Saturday, March 31, 2012

Best Paleo Chocolate Chips Cookies


El Capitan to left, Bridelveil Falls to right
Hard to see Half Dome in the way back.
So Napa Valley and Yosemite are really fun places to go! The last week I was lucky enough to take a trip with my awesome friend Deanna and drink lots of great wine and see one of the most amazing National Parks ever. Traveling and eating Paleo are two very tough things, but they are very doable if you come prepared and you know that its ok if you aren't perfect the whole time. Of course I went way over my wine limit and I'm completely ok with that since I was on vacation! (I'm human people). I recommend heading to Yosemite if you can, the scenery is breathtaking and even though it was a little too cold to camp and hike, I can't wait to go back to do that and make it to the top of El Capitan or Half Dome. We just did a bus tour, which was great to learn everything you need to know about the Park and we had a crazy tour guide who said 'Yosemite is so magical' about 124 times. We also decided that next time we are wearing fanny packs, we'd fit in much better..haha. Great trip and great company!

Anyway, I thought I would share this awesome Cookie recipe I have. I freakin love cookies so much and finally found one that is super duper good. Once again my friend Eric gave me this recipe and not really sure where he got it from, but it doesn't matter since its amazing. If you are looking for a good paleo (or even not) chocolate cookie recipe. DO NOT look anymore, this is the one to use.

Yup, thats me.
INGREDIENTS:

3 Cups Almond Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Sea Salt
2 Eggs
1/2 Cup Maple Syrup or Agave (I always use Agave)
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/2 Cup Coconut Oil
1-2 Cups Chocolate Chips


Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

1. Combine the Almond Flour, baking soda, and salt
2. Beat the eggs, and then add the Maple Syrup/Agave and Vanilla Extract
3. Melt Coconut oil and add to Egg Mixture
4. Mix Wet with Dry, then stir in Chocolate Chips
5. Drop about tablespoon dough balls on cookie sheet and bake (8-12min)

IMPORTANT NOTES
      - Don't use Bob's Red Mill Almond Flour, I use Honeyville Almond Flour or Whole Foods bulk   
      - The cookies don't really spread out, so you can put them closer together, but I would try and make        
      them the same size
      - I would use parchment paper or spray the heck out of the cookie sheet so the cookies won't stick
      - Keep an eye on the cookies!!! In one oven it took 7min and in another it took about 12min. The
        worst thing ever is burnt paleo cookies....so sad :(
     - Feel free to add whatever to the cookies!! I like to add cinnamon and coconut flakes, but you can get
       creative.


Wait unti the cookies get a little brown all around them and take them out of the oven. Try and let them cool for at least 15min if you can. I have yet to be able to make this happen. I usually like to take them out a little earlier too, since I like them a little undercooked. BAM!!! Amazing cookies and people won't even know they are paleo. All of my 'non-paleo' friends love these cookies too. They are a great consistency and aren't too sweet. More cake like than a usual cookie, but taste amazing. I bring these to parties a lot too since I know everyone will enjoy them and I know I'm eating a paleo treat. Good luck stopping at one cookie!! I try and limit myself to two, but if you have read my blogs you know I don't have self control, hence why I bring them to parties! Enjoy


Speaking of parties, my CrossFit gym is having a big 'The Crossfit Open is over so we need to have a party, party' The gym I belong to don't do things half-ass that is for sure. We are renting out a community room and having a DJ, tons of food, drinks, and we get to all hang out with super awesome people since we only have super awesome people at CrossFit Soco! I'm making the Sweet Potato Brownies for this one, can not wait!!

Friday, March 23, 2012

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins


Chest to Bar Pullups?!! #@$)#@!!! I really thought we were going to see Handstand Pushups, but CrossFit got really creative and is using the same workout they did in last years open. This means nothing to me since last year I didn't even compete. For those that have no idea what I'm talking about, the next CrossFit Open workout is a ladder of Thrusters and Chest to Bar Pullups. The good news...its the LAST one!! Bad news..I'm not good at CTB! I just learned how to do a CTB pullup so I'm going to try my best and we'll see what happens.


