"The Devil Made Me Do It" bars

Oh they are good!  They are very yummy!  nom-nom-nom-nom!  Originally I started trying to make these to be a baklava replacement for my hubby.  Those are the treats of his homeland but they ended up being a sort of devilishly good yummy-ness in their own right.    So here's how you make 'em!  I even made up a nutrition label on the suggestion of my fantastic coach so we have a better idea of what is in them.  So let's get to it!

Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1.5 tsp vanilla
1/2 c. coconut oil
1/2 c. olive oil  (or less...use your judgment based on elevation and consistency.)
2/3 coconut powder (optional)*
1 c. Honey Powder**
1 c. Walnuts chopped
2-3 c. Pecan Flour***

Put eggs, baking powder, and vanilla in mixer.  Mix.  Then add coconut oil and olive oil.  Blend until it's got a nice consistency.  I put my coconut oil in the nuker for about 20 seconds just to soften it a bit as it's currently in it's solid state based on the temperature.  Coconut oil has a very LOW melting point though so it depends on your household and where your coconut oil is at as far as solid or liquid state.

Add Honey powder and blend.  Add chopped walnuts and blend.  Once that is all blended start adding pecan flour about half a cup at a time in between blending.  This is where you have to eyeball it a bit.  You will want the batter to be fairly stiff.  It will soften a LOT in the oven.  It will taste good either way - but you may end up using anywhere from 2-3 cups of pecan flour depending.

Spread it all out on a regular cookie sheet.  Bake at 300 degrees for approximately 30 minutes.  I find that some days it's 30 minutes.  Some days it's 35.  After they have cooled they are extra yummy if cut into squares and stored in the fridge.  I just had a square with a nice cup of coffee on this brisk fall day. :D Enjoy! Nutritional info on bottom of page! 

*Coconut powder is a food used in Indian cooking.  It's like pulverized coconut but still has the texture and feel of fresh coconut.  It's unsweetened and just coconut-y, plus it's Cheap!!!  Here's a link to some on Amazon. 
**A friend of mine introduced me to Honey Powder.  I love this stuff!  It makes cooking and baking in Paleo a bit easier as it measures like traditional sugar.  This eliminates trying to calculate the difference of liquid in regular honey when baking etc.  I also found some on Amazon and the link is Here.  There are many out there.  I have found some supplement with added fructose.  Be sure to check the ingredients or you could get tricked.
***Locally in El Paso the same friend who introduced me to honey powder, also introduced me to a little itty bitty store in Bassett Mall for Ramirez Pecan Farm.  They sell a 3 pound bag of pecan flour for anywhere from $6 - $10 depending on the season.  I googled real quick and it seems it's available online too under either "Pecan Flour" or "Pecan Meal."

This label is based on 2 cups of pecan meal.  Serving size is a 2" x 2" square.

COMING SOON!!!!!

I am still perfecting the recipe and playing around with it BUT....coming soon!

Paleo Baklava!  All the flavor of Baklava without the phyllo dough.  Yummmmm!!!!!!! (Yet another consequence of having a husband raised on sweets who needs a fix now and again!)  XOXO!

It didn't taste like Chicken! ;D

My husband and I have a lot of things in common, among them is the inability to "Do" Chicken.  It seems that no matter what we do, Chicken always seems to taste like Chicken which can become extremely tiresome!  For whatever reason, we were on the same wavelength again the other day and both started thinking how good some BBQ dark meat would taste.  (Odd but OK!?!?!)  Let's face it...after years of the the dietary world shoving the glory of the breast in our face, there is only so much breast a person can take!  (Insert 12 year old boy joke here.) 

We like the dark meat.  A little higher in fat content and a little richer in taste, it is, for us, the "do-able" part of the feathered fowl.  So I hit up Google.  The recipe that kept coming back as the bomb was from Son of Grok.  I will say, I made a couple of modifications to it.  Personally, we threw in a little sweetner in the form of Honey and I have been using powdered garlic lately for my spices.  Call it lazy but with the frequency of which I am making my Jerky seasonings for my Cave Girl Jerky, I am all about efficiency when it comes to making sauces lately.  This also brings to point my *absolute*love* of my mini-crockpot.  It's not the tiny one that only holds a cup but I think it holds 1 quart of liquid.  I inherited it from a girlfriend.  She brought it over with some yummy stuff in it.  After much wine she forgot it at the house.   We made several attempts to get it back to her, both with her coming over (again too much wine.) And me going over to visit her...again...wine.  Well, she eventually told me to hold onto it.  (Perhaps again that came with much wine.)  Either way - it is a Cave Girl's Best Friend. . . even more so than my stand mixer or my food processor.  I *highly* recommend the 1 quart Crockpot.  Anyway - on to the chicken!

Ingredients:
- 1 6oz can tomato paste - Costco has great organic tomato paste for like $6/box!
- 1 1/2 cups beef stock
- 6 tsp granulated Garlic
- 1 1/2 TBSP onion powder
- 2 TBSP mustard - I used stone ground
- 2 TBSP apple cider vinegar
- 1 TBSP Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 2 TBSP chili powder

- 1/2 cup honey or maple syrup or a mix of the two*

Put all the ingredients in your handy dandy 1 qt crockpot, stir it up, plug it in and go run you errands.  Come back and you will have some wonderful BBQ sauce waiting.  

