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Paleo Biscuits and Gravy

20 Jul

I may have been born and raised in New England, but there are some southern foods I absolutely LOVE!  Biscuits and gravy?  Yes, please!  Now the normal version is not good for you.  Tastes great, not healthy.  Here’s an updated paleo version to keep your taste buds happy and your body healthy.  Now biscuits are usually served with a sawmill gravy that uses breakfast sausage.  I hate breakfast sausage  so my gravy is a BACON gravy!  Who doesn’t love bacon?  Come on now 🙂  I sent John to work with a container of paleo biscuits and gravy for breakfast and got the following text: “I don’t know what I just ate but that biscuit with gravy thing was delicious!!!!”  Yes, 4 exclamation points.  This is definitely a winner.  Give it a try!

Paleo biscuits and gravy

Paleo biscuits and gravy

Ingredients:

Biscuits (10-12)

1.5 pounds sweet potato

3 large eggs

3 tbl. bacon fat

1 large jalapeño pepper, diced

1 tsp. baking powder

¾ tsp. kosher salt

¾ cup almond meal/flour

¼ cup coconut flour

Gravy

10 oz. bacon, diced (I use uncured, nitrate free)

¼ cup arrowroot powder

2 cups unsweetened coconut milk beverage

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Bake sweet potato at 425°F until fork tender, 45-60 minutes.  Cool completely.  Cook bacon in a skillet over medium-medium high heat until crisp.  Move bacon to paper towels to drain and set aside 3 tbl. of the bacon fat to add to your biscuit batter.  To the remaining bacon fat in your skillet whisk in 1/4 cup arrowroot powder.  Now whisk in coconut milk beverage.  Season with salt and pepper, return cooked bacon to the skillet.

Remove the cool baked sweet potato from its skin.  In your stand mixer blend together sweet potato and eggs.  Add bacon fat, jalapeño  3/4 tsp. kosher salt, and baking powder.  Add almond meal and sift in coconut flour.  I used an ice cream scoop to dollop biscuit size sections of dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Bake biscuits at 375°F until they begin to turn golden, 25-30 minutes.

Yum!

Yum!

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Paleo Strawberry Blueberry Muffins

13 Jul

Today I competed in the CrossFit EXP summer smackdown, women’s scaled division (coming off too many injuries to go Rx)…and came in second place!  Woohoo!  Definitely was not expecting that!  As usual with CrossFit I also met some really amazing people.  Such a great community, makes me smile every time!  There are some key things I must have on hand when competing: knee sleeves, headband, lots of water, Stronger Faster Healthier pure whey chocolate whey protein & shaker bottle, athletic tape, jump rope (I’m 4’10” borrowing someone else’s jump rope is not an option), and munchies!  So last night I made a batch of paleo muffins with what I had on hand, they are delicious and a huge hit with other people with me/people I met today too!  I also brought a Steve Original’s berky (berries and jerky, SO GOOD) and a Larabar (not one of my own, one I grabbed from the cupboard…we have a stockpile from some crazy Costco trips that we seriously need to get rid of…I mean eat).  Here’s the muffin recipe!

Paleo strawberry blueberry muffins

Paleo strawberry blueberry muffins

Ingredients:

2 large eggs

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

4 tbl. coconut nectar (can substitute agave or honey)

2 tbl. canola oil

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. apple cider vinegar

1/2 tsp. baking soda

3/8 tsp. kosher salt

2 cups almond meal (I used 1 cup almond meal, 1 cup almond flour because I had open packages of each I wanted to finish off)

1/2 cup fresh strawberries, sliced very thin

1/2 cup dried blueberries

Method:

Whisk wet ingredients together.  Whisk in dry ingredients and stir/fold in fruit.  I distributed the batter evenly between 11 cupcake wrappers and baked them at 350°F for 25 minutes.

