“NUTELLA” FOR ADULTS

 

As many of you know I don’t post recipes often because quite frankly there are so many blogs, websites and Pinterest sites that provide every recipe you can imagine or want. However, sometimes I even surprise myself and come up with a must share recipe. Quick back ground, last week a friend introduced me to Barney Butter which is this delightful almond butter made with cocoa and coconut oil, which you can find in your local stores or on line and perhaps that is the easiest way to enjoy this delightful creation of “Nutella” for adults. There is no hazelnut but just having a cocoa flavor, clean nut, spread for apples, vegetables, seed crackers or whatever you would normally put almond butter on. After trying this little tub of yummy goodness, and it is little, I had my husband try it and he looked at me so seriously with those confident eyes and said “this is good but you can make it better.” My husband truly has the most faith in me and knows that if it can be bought in a store then I can make it at home, better, cleaner, and less expensive so the gallant has been thrown, the challenge was on, and I was ready.

This weekend I think I came up with the perfect concoction of almond, coconut, cocoa and shared it with husband who said now that is truly a “Nutella for adults” shot, score, win in a matter of moments. So if you are so inclined and want to try this recipe, here it is and since I’m not a baker, chef, or food blogger this is my version without bells and whistles but my husband did think that having a picture or 2 were imperative so here it is and feel free to share with anyone you think would like it, or makes their own food. I think making your own food anytime you can is the best bang for your buck but we all don’t have a lot of time, patients or will to make food at home. I learn by making mistakes and I make a lot of mistakes in the kitchen so if your first batch doesn’t turn out like you thought, keep trying.

 

Ingredients

3 cups raw almonds

¼ cup coconut oil

Salt

2 Tbsp. cocoa powder

1 quick dash of maple syrup

 

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 300
2. On cookie sheet put the almonds
3. Cover in coconut oil and add salt
4. Roast the almonds to your liking, I want mine still moist so they cream well and take them out of the oven once I start to really smell them. Est time is about 30 minutes
5. Cool briefly and add almonds to a food processor, or heavy duty blender if you wish
6. Grind almonds and continually scrap the sides and be patient this is a long process
7. Once the almonds start to cream add the cocoa powder and just a quick dash of maple syrup. This sweetness is to cut the bitterness of cocoa powder
8. If you want it thinner or creamier you can slowly add in more liquid coconut oil. I had warmed a little bit and had it ready if I needed it but did not use it.
9. Remove and add to your favorite Mason jar or container and eat anytime.

FEELING STRONGER

As I go into the new year and after several weeks of working out with a trainer and attending Insanity classes I am feeling very strong. This strength is helping with so many things such as better sleep, finally losing some of the menopausal weight, weird cravings going by the wayside and just generally feeling like life is back to normal. When I’m at home or at the gym by myself I lift medium weight, when I’m with my trainer I get to lift heavier weight since I know he is there to spot me when needed.  This bonus of heavy weight lifting really allows me to see my progress and the changes I’m making to my body.

This bonus of feeling stronger is even helping with a new and improved Bikram practice. I can really feel my balance has improved and allows me to go deeper into the standing postures.  My heart rate stays at a stable rate and doesn’t cause me any extra hard breathing or panic moments.  The cardio increase is from my 3 days of Insanity work which is very cardiovascular based but since we are doing a lot of pushups and squats it is also increasing strength. I think I have found a good routine now and since I journal my daily activities and have my trainer look at my journal weekly he is able to look and make sure I’m getting a good mixture of cardio work, strength training on my own and strength training with him as well as a nice balance of Bikram to round it out.

I will even throw in some rest days or active rest days when my body is fatigued because I know I am working hard the rest of the time. I knew I was working hard before but having someone to be accountable to and have someone council me on my routine has helped to take a Sunday off and just go to the Bikram. It might mean I log 3k steps just by doing life things and although my daily goal is 10-13k steps I’m ok with these rest days as I know my body needs them.

