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!