I was meal planning this morning. After completing the grocery list and sending to Max via email, he came back inside the house after a quick walk with George to say - it's really cold, how about chili tonight? With the brisket chili recipe on my speed dial since November, I decided to change things up this time and revise our meals for the week.
After talking with both my doctor and acupuncturist about a hormonal imbalance (yep, acupuncture started this week. Interesting experience but I think I like it), then the suggestion from a fellow loss mama regarding her experience going Paleo and the link that has with hormones and fertility, I've started following some new Paleo bloggers to learn their ways. My friends Casey and Shelby have been my Yodas in answering all of my so wait, is this Paleo? questions. For this recipe, I took my brisket chili and removed everything from it that made it non-Paleo. Then, I compared the remaining parts of my recipe with PaleOMG's Pulled Pork Chili just to make sure I was safe with all my ingredients.
How does this recipe compare to my Brisket Chili? For starters, I swapped butternut squash for sweet potatoes. Gasp! I know. Not that anything would be wrong with butternut squash, I just opted for a change up. If you google "are sweet potatoes paleo?" you will see that some say yes, others are a hard no - they are in the grey area. I chose to use them because of the nutritional components I'm looking for. I removed the black beans, the beer and added more stock (used veggie instead of beef stock - it's what we already had) and water. PaleOMG had a fun technique with garlic, so I adopted that and used her recipe's suggested tomato sauce + hot sauce to thicken the base. I used all my same spices, and removed the brown sugar. Overall, I would say this is a decent hybrid between her pulled pork chili and my brisket chili with a special bonus, it's totes paleo y'all. I also made this in a dutch oven, rather than how she made it in the crock pot. Cooking times would vary, the crock pot taking 8 hours on low. This takes 4 hours in the oven which is perfect for a day you are home around the house.
Enjoy!
Ingredients:
- 2 lb. pork shoulder roast, fat trimmed
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1/2 cup salsa
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1.5 - 2 cups chopped sweet potato (small cubes)
- 1 can fire roasted tomatoes with green chiles
- 1 red bell pepper, diced
- 2 tbsp. tomato paste
- 1/2 cup tomato sauce
- 1/2 cup water
- 1.5 cup veggie stock
- 3 tbsp. chili powder
- 1 tbsp. cumin
- 1/2 tsp. cayenne
- 1 tsp. garlic powder
- Green onion (optional garnish)
- Avocado (optional garnish)
1) In a dutch oven, heat a smidge of coconut or avocado oil on medium high heat.
2) Using a knife, cut a slit in the top of the meet, making a circle, in three places. Then stick a clove of garlic in each hole.
3) Season the roast with salt, pepper. Set the roast in the dutch oven and cover with hot sauce. Continue to brown each side of the pork roast (carefully keeping the garlic inside the meat), above 2 minutes per side.
4) Remove the roast and move to a plate. Add the onions in, scrape up browned bits from the pork and move the onions around in the leftover salsa. Allow them to cook until translucent - about 10 minutes.
5) Place the roast back into the dutch oven, add the cubed sweet potatoes, red bell pepper and fire roasted tomatoes with green chiles and turn down heat to simmer.
6) In a separate bowl, mix the liquids and spices. Whisk until combined.
7) Pour the liquids in the dutch oven, covering the pork and veggies.
8) Set in the oven and cook for 5 hours, or until pork will shred with ease (it should be fall-apart-ready, if the meat is still tough, cook another 30 minutes then test again).
9) Ladle into bowls, garnish with your preferred fixings.
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