I also noticed that once I started to take a few rest days here and there the weight did start to drop off.  I also make a wonderful smoothie every day that is so filling I drink ½ first thing in the morning and wait about 3 hours and have the other ½. I’ll put the recipe below.  This smoothie recipe really tastes incredible and gives me lots of energy to get through even some of my toughest days.

 

SMOOTHIE

Handful of spinach – or any green of your choice

1 baseball size beet – leave peel on

½ sweet pot – leave peel on

Thumb nail size chunk ginger – leave peel on

1 cup frozen strawberries

1 scoop clean protein powder of your choice

Water

Blend and enjoy.

MY NEW FAVORITE SUPER FOOD

I have been experiment with different chia seed recipes and who knew these little seeds were so diverse.  I even have people in my office trying chia seed recipes so not only are we swapping recipes but we get to taste everyone’s creations. Some that I have tried is a banana/chia pudding in which I took ½ banana with 1.5 cups almond/coconut milk, 1 Tbsp. maple syrup in blender until smooth.  Added milk mixture with 1/3 cup chia seeds in a jar, shake well and refrigerate for an hour.  I used the other ½ of my banana as a garnish during serving.

I tasted one that was chia seeds in coconut water and the difference is that this one had a bronze color when mine all turn gray so the color is much more appealing.  Today I tried a chocolate chia seed pudding; this may actually be my favorite. I’m going to make for Easter because I think my nephew will really enjoy it as well.  This was 3 cups of almond milk, ½ cup chia seeds, 3 Tbsp. cocoa powder, 1 Tbsp. maple syrup, and mix in a bowl and refrigerate until desire consistency.  Some garnishes are dark chocolate shavings, whipped cream or even berries.  This one used white chia seeds which I hadn’t seen before and only ever buy the black ones.  The consistency was so good on this pudding and the chocolate flavor was quite nice.  This one didn’t have any garnishes but was still quite good.

I have read that chia seeds are in smoothies but I haven’t tried it yet. I have smoothie almost every day but not sure how the little seeds would taste. I do add ground flax seed to my smoothies but I can’t even taste that.  I may try grinding my chia seeds to make the same type of powder consistency as the flax and see how that tastes.  I have also been adding the chia seeds to my salads, sauces and in other types of food.

It is fun to come up with new recipes and try and new foods. I also love it when I come up with something that my little nephew also likes.  We haven’t ruined his taste buds yet with crazy foods so he can still enjoy the “sweet taste” of foods even if we haven’t added sweeteners.  I was listening to a podcast that said that raw almonds are actually sweet. I must admit I don’t taste sweet in them yet but maybe someday I will. I have badly ruined my own taste buds over the year which is why I won’t do it my little nephew as he has plenty of time to do that himself as he gets older!

FUN RECIPE – CHIA PUDDING

This is a quick blog post since I wanted to share this recipe with all of you.  I’m sure every time you turn around you are hearing about the benefits of chia seeds, including the fact that they are high in omega 3’s, help with inflammation and joint pain and can help lower your blood pressure.  Why wouldn’t everyone be eating them?  They are seeds and by themselves not all that fancy, but you can mix them into anything and hardly even know they are there.  I found a recipe that brings out the tastiness of these little morsels called Chia Pudding.  It has the same consistency of tapioca pudding and a very light flavor.

 

¼ cup chia seeds

1.5 cups almond milk

1 tsp. honey or maple syrup

Dash of cinnamon

 

Mix all ingredients into a glass jar with lid on shake hard and refrigerate until next day.  Serve cold.  One jar was 3 servings for us and it was delightful.

CAVEMAN CRUNCH

In yesterday’s post I mentioned that I took caveman crunch to the game to snack on and wanted to leave it as a separate post to explain it.  In the Paleo diet we eat nuts, seeds and use honey or maple syrup as sweeteners.  A while back my husband said to me that he did not want to eat eggs and bacon for breakfast every day and what could we do instead.  I did what I do best and started researching.  I found a way to make cereal at home that he could eat but what we learned is that depending on how we make it, it can be a cereal with milk or a snack like granola and either way it is fabulous.  We started with this recipe and use this website a lot but we have tweaked it to our liking over the last several weeks and I think we came up with our favorite version.  This is now a weekly staple in our house-hold and it makes it easy to grab and go.

