Deanna’s Gluten Free Italian Cookies

12 May

These are not paleo compliments of one ingredient.  I know, I know this is my paleo website, but these are too awesome not to share with you!  I love Italian cookies.  I especially love my homemade Italian cookies because they are not the consistency of hockey pucks.  If you grew up in an Italian family you know many a family who makes these cookies hard as a rock.  Of course the original version of this recipe is awesome, and full of stuff that isn’t exactly awesome for you.  So I’ve transformed my original, soft, Italian cookie recipe into this soft, gluten free, white sugar free (well, the nonpareils have sugar, but that’s it), soy free, mostly dairy free version.  It is on the way to paleo.  I’ve made paleo versions of my cookies, I prefer this version.  Where is this recipe coming from?  For mother’s day all my mom wanted was to come over and bake Italian cookies with me.  She wanted the regular version, but since we were already cooking, I made another batch of healthier cookies to take to work tomorrow.  When you work with someone who can’t have gluten it is most considerate to bring goodies they can eat too :)  This recipe makes 4.5 dozen cookies.

Deanna's gluten free Italian cookies

Deanna’s gluten free Italian cookies

Ingredients:

Cookie

1/4 cup palm shortening

2 tbl. Earth Balance soy free buttery spread

2 tbl. coconut oil

1/4 cup honey

2/3 cup organic blue agave

4 large eggs

1/4 cup canola oil

1 tbl. anise extract*

1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk beverage

4 3/4 cups Cup4Cup gluten free flour blend (this is the non-paleo ingredient)

1 tbl. + 1 tsp. baking powder

*Since not everyone loves anise I make these cookies with a mild anise flavor.  The more you love it, the more extract you should add!

Icing

1 cup coconut oil

60 drops liquid stevia

1/2 tsp. anise extract

Nonpareils

Liquid stevia

Liquid stevia

Method:

In your stand mixer with paddle attachment cream together shortening, Earth Balance, and coconut oil.  Blend in honey.  Blend in eggs, agave, canola oil, anise, and coconut milk beverage.  Mix in 4 cups of the gluten free flour and 1 tbl. baking powder.  Mix in the final 3/4 cup gluten free flour and 1 tsp. baking powder.  Preheat oven to 350°F.  Use a 2 tablespoon size cookie scoop to dollop dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Bake the cookies two baking sheets at a time, one on the upper oven rack and one on the lower.  Bake them for 5 1/2-6 minutes, swap the racks (upper to lower, lower to upper), and bake for an additional 5 1/2-6 minutes.  Cool the cookies, then place the cookies on a baking sheet in the freezer for about 15 minutes so they are cool to the touch.  This is key, if your cookies are warm your icing will melt!  In your stand mixer with whisk attachment whisk coconut oil until completely smooth and creamy.  Whisk in 60 drops (the top of the bottle is a dropper, so just count 60 drops as you squeeze) of liquid stevia.  Whisk in ansie extract.  Dip each cool cookie in the icing then sprinkle with nonpareils.  Store cookies in a sealed container in the refrigerator.

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Paleo Chunky Monkey Muffins

8 May

Our company kitchen is stocked with lots of things: nuts, fruit, cheese, every flavor they make of greek yogurt, protein bars, coffees, teas, espresso, etc.  Typically by Friday there are 2-3 over-ripe bananas left so I take them home and use them to make goodies for our Monday morning meeting.  This past weekend I decided to come up with a new use for the bananas: chunky monkey muffins.  Or, since these are paleo, you could say they are NOT-chunky monkey muffins.  Chunky monkey is a flavor profile consisting of banana, chocolate/fudge, and nuts.  These muffins are absolutely moist and delicious, you know I’d post nothing less.  Plus being paleo they are grain free, dairy free, soy free, free of artificial chemicals, and low glycemic! Clean eating can taste so amazing!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of my paleo chocolate hazelnut spread recipe

