Apple sausage stir-fry with fennel and cherries

There was a version of you who grabbed a sausage from the freezer aisle without a thought. Now you mix your own from ground pork and the herbs already in your spice tin, sage and rosemary and thyme, because the pre-made kind is built from fillers and seed spices the protocol asks you to set aside right now. It is a small extra step, and it changes the whole plate: one pan, about 15 minutes, fennel and apple and cherries cooking down around the meat you seasoned yourself.

Pork is a source of zinc, involved in immune regulation and in the repair of the gut barrier this way of eating is working to settle. The spinach wilted in at the end adds folate and magnesium, and the fennel, apple, and cherries bring fiber and color that feed a healthier gut community. A plate with real protein and a real spread of plants is the shape a healing plate is meant to take.

The pig that became this pound of ground meat lived and was raised for exactly this, and that is worth a breath of acknowledgment before the pan gets hot. Taste it before you plate it, season further if it needs it, and eat this one sitting down, the way the whole approach asks you to eat everything now.

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground pork
• 1 tsp ground sage
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp dried rosemary
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• 1 fennel bulb, sliced
• 2 green apples, chopped
• 1 cup pitted cherries
• 8 cups fresh spinach

Method

Mix the ground pork with the sage, ginger, rosemary, thyme, salt, garlic powder, and cinnamon until the herbs run through it evenly. This is your quick homemade breakfast sausage.

Warm the coconut oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the seasoned pork and the sliced fennel together, breaking the meat into pieces as it browns, about 5 minutes.

Add the chopped apple and pitted cherries and cook a few minutes more, until the pork is cooked through.

Pile in the spinach and let it wilt down, about 2 minutes, tossing so it folds into the warm pork and fruit. Serve straight from the pan.

A note on swaps

If you cannot find fennel, a sliced onion, apple, or pear gives a similar texture, with the fennel's mild licorice sweetness traded for something a little plainer. Frozen cherries (thawed and drained) or dried cherries work in place of fresh. Store-bought sausage is fine if you read the label and it clears the protocol, though making your own from the herb blend above is the surest way to keep it clean.

*Adapted from acleanplate.com*

*Lower-sugar note: the sugar here is the apples, not added sweetener. For a lighter serving, use a smaller portion, or blend in a splash of water or coconut milk to stretch the batch so each serving carries less.*