Original recipe is http://civilizedcavemancooking.com/grain-free-goodies/caveman-crunch/

This is how we have tweaked it and this is our favorite combination now.

 

½ cup sunflower seeds

½ cup pumpkin seeds

¼ sesame seeds

1 cup almond meal

2 cups sliced almonds

1 cup chopped walnuts

½ cup walnut oil or butter is our favorites but coconut is a mean 3^rd choice

¼ cup hemp protein powder

¼ flax seed meal

½ cup raw honey

1 tsp. vanilla

 

Mix all the wet ingredients in small bowl and add the flax seed to sit for a moment.  In a separate bowl add all the dry ingredients.  Mix the wet with the dry and coat thoroughly.  On a cookie add foil shiny side up and place the mixture on the cookie sheet.  Place in an oven at 325 and cook for 20-25 minutes.  Stir once or twice to make sure it is not burning or sticking to the foil.  You can grease the foil first if you prefer.

Once it is golden brown take out of oven and let cool completely.  Put in airtight container and enjoy as you want.  We find that we have some nice big chunks for snacking and use the loose parts for cereal.  We will also add raisins to the cereal or berries and I like almond milk with this cereal instead of coconut milk.  You will also notice there is no cocoa or cinnamon in our mixture.  Both are good but we found that no spice is the best for us.  This recipe makes a lot but it lasts a long time too.  Hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

LAST OF THE APPLES

We went to our neighborhood apple orchard a couple of weeks ago and stocked up on a huge bag of apples.  Fresh, organic apples are great treats and from what I can tell don’t spike my blood sugar so I have been enjoying one a day as a treat.  Sure they are sweet and sometimes tart but apples are so good on a daily basis.  Now that we are towards the end of the bag and they have a few little bruises my husband was mentioning that a nice apple dessert would be good for the weekend.  We have baked apples with cinnamon and pecans all the time but that was not what he had in mind.

Apple pie, apple strudel, apple crisp or anything else with apple and yummy is what was more what he was requesting. I haven’t experimented with any crusts yet, so the idea of a pie was a little intimidating.  We settled for apple crisp and it was a good choice.  We still wanted it to fit into our Paleo lifestyle so I started looking for recipes and since I just bought Practical Paleo she has tons of recipes so I started there.  I took her recipes for Blueberry crumble and just used the crumble part and then found an apple crisp recipe on the web and tweaked it for my liking.  What we came up with was pure gold.  So much so I caught my husband eating it for breakfast this morning.

Apple filling

6 apples cut into bit size pieces (I left the skin on since that is where all the goodness is)

1 dash of maple syrup (just to wet the apples)

1 tsp. cinnamon (put more if you like this is a great ingredient on anything)

½ tsp. cardamom (this was an idea from the web recipe and a good one)

Mix in a bowl and pour into a pie plate or 9×9 pan

Crumble

1.5 cups almond meal

1/2 cup chopped nuts (any of your choice)

3 Tbsp. maple syrup

1 cup shred coconut

¼ cup melted butter or coconut oil

¼ tsp. cinnamon

Pinch of salt

Mix together and put over the apples.  Sprinkle additional nuts on top

Preheat oven to 375 and bake 30-40 minutes until top is brown. The apples won’t be bubbly but should be tender.

As far as the pie crust goes, considering the holidays are only a couple weeks away I need to get started on figuring out the best recipe. I have found a few that use almond meal and will give it go.  Once I perfect the crust the inside can be whatever we choose.  Coming up with Paleo friendly holiday desserts seems easier than I originally thought and the key will just be keeping it to ourselves that they are gluten-free, dairy free and sugar free, but not sweetened free.  We will use maple syrup and raw honey to sweeten our treats.

