Cauliflower Rice & Our Stir Fry

I made mashed cauliflower for Thanksgiving and was really unimpressed. Other people said they liked it, but I'm not sure if they were sincere or just being polite. See, I'm a homemade chunky mashed potato kind of girl, and the texture of mashed cauliflower was
like bad boxed mashed potatoes. ICK!!!

I decided to try the cauliflower route once again tonight (and I don't even like plain cauliflower). The "rice" was a definite winner!! YEA! The recipe I used was once again from The Food Lovers Primal Palate (cookbook).

Ingredients:

• 1/2 head of cauliflower (this makes a lot)

• 1/2 of a vidalia onion, chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil
  
  
• salt and pepper to taste
  
  

(NOTE: I doubled everything to have enough for our family. There was not much left!)

After washing the cauliflower and removing from big stem thing ;-) place florets in a food chopper (or processor, or grate it-but that might take you all day!)

Saute the garlic and onion in the coconut oil for a few minutes. Add the cauliflower and sauté about 5 more minutes.

Ground Chicken Stir-Fry:

Brown some ground chicken (or turkey)

Add in a bunch of veggies (I used an onion, a

green pepper, 3 squash, fresh mushrooms) Saute with some Italian seasoning until everything is tender enough for you.

Throw in some fresh tomatoes the last minute of cooking.

Serve on top of your Cauliflower RIce, WAH LA, Dinner!

Lunch Time

Lunch is still the hardest meal for me to come up with. There usually aren't leftovers, and I don't exactly want to cook another big meal since I'm already cooking breakfast and dinner everyday! The kids are content and easy to please (thank God!) Today, and most days, lunch looks something like this: Cheese (I try giving them grain fed, but the complain because it's not orange. haha), Boars Head Tavern Ham (no sugar coating), watermelon, raisins, apples w/ crunch, banana (not pictured).

E loved hers:

As did L:

And Little E:

Baby J has mastered thumb sucking:

Pumpkin Muffins

A friend of mine (thanks Corinne) passed along this recipe. It really is the best Paleo bread I've made. Not too moist like some of the others. The recipe came from HERE.

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Muffins

Dry Ingredients:

• 2 cups Almond Flour
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
  
• ½ tsp Sea Salt
• 2 tbsps Pumpkin Pie Spice

Wet Ingredients:

• 1 cup Pumpkin Puree
• 3 Eggs
• ¼ cup Grapeseed Oil
• ½ cup Agave Nectar
• 1 cup Chopped Nuts (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. Mix dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. Get out all of the lumps.
3. Mix wet ingredients together in large bowl.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredient bowl.
5. Put muffin papers in muffin tin. Divide the batter into the 12 muffin papers. (Makes 12 muffins.)
6. Bake for 22 – 24 minutes. Check with toothpick for doneness.

Please note: I can never figure out why recipes say to put dry ingredients in a bowl, then wet ingredients in another, THEN mix them. I do NOT enjoy dishes, so I just use one bowl and everything turns out fine. Today, I put them on opposite sides of my big bowl before combining :-)

Frozen Bananas & Apple Snacks

My latest favorite snack: frozen banana slices (you just have to put them in the freezer for about 30 minutes), almond butter drizzled on top, some Paleo Crunch, then a few pieces of 85% dark chocolate broken up on it. It's like ice cream, only better (and that's coming from a girl who could eat some ice cream!)

I've been making another variation with cut up apples, almond butter, and Crunch.

Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes

I get weekly emails from Taste of Home (Love that Magazine!) This last one had a recipe for Coconut Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes (visit site for more appetizing pic's!). I have to admit, I have NEVER made sweet potatoes. I have NEVER enjoyed sweet potatoes (except as fries).

They turned out really well! The only thing I would add would be cinnamon into the mix. After we added some to the top of ours, they tasted finished!! Even Elliot was analyzing the taste before and after the cinnamon. They were a hit with all of the kids. The Kale & Spinach we also had, however, was not as big a hit with them (but the big people in the house loved it!)

