March 26th Cooking marathon round 1

So on today's agenda...pancakes(to be frozen and thawed as needed for breakfasts).  Same recipe as before and the kiddos had quite a time making these.  Alot of laughter going on here.  You should never cook with my kids and the tv on.  At one point Kaylie was randomly cracking eggs and instead of putting them in the bowl they were landing on the table. hehehe!!!! Too much fun.  We doubled the pancake batch, cooked them, individually wrapped them and packed them in a tupperware to freeze them.  Next we made Beanless Chili.  The kids kind of lost interest with this one so I was flyin solo here.


Beanless Chili with a hint of um.....somebody's garden
Necessary ingredients:

•  3lbs, of beef (preferably grassfed)
• 1c. pureed carrots
• 1c.pureed spinach
• 1 red pepper
• 1 green pepper
• 1 small onion
• 1 can of tomato sauce (the one I used was 14 oz.)
• your choice of chili seasoning.  I prefer to use the 2 alarm chili kit, you can purchase at your local grocery store, I simply withhold the masa and the red pepper.  The masa is simply flour which you should know is not paloe friendly and the red pepper seems to be to overwhelming once you add the fresh red and green peppers.

Brown the beef.  Drain the grease and put in a slow cooker/crock pot.  Add your freshly pureed and chopped veggies.(remember, you need not puree if you don;t have picky eaters.  It still comes out the same with just chopped veggies). Add your seasoning and turn on low.  Cook for 5 or 6 hours.

Spaghetti Sauced Meat Sauce
Next we started on Spaghetti sauced Meat.  I plan using this meat sauce to top some roasted/broiled green beans(a simple paleo version of spaghetti). I got this recipe from Robb Wolff's book "The Paleo Solution" and I simply added a few things in order to pack in as many veggies as possible.
 
 Nessesary Ingredients

• 3 lbs ground beef (grass-fed if possible), turkey, or chicken
• 1/2 cup chopped onions (about one small onion or 1/2 med onion)
• 2-3 cloves minced garlic
• 1 6 oz. can tomato paste
• 1 20 oz. can tomato sauce
• 2 tsp oregano
• 2 tsp basil
• 1 tsp tarragon
• 1cup pureed broccoli
• 1/2 butternut squash

First and foremost, cut squash in half lengthwise, place open sides down on a cookie sheet and add 1/4 c. water to the cookie sheet.  Cook squash at 400 for about 45 minutes.Once this is accomplished spoon out the mush and puree in a blender or magic bullet.  Next set mush aside and brown your meat of choice.  Once browned, add onions and garlic.  Sautee for 5 to 7 minutes then add tomato sauce and paste.  Pureed veggies come next then add your seasonings.  I tend to add a lil extra of some of these seasonings depending on how potent your broccoli and squash taste is.   Use your best judgment.;)
Now for todays purpose, I simply placed this in a tupperware and put it into the fridge.  But for those of you who may want to cook this all at once...I simply grab a few frozen green beans(about 1/4cup per serving) place on a cookie sheet, drizzle with olive oil and broil until slightly crispy.  Top with the meat sauce and Voila!!!!

I'm thinking that I made enough of these items to have 1 or two nights of leftovers.  so to end the day I whipped up some "crustless pizza casserole"( refer to March 17th recipe) and am calling it good for the night.  Until tomorrow....