PUMPKIN SOUFFLE

http://balancedbites.com/2012/10/easy-recipe-pumpkin-souffle.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=easy-recipe-pumpkin-souffle

This is an incredible recipe for this time of year.  It was easy and although I made the dessert tasting one I’m going to make the savory side dish one next.  This is one of my dishes that I’m taking to Thanksgiving this year and I know it will be a hit.  Everyone will think I slaved over it and no one would even ask if it is a Paleo friendly or not.  The year I was gluten-free for Thanksgiving it was a big deal but this year I’m hoping to just bring the things that Matthew and I will eat and bring up Paleo, gluten-free, dairy free or anything else we might be free from this year. 

The foods we are making and trying will be a success and whenever anything tastes great no one asks what isn’t in it just what is the recipe.  I won’t give my family this link I would certainly write out the recipe for anyone who might want it. Pumpkin, warmth, sweet tasting and yummy has autumn and Thanksgiving written all over it. This is a perfect individual side or dessert to take anywhere.  They are the perfect size with just a cup of yumminess in each ramekin. I’m very pleased with these delightful treats.

NIGHTSHADES

What are nightshades and how does it affect autoimmune diseases and flare-ups? Are these trigger foods for flares and what does the research show? These are a few of the questions I had when I first heard I should avoid nightshades.  I really enjoy eating and don’t want to eliminate anything unless it is imperative.  Therefore, how does this affect me? First what are nightshades?  They are vegetables and technically fruits as well since tomatoes are in the mix that are also called the potato family. These vegetables are of course potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and others.  What is in these foods that could cause flare-ups? Alkaloids are found in these foods that some believe could cause flare-ups.

The information and research on this topic is still arguable and the idea is that some believe there is a correlation where as others believe there is no correlation at all.  Some researchers say if you have an autoimmune disease take them out of your diet for 30 days and see how you feel.  Put them back into your diet for a week or so and again evaluate how you feel.  Elimination diets in my mind don’t seem to do harm so taking these foods out doesn’t seem like a bad idea to me to see how they affect me and my MCTD.  However, who doesn’t love a fresh ripe tomato this time of year? Also, I have a drawer full of the most delicious sweet yellow peppers that came direct from the organic farm near our home.  There is still a little dirt on them and I still ate one on my way home in the car.  You can bite into them just like apples and the flavors that hit your tongue are so delicious and sweet and especially satisfying. 

If I never had to eat another eggplant in my life I would be more than grateful but my husband really enjoys them so I eat them when I have too.  It wouldn’t really be fair of me to say I can’t eat eggplant for my MCTD as I’m munching on my tomatoes and peppers.  When winter is here and these foods are no longer available to me other than the ones found in the grocery store and I have no idea where they have arrived from, at that time I can walk away and see if there is any change in removing these foods from my diet.  Am I picking and choosing my time and place and eliminating foods? Sure, I am especially since buying local, fresh, organic foods just make summer and fall so much fun.  Winter is a good time to try a true elimination diet since foods will be hard to come by just because of the weather.

We still have the farmers market even in the winter but the selection is very limited and I will turn to other types of foods for those months. What I haven’t decided is if I should or want to cut out nightshades and eggs all in the same month.  My favorite podcast says cut it all and do it right away so you can get a real understanding of how you feel.  My thought is the less I do the easier I can tell when things change.  Just by removing grains and legumes I have seen a huge change and now that I’m about 90% dairy free I’m trying to see what affect that has.  This move is coming from my husband and I must admit that makes it much easier to pass up on my cheese. 

Our shopping trip this week didn’t have any dairy what so ever and the best thing was the bag of produce we got at the farm stand was much heavier than the bag of groceries we bought at the store.  My husband said every bag of produce should weight more than our weekly shopping and that should be goal.  I love when he sets goals for us.  This has turned into an us journey now not my journey and here we go together.