2 over-ripe bananas

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 cup organic blue agave

3 large eggs

1/2 tsp. kosher or sea salt

1/2 cup coconut flour, sifted

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 scoop vanilla egg white protein powder (I used Jay Robb brand one scoop of this brand is 33g by weight)

Method:

Preheat oven to 350°F.  In your stand mixer with paddle attachment blend/mash the bananas.  Blend in eggs, oil, agave, and salt.  Sift in baking soda, coconut flour, and protein powder, and blend until completely combined.  Finally blend in the chocolate hazelnut spread (aka paleo nutella) and blend until evenly incorporated into the batter.  Distribute batter evenly between 12 cupcake wrappers in cupcake tins.  Bake at 350°F for 25-35 minutes, depending on your oven, until a toothpick comes out clean.  Takes 25 minutes in my oven.

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Paleo Triple Chocolate Birthday Cake

8 May

John’s sister is a huge chocolate lover and every year for her birthday she gets a triple chocolate cake from a local bakery.  Every year she didn’t feel well after her birthday dinner.  The problem?  That bakery makes their cakes dairy free.  Now making cakes dairy free is not a problem, I do it all the time!  This bakery however, in making their cakes dairy free fills their cakes with soy!  Well, she’s allergic to soy.  Now we know what made her feel so awful year after year.  Best part, by not knowing their ingredients:  vegetable oil, vegetable shortening; the bakery was not aware they were filling their products with soy!  Consider this a public service announcement for those who do not read ingredient lists:  vegetable oil is soybean oil and vegetable shortening is soybean shortening.  If you need a flavorless oil for baking go with canola, grape seed, or sunflower seed.  If you need shortening go with palm.  Simple 1:1 substitution that easily eliminates the soy from your recipe.  Since she’s also been eating paleo I told her this year I would make her birthday cake, all she need was to tell me exactly what she wanted.  She picked a chocolate cake, with nutella filling, and dark chocolate frosting.  I went a little over the top and made her a three 9 inch layer cake.  It was huge!  If you aren’t feeding 15 people you don’t need to make the recipe this large.

Ingredients:

Cake

Paleo Made Easy p. 125 Chocolate Cupcake recipe x 3 (one 9 inch layer = 1 cupcake batter recipe)

Nutella filling

My paleo chocolate hazelnut spred recipe 

I doubled the recipe to ensure I’d have plenty (and who doesn’t like extra leftover nutella?) and I ended up with about 2 cups left over.

Dark Chocolate Frosting

8 ounces (almost 1 cup) organic unsweetened applesauce

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 cup cocoa powder, sifted

1/2 cup organic blue agave

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Method:

For the cake preheat oven to 350°F.  Grease cake pans with coconut oil spray and place a piece of parchment paper in the bottom of each.  Prepare the cake batter as described in Paleo Made Easy and distribute it evenly between the cake pans.  Bake at 350°F until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 30-50 minutes depending on cake pan size.

Prepare my nutella recipe as described in the link.

For the frosting, blend applesauce and pumpkin in your stand mixer with paddle attachment.  Sift in cocoa powder.  Continue blending.  Add agave and vanilla and blend until smooth.

For assembly, make sure you cake layers are completely cool.  Spread nutella on your first layer, carefully place your next layer of cake on top.  Spread your second cake layer with nutella.  Place your third cake layer on top.  Spread the frosting over the entire cake.  I chose to further decorate the cake so I found fresh raspberries to decorate the rim.  Then I melted some Enjoy Life (dairy free, soy free, nut free) semisweet chocolate chips in a double boiler (about 2 ounces of chips plus ~1/8 tsp. canola oil).  I dipped strawberries in the melted chocolate and let them cool/solidify on wax paper.  Topped the center of the cake the chocolate the dipped strawberries.  Then I tried my first chocolate decoration:  drizzled the melted chocolate in a abstract pattern on wax paper, let it cool in the fridge, then gently peeled it off the paper and added it to the center of the cake.