BEANLESS CHILI

SPAGHETTI SAUCED MEAT

March 26th 2011 Taming the Chaos and a side of Muffins

Happy Saturday everyone! Goal this weekend....make our meals for the week in advance. During the week I don't get home until 6 or 6:30 have to prepare dinner, feed the ladies, make lunches for the next day(not as easy as you may think, I have picky children remember)and get everyone to bed at a decent hour,  As well as fit any homework, bath time and bedtime stories in in between all of the above said chaos.  By Wednesday I am usually burnt out and ready to throw in the towel and just order pizza.  Now obviously I can't give up and let that happen, paleolithic diet has way to many health benefits to just give up......I've experienced them, and seen them first hand through my kids.  There's no way I want to stop with all the healthyness;)(is that even a word??? healthyness?)  So I've decided I obviously need to think outside the box here, get creative and quit feeling sorry for myself.
      I've decided,  this paleo thing  effects the whole family so why not involve the whole family? During the week we are strapped for time so I am usually only one in the kitchen cooking and preparing meals, when the kids are helping it usually takes twice as long and who are we kidding? you saw how our weekday evenings go we don't have time to embrace the experience, we have time to hurry up and shove food down our throats.  So this weekend the kids and I are going to pre-prepare and cook our foods for the whole week.  In my head this benefits us in quite a few ways...for 1, we don't have to rush to get the meals cooked, we can take our time.  For 2, the kids can help prepare the meals because as said in point 1...we will have the time to do so.  For 3, with letting the lil' ladies help out in the kitchen we get to spend more quality time together and they will get to embrace the paleo cooking experience. And for 4, theoretically we should have more time during the week now so we won't feel like we are running a marathon every evening.  I see no downside to any part of my plan....Lets get cooking!!!!

And just  a quick sidenote....we made paleo pancakes this morning and in the pancake recipe I recently wrote about on March 20th I said to puree the sweet potato.  Turns out the cakes turn out way better if you just grate the sweet potato and add it to the batter instead of pureeing.


We started off the new cooking experience with apple and strawberry muffins.  The kids love these for breakfast with a side of eggs or ham, or just to have as a between meal snack.  I have this new thing of trying to sneak in any veggies in anything I make, due to the fact that my kids think veggies are..and I quote"yuck-a-roo!!!"  So I threw this one together and it went off without a hitch.  The kids had a great time helping!!

Apple Strawberry Muffins

Required Ingredients

• 3/4 c. coconut flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 7 eggs
• 1/4c. raw honey
• 5tbs. applesauce
• 1/3c. of coconut oil or butter
• 1tsp. vanilla
• 1 small butternut squash
• 3 or 4 frozen strawberries
• 1 apple

Before you get all pumped up to make and cook this you need to cook the quash and spoon it out of its shell.  Preaheat oven to 400, cut squash in half lengthwise.  Place squash face down on a cookie sheet and add about 1/4 c. of water to the cookie sheet.  Cook forabout 45 minutes.  Once its done, remove from oven and let cool a bit.  Spoon out the squashy mush and using either blender, magic bullet or food proceser puree the mixture until smooth, No chunks!!  Now the actual muffin makin can begin.  Leave oven on to 400 and in a small bowl combine dry ingredients (flour, salt and baking soda).  In a larger bowl, grate apple and strawberries.  Add squash, eggs honey applesauce, butter(melted), and vanilla to the apple and strawberries. stir to blend.  Once blended add the dry ingredients.  I always put the final batter mixture into the blender to make sure its properly mixed...I hate chunkies!  Place batter into paper lines tins and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until you stick it with a toothpick and it comes out clean. Enjoy!!!


Will post again soon regarding the events of this weekends cooking marathon!

