A Paleo Birthday Party

Last week, we had three different get togethers with none paleo eaters to which I brought paleo snacks -- all of which seemed to be fairly well received.  I neglected to take pictures of it all, but I'll give you the gist before finishing off with the big get together.  For the Super Bowl party that we attended, I made some deviled eggs (kind of my go-to appetizer) and bacon wrapped dates.  The next day, it was our turn to bring snack to our weekly church small group.  I baked up a batch of chocolate chip cookies (by the way, this recipe makes a lot of cookies!) and we sliced up some apples as well.

This past week was also our little Sam's birthday.  We had some friends over for some food and fun (really, more like choas - our house is small!).  Since the party was in the morning, we did some brunch foods and kept it all Paleo (minus the Capri Suns, of course, which we had leftover from a party this summer).  I don't think any of our guests felt like the food was too weird for a birthday party.  Although, they probably wouldn't have said anything to my face, anyway, would they?

We made Pumpkin Muffins (from The Primal Blueprint Cookbook), had cups of fruit salad (bananas, kiwi, oranges, pineapple) and deviled eggs with bacon (get it? Bacon and eggs? :))

Obviously, the party was Toy Story themed.  I made some little cupcake toppers to make the muffins seem a little more exciting.  If I'd had more time, I would have made some frosting (from this post) to make them a little more cupcake like.  As it was, I ran short on time and since it was a brunch party, I thought it would be fine to just skip it.  Not worth stressing over!

Paleo Granola

Granola is a staple in our house.  It can serve as a meal, a snack or even a dessert.  And it is definitely a must if you have kiddos around.   Jack (5yo) would eat this everyday if he could.  We've just recently given it to Sam (18mo) and he couldn't even be bothered to try to use a spoon to eat it with -- he just started using his sticky little fingers.  Most often, we serve it on top of home canned applesauce, peaches, or pears.  It could also be eaten with just a little almond milk or coconut milk.  Or maybe make some kind of smoothie and top it with this.  We also love it with fried apples and coconut ice cream.  Basically, it's good on top of anything.  It's versatile enough that you could switch up the spices (nutmeg? cloves?), nuts (walnuts? pecans?) and even add some dried fruit too.  Have fun experimenting!

Paleo Granola

10 cups nuts (we use sliced and slivered almonds most of the time)
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
1 Tbsp vanilla
1 Tbsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix all ingredients together in large bowl.  Spread onto parchment paper or silpat lined baking sheet or baking dish with edges.  Bake for 20 - 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes, until golden brown.

Poached Eggs

We eat eggs for breakfast most mornings.  People have asked me if we ever get sick of eggs, to which I answer most definitely not.  I might get tired of regular old grocery store eggs, but not farm fresh ones.  They are SO good.  My only complaint would be that we have a hard time finding enough farm fresh eggs.  With two growing kids, we go through eggs fast around our house.  We get two dozen a week from the same farm we get our veggies from and we usually end up buying another at least another two dozen Omega-3 eggs from the store.

The only problem with making eggs every morning for breakfast is that our pans are shot.  We have some great Rachel Ray pans, but when you use them for three meals a day, they don't tend to last that long.  When you are making eggs, a good pan is pretty key.  And since our pans are on their last leg, we've had to get a little creative.  Enter the poached egg.

I think poached eggs can be a bit intimidating, but I find them pretty easy to make.  I checked out Julia Child's cookbook Julia's Kitchen Wisdom from the library recently and got some great tips.  It seems that there are differing thoughts on how long you should leave an egg in the poaching liquid.  Some say 2-3 minutes, others say 4 and now I'm telling you 5.  I've tried them all and 5 minutes exactly works for us.  Something might work better for you, you've just got to experiment a little.


