Paleo Eats: 9/23/12

Graveyard shifts at the hospital are always unpredictable. Normally, the variety keeps things interesting, but every single night this week, I’ve been stomping out fires for ten hours straight. This old pill pusher’s tired. Calgon, take me away!

I knew I was in for another hectic shift, so I purposely packed food that I could eat straight from the fridge. But it wasn’t until daybreak that I finally had a moment to scarf down leftovers from my dad’s birthday dinner.

I was ragged when I came home, and wanted nothing more than to conk out. But duty called; the meat in my defrost bowl demanded attention. Damned needy protein.

I quickly seasoned a Porterhouse steak, lamb leg roast, and brisket with Magic Mushroom Powder before shrink-wrapping them in vacuum-sealed packages.

Don’t have Magic Mushroom Powder? No worries – just use your favorite all-purpose seasoning salts or spice blends. As long as you’ve got a reliable flavor booster in your kitchen arsenal, you’ll always end up with something you want to eat. It’s no fun eating blah food, right?

Once the water in my SousVide Supreme reached 130°F, I dunked in the meat.

Each packet will finish cooking at different times, so for easy removal, I made sure I stacked them so that the quickest-cooking are on top. As Lil-O likes to say: “I used my brain, because I have one. The zombies haven’t eaten it yet.”

Although snoozing’s preferable to cooking, the 10 minutes I spent on meat prep were well worth it. I now have plenty of emergency protein ready to sear off at a moment’s notice.

Less than seven hours later, I crawled out of bed to prepare dinner. I was itching to roast vegetables in my new countertop toaster oven…

…but it was too shiny and pretty to soil just yet.

Instead, I cooked our whole meal in my trusty cast-iron skillet and griddle. Clean-up would be a snap; at the end of the meal, I just had to scrub ‘em with hot water. (Alternatively, I could just leave the dirty pans on the stove. You know, to add to the seasoning. Yeeeeah…that’s the ticket.)

I dusted a pound of pristine black gill rock fish fillets from Siren SeaSA with Magic Mushroom Powder (deja vu all over again!)…

…and pan-fried them in butter.

My kids aren’t big fans of fish, so I pulled the sous vide porterhouse steak out of the water oven and seared it on the griddle.

(The Double-Os ate half the steak for dinner. The rest was packed in their lunchboxes for school.)

Once the proteins were finished cooking, I stir-fried onions, broccoli, and shiitake mushrooms in butter.

The addition of bone broth and Red Boat Fish Sauce elevated this simple stir-fry into something that even our family’s pickiest eater (hello, Lil-O) devoured.