Anyway, once again I was in a baking mood, weird right? No not at all, I have a problem. And I know what happens when I bake...I eat a lot of everything I bake unless I immediately bag it up and bring it somewhere else so someone else can eat it! Well I took a look at what I had laying around and noticed I had some super ripe bananas that needed to get thrown in the freezer or I needed to bake with them. So, I went to one of my favorite sites, DessertStalker and searched banana. So many amazing things came up, but I got stuck on the chocolate chip banana muffins. I have never made a muffin yet, but I do like them and thought this would be a great time to try making some muffins. It was a new website that I have never been to before, but the picture made me drool so I knew this one could be a winner. 

RECIPE: Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

INGREDIENTS:

3 mashed over ripe bananas (Mine for small/medium size)
1/2 tsp baking soda
6 eggs
1/4 cup melted coconut oil 
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup chocolate chips (I use ENJOY LIFE)
Another reason I liked this recipe is the person that created it is lazy like me and just throws everything into a bowl and mixes. Ahhh so easy for us people that hate dirtying 2 bowls and many different utensils. I used Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips for this one, but sometimes just buy some dark chips to use too. Yes, they aren't paleo and you can omit them, but who doesn't love some chocolate? You can buy the Enjoy Life ones at Whole Foods or Natural Grocers or buy them on Amazon HERE.
Also, when you bake Paleo,  you always seem to use lots of eggs. Eggs are one of those things I never skimp on. I always get Cage-free, organic, Omega-3 eggs. They have great prices at Sunflower market and even the regular grocery stores are selling these type of eggs. I go through like 3 dozen every few weeks...I like eggs. I even got one that had two yolks in it the other day...I think that means I'm going to have good luck or something or I could have made that up..whatever.

Ok on to the Muffins, after 25min at 350 degrees, they came out of the oven puffed up and little brown on top and smelled wonderfully! If you have those awesome silicone muffin cups, I'd use those. I didn't so they stuck a little to the paper, but i did sneak them into 12 cups even though the recipe said 11. 
After letting them cool for 10 seconds (yes you should wait longer..much longer), I had to dig to in, the smell was overtaking my will power to wait. YUM!! The taste of banana doesn't overpower your taste buds and its great banana actually makes the muffin a little sweet. The banana and chocolate chips complement each other and the texture is just like a muffin, just a little spongier I thought. I became immediately addicted to them and if you read my previous posts you know I have no self control and soon inhaled two more of these puppies. They are all gone now after I decided to give the rest to Sean and well he ate three right away before I had to take them away from him. Success!! And I was even complemented that this was one of my better baked goods!! 
If you are looking for that paleo muffin recipe and enjoy the combination of chocolate and banana, these are a no-brainer. I might wait a long time before I make another batch though, unless I have taste testers other than me! Ok time to enjoy this amazing weather..have a great weekend everyone, its supposed to be 80 here! Oh and get ready for the best paleo cookie recipe ever!!!!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Paleo Cookie Dough Bites

Wow, I am sore! 150 wall balls destroyed my legs and then the last two days of workouts makes it hurt when I laugh. I love the feeling since I think of sore as myself getting stronger, which is my ultimate goal. I am not going to lie though when I am happy that this week is the last week of the Crossfit Open. I find myself a little obsessed with checking scores, watching workouts, and sweating all day Wednesday wondering what the next workout is going to be, then getting nervous about the workout on Saturday. Training for the open has been a blast and its been a lot of hard work, but I have loved every minute of it and can't wait to see what other CrossFit goals I can accomplish. I am super excited to cheer our team on at Regionals more than anything! If it wasn't for CrossFit, I probably never would have found the paleo diet and been able to make all these great recipes! 

So I came across this recipe on dessertstalker.com. This is a great site to find paleo treats since it takes recipes from TONS of websites and compiles them here and I was craving a sweet of somesort. I'm sorry I have such a sweet tooth, but by making some paleo treats its better than me eating some cake. This recipe looked really interesting and I was really skeptical since I LOVE cookie dough. So much that I am the one that digs out all of the pieces of cookie dough in ice cream, I layer it on as a topping at those yogurt places, and if someone is making cookies, I'm the first person to lick the bowl and spoons. Naturally, I had to see how this recipe stacked up to real cookie dough. 


