepan for this, as we didn’t want the contents to overflow once everything was mixed.
• Add the onion and apple, and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
• Add the herbs, garlic powder, walnuts, and salt, and mix thoroughly. The beef should NOT be totally cooked at this point – there should still be some pink.
• Pull everything out of the pan, and dump it into a 9×13 baking pan (or two 6×9 pans), and bake uncovered at 375 for 30 minutes.  Serve hot from the oven.