I have to say it: ever since I started the Paleo lifestyle, eating out has not been much fun. I like to eat out as much as the next person, but experience has led me to realize that no matter how straight-forward something sounds on a menu, you really don’t know what you are going to get.

Take Mexican food, for example. There is a Mexican joint that I absolutely love not far from where I work. I have gotten fajitas without cheese, tortillas, sour cream, or half of the other stuff that makes them fajitas many times. Extra guacamole. And then an hour after I have eaten what I thought was a perfectly fine Paleo meal, I have seriously felt like crap.

Or how about instances like today: I took my daughters to a restaurant and found a hamburger steak (hold the gravy), baked onion, and salad with oil and vinegar. I was served the smallest hamburger patty on the planet that had absolutely no flavor. Apparently they only put flavor in the gravy. I’m not sure what kind of vinegar they were serving, either; it looked like it could have been rice vinegar, but I don’t know. When I left that restaurant I felt so dissatisfied that I wasn’t even sure that I had eaten anything.

For me, this lifestyle has been a journey involving flavors, textures, and simplicity. It has been wonderful and eye opening, and realizing that a restaurant’s hamburger steak only has flavor because of the gravy is a bit of a betrayal. Mainly because I took hamburger And made a meatloaf with flavor that would knock your socks off this evening. With flavorful mashed garlic cauliflower and my own baked onions. It was one of the best meals that I’ve had in a while.

Paleo Meatloaf

2 lbs. ground beef
3 tbsp minced garlic
1 tsp marjoram
1 onion, minced
1 red pepper, minced
1/2 green pepper, minced
3 c chopped fresh basil
Salt & Pepper
1 egg

Heat your oven to 350. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and then shape into a loaf in a large (9×13) glass or metal pan. Bake for 1 hour.