Poached Eggs

Water
Eggs
Vinegar

Fill large pan with about two inches of water.  Bring to a simmer.  This is important.  Not a boil, but a simmer.  Once water is at a simmer, add a tablespoon or two of vinegar to your water, depending on how big your pan is.  Gently drop the eggs in one at a time, being careful not to crowd the pan.  You can drop them in directly from the shell or crack them into a small cup or mug first and them drop the in gently.  Let cook for 5 minutes exactly.  Remove with a slotted spoon and place on a paper towel to absorb the wetness before serving.

**If anyone in our area knows where we might be able to get more farm fresh eggs from each week, could you let me know?

Paleo Pancakes and Sandwiches!

We have tried lots of different Paleo pancake recipes. Some involve using almond butter, some use bananas, other use almond meal...there are tons of possibilities. Our favorite though is the Coconut Flour Pancakes from The Primal Blueprint Cookbook. We feel like they are about as close to regular old pancakes as we're going to get.

This last week, we got two pints of raspberries and a pint of boysenberries in our CSA basket. Yum. We decided to make some berry "syrup" to top our pancakes with. This meal definitely felt a bit like a indulgent Saturday morning breakfast, but without any of the guilt.

For the syrup, we simply mashed up a couple of cups of berries and heated them on low while the pancakes were cooking. Like I mentioned before, we are trying to cut back on unnecessary sweetening things with honey, so we didn't add any this time around. Depending on how sweet the berries are already, I think a teaspoon or two of honey would be a nice addition next time.

One great thing about pancakes is that can be used to make a Paleo friendly sandwich! Jack (5yo) was super stoked about this one. We just slapped on some almond butter and honey and he was in heaven. The next day we made them again with some leftovers and we added in a little bit of our berry syrup as well. Super great little snack for the kiddos.

Veggies for Breakfast

One of the biggest changes that we've made since becoming a Paleo family is making it a point to get veggies at every meal -- including breakfast. I'll admit that it can be tricky and there are obviously days where we don't succeed, but for the most part, we have figured out how to integrate veggies into our breakfasts. You could easily just roast some broccoli and have that with your eggs or saute up some bell peppers, which we love to do, but we've been trying to "diversify", if you will. Here are some of the recent things we've had:

The other morning, the boys had smoothies with spinach, strawberries, and coconut milk, along with some mini frittatas which has peppers, spinach, onions and bacon.

This is a couple of eggs with some bacon and chard.

Our littlest dude had some avocado (which he likes to put in his hair...) and a banana one morning.

And, probably our favorite veggie to have with breakfast is zucchini. It's actually probably tied with peppers in all honesty. Here we had it with some sausage and eggs.

Anybody out there have any other great ideas for getting veggies at breakfast?

Planning Ahead

This past week has been crazy town around our house. I knew it was coming, but I really didn't think about planning ahead. So, a couple of days into the craziness, I decided to take a couple of afternoons and get some major cooking done during the kids' rest time. I hadn't planned ahead a ton, but we had everything on hand that I needed thanks to a recent shopping trip to Trader Joe's and Costco and our weekly CSA basket.

Here's what I got done on the first afternoon:

I combined two pounds of ground beef and one pound of ground italian sausage, along with some garlic pepper seasoning that I recently discovered at the meat counter at Fred Meyer. I made some burger patties for dinner and the rest of the meat was turned into meatballs.

Next up, I made up a batch of Nom Nom Paleo's Grilled Green Chicken -- which was AMAZING! It was incredible. I can't say enough good things about it. It was fabulous.

And here's what it all looked like after it was all cooked and consumed...

Burgers, grilled onions, homemade spicy ginger mayo, avocado, and some roasted carrots.

Spaghetti and meatballs (recipe coming soon!). This was delicious and super quick and easy. And I only used half of the meatballs that I made, so we'll still get another meal out of the rest. I'm thinking kabobs of some kind with some cauliflower rice, but we'll see what I feel like at the time.

Grilled Green Chicken and roasted broccoli.

And then today, I took another couple of hours to get more stuff done.