March 20th 2011 Breakfast with a hint of Veggies

Sunday morning is always wonderful in our house.  Once we are all awake the kids love to help make breakfast.  Sunday is a great day for this because we actually have time to make and eat the breakfast as a family, its usually great fun.  This morning was no different than any other, the children are running around singing about pancakes, I am gathering ingredients for the usual coconut pancakes and I suddenly  stumbled upon a book I bought a few years back called "Deceptively Delicious", it's a cookbook written by Jessica Seinfeld and it focuses on getting your children to eat vegetables without even knowing that they are eating them.(amazing idea!!)  She basically purees veggies up puts them in with whatever she decides to cook that day and apparently you can't even taste that they are in whatever it is you may be eating.  So I'm looking at the cover of this book and I start thinking," why can't I do that?" Now if your reading this and you know my children or myself you will know that the three of us are the most pickiest vegetable eaters EVER! if you can get us to eat veggies at all. Knowing all this I start rummaging through the fridge looking for something that I may be able to add to the pancakes without anyone catching on.  I found a sweet potato, spinach, and a small butternut squash.  I decide the sweet potato is obviously slightly sweet , perfect for a pancake, and spinach....why not in eggs Jessica Seinfield does it why can't I. You should know...my kids love food coloring, they color their milk(coconut of course) thier yogurt, even their bath water if I let them.  So telling them that we are having green eggs for breakfast was quite the treat.It took a lil bit to soften the potato to puree the damn thing but it was well worth it, We all had green eggs, coconut/sweet potato pancakes, bacon and a few strawberries.  Breakfast Magnifique!


Coconut/Sweet Potato Pancakes

• 4 eggs
• 3 tablespoons of butter
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons of cocnut milk
• 1 teaspoon of  honey
• 11/2 tsp of vanilla
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup of cocnut flour
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1/2cup-3/4 cup of water
• 1 small sweet potato

Whisk together eggs, butter, cocnut milk, honey, and vanilla.  Peel and cube sweet potato, put in a bowl add a lil water and microwave for 4 or 5 minutes or until soft. Once its soft, use a blender or magic bullet to puree the sweet mush.(I had to add a little water to the mush in order to puree smoothly)add the mush to the mix of pancake ingredients.  Stir dry ingredients together in a separate bowl.  Add wet ingredients to dry and whisk until smooth(I personally prefer to mix it all in the blender)  Add the water to thin out the batter until it is to your desired consistancy. If you have any desire to add fruit, cinnamon, or my kiddos personal fav, chocolate chips, now would be the time to throw them in and stir them up.  Once thats done in a well greased pan or griddle cook pancakes on both sides until browned(not burned but brown, simple mistake I am notorious for)

A few tips...once the pancake is cooked on the first side and right after you flip it over I let it cook for about a minute then i smoosh it down with a spatula so it isn't as fluffy.  By doing this they stay together better and don't fall apart as soon as someone touches them.
Also smaller ones are easier to flip and have less of a chance of falling apart.


SalsaVerde Eggs
This is just a simple kick to regular scrambled eggs.

• desired amount of eggs, 7 or 8 is usually enough for our family of four
• 4 or 5 tablespoons of salsa(depending on how much you like salsa)
• 1/2 cup of pureed spinach
• salt and pepper 

add eggs and salsa to a bowl.  Cut stems off of spinach put in a pan with a lil butter and saute til soft.  place spinach in blender or magic bullet add a bit of water(not to much) and puree til smooth.  Add spinach to eggs and whisk until mixed well. Add butter or oil(preferably coconut or olive) to a pan and cook scrambled eggs as you normally would.

Like I said , the eggs and pancakes went along with bacon and a few strawberries.  The kids ate this dish like it was goin outta style! No complaints here

Saturday March 19th 2011 Everybody falls off the wagon sometimes....

Rough day today trying to stay on the straight and narrow.  It's my little sisters 18th birthday,HAPPY BIRTHDAY SISTER!!! and we are all invited to her birthday party.  Now, I am well aware that my parents do not follow the paleo lifestyle and I am well aware of the types of food they love to eat(they love their bread, chips and pastas) so arriving at the birthday party you would think that I would have prepared myself and my little ladies better for the birthday situation.  In my defense, I was told there were hamburgers and hot dogs and I myself brought a veggie tray, so in my head I was thinking "sure, we can all have bunless burgers or hot dogs with some veggies, ya, we will be fine!" Needless to say that was not the way it went....  By the time I got there we were starving and I gotta say the first thing I spotted when I walked in was my mothers 7 layer dip and Doritos.  I will spare you all the messy awful details but lets just say there was some chocolate cake involved as well.:( By the time we left I was seriously regretting all the yummy goodies we ate, I felt like I weighed 200 lbs. and looked like a whale and the kids were grumpy and screaming " I dont wanna go!!" (I can bet money this was a direct result of a massive sugar crash due to the random items they inhaled because of all the birthday excitement) It was definitely an experience to remember not so much for the grand birthday(no offense sister, it was grand) but for the simple reminder that we don't ever want to feel that way again. So.....note to self, bring your own food!!! Had I simply taken a few minutes outta the day to make some grain free crackers and homeade guac. along with maybe some sliced and fried sweet potatoes with some lettuce wraps to wrap our burgers/hot dogs in and maybe some coconut muffins with homemade paleo frosting this never would have happened.  Dually noted and lesson learned...

