Whole 30 Approved Skillet Chicken Divan

I was introduced to "Chicken Broccoli Casserole" when I was in college. I'd never had it before then and I doubt I ever would have eaten it in college if they hadn't consistently served it on the same day the served "Shit on a Shingle" (or whatever less negative name you call it). Eventually, I did try both of these dishes and found that I actually really like Chicken Broccoli Casserole.  I've made it a few dozen times over the years when I get the urge, but haven't had it in at least  two years, and that's been largely due to the high dairy content.  So, I was quite happy when I stumbled upon this recipe and realized it was basically the same thing, except dairy-free.  As soon as I read it I knew I'd be giving it a try and soon. Soon turned out to be the very next day.

I headed to the store earlier today to make sure I had the couple of ingredients I knew I was lacking: cashews and broccoli.  The fresh broccoli was looking a little piqued so I opted for frozen. It was 4:30 when I decided I should pull up the recipe and make sure I knew what I was doing before I started cooking... and that's when I saw that I needed to soak the cashews. Luckily, she provided a quick way to do so, or I'd have had to put this dish off until tomorrow.  So, I got those going knowing I still had plenty of time before Paul got home and finished working out.

Once Paul got home I started on the rest, cooking the chicken and throwing everything else in the blender.

Somehow I missed the part about adding the chicken stock to the blender so I was fighting to get everything to cream. I finally pulled it out of the regular blender and ran it through my Tribest (which will blend anything) and got it fairly creamy. I then added that to the pan with the broccoli and chicken and poured in the chicken stock stirring it all together.

I let that cook down for a little bit and  walla! Paul finished working out and commented that he smelled curry (which made him happy and more willing to try something that I wouldn't give him the ingredient list for). I wasn't sure how he'd react but he was quite happy with it (as was I). I'm sure it would be better if I'd added the chicken stock during the blend phase, but it was still very good and now I know how to make a dairy free cream sauce.

Ok, it looks a little gross, but it was really really good.  Oh, and I topped it with almond meal instead of the flax meal, which did give it that nice bread-crumb texture.  I'd definitely make this again.

Bacon covered meatloaf for 2

As soon as I saw this recipe, I knew I had to make it and soon. Everything is better with bacon, after all.  Luckily, we had some chicken sausage in the freezer. I forget the brand but it was a gluten-free chicken sausage we picked up at CostCo. I will say that this particular sausage seemed really greasy when we cooked it.  We were all out of ground beef, though, so that meant a run to CostCo. Once I had everything in hand I set out to make the meatloaf of all meatloafs.

I've really got to get better at taking more pics as I go, but it's a little hard when your hands are all sticky and covered in meat mixture.  Since there are only 2 of us, I cut the recipe in about half. My recipe looked like this:

1lb ground beef
2-3 chicken sausages (casings removed)
1 egg
1/2 red pepper (diced)
1/2 red onion (diced)
handful of parsley (I used dried because it was all I had)
3 cloves of garlic (chopped)
1/2 cup almond flour
3Tbsp horseradish mustard (we had Dijon but horseradish just sounded better)
2 Tbsp bbq sauce
1/2 lb of bacon
salt, pepper

Preheat over to 350. Grease your loaf pan with coconut oil. (Do this first or, like me, you'll have to get someone else to do it later when your hands are all covered in meat). Mix the ground meat, sausage, egg, red pepper, onion, almond flour, garlic, mustard, salt & pepper together in a bowl. Use your hands, it's really the only way to mix a meatloaf.  Form it into a nice loaf shape and drop it into the greased loaf pan. Salt & Pepper the top of the loaf. Cover the top with BBQ sauce.  Then cover it with bacon.  I tried to lay them out ahead of time like they did in the other recipe but then I couldn't figure out how to transfer them to the loaf. So, I laid a few pieces across the loaf in one direction then went back the other way and so on, until it was nice and covered. Then place it in the over for 90 minutes.  Note, I found that my loaf was creating a lot of grease (I blame the sausages I used) so I took it out at about 60 minutes and drained most of the grease off.

I served our meat loaf with some nice sauteed (and slightly crispy) baby bella mushrooms.  It was quite yummy.