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• 4 medium sweet potatoes
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh gingerroot
• 1 teaspoon adobo sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans
• 1/4 cup flaked coconut

Directions

• Scrub and pierce potatoes; place on a microwave-safe plate. Microwave, uncovered, on high for 10-12 minutes or until tender, turning once.
• When cool enough to handle, cut each potato in half lengthwise. Scoop out the pulp, leaving thin shells. In a large bowl, mash the pulp with coconut milk. Stir in the syrup, ginger, adobo sauce and salt. Spoon into potato shells.
• Place on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with pecans and coconut. Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes or until heated through. Yield: 8 servings.

KALE

If you are interested in Kale (I have no picture) it's super easy. I had a bunch of leftover green onions so I sautéed them in olive oil with some mushrooms first. Then I threw in a bag of Kale and part of a package of spinach. I also added about 3/4 C of water. Cover and let cook till tender. DELICIOUS!

99% Paleo Veggie/Beef Soup

I realize the picture may not be super appetizing, but this really was great. Probably very similar to any vegetable beef soup you've ever made. I always made my grandma's recipe, but it uses a package of frozen veggies which is now a no-go for us since it contains lima's and corn. I just realized, I should have added some okra! That would be a great addition. You can really add anything that sounds good to you or take away anything that you don't like. Get creative! I think I'm just now realizing that I can add garlic to whatever I want: it's not has terrible as my dad thinks it is!! ;-)

The reason I say 99% Paleo is because I used a carton of Trader Joe's Organic Beef Broth and one of the last ingredients is organic cane sugar. No sugar allowed in strict Paleo. Anyways, here are the ingredients. I just made it up, and then threw it all in the crock pot.

*Beef Stew Meat (Or ground beef)

*1 Onion-chopped

*4 carrots, peeled & chopped

*4 stalks celery

*3 cloves garlic

*some oregano, salt & pepper (some on meat before searing, some in crock pot with all ingredients)

*bay leaf

*1/4 bag shredded cabbage

*bag frozen green beans

*2 can organic diced tomatoes (do not drain)

*1 carton organic beef broth

Throw seasoned meat, cabbage, and onion in a pan with some olive olive. Saute until meat is lightly browned. Add all listed ingredients into crock pot. You may need a little water to fill up the crock as well as any other seasonings you'd like. I would recommend cooking on high. I tried the low setting for 7 hours and nothing seemed to get done. I cranked it up to high for the last 2 hours and it was much better and the meat got very tender.

Tilapia w/ topping

I was going out with the girls, so W was in charge of dinner. He decided to whip up some fish and broccoli for himself and the kids. Wise choice since I HATE all things fish. Well, by the time it was finished, I just had to try it because it looked so good. Let's just say, it was really good! I ate an entire piece! I have also been praying everyday that God would open my tastebuds to like new things. May sound silly to some, but it's working!! Everyday I'm liking more and more things that I never would have considered before.

OH, and we put Balsamic Vinegar on top of it. I thought that sounded absolutely repulsive, but it was super good that way! He just used tilapia and the following recipe for topping from "The Paleo Solution" by Robb Wolf (BTW, this book is what inspired this whole change).

Topping recipe (can also be used for chicken or pork):

4oz almonds

2 tbsp olive oil

1 C chopped onion

2/3 C chopped celery

1/2 C chopped mushrooms

1 (5oz) can water chestnuts (We did not have this)

2 tbsp tamari soy sauce (wheat free!)

sea salt and fresh pepper to taste

1/2 C chicken broth (he used the leftovers from the chicken soup I made :-)

Saute the almonds in olive oil. Brown slightly and set aside. Next, sauté onion and celery until soft. Add mushrooms cooking for 3 minutes longer. Return almonds, then add all remaining ingredients. Mix well, cook until hot. Serve over meat.

Instead of putting it on top of cooked meat, W put it on BEFORE cooking along with some fresh lemon, then baked the fish at 350 for about 20 minutes.

Chicken 'Lo Mein'

Once again, I had to try a recipe from Primal-Palate. Once again, it was DELICIOUS! We all loved it! (There are much better pic's on their website! In case you haven't noticed, I am no food photographer. All pic's are just snapped with my cell phone).

