I get up early, and have ample time before work to putz around. Not having anything good to eat for my lunch, I thought I’d cook something up with the ground beef I defrosted in the fridge. The stuff is expensive, so I tend to want to use it in a dish that uses it as an ingredient rather than just make burgers out of it, so I rummaged around the kitchen and came up with the following ingredients:
- 1 lb. grass-fed beef
- 2 yellow onions
- 12 oz. chopped tomatoes
- 1 pound frozen chopped kale
- 8 teaspoons Trader Joe’s Taco Seasoning
- 4 tablespoons butter
In a large pan I melted the butter while I haphazardly chopped the onions – it was too early for finesse. I threw the onions in and let them cook on high while I cleaned up the mess from the onions. Cleanup is part of every project, I tell my daughter, ad nauseam, and she can complete the phrase, along with a roll of her eyes, almost before I start saying it.
Parents are so lame.
Anyway, digression aside, I then threw in the beef and broke it up and let that cook until it had formed into nice-sized beef bits and had browned here and there. The addition of the butter inhibits the browning a bit because of the volume of liquid, but I just loves me my butter.
Next went in the chopped tomatoes, then the kale. I stirred these in until the kale had warmed and softened in the heat, then added the taco seasoning. I originally tried 4 teaspoons, but it wasn’t enough, so I bumped it to 8.
A few good stirs to get the seasoning infused throughout the dish, and I set the flame to low and let it simmer for 20 minutes.
The problem with lunch at work is that, like people in hospitals or on airplanes, you are in a sense, a captive audience. You gotta eat what you got in front of you. There’s no fridge stocked with goodies in case you change your mind about what you brought in the morning.
I hadn’t tasted what I made, except to adjust the seasoning, so I wasn’t sure if this was going to be something really enjoyable, or just another experiment that I never tried again.
My verdict was: Damn! This is pretty good. Kale is supposed to be good for you precisely because of its strong, bitter flavor. That makes kale a bit of a challenge for people new to the vegetable. This dish, with the taco seasonings blending with the kale, brought out all the positive flavors of the kale and mellowed the bitterness.
For those of you trying to get in or stay in ketosis as I am at the present, this didn’t cause any issues – consider this ‘Induction -Friendly’.
This one’s a keeper – I’ll have to do it again.
© 2012, LowCarbConfidential.com
Low Carb Confidential 
Yum! I make a similar dish with spinach…think I’ll try your version with the kale…I’ve been trying to find ways to get more greens in my diet. We bought $300 worth of grass fed beef this past fall…it’s been a real challenge because we WANT to like it and we don’t. The flavor is just too different from what we’ve become accustom to. So, adding onion & taco seasoning is a big help. I too work in a hospital and try to take my lunch every day (you’d think a hospital could do a better job with the nutrition).
Bon Apetite’
I’ve got to agree with you – if you’ve spent all your life eating grain-fed beef and like the stuff, grass-fed takes a little getting used to. Last year I bought the grocery store stuff for a barbeque and immediately noticed the flavor difference. The cheap stuff seemed to have more flavor – and that’s probably because the grain-fed cattle have more fat – and fat adds a lot of flavor to meat.
There’s a good reason why they pump those cows with grain and chemicals – because we love it.