Ingredients: 

3/4 Cup Almond Flour
3 Tbsp unsweetened shredded coconut
2 Tbsp organic grass fed butter
1 Tbsp coconut flour
1 Tbsp vanilla (hmm...more on this later)
1 Tbsp coconut milk
1 Tbsp agave
Chocolate Chips- add as much as you like

Super easy recipes as you just put all the ingredients together and mix. Now when I was making this I was really skeptical about the 1 tablespoon of vanilla. Though I followed the recipe and did it anyway. I had to add a little extra coconut milk, but the mixture formed little cookie balls super easy that stayed together. It didn't say to put in the fridge, but I think this is necessary. After about 30min I took one out and dug in. A little different flavor then what I was expecting as in way to much vanilla for my taste though they still tasted yummy. I only had one since the flavor was a little overpowering. After a day in the fridge they seemed to taste better. I'm not sure they deserve the title as cookie dough bites, but more Paleo Raw Chocolate Chip Balls. I would make these again, but would decrease the amount of vanilla to about a teaspoon. I found another recipe after this one with the same title as 'cookie dough' and am interested in how that one tastes too. 


Ok I need to foam roll big time. The open has shown me too that taking care of your body is super important also. I think I might try some paleo 'corn dogs' soon too, found a recipe that looks good..stay tuned!




Saturday, March 17, 2012

St. Patty's Coconut Flour Bread

HAPPY ST. PATTY'S DAY!! Yea so I hope everyone is enjoying this fantastic holiday. Yea I know its just a reason to make Irish Bars money, but I still like it, even thought I don't really drink and I'm not Irish, I pretend along with tons of other people. It's also fun people watching and seeing everyone in there drunken stupor at like noon. So I began my St. Patty's day with WOD 12.4. Arrg, fing muscle ups. I will get one of those things one of these days! Though super inspiring seeing the girls and guys in my gym rock that workout! Also Lori and Eric brought in amazing paleo treats...it got me through those wall balls and double unders knowing I could stuff my face with cookie and coconut bars afterwards, yea I might of ate a few too many...no self control Stef! Oh watch this video, it will make you happy, and I know this will be me hopefully soon!

Sorry for no posts lately, I've just been grilling the sh*t out of stuff and eating asparagus, yeah nothing exciting. Though last night I made a few things and have some great posts for this week! I was sitting around yesterday afternoon and was craving some bread. This really never happens anymore since I started Paleo, but for some reason I wanted some and if I actually had some in my cabinet, I might have eaten it, but I don't, since I don't buy that processed garbage. I wanted to try something different than the almond flour bread I usually make since I wanted to perhaps try making french toast with it. Hmmm...how about Coconut Bread!! Time to find a recipe....after google gave me lots of choices, I noticed they pretty much were ALL the same. So I just picked the one from Marks Daily Apple and went with it: (For people that don't know Mark Sisson..read this book: it changed my life Paleo 21 day Challenge)

RECIPE: Coconut Flour Bread 

INGREDIENTS:
6 eggs
1/2 cups ghee (or butter) (I used coconut oil and butter to get 1/2 cup, sounded like a good idea!)
1-2 tablespoon honey, depending on taste (I used 2 tablespoons agave)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup coconut flour



This recipes is super duper easy! Throw everything in a bowl and mix mix mix!! You will get a yellowish pasty batter. It doesn't look like bread batter, but that is the way its supposed to look. I used my small loaf pan again. I think 9x5ish measurements. Before you throw the bread in there make sure you oil or spray the heck out of the pan so it doesn't stick. The worst thing ever is taking the bread out and trying to get it out of the pan and half of it comes out and half of it...yes this has happened to me. After the bread is in the pan, chuck it into your preheated 350 degree oven and then you have to wait a brutal 40 min!


I realized I actually could have made this St. Patty's Day bread if I had some green food coloring, but oh well, maybe I'll make some Easter Bread. Green bread would kinda freak me out. After the 40 min, plus another 15 min of waiting it for to cool I was ready to take it out of the pan. The top and edges looked nice and crusty and I couldn't wait to taste it. The bread is definitely more on the dense side, but stays together really well. The bread has a more dry taste, but flavor is much closer to bread. Event though it was a bit dry, the eggs and honey gave it some moistness (think i just made up that word) and I thought it taste great, even just by itself! Though I really can't have more than one or two small pieces since they are hearty pieces! 
You can see its dense, but its good!


YUM
Not sure which bread I like more, coconut or almond, but they are too totally different breads and since the coconut bread was more dense and stayed together I tried it as French Toast this morning! I only had one slice, but that is all I needed and it was good! The bread didn't suck up as much as the egg mixture as I wanted, but with some butter and a little maple syrup I was pretty darn happy to start my day off with Paleo french toast and bacon! 