Ingredients:

• Chicken or beef
• 1/4 cup almonds, chopped
• 1/2 cup water chestnuts
• 1/4 cup green onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup shiitake mushrooms, stems removed and cut in half
• 1/4 cup celery, chopped
• 1 tablespoon minced Ginger
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 2 cups broccoli
• 2 cups shredded cabbage
• Toasted sesame oil
• Coconut aminos
• Sesame seeds to garnish

Process:

1. Clean all vegetables and trim fat from meat (if applicable).
2. Cut broccoli, chicken and mushrooms into bite sized pieces.
3. Thinly slice 2 cups of cabbage (about half the head of cabbage).
4. Chop almonds, green onion, celery; mince garlic and ginger.
5. Heat wok over high heat.
6. Add sesame oil, swirl to coat bottom of wok, then add meat.
7. Cook meat for 3-4 minutes, until mostly cooked.
8. Add in broccoli, water chestnuts, celery and shiitake mushrooms; cook for 2 minutes
9. Add in almonds, cabbage, ginger, green onion and garlic. Add a splash of coconut aminos (2-4 tbsp). Cook 2-3 minutes, until cabbage softens a little.
10. Remove from heat, garnish with sesame seeds, and enjoy!

Homemade Lara Bars

Have you ever had a Lara Bar? Well, they are simply amazing! I picked some up at Trader Joe's and if they weren't so expensive, I'd give them to my kids like I would have given them granola bars. The ingredients are very simple, so I decided to google how to make them. No surprise, I found a recipe and it was PERFECT!!!

I can't remember where I found the recipe, but the one for the apple pie flavor is:

1/4C pitted dates (it said Medjool, but I could not find those and just used regular)

1/4C dried apples (yup, busted out the dehydrator and made my own unsweetened apples)

1/3C nuts (1/2 almond, 1/2 walnut)

1/4 tsp cinnamon

In a food chopper or processor put in the dates and apples until paste-like. Then add in the nuts and cinnamon. Mix well. Dump onto some plastic wrap and form. We put our plastic wrap in muffin tins, and pressed the mixture down until firm. Then, just wrapped it up and put in fridge. You MUST try this! It's so great! You can google and find recipes for other flavors too! Let me know if you try any others and how they turn out.

BLT Breakfast

We were out of eggs, so I improved with what I could find in the kitchen. The result: a bread-less BLT! Just took some bacon and tomato slices and wrapped in lettuce. YUM!

CHicken and Squash

For some reason I bought a bunch of chicken legs. I'm not a huge fan of anything with the bone in it, but I gave it a shot. Luckily, El is into cooking and didn't mind helping me out. We just dipped them in some egg, then a mix of 1/2 coconut flour 1/2 almond flour. We went a little overboard with the amt. we put on the chicken. Had we been a little more conservative, I think it would have turned out really well.

We also threw together some butternut squash with spinach and red onion. For this, I just sliced the squash and deseeded. Then I peeled it with a veggie peeler and cubed it. I piled a bunch of that, an entire red onion, and a few handfuls of spinach on a baking sheet. Sprayed with olive oil and some salt and pepper. Roast at 400 for 30 minutes or so. It was great and will be made again for Thanksgiving (except for Thanksgiving I dehydrated some cranberries to mix in. Unfortunately , I made

them WAY TOO dry, and am working on re-hydrating them.)

"Chips" and Salsa

I had never made salsa before, but the other day I decided to whip some up. I guess what I made was more or less Pico De Gallo. Regardless, it was delicious!!! I just chopped up what I had on hand: 4 roma tomatoes, some green pepper, some red onion, & cilantro. Then juiced an entire lemon into the mix. YUMM!!!

For the "chips" we made Flax Crackers. Once again from the Primal-Palate site. I actually think next time I will divide it into more than one pan and make it thinner. It was good, but if thinner I think it might have gotten crispier. We have also found it's good to have a "chip" with lunch meat and a slice of tomato (or cheese if you are me).

For the Flax Crackers

Ingredients-

• 2 cups almond flour
• 1 cup flax seed meal
• 1/2 cup whole flax seeds
• 2 omega 3 eggs, whisked
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted
• 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
  
  
  

Process-

1. In a large mixing bowl, stir together almond flour, flax seed meal, eggs, oil, salt, and flax seeds.
2. Separate dough into two halves (I formed balls).
3. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.
4. Roll dough between two sheets of parchment paper until it is about 1/8 inch thick.
5. Score with a knife, or cut with a pizza cutter into 2 x 2 inch squares.
6. Sprinkle a little extra salt over the top of the crackers.
7. Bake at 350 for about 12 minutes. We recommend checking the crackers after 10 minutes.
8. Once cooled, break crackers into squares and enjoy!