I don’t usually write about meals and recipes although I”m not sure why I don’t considering I spend so much time thinking about it, planning it, making it and enjoying eating it.  In any case I’m going to share a wonderful meal my husband made me today. It was the most incredible BLAT salad.  Bacon, lettuce, avocado, tomato salad.  The saltiness of the bacon with the cream of the avocado just made all the flavors do a little dance on my tongue. We sat together talking about these salads we were enjoying and discussing how food has changed our dinner discussions recently because we spend so much time talking about food instead of other things like work or stress and even money. Food is bringing us together in a new way.

WELLNESS FOR WOMEN

You’ve all seen my profile so you know I’m very near 40 and although the 40 is the new 30 I still need to re-think my wellness.  I attended a wellness program for eating to balance hormones and the idea of clean eating.  I have read many books on this subject and every magazine talks about this topic so this is not new to me.  Everyone says that you can’t eat in your 30’s the way you did your 20’s that it will eventually catch up with you.  Well my 30’s came and went pretty smoothly honestly but now I’m learning I can’t eat the way I did in my 30’s as I fast approach 40.

OK so what am I going to do about it?  Good question, part of the fun with my husband and I is really enjoying food together.  We make some fabulous meals at home and about once a month or maybe once every 2 months we go out for a spectacular dinner somewhere.  In the heart of Portland Maine we have some fabulous restaurants and we enjoy them.

I need to just cut back a little bit.  I can’t increase my exercise anymore than I have to off set the food so the food has to decrease. I went to the gym this morning for 3 hours and when I got home I was really hungry.  I had a onion and pepper egg scramble with a yogurt. I was still hungry.  What am I missing? My yogurt was Greek with 14 grams of protein so I know I’m getting enough protein and I sprinkled a little quinoa crunch over the top.  I posted the recipe below. It is really yummy but I’m looking for the full moment.

I have more reading to do and trying to figure out the best food for my body as I get older. I need to eat to fulfill but not over fill. That is my struggle but also my challenge for the month of February.

 

Recipe : Quinoa Crunch

1 cup quinoa rinsed

¼ cup flax seed

1 Tbsp honey

1 Tbsp olive oil

 

preheat oven to 375

In bowl mix quinoa, flax, honey and evoo.  Put on a cookie sheet in a thin later and bake 15 minutes.  Let cool and put in an airtight container for up to one week.

 

This is good sprinkled on yogurt and anything that needs a little sweet crunch.

CABBAGE, CABBAGE, CABBAGE

What am I going to do with all this cabbage?  Every week now in our box from the farmer we have cabbage and although my husband has made his “world’s famous coleslaw” although I think everyone says theirs is world famous and no coleslaw in my mind is world famous. I am actually sick of coleslaw  What else can you do with cabbage? Good question, I looked it up on line and found a million recipes the only problem is that
none of them sounded all that great.  There was one that is called a cabbage burger and this is a big recipe Nebraska.  I’m from Nebraska and hadn’t heard of cabbage burgers until I read the recipe and realized they meant a runza, those are world famous in Nebraska and all my relatives make the best ones but I will not be making them in the summer time since you have to have the oven on all day.

So runzas are out until winter and by then the cabbage will hopefully be gone by then too.  So, what do I do with all this?  Apparently there is a group of woman at work on a kale and cabbage diet.  That made me laugh out loud and at them not with them.  I’m all for eating kale daily and really enjoy it but please don’t tell me that you are on the all you can eat kale and cabbage diet since that will last a whole 3 days until they are gorging at the “Two Fat Cat’s Bakery” again.  I could donate my cabbage to my co-workers and if I don’t come up with some solutions soon I just might do that. In the meantime I did find a recipe calling for cabbage and gnocchi. 

I don’t know exactly what gnocchi is except it is a potato form and I found it in the freezer section. The recipe looks easy enough and gives me something to try with the cabbage while also trying a new food such as gnocchi.  I haven’t made it yet but it is on my list of recipes this week and hoping that I enjoy this cabbage meal and also hoping I can find other things to do with cabbage.  Now it would be so much better if I
were writing strawberries, strawberries, strawberries.  I would never complain about too many strawberries.