CFEXP Summer Smackdown 2013

CFEXP Summer Smackdown 2013

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Paleo Toffee Cashew Bar

29 Jun

Larabars are always popular amongst paleo peeps.  It is quite possibly the only paleo food found in a wrapper.  Of course I’m speaking of the original Larabars, the ones that are simply nuts, dates, sometimes some dried fruit.  Not the ones with peanuts or brown rice syrup.  Feel like making your own at home?  Easy!  Cashew cookie is the favorite Larabar of most people I know, so I decided to make it from scratch, but put my own twist on it.  My twist?  A little toffee flavor.

Ingredients:

1 cup raw whole cashews

18-20 pitted dates

40 drops Sweet Leaf English Toffee (English toffee flavored liquid stevia)

Paleo toffee cashew bar

Paleo toffee cashew bar

Method:

Roughly process cashews in your food processor, set aside.  Process dates in food processor with English Toffee liquid stevia until they form a ball.  I mixed the dates into the cashews by hand and then put the combination back into the food processor and pulsed it until well blended.  I poured the mixture into a small baking dish and pressed firmly into an ~ 3.5 x 6 inch rectangle.  Cut the rectangle into four 3.5 x 1.5 inch bars.  That’s it!  Fast and simple!

My paleo toffee cashew bar vs cashew cookie Larabar

My paleo toffee cashew bar vs cashew cookie Larabar

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Paleo Caramel Frappuccino

24 Jun

How excited are you to read this recipe?  How much do you love me right now?  Oh yes I did.  I made a paleo, not paleo-ish, but PALEO caramel frappuccino!  Take that Starbucks!  Mine is not only cheaper it is so much better for you!  Check this out, I did the math.

Deanna’s Paleo Caramel Frappuccino VS. Starbucks Tall Caramel Frappuccino no whipped cream

Calories:  Mine = 22.5, Starbucks = 200

Fat: Mine = 2.25g, Starbucks = 2.5g

Cholesterol: Mine = 0mg, Starbucks = 10mg

Carbohydrate: Mine = 1g, Starbucks = 42g

Sugar:  Mine = 0.5g, Starbucks = 41g

Protein: Mine = 0g, Starbucks = 3g

I win!  Seriously though, this is easy to make and it tastes exactly the same without all the crap your body doesn’t need!  Give it a shot and enjoy!

Paleo caramel frappuccino

Paleo caramel frappuccino

Ingredients (one serving):

10 ice cubes, crushed

3 ounces (6-7 tablespoons) double strength coffee

1/2 cup So Delicious (or generic brand) unsweetened coconut milk beverage

6 drops Capella caramel flavor concentrate

Stevia to taste

Capella caramel concentrate flavor drops

Capella caramel concentrate flavor drops

Method:

You have a few options here.  To follow the recipe as above you need to brew extra strength coffee.  That means for every 6 ounces of cold water (yes one cup of coffee = 6 ounces, even though one fluid cup = 8 ounces…don’t worry it confuses a lot of people) you want 2 tablespoons of ground coffee.  We are currently enjoying Coffee Roasting Co Wicked Joe “Wicked Italian” medium dark roast (also happens to be USDA organic and fair trade certified) which we purchase whole bean and grind fresh.  Personally I made my extra strength coffee the night before, sweetened it with Truvia (a stevia xylitol blend), and let it chill in the fridge until morning.  Instead of making double strength coffee you can make regular strength (1 tbl. grinds per 6oz water) and then pour it into ice cube trays and freeze it.  If you take this latter option then use 10-12 of your coffee ice cubes instead of coffe + ice to make your frappuccino.  Either way add all of your ingredents to your blender and blend until smooth!  Taste in case you find it needs extra sweetener.  Normally I don’t make double strength coffee, so even though I sweetened it with my normal amount of Truvia, it was still too bitter for my liking, so I added 10 drops of Sweet Leaf liquid stevia.  Problem solved 🙂 Poured it into my favorite reusable BPA free travel cup and into the car and off to work I went.  In my excitement I tried to pour it too quickly out of the blender and some of it hit the counter (and the blender, and my stand mixer)…but enough got into my cup to make my morning 🙂

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Paleo Beet Soup

23 Jun

It is 90 degrees outside and normally that means the last thing I want to do is turn on the oven or stovetop.  Thankfully I have central air, because our farm share includes veggies that need cooking!  John sautéed a bunch (literally one bunch) of swiss chard with four chopped garlic scape in olive oil, seasoned with kosher salt, pepper, red pepper flake, and deglazed with balsamic vinegar.  The beets, meanwhile, were my job.  First thought was to pickle them, but was lacking some of the ingredients and definitely lacking some of the motivation to pickle 🙂  Figured I would give beet soup a try.