Chocolate Chip & Bacon Cookies (A little cheat!)

I just made these cookies, and they are FANTASTIC! I'd say they are the 1st Paleo TREAT I've made that isn't a little off. Seriously, I made the worlds worst banana bread the other day! These are not strictly Paleo, but they are a good treat. They are still grain free with really decent ingredients.

The ones I made were from the cookbook Make It Paleo. There is a variation of the recipe on their website HERE. In the cookbook, they leave out the palm sugar when candying the bacon. My bacon never got super crispy (not sure what I did wrong). They also recommend a brand of chocolate chips on the website, but in the cookbook just recommend 72% dark chocolate chips. The best I could find was Gheradelli 60%. Yah, probably not superb, but better than nothing :-) Plus, sweets are what I miss most with this Paleo thing and I figure if this is the worst I cheat, then I'm still doing good.

I really think the cookies would be just as good without the bacon. The bacon is fine, but I don't taste it that much. Plus, pure maple syrup is really expensive, so if you can save on it I say just make the chocolate chip cookies. They are great!

From PRIMAL PALATE:

FEBRUARY 12, 2011

Chocolate Chip Cookies with Candied Bacon

The other day we received an email asking us to "primal-ize" a recipe forcandied bacon chocolate chip cookies. Excited and ready for this challenge, we got right to work. For this recipe we used our grain free chocolate chip cookie recipe, and added in a delicious recipe for candied bacon. Let's just say Bill made sure this treat didn't last too long in the house.

Candied Bacon Ingredients:

• 5 slices nitrate free bacon
• 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
• Coconut palm sugar

Candied Bacon Process:

1. Preheat oven to bake at 350.
2. In a medium size mixing bowl, toss bacon in maple syrup.
3. Lay bacon on a parchment lined baking sheet.
4. Sprinkle bacon with coconut palm sugar.
5. Bake for 20 minutes.
6. Remove bacon from oven and place strips on a cooling rack.
7. Crumble candied bacon for cookie batter.

Cookie Ingredients:

• 3 cups Blanched Almond Flour
• 1/2 cup Palm Shortening (or unrefined Coconut Oil)
• 1/2 cup Pure Maple Syrup
• 2 Omega 3 Eggs
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 1/2 cups Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Cookie Process:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a medium sized mixing bowl combine dry ingredients.
3. In a small mixing bowl beat eggs, maple syrup, and vanilla extract with a hand mixer.
4. Pour wet ingredients into dry and beat with hand mixer until combined.
5. Add palm shortening into batter, and continue to blend until combined.
6. Stir in chocolate chips and candied bacon.
7. Drop balls of dough on parchment lined baking sheet, about a tablespoon in size.
   
8. Bake cookies for 15 minutes at 350.
9. Let cool and serve.

Modest MIddle

I'm gonna take a quick break from recipes, to show a little secret to my nursing Mama friends. Recently, a friend posted about a company called Modest Middles. I thought, "now that is a fabulous idea!" I always feel like I'm nursing in a grocery store, park, etc. and have my side hanging out to the world. Or, my underroo's coming out the top of my pants and now being revealed to everyone. Not so anymore!

Since I'm cheap, I ran to WalMart and grabbed spaghetti strap tanks that were really long for less than $6. All I did was cut the top out, and wa la, my own "modest middle" shirt!! No sewing required. I do safety pin the straps to my bra. It is so nice to be covered, especially since it's FREEZING out already!!

Yes, I really am nursing in the picture to the left (photo courtesy of the 5 year old)! No skin revealed (and NO Kyle (my little brother), I won't cover up! haha)

Chicken & Veggie "Noodle" Soup

I made chicken stock for the 1st time in my life!!!! Basically used this recipe HERE:

I bought a container of chopped veggies at Trader Joe's the other day. It had carrots, cabbages, peppers, celery, etc. in it. I cut up an additional carrot, celery, whole onion, and 3 cloves of garlic and sautéed till tender.

After I took my chicken out, strained out the stock, I added it all back into the fresh stock. Does that make sense? Ripped the entire chicken to pieces and put in the soup with all those freshly sautéed veggies!