My piece of Coconut Bread French Toast!
Looking for another bread recipe, here ya go. Let me know how it goes, it might just be what you need after a day of drinking ;-).




Sunday, March 11, 2012

Paleo Pumpkin Waffles

So after a long week of skiing and doing 12.3 WOD on Saturday, I have finally succumbed to a cold. I hate being sick. It really sucks and it makes me not want to do anything, but I thought finding something good to cook would help it. And its a little dreary outside so I was thinking comfort food....WAFFLES!! I recently got a Waffle maker and really wanted to use it. If you don't have a waffle maker, they are awesome. I got a smoking deal for mine from amazon.com. Its a Cuisinart 4 waffle maker and I paid 30 bucks for it. You don't need anything fancy!

So I know PaleOMG had some waffle recipes so I went and browsed her blog. I found a few, but really wanted to make the Pumpkin Waffle recipe since I just happened to have a can of pumpkin. Pumpkin is awesome, and I know its the winter and when you think of pumpkin you think fall, but I could eat it year round! And your local grocery store will have it, usually by the pie filling aisle. So after procrastinating all morning long, I finally got the will to start cooking some waffles.

RECIPE: Paleo Pumpkin Waffles

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup pureed pumpkin (I bought the can)
  • 3/4 cup almond flour
  • 1/4 cup canned coconut milk
  • 1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
  • 2 tablespoon maple syrup (I used agave maple syrup)
  • 2 eggs, whisked
  • 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon ginger (I don't like ginger so I didn't use this and I didn't have any)
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
The recipe was easy to follow, I first mixed the coconut milk, eggs, vanilla, and maple syrup. It took awhile for the coconut milk to get mixed in since its pretty thick from the can, but eventually it all got mixed in. After that I added everything else, with pumpkin last and whisked the heck out of it. I also turned on my waffle maker to medium heat. 

All of the batter fit into my waffle maker, maybe I added too much? Though it fit fine and ended up find even though the recipe says it can make 5 waffles. So I ladled it in there and then made some bacon while it was cooking (duh, whats breakfast without bacon!! Make sure its uncured). Probably took around 3 minutes. They were super easy to take out of the waffle maker too and looked yummy, plus my kitchen now smelled great of bacon and waffles. That might sounds gross...its not, its awesome. 


So I put some butter (because butter makes everything better) and a little agave maple syrup on top and started to dig in. They are a little crumbly, so don't be surprised if they fall apart a little. Maybe I needed to  have them in longer? I wouldn't recommend eating this plain, they are tasty, but they definitely need some butter, fruit, syrup, or something on top. They are also really hearty. I couldn't finished the two that I put on my plate. They aren't my favorite breakfast I have cooked, but they aren't bad. The texture is different from a regular waffle. I like mine super crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. The whole waffle is going to be soft, but I still ate it all, and with some butter and syrup, I thought it was pretty good!

So if you enjoy pumpkin, this is a recipe you should try! There are so many more waffle recipes, I can't wait to try another one. Not bad for the first one, but I know I can do better. Let me know if you know of a good one I can try next!! 


Looks like the sun is finally coming out! Love Colorado!

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Paleo Almond Flour Bread

So being a 'caveperson' I don't really miss bread THAT much, though sometimes I just really want a sando (thats short for sandwich in case you are wondering)! And I miss French Toast more than anything else, which I'm going to try this bread as French Toast at some point in time and see how it comes out. Anywho, today my friend Eric was talking about the almond bread at CrossFit I made awhile back and I got a sudden craving to make it again! (And he made some amazing coconut bars that I might of eaten 3 of at the WOD today...recipe please!)

So bread is always a hard one, since I've read so many bad reviews of them. I wanted to find a recipe that had been made a lot, had good reviews, didn't have tons of ingredients I haven't heard of, and the person that made up the recipe had a lot of tweaking until they could get it right. That brought me to Elana's Pantry's website. They have lots of great gluten free recipes on the site and an almond(paleo) bread recipe that looked good. And on top of it she mentioned she had been working on this recipe for a few months...sounds good to me!

RECIPE: http://www.elanaspantry.com/paleo-bread/

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup almond flour (don't use Bob's, I got mine from Whole Foods)
2 Tablespoons coconut flour
1/4 cup golden flaxseed meal
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
5 eggs
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 Tablespoon honey
1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar

I followed the recipe pretty much to the T, other than I didn't feel like getting my food processor out. It still worked out fine. I just really hate cleaning that thing, its a pain, and for this recipe I really didn't think it was necessary as long as you whisk the hell out of it. I also got the bread pan that they actually recommend for making this Loaf it is a 7.5" x 3.5" Magic Line Loaf Pan. It is weird measurements, but it is what is recommended, so I'm not sure how it would come out in a regular bread pan, but its worth a try.  I put it in the oven at 350 for 30min.