Ingredients:

10 beets (fresh from the farm), peeled and chopped

1 large yellow onion, chopped

4-5 cloves garlic, minced

3 tbl. coconut oil

3 cups organic low sodium chicken broth

Kosher salt and pepper

Method:

Peeled beets

Peeled beets

In a saucepan heat coconut oil over medium heat.  When hot add the onion with a little salt and saute for 4-5 minutes to soften.  Add the garlic and saute for 2 minutes.  Add the beets and saute for 2-3 minutes.  Add the chicken broth, increase heat to medium high, and bring to a boil.  Once boiling reduce to a simmer, cover and simmer for approximately 35 minutes until beets are soft.  Puree with an immersion blender (can use a food processor or regular blender if an immersion blender is not available) and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Paleo beet soup

Paleo beet soup

I know what you’re thinking, my soup isn’t red!  I was surprised too, except (as you can see) my beets weren’t super red themselves…you get out what you put in 🙂

Perfect garnish: chive yogurt

Blend together 1/2 cup plain So Delicious coconut milk yogurt, 2 tsp. lemon juice, and 3 tbl. freshly chopped chives.  Chill chive yogurt and then add a dollop (1 tablespoon or so) to your soup.

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Paleo and Whole30 prosciutto wrapped chicken roulade over zucchini pasta with pistachio arugula pesto

9 Jun

You made what now?  Yeah, long recipe title, sorry.  I am not a very big fan of basil (I know, I’m a bad Italian) so tonight I decided to give a new kind of pesto a try!  Figured pistachios (instead of pine nuts) would go well with a combination of arugula, parsley, and some fresh from the farm spinach (instead of basil) – brightened up with lemon juice.  Total success!  Another great thing about this dish?  Cook time is less than 20 minutes!  Who doesn’t love that?  This is delicious, fresh, and super clean/healthy!  Enjoy!

Prosciutto wrapped chicken over zucchini noodles with summer pesto Prosciutto wrapped chicken over zucchini noodles with summer pesto

Ingredients:

2 pounds THINLY SLICED chicken breast

9 ounces prosciutto di Parma (you want 1 1/2 – 2 pieces per slice of chicken breast)

2 1/2 pounds of zucchini (green squash), sliced into noodles

1/2 cup of shelled pistachios, toasted

2 cups arugula

1 cup flat leaf parsley

2 cups spinach

2 cloves garlic, peeled

2 tbl. lemon juice

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

1/2 cup olive oil

You will also need Kosher salt and pepper to season the chicken and 3-4 tbl. olive oil to cook the zucchini

Method:

Chicken

Roll your chicken and prosciutto into roulades Roll your chicken and prosciutto into roulades

Lightly season both sides of the chicken with salt and pepper, remember prosciutto is salty.  Place up to 2 pieces of prosciutto over each piece of chicken and roll into a roulade with the prosciutto facing out.  Preheat your grill, grill the chicken roulades until cooked through, about 4 minutes per side.

Grill the chicken roulades Grill the chicken roulades

Pesto

Preheat your oven to 350°F.  Place your shelled pistachios in a single layer on a small baking sheet, toast at 350°F for 8 minutes (this could also be done in a toaster oven set to 350°F).  In your food processor combine toasted pistachios, 2 cups arugula, 1 cup parsley, 2 cups spinach, 2 cloves garlic and process until a paste forms, scraping down sides of processor bowl as needed.  Add 1/2 tsp. kosher salt,  1/2 tsp. pepper, and 2 tbl. lemon juice and process until combined.  While the food processor is running slowly drizzle in 1/2 cup olive oil until combined.