How does one have noodles if they are eating Paleo? Well, I just threw in all that extra Spaghetti Squash I had leftover from the other night!

HUGE HIT, especially with the 5 year old. She had 3 huge bowls of it!

Paleo Pumpkin Pancakes

YUMM!!!! These were like eating pumpkin muffins in pancake form! Of course, they were a little darker than usual pancakes, but to my surprise, they did rise up some! I know the picture may not be appetizing, but they were delicious! Highly recommend you try them out. I'm quickly learning that just because you choose to be grain free, you don't have to give up good food!

I googled for this recipe and found it at: http://www.ultimatecrossfit.com/forum/topic.php?id=140 but here is the recipe if you don't want to go to another page:

Ingredients:
* pinch of baking soda

* pinch of salt

* 1/2 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
* 1/2 cup almond flour

* 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
* 1/4 cup canned pumpkin
* 1 tbsp honey
* 2 eggs

Combine the dry ingredients together in one bowl, then in another bowl combine the wet ingredients. Then toss the wet ingredients into the dry and mix thoroughly. Let mixture sit for 2 or 3 minutes.

Cook in a pan on medium-high like a normal pancake.

I served ours with sliced bananas drizzled with almond butter. (I know you love the Buzz Lightyear plate, ey?)

Snack Time

Someone at the Crossfit gym gave Wes this amazing recipe! We ALL love it. I usually do not eat nuts, but I can't get enough of this. It satisfy's my sweet cravings without any real sugar added. Even if Paleo does not interest you at all, I totally recommend you make this for you and your kid's. Mine call it cereal! We have been giving the kids some every night after dinner with some sliced strawberries. I can't tell you how excited they get about it!

Paleo Crunch
1/2 c raw pumpkin seeds,

1/2 c raw sunflower seeds,

1 c almond meal,

1 c shredded unsweetened coconut,

2 c raw slivered almonds,

1/2 c grape seed oil(or coconut oil),

1/2 c raw organic honey,

1 tsp vanilla.

Preaheat oven to 325. In large bowl, add dry ingredients, mix well. Add in wet ingredients mixing well. Spread thin on a baking sheet and bake for 25 mins. Stir up (flip over crunch) and bake for 5 more mins. Cool for 5-10 mins. Enjoy!

Eggplant

How do you get 2 adults, a 5 year old, and 2 two year olds to eat this?

Yes, That's 2 Eggplant's!

Well, you turn them into this:

and this.....

YEP, Eggplant can be shredded and turned into a pizza crust!! I thought it was decent, but the kids LOVED it. If this allows us to get a little pizza fix, then I am all for it. The cheese is very un-paleo. Wes did not have any (of course).

For the kids, It's just the crust, sauce, freshly grated mozzarella and pepperoni. Mine has crust, olive oil and garlic (no red sauce), fresh mozzarella, spinach, sun dried tomatoes, chicken, and feta. Wes' was like mine minus all the cheese's.

I got the recipe for the crust from here: http://www.primal-palate.com/2010/10/melanzana-margherita-pizza.html This is a great site. I just got the cookbook the other day and it's fantastic!!! A picture for EVERY recipe. Just what I need.

Here's how the crust is made. MUCH more time consuming than normal pizza dough, but it is pretty good (I never thought I'd be squeezing out eggplant to make a crust!)

Ingredients:

• 1 whole eggplant
• 1 omega 3 egg
• 1/4 cup flax seed meal
• 1/4 cup almond meal/flour
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil (to lightly grease the parchment paper)

Process:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Grate eggplant with a cheese grater. (The skin didn't seem to want to grate, so we didn't use it. It also helped to cut the eggplant into large chunks.)
3. Pour grated eggplant into a large mixing bowl.
4. Add in flax meal and almond meal.
5. Whisk egg in a smaller bowl and add to batter.
6. Add salt and pepper to taste.
7. Mix all ingredients until evenly combined.
8. On a parchment lined baking sheet, pour batter.
9. Smooth batter out with hands into a thin layer (around 1/8").
   
10. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until cooked enough to flip.
11. Remove from oven. Lightly grease another piece of parchment paper, and place on top of crust, carefully flip the crust and then slowly peel off the parchment paper from the bottom side.
12. Brush the flipped side with olive oil.
13. Bake opposite side for about 15 minutes, and remove from oven to apply toppings.