March 18th 2011 Funless Fun Burgers

So....on the agenda for Friday night is a recipe I found a few weeks back on my favorite website (www.everydaypaleo.com) The recipe itself is called "Fun Burgers". Now normally, I really love everything this website has to offer... so I eagerly gather all the ingredients needed for "Fun Burgers".  When the gathering of ingredients began, my children were very gung ho about the recipe and were very excited to be a part of the"fun burger" making....so we gathered all the necessary ingredients and began the cooking process...2 hours later...The children are crying(literally) that they are starving, the fun burgers are still cooking and not even remotely showing any signs of fun and I am frustrated that its 9 o'clock at night and  we are all still starving.  Now if you actually take interest in what I'm writing and actually go to the website I just named and type in "Fun Burgers" you will see the process in which I had to go through in order to make fun burgers....Looking back at the recipe I see the error of my ways, for 1...my kids are picky and throwing broccolli in a burger called fun is a big fat lie. For 2,...the woman who created the Everyday Paleo website has more time on her hands to actually make the fun burgers fun for herself and her family ....and for 3.... it was just way to much for a Friday night with a  4 and a 6 year old who have been  at daycare and kindergarden all day long.  To sum it all up, I think Fun Burgers is a great recipe....if your not me.;}

Tomorrows agenda...something good.  I'll let you know the details as soon as I know.

Thursday, March17th 2011 Crustless Pizza Casserole

Since I've started eating and cooking paleo(its been about 5 months now)2 things have happened, I've always relied on certain websites and recipes that people have given me or suggested and I have always ALWAYS craved pizza.  It was very heartbreaking when I came to the realization that I would have to give up this delightful dish.  Tonight was a great, exciting moment when I came up with my  very own recipe for a paleo version of pizza. I call it, "Crustless Pizza Casserole".  I don't wanna brag or anything but it was pretty great considering..it was my first recipe and it was fairly easy to make.  The true test was when my very picky daughters both inhaled it without any coaxing whatsoever. although I'm sure the 2 layers of cheese probably helped with all the delicious yumminess. (this is not typical of a paleo dinner but what is pizza without cheese?) So here you are....Enjoy!

• 2 zuccinnis (grated)
• 1 red &1 green pepper (chopped)
• a handfull or 2 of sliced black olives
• 4 or 5 garlic cloves (minced)
• a few handfuls of parmasean cheese
• your choice of pizza sauce or make your own with tomato sauce, a lil onion & garlic powder & a bit of  basil
• any meats you may use for your favorite pizza toppings( we used pepperoni, chicken, bacon, and sausage)
• and your choice of cheese to top it all off

Preheat oven to 425.  Place grated zuccinni at the bottom of your casserole dish spread around so it covers the whole dish.  Next, spread your sauce over zuccinni.  Once that is done, I made 2 layers...1 layer of meat of your choice and 1 layer of veggies.  Once those are in place I threw a couple handfuls of parmasean cheese and my minced garlic over the meat and veggies.  I continued alternating layers of meat and veggies until I had almost overflowed my casserole dish.  Top it all off with cheese of your choice, cover with foil and cook for 20 to 25 minutes.