Sunday evening cook-a-thon

Well, Sundays are turning out to be quite busy in the kitchen. Today I made some peppermint fudge babies (and then was trying out my new camera and being creative!). They are sooo delicious. This variation had 1.5C of pitted dates, a splash of peppermint essence, 4T cocoa powder and about 2C cashews. Into the food processor and then rolled into balls and chilled. Mark is getting very good at rolling them!!

Since I am fairly good at multi-tasking (I am a woman, after all), I chopped up some root vegetables and roasted them in sizzling bacon fat and dried Italian herbs...yummy! I used turnip/swede, parsnips, carrots, sweet potato, zucchini and peeled garlic cloves.

While those were roasting, I seared some diced chunks of stewing beef, deglazed the pan with red wine, and threw it in the slow cooker with sweet potato and peas for Mark (he is not a vegetable lover so I need to be careful with what I can sneak into his meals).

And then! yes there's more!! I sauteed some onion and garlic in olive oil, and then added some hot chicken stock and raw broccoli, simmered for a while and then pureed it. Voila, broccoli soup! I was going to add some coconut milk but in fact it looks quite creamy on its own.

Okay. Then I cooked up some spicy beef mince: onion, grated zucchini, chilli flakes, and a jar of medium salsa. Now I used 'Doritos salsa' which was my only option. All these American blogs talk about the great stuff you can buy at Trader Joe's...well I don't think we have that here in Australia, and lots of the organic salsa I have seen has loads of sugar in it. At least in this one, sugar is the 7th ingredient, so I'm good with that small amount. I chopped up some jalapeno peppers to throw in. This will go into my paleo lettuce tacos tomorrow.

To go with the taco meat, I shredded some red cabbage, carrot, red onion, and squeezed half a lemon over it all, then added a grated green apple. I am hoping the lemon juice will help the apple NOT brown overnight! This delicious coleslaw will be a topping on my tacos.

So now I have washed a whole heap of dishes, eaten some of the roast veggies with sausages for dinner, and I feel great about what I have accomplished today!!