The top got nice and brown and crispy and a little springy when you would press down on it once it was done. Once again I have no patience, so I waited only 5 minutes until I cut out a slice. So the bread is pretty dense, and is more of bread I would put some butter and agave on and pop in the microwave for a little treat. Super yummy! For a paleo bread it is fantastic. It would be hard to use it for a sandwich, but it could be possible, but I don't think I'd use it for that. I'm going to try French Toast with it most likely and have it has a snack with some butter! I think this bread is probably one of the best easy paleo bread recipe, but I make it on rare occasions since it does use a lot of eggs and almond flour. Now I have to try and not finish the bread in a day! I'll let you know how the French Toast goes!! Oh and I feel like all these cooking sites have professionals take pictures of their food or something, because I have found my food never looks at good, let me know if you hava better luck!

Smaller sized Loaf, but still good. 
YUM!!, though doesn't look anything like her picture..AGAIN!

Congrats to everyone that finished 12.2 WOD of the CrossFit Games...Snatches are hard (enter jokes here).  It was so much fun cheering everyone on at CrossFit Soco. Have a great weekend, I'm off skiing for awhile :-)    

Friday, March 2, 2012

Sweet Potato Brownies....Genius!

So when I first saw this post on paleomg.com website, I got excited to make them since I LOVE brownies and sweet potatoes. Though the thought of putting them together made me nervous. How could you make brownies out of sweet potatoes?!? Let me just tell you that you can and you should, because these make me happy!

I got really excited when this recipe got posted because not only do I love baking paleo goods, but I already had everything in my kitchen so I didn't have to run out to the grocery store. All these ingredients were already stocked and if you are a paleo person like myself there is a good chance you should have everything too.

RECIPES: PaleOMG- Sweet Potato Brownies
Ingredients:
- 1 sweet potato (I used a medium sized one and it worked well)
- 3 eggs, whisked
- 1/4 cup Coconut Oil (melted)
- 1/3 cup raw honey
- 1/2 cup Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips (Got these from Sunflower Market, you could chop up extra dark   chocolate too)
- 3 Tablespoons Coconut Flour
- 2 Tablespoons utnsweentened cocoa powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- pinch of salt

Yup here picture looks much better!
The sweet potato took awhile to cook in the oven (around 35min at 400), but be patient, the longer you wait the easier the skin will just fall off. So the recipe is pretty self explanatory, the way I like it! Mix wet ingredients, then put dry ingredients in and mix. I whisked the heck of it and the batter was still chunky. Her picture is much better than mine and is doesn't look like her brownies turned out as 'chunky.' But I would say just smash and whisk the heck out of it and if its still a little chunky, no worries, they still taste amazing.

I didn't have an 8x8, but had a a glass longer pan, no idea the measurements, but I would say a little smaller than a cake pan. I would stick with the 8x8 if you have it so your brownies are a little thicker than mine. I chucked the batter in the pan after spraying it with some coconut cooking spray and popped it in the oven for 30min. In the meantime I licked the bowl and spoon...the batter is surprisingly super good. I don't recommend doing this, but dang it was good! Finally after 30min I got to take this wonderous baked good out of the oven. It says to let it cool...umm yea I couldn't wait, they smelled WAY to good!

Sure enough these brownies did not disappoint. They were a little gooey and super soft. You can't even taste the sweet potato in them at all!! Just the chocolate and the chocolate chips. The texture is similar to one of a regular brownie also, just a little more crumbly. After I downed about 3, I put them in the fridge. They are even better after refrigerated and stay together much better! So I decided to eat some more later...the next morning...afternoon...evening..right now..yea they don't last long! Soooo good and such an amazing recipe that I would have NEVER thought of. I make these now ALL the time since they are great for the chocolate fix I need from time to time, now I just need to work on that self control...

Do yourself a favor, make the brownies! I just ate two, they are going to help the tons of snatches I have to do tomorrow.
Put some walnuts in half!

Ok so these look nothing like PALEOMG and they look gross, I'm sorry, just trust me they are good