I pulled this recipe off of fastpaleo.com and it was great, I modified it a bit and I have some cautionary tales to go with it, mainly because i had just WODed and did not have all of my wits about me, and I was multi-tasking a bit to much.
First things first, if you’re not getting local produce and you can, do it. There is a local organic farmer that sells some kick butt produce in downtown Charleston and every thing I’ve bought from him is good. Well except his peaches didn’t look good, but dang it, no one is producing good peaches this season.
There is something about farm fresh produce that has been produced organically, it tastes better, it lasts in the fridge longer and is a little larger. It’s probably because it’s not genetically modified to be perfect!
I’m like anyone else though, it all comes to budget and convenience. I can’t shop at the farmers market every week, and lets be honest, if you sign up for a CSA you’re going to get veggies you don’t want to eat. If they gave me a steady supply of brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes I’d be very happy.
Ok on to the sausage blueberry muffin poppers. No these aren’t actual muffins, they’re meat muffins, no grains or nuts or dairy involved.
Word to the wise. I filled up a muffin tin close to over flowing with meat. This provided for a good sized popper but what I wasn’t thinking about was grease production. Since nothing has cooked out yet, these suckers sweat out grease like a well…you can fill in any analogy you’d like there, and then I stay PC.
They produced several cups of grease and I put nothing under them to catch it, thus an ensuing massive grease fire took place in my oven causing me to shout obscenities over the phone while my girlfriend listened on in amusement. The fire went out on it’s own and thankfully so because I had no fire extinguisher (Something I will remedy) and i managed to avoid the smoke alarm going off by opening the doors and yanking the unit out of the ceiling.
I finished cooking them on the grill in a deep drip pan and it worked out beautifully. I might have just about had a heart attack over these little balls of awesome.
Prep time: only took about 15 minutes because I pre-cooked the fennel otherwise it would take like 5 minutes. Cook time…about 50 minutes at 400 degrees F. (and if you manage to catch fire and save them like I did, 400 in a tray on the grill will suffice as well, you might just have to watch it more)
Ingredients:
2lb of ground pork (i used some hot pork sausage with no added sugar or crap)
6 strips of bacon diced small
1 carton of blueberries
2-4 eggs (I accidentally omitted these and they still turned out ok)
1 bulb of fennel
1 small bunch of green onions
2 teaspoons of ground garlic
1 teaspoon of black pepper
pinch of sea salt
How to:
Dice up the bulb of fennel and onion to fairly small chunks and saute in a pan with a little fat of your choice until they start to soften.
In a large mixing bowl combine all of the ingredients together (might have to wait for your onions and fennel to cool a bit). Spoon a generous amount of the mix into the muffin tins, no paper required, it would end up a mess anyway. PUT A BIG, DEEP COOKIE SHEET UNDER THE MUFFIN TIN. This should help catch any grease spillage and avoid a grease fire and unnecessary sailor language. let them bake in the oven for about 50 minutes, if you want them to be less greasy, pop them out and let them cook on another cookie sheet for a few more minutes until the grease has vacated.
I ate them hot and cold and they were great quick breakfasts!
enjoy!
DennyWeinman.com 