-OR-

Put all the ingredients in your sauce pan and stir occasionally for30-? minutes until it reaches the intensity and consistency you want.  (See why I love the Crockpot? ;)

Now soak, slather, smother your chicken and throw them on the grill!! YUMMERS!!!

Regarding modifications, do what works for you and don't feel bad if what works for you is not what works for your neighbor (IMHO).  We are all unique and that is awesome!  So if you want to cut out the sweetener, go for it.  The original Son of Grok Recipe has no sweetener in it.   We (hubby and I) taste tested that and it was a bit like spaghetti sauce.  We needed a little more sweet with our spice to make that right combination.   Now recently, and I still need to investigate this, one of our coaches told me she uses coconut sugar which is dried coonut I guess?  She said it's very sweet and lower than anything on the glycemic index.  I'm down to try that but need to check with her for more details next time I see her.  Some variations I have seen have seen use Tamari but no sweetener - Tamari is a gluten free soy derived sauce.  I say, whatever's clever.  Do what works for you.

So it seems I have gotten long winded again.   We had a great dinner.  On the way home, stopped by the fruit truck on the side of the road and got an amazing Watermelon and Cantaloupe for a total of $3!  A litte of my fave tomato, pesto and walnut salad and voila!  Dinner was served and I am beyond satiated!

Breakfast is BACK Baby!!!!

So I was reminiscing about one of our former favorite activities which was going to The Original Pancake House and getting a dutch baby.  The first time I had a dutch baby, my bestie introduced me and my husband to it.  Once we had it, it became a regular part of our life.  In my opinion, a good dutch baby FAR and away exceeds a regular old pancake.  I don't care if you top your pancake with chocolate chips and crack cocaine. . . it still will not beat out a good ol' dutch baby!  They are also known as German Pancakes.  I have looked before to see if there is any difference between the two, and to my knowledge, they are the same.  That being said, I have a couple German friends and a dutch friend so if any of you are reading this - please clarify for me if there is indeed a difference! 

At any rate, like most wonderful foods involving gluten and processed sugar, we had bid this adieu.  Today I was trying to do some menu planning and was looking for something different to do with eggs and some food other than meat and veggies.  Then it came to me!  So with a few modifications, very few actually, we have a paleo dutch baby!  This did no rise as highly on the sides as a typical dutch baby but that was to be expected.  It is gluten free, afterall!

Paleo Dutch Baby

3 TBSP Grass Fed Butter
1/2 cup almond flour or coconut flour
2 TBSP vanilla
2 TBSP honey (optional but oh-so-good)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup almond or coconut milk
2 large eggs (room temp preferred)
Lemon Wedges
Maple Syrup

Preheat oven to 375 degrees
Take a cast iron skillet or any other type of pan. (I used 9" cake round today)
Put 2 TBSP grass fed butter in the pan then put the pan in the oven to preheat and melt.  (Kerry Irish Gold is my fave and usually available)

Melt 1 TBSP of butter in another dish and let cool
In a bowl combine flour, eggs, vanilla, baking powder, sea salt, and butter.  Mix it all together until your batter is nice and smooth.  Pour your batter into your preheated pan with melted butter. 

Bake for 30 minutes then serve.  Serve by squeezing a lemon wedge over top then adding maple syrup (or berries or whatever tickles your fancy)

ENJOY!!!!  It's a not-so-little slice of HEAVEN!!!!!  I used almond flour today.  I would like very much to try it with coconut flour.  I think it will probably come out lighter and a little more like a traditional dutch baby but with a coconut flavor twist.  Even being a flatter version, the flavor profile was *there* and it was very very YUMMY!!!

Soy-not-Soy Sauce

Soy sauce is a hard one to replicate or make a substitution for.  This, I have found, tastes not-so-much like soy sauce but has a good flavor profile so I don't mind substituting it.  It has been adapted from a couple of recipes I found online then trial and error.

4 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp honey
1 tsp maple syrup
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 pinch pepper
1 pinch garlic
1 1/2 cups beef stock

I prefer to let them simmer and reduce for just a few minutes to really get the flavors going but that is up to you.

Paleo Banana Bread

This recipe - also sans picture until I make it and take one or you do and send it to me - comes from my Mom!  My mom was a baker in a bakery for many years and now has jumped on the paleo bandwagon with the rest of us!  Here is her recipe for Banana bread!  She warns us that this only makes a small pan - or a baby loaf.  If you want a bigger loaf you would probably have to double the recipe and adjust baking time.  Also another note: My mother's oven is possessed by the devil so to give you cooking times according to her oven would be woefully unfair!  Once I make it, I will come back in and edit but in the interim. . . here you go!

Paleo Banana Bread

Preheat oven to 350

2-3 Banana's
1/3 Cup Olive Oil
1/2 Cup Honey

Blend these three ingredients together in your stand mixer then add:

1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 Cup nut flour (almond, coconut etc)
Pinch of Salt

Blend together then pour into your baby loaf pan.   Bake for (we are guessing here) 20 minutes then check.  You want a toothpick to come out clean, the sides to begin to pull away from the pan and potentially for the top of the loaf to start to crack.  Once those happen - your loaf is done!

Enjoy!!!