Beef Mushroom Endive Taco Boats

Paleo Beef Mushroom Endive Taco Boats.  This is a recipe for the Blend and Extend strategy – adding finely chopped mushrooms to ground beef to add more vegetables to your plate, extending portions and adding volume to meals.  That works for me because I normally dice up a whack of veg and mix it into my GB.

I love tacos!  And cooking ground beef always makes me think taco seasoning.  But pre-made taco seasoning has a bunch of extra crap and fillers.  What's a health-conscious guy to do?  Make his own homemade taco seasoning, of course!

I have something to confess.  This is the first time I've ever used endives (did you know that they are a member of the daisy family?  Thanks, Wikipedia!), but it was in my head when creating this recipe.  I watched this video about them:

You don't have to wash them???  Sweet.  I dislike washing leafy stuff, cause then you have to shake or pat or spin them dry, but they're never really dry are they?  And are they really ever clean?

So I did not enjoy the pronunciation in that video, as I thought it was N-dive.  But what Google learning resulted in was that she indeed was correct.  And who would know better than the people at www.endive.com?

Anyway, to make this a little more summery I figured a nice fruit salsa would be great.  I love this pineapple avocado salsa.  It's easy and delicious.  That sweetness is nice with the salty mushroom-beef.  Trust me.  And the whole thing looks pretty darn cool.  And one more great thing about this recipe:  If you don't eat all of the beef, it freezes really well in a Zip-lock freezer bag, which then thaw quickly when you need!

OK, before I let share the recipe, we need to take a look at something.  I was at the store with a friend earlier this week and they were selling “square watermelon”.  Oh, I forgot to mention the ridiculous aspects of this: $199 each, and they don't taste any good since they are immature.  Who is paying for these?

Well, why stop at cubes?  At least these heart ones are supposed to taste good.

So this same grocery store is selling “bling h2o”, a glammed up brand of bottled water.  $5 for the plain bottle, $50 for the fancy bottles….  Money well spent, no?  (That's sarcasm for those of you who missed it!)

You can see the all the available bottles here (you'd think they would be able to afford a cooler website.  I do like the elevator music though).

OK, back to today's recipe:  I decided to offer a lacto-paleo option today because this one truly is great with cheese.  I added olives for that yummy salty flavor for those of you who want/need to avoid dairy.  Let me know what you think!

Beef Mushroom Endive Taco Boats & Pineapple Salsa

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• Author: Raj - www.ThePrimalDesire.com

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 2 lbs ground beef
• 6 large white or brown mushrooms (finely chopped)
• 1 red onion (finely chopped – 1/4 cup put aside for salsa)
• 1 red chilli pepper (finely diced)
• 2 cloves garlic
• 3 heaping Tbsp taco seasoning (homemade, Paleo)
• 4–6 endives (leaves separated from base – see video above)
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes (finely chopped)
• 2–3 Tbsp ghee or grass-fed butter

optional:

• 1/2 – 1 can black olives (chopped)
• shredded aged cheddar or crumbled blue cheese (if lacto-paleo)

Pineapple Salsa

• 1 1/2 cups pineapple (about 1/2 a pineapple – finely chopped – choosing & cutting pineapples)
• 1/4 cup red onion (finely diced – from above)
• 1–2 Tbsp cilantro (diced)
• 1 avocado (cubed, salted and coated in lime juice)

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Instructions

Pineapple Avocado Salsa (make this in advance so that flavors can blend):

1. Mix 1/4 cup finely chopped red onion with pineapple, cilantro, and avocado.
2. Place in fridge until needed.

Endive Boats:

1. In a large frying pan or pot, melt ghee or butter over medium heat.
2. Add remaining onions and mushrooms, cooking until soft.
3. Add chilli, garlic and beef, stirring well to break up ground beef.
4. Once browned, mix in taco seasoning and olives.
5. Fill each endive leaf with ground beef/mushroom mixture.
6. If using cheese, sprinkle each endive.
7. Serve with pineapple salsa and cherry tomatoes to be spooned on top.

Notes

This is great with aged cheddar or even blue cheese if you eat lacto-paleo. If not, it's still a really nice balance of flavors to share with everyone!

• Cuisine: Mexican