Pistachio, arugula, parsley, spinach Pistachio, arugula, parsley, spinach “summer pesto”

Pasta

Peel your zucchini.  Place the thick julienne blade attachment in your mandolin and slice the zucchini lengthwise into noodles.  Heat 3-4 tbl. olive oil in a large pot over medium heat.  When hot add the zucchini noodles.  Saute until tender but still crisp, about 3 minutes.  Add as much of the pesto to the pasta as you prefer, I used about 1/3 cup.

Zucchini noodles Zucchini noodles
Summer pesto zucchini pasta Summer pesto zucchini pasta

I served this dish with the chicken over top of the pesto coated pasta, then added a little more pesto onto the chicken.

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Paleo Sweet Potato Gnocchi (version 2.0)

29 May

Yes I absolutely made sweet potato gnocchi on June 10, 2012 and posted it on this site.  I also cheated and used quinoa flour because this is NOT an easy dish to create (and I just couldn’t figure out a better way…until now)!  Have no fear I recreated the recipe tonight without quinoa flour 🙂  I haven’t tried any Cappello’s pasta yet, but I’m guessing it would taste just like this (except with potato instead of sweet potato).  So why make paleo pasta?  I found out something strange, which doesn’t seem to be so strange anymore, after my first (strict) introduction to paleo.  Gluten makes me sneeze!  Me, the girl who’s had the world’s worst allergies since she was 12.  Me the girl who can take every maximum strength allergy medication on the market and still be miserable.  Me the girl who can’t have desensitization shots because I react to them.  Me who is 1/2 Italian and LOVES pasta and bread.  Yup, the reason I was a sneezy, sniffly, puffy, itchy mess for over half of my life was gluten.  No, I’m no celiac.  No, gluten doesn’t cause any GI or neuronal issues.  Just makes me sneeze.  Yup.  Probably an IgA mediated reaction of some sort (sorry…scientist).  Now one of my best friends has gone paleo (and is rocking her first month of CrossFit with PRs) and she called me last week to inform me that I’m on to something with this whole gluten thing.  When she stays away from gluten her allergies and asthma do not bother her!  She too can breathe!  Look at that, I’m not the only one!  So if seasonal or pet allergies plague you, humor me, give up gluten for a month and see how you feel.  Yes pasta is delicious (but you can make these!  Or buy brown rice, corn, or quinoa pastas) and bread is delicious, but breathing freely is SO MUCH BETTER!  Trust me, I waited too many years to finally discover this.  Now, the recipe.

Yield: 12 dozen

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pound sweet potato

1/2 tsp. xanthan gum

1 large egg

3 cups almond flour

1 1/4 cups potato starch

1 cup arrowroot powder

Method:

Preheat oven to 400°F.  Bake sweet potato at 400°F until fork tender, approximately 60 minutes.  Scoop from skin, rice through a potato ricer (or mash if you don’t have a ricer), and cool sweet potato.  Mix together almond flour, potato starch, and arrowroot powder.  Sprinkle cooled sweet potato with xanthan gum then mix with almond flour, potato starch, arrowroot powder mixture about 1 cup at a time.  To omit the need for dusting my dough rolling surface I wrapped a large cutting board in wax paper and rolled my dough out on that.  Roll dough into approximately 3/4 inch thick ropes.  Cut the ropes into 1 inch pieces and roll each piece down the back side of a fork to form ridges.  Drop gnocchi into boiling salted water, they will float when done, approximately 2 minutes.  Mix with desired sauce and enjoy!

Picture shown is paleo sweet potato gnocchi with chicken in creamy sage sauce.  The recipe for the paleo chicken and cream sauce can be found on p. 59 of my cookbook, Paleo Made Easy, available at the right of this page.

 

P.S. If you don’t want to cook 12 dozen gnocchi, make a single layer or extra uncooked gnocchi on a baking sheet lined with wax paper and place in the freezer.  Once frozen, transfer gnocchi to a zip top bag and store in the freezer for a later date.  No need to thaw, simply drop the frozen gnocchi in boiling water.  When they float to the surface they are done cooking.

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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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