This makes for a gorgeous, and paleo, birthday (or other occasion) cake that is definitely for chocolate lovers!  Did I mention it is a chocolate chocolate chip cake?  Chocolate lovers dream :)

 

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Paleo Roasted Hazelnut Butter

8 May

Eating strict paleo for many means giving up a childhood staple: peanut butter.  It also means searching for nut butters (peanuts are not nuts, hence not strict paleo) that are creamy, delicious, and still about the same price as Jif/Skippy/Etc.  Trader Joe’s usually has one of the best prices on almond butter, but not every state has those stores (yet).  Nut butters can easily cost $10 a jar, and if you know some of the guys in my life who take a spoon to the jar, this can be expensive.  The best option, if you can find a good price on raw nuts, is to make your own.  It is actually really easy!  Below is my recipe for roasted hazelnut butter, but you can do this with any nut!

Roasted hazelnut butter

Ingredients:

2 cups raw shelled hazelnuts

1/4 tsp. kosher or sea sat

1-2 tbl. organic blue agave (OPTIONAL)

Method:

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Spread hazelnuts evenly in a single layer over a baking sheet and bake at 350°F for 15 minutes.  After removing nuts from the oven rub them between a tea towel or paper towels (careful they are hot!) to remove as much as the skin as possible.  The sooner you do this upon removing the nuts from the oven the easier the skins will come off.  Transfer nuts to your food processor and process with salt until creamy, scraping down sides as needed.  If you are used to peanut butter, which contains sugar, you might want to blend in 1-2 tablespoons of agave to sweeten your hazelnut butter.

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Paleo Bacon Jalapeño Grits

21 Apr

I am a New England girl born and raised, but I love grits!!!  Perfect with a little salt and butter, hardly any nutritional value and about as far from paleo as fettuccine alfredo.  Here was my first attempt at a paleo version of grits.  I realize shrimp and grits is one of the most popular grits dishes out there, but given that I don’t really like shrimp I decided to try making bacon jalapeño grits instead.  I think this recipe is YUMMY!  While many of my creations get “there is no way this is paleo” as a reaction from taste testers you will know this is paleo.  You will know because you just can’t get that perfect grits texture without the grits (the wheat), but this was still delicious and could be a great side dish to any dinner.

Ingredients:

1 large head cauliflower, riced

10 oz bacon, diced (can always use more, who doesn’t love bacon?)

1 sweet onion, chopped

4 jalapeño peppers, seeded and diced

1 cup chicken broth

1 tsp. kosher salt

1 tsp. pepper

1 small head garlic, roasted (you will only use 1/4 of this at most)

2/3 cup unsweetened coconut milk beverage

1 tbl. nutritional yeast

1/8 tsp. xanthan gum

Method:

Chop top off garlic head to expose cloves.  Wrap garlic in foil and bake at 350 until the exposed cloves are browned and the garlic is soft, 45-60 minutes.  When cool squeeze the roasted cloves out of the garlic bulb and set aside.  Cook bacon over medium high heat until crispy, drain and set aside.  Add onion to bacon fat, season with salt, and cook for 5 minutes.  Add jalapeño pepper to onion and cook for an additional 5 minutes.  Set onion and pepper mixture aside.  Cook cauliflower in a large pot over medium high heat for 5 minutes.  Add chicken broth, cover, and cook for 5-10 minutes until cauliflower has absorbed the liquid.  In a food processor blend together coconut milk beverage, ≤ 1/4 of the roasted garlic, nutritional yeast, and xanthan gum.  Add bacon, onion, and jalapeño back to pot with cauliflower.  Season with salt and pepper and stir in garlic mixture.  Enjoy!

