Recipe of the Week: Clean Eating Beef Nachos

The fourteenth week of my elimination diet is done and it has been another successful reintroduction and another food back on the menu!

This week I reintroduced beef. It’s been a really long time since I’ve eaten red meat more than once a week and I loved having something other than lamb and chicken.

Now I wasn’t expecting my eczema to react to beef, that would just be weird, but I was monitoring myself for energy levels and sleep, which were unaffected!

Obviously I’m not going to be eating beef every single night so I only had it three times during the week. I had an amazing roast that a friend cooked on Tuesday and then on Thursday I had nachos! Then again on Friday as leftovers.

Clean Eating Beef Nachos

Nachos are an absolute favourite of mine. I used to eat them any excuse I could get, usually loaded with cheese, sour cream and way too many corn chips. I do make pretty amazing nachos. When I started eating healthier nachos became a rare treat due to all the processed extras (canned tomatoes etc I used to add to them), I think I ate them once in a three month period. When I started the elimination diet they were completely out the window. Pretty much the only part I could eat was the onion!

The last few months I’ve been experimenting making elimination diet friendly versions of foods that I used to eat. Experimenting has made it more fun and I think a bit easier, since I’m not just eating the exact same things over and over. There have been a few failures and a few successes, and nachos was an absolute success.

Instead of corn chips I made kumara (sweet potato) chips, an idea I found and tweaked to my liking from Millie at Clean Eatz NZ and you know what, so glad she shared that idea! I think I prefer it to corn chips!

I can’t have beans yet, so I omitted these, but I did separate Zombies half and add chilli beans to his and gave him corn chips and he still liked them even though it was a healthier version than he’s used to.

Since I didn’t eat anything spicy for such a long time my heat intolerance has gone down quite a bit, so I used minimal spices for this recipe. If you want it hotter simply add more spices to taste.

For 4 serves

300 gms mince
2 medium orange kumara (sweet potato) thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves crushed
1 onion diced
5 tomatoes diced
1 red bell pepper diced
2 cups freshly chopped spinach
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground cumin
Salt and pepper to taste
A little grated cheese
2 tbsp coconut or extra virgin olive oil

In a saucepan immerse the sliced kumara in cold water and bring to the boil.

After boiling for 10 minutes, drain the water from the kumara and set aside.

Heat two frying pans on medium with a little oil in each.

In one pan, place the kumara slices in a single layer. Fry for 20 minutes or until golden brown, turning often.

In the other pan sweat all the chopped vegetables for five minutes then set aside in a bowl.

Add the mince to the pan and brown.

Add back the vegetables then all the spices and mix well. This is the point where I separated Zombies and added the beans.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

Arrange your kumara chips on a plate as you would if you were having corn chips.

Top with a little cheese, then the mince mix, then more cheese.

Zombie had his with sour cream but I was good. I actually think I prefer this version to the nachos I used to eat, which is awesome!

Tomorrow I am reintroducing gluten free oats. I’m pretty excited about this. New flavours for pancakes, more baking options, breakfasts, it’s going to be good. Fingers crossed it all goes well.

This post is linked up to Tasty Tuesday

Smiles and Sunshine
Katie