I hard boiled a dozen eggs, made 4 batches of Blueberry Coconut Muffins (two batches were actually made with raspberries), two dozen mini egg frittatas (just like a frittata, but baked in a muffin tin), a batch of Cheap & Cheerful Chicken, and some bacon wrapped dates just because I felt like wrapping something in bacon. By the time this picture was taken, a few muffins and some chicken had gone mysteriously missing. I put sixteen of the muffins and sixteen of the frittatas in the freezer for a rainy day (coincidentally, it was pretty rainy today around these parts). The eggs and the chicken will get eaten this week for snacks, meals and with salads for my husbands work lunches.

So, there you have it, a little planning ahead -- and a lot of dishes -- and I can kick my feet up and not worry about anything for a few days. Okay, well maybe not, but it will definitely make things easier!

Fool Proof Frittata

To me, a frittata always seemed a bit hoity toity. For some reason, I assumed they were hard to make or something. I don't know why, because they are incredibly easy and require no real recipe, just a basic idea. They keep well in the fridge and I usually make them the night before if I know we are going to have a busy morning and will need a quick meal. I also make it sometimes for my hubby to take for his lunch.

Below is a picture of what our almost one-and-a-half-year-old ate for breakfast the day I made this particular frittata. We just chopped it up into grab-able (that's totally a word, right?) pieces and he LOVED it. Which is nice since he has decided to protest eating scrambled eggs. Finding stuff that he could feed himself was getting tricky (i.e. breakfast had basically been consisting of a banana, an avocado, and grapes unless we had some nutty cookies, apple muffins or coconut flour blueberry muffins around).

Fool Proof Frittata

Eggs
Meat (bacon, sausage, etc.)
Vegetables (peppers, asparagus, mushrooms, onion, tomato, broccoli, etc.)
Oil (depending on the meat you use, you may be able to just use the grease from the meat)

For this particular frittata, I just used what we had laying around, which was bacon, peppers and mushrooms. And I think I used about 8 or 9 eggs, which is great for our family, with a little leftover. Here's the basic idea:

1. Cook the meat in whatever size skillet you prefer. I find that it's easiest to get the frittata out if the pan has slanted sides, but it's not necessary.

2. Once the meat is cooked, add the veggies and get them started.

3. Once veggies are mostly cooked, beat eggs and then add them to the pan. If you need to, add oil before you do this to keep the eggs from sticking.

4. Let the eggs set up and cook around the edges. The middle will be a little jiggly and uncooked.

5. Place the pan in a 350 degree oven until set in the middle (for me, it's usually about 10 minutes), but it will just depend on how thick your frittata is. The all knowing Alton Brown places his under the broiler for 3-4 minutes, but I have yet to try that.

6. Slice and serve. And don't forget to use a potholder on the handle or your pan...not that I've ever done that....

A Paleo Father's Day

It seems quite fitting that our inaugural blog post happens to land on Father's Day since we owe so much of our Paleo journey, and ultimately our health, to my dear husband. Without him, we never would have started down this road and I am eternally grateful for his leadership and trailblazing in the area of our family's health.

Okay, enough of the mushy stuff...and on to our Father's Day menu!

For breakfast, we started off with a little Paleo biscuits and gravy. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised with the gravy. Although it called for an entire can of coconut milk, it didn't have a coconut flavor, which is what I was afraid of. The biscuits definitely had a coconut flavor, but I didn't notice it when the sausage and gravy were with it.

For lunch, we enjoyed fajitas (sans tortillas) at our favorite little Mexican restaurant.

For dinner, we had Carraway Chicken from the Everyday Paleo cookbook, but we substituted cabbage for the Belgian endive. The chicken was incredibly tender and tasty. And, since it was a crockpot meal, it only took about 5 minutes to put together!

And for dessert, we had strawberries with Honey Vanilla Cream. It. was. delicious. This is something that we'll definitely make again for special occasions. It ended up being pretty sweet, but great.

So, there you have it. Not a typical day necessarily with the baked goods and sweet treats, but we managed to indulge a bit without using ingredients that we don't typically use.

Happy Father's Day!