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Paleo Patriot Cookies

21 Apr

Unless you live under a rock you probably know that last Monday, Patriot’s Day in Massachusetts, was marred by two bombs being detonated at the Boston Marathon finish line.  While we all waited for the who/what/why and any additional information, life went on for me commuting to Cambridge on a daily basis.  Then came Friday.  Without seeing the news the night before or on Friday morning (I like NPR, but John listens to country music on Pandora on the way to work and he was driving so he wins) we headed into Cambridge at 5:43am. Roads were eerily deserted, but hey, it is Friday morning on a school vacation week, right? Exiting the highway at 6:21am my cell phone is ringing (who is calling me now?). My awesome coworker, “Where are you? Don’t go into Cambridge! The city is on lockdown! You can come to my house for breakfast, but don’t go into the city!” I’d like to thank T-mobile for my shittastic reception along the highway because I now see 5 missed calls (phone never rang) and text messages – even from a friend in Vegas! We pull over, John has gotten no info from work and not a single cop we’ve passed (about 5 in total) has stopped us, but I’ve been told by everyone to stay away from our building. So we go to his building. 45 minutes later after many cruisers rush by sirens blaring we head home…before the official lockdown. By late afternoon and the manhunt still ongoing I knew I was never getting to work, so I ran errands and made some new paleo cookies. Here they are paleo raspberry filled cashew butter cookies that, by the time I dipped them in chocolate, were celebratory cookies because the suspect who was the reason for the manhunt and lockdown of the city was captured!  Therefore I am naming them patriot cookies, in honor of our history, and in honor of all of the patriots who were involved in the events of the last week: police, FBI, first responders, and everyday citizens who dropped everything to help others and find those responsible.  Thank you.  I realize locking down the city and suburbs cost tens of millions of dollars and you know what?  Catching this guy was worth it!

Ingredients:

Cashew Butter Cookie Dough

3/4 cup organic palm shortening

1 1/2 cup coconut crystals

1 1/2 cups cashew butter

3 eggs

1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

3 3/4 cups almond meal

Raspberry Filling

24oz frozen raspberries, thawed

2/3 cup coconut crystals

1 cup water

1/2 tsp. lemon juice

1/2 tsp. xanthan gum

Chocolate Coating

10 oz Enjoy Life dairy free, soy free, nut free, gluten free semisweet chocolate chips

1 tsp. canola oil

Method:

In a small saucepan over medium heat combine raspberries, coconut sugar, water and lemon juice.  Simmer the raspberry mixture for 20 minutes.  Before pressing the mixture through a wire mesh strainer (to remove as many seeds as possible) I took an immersion blender to the mixture to make it smoother and easier to strain.  Once the mixture was strained I slowly stirred in the xanthan gum a little bit at a time, then I set the mixture aside.  For the cookies in your stand mixer cream together shortening and coconut crystals, then add cashew butter and blend well.  Add eggs, salt, and vanilla and blend well.  Add almond meal and blend until evenly combined into dough.  Using a one tablespoon size cookie scooper dollop dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Use your thumb or knuckle to make a well in the center of the cookie.  Fill the well in the cookie with a half teaspoon of raspberry filling.  Bake the cookies at 350°F for 12 minutes.  For the chocolate mix the semisweet chocolate chips with canola oil and melt in a double boiler.  When cookies have cooled completely dip half of each in the chocolate mixture.  Makes about 85 cookies.

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Paleo Pan Seared Wild Fish

27 Mar

John made dinner tonight!  If you are ever looking for a fast, but healthy, meal fish is about as fast as it gets.  Not to mention it doesn’t get much easier than a 5 ingredient recipe (and I’m including salt and pepper in those 5).

Ingredients:

2-3 wild fish fillets (6oz each) – tonight was wild sockeye salmon and wild Alaskan cod

1-3 tbl. olive oil

Kosher or sea salt

Pepper

2-3 tbl. lemon juice

Method:

Heat a cast iron skillet over medium heat for a few minutes until HOT.  Season both sides of your fish with salt and freshly ground pepper. Add just enough olive oil to coat the skillet.  Add your fish to the skillet.  If your fish has skin add it to the skillet skin side up, this way the last part you will cook is the skin at it will be nice and crispy for your first bite.  Cook approximately 3 minutes, the fish will easily release from the pan when it is ready to flip.  Flip over and cook for 2 minutes.  Add lemon juice to the pan and cook for an additional minute or so until the fish is cooked through.

 

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