Coconut Chicken Nuggets

I have a lot of chicken in my freezer. Whenever the good stuff goes on sale, I stock up and lately I have been really stocking up. Though the best deal I got was at Sunflower Market. They ran out of Ground Turkey on sale so they gave me the ground chicken fo the same price, therefore I stocked up! If you have a Sunflower Market by you I definitely recommend it. The prices were very reasonable and well since we don't have Trader Joe's in Colorado Springs this is the next best thing.

So what to do with all the ground chicken I have now accumulated. Well you know I'm obsessed with coconut... I looked around online (ok googled) for a little bit until I found the recipe I HAD to try and crossed my fingers I could make it taste good since the picture was making me drool. I found two sites (one was the great Health-Bent) that had basically the same recipe: Click to see the full recipe:
Multiplydelicious.com
Health-Bent.com
Both have the same recipe for the chicken, but different sauces

Ingredients:
About 1 pound ground chicken
1 egg yolk
1 teasp onion powder
1/4 teasp garlic powder
1/4 cup + 1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 cup UNSWEETENED shredded coconut
1/2 cupish coconut oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

I used a small bowl to combine the coconut and flour to dip the balls in and then a bigger bowl for the chicken and rest of the ingredients. Get ready to get messy! The chicken mixture stuck to my hands like glue and I should have maybe coated my hands with some flour. I made one hand the hand that goes into the chicken and the other one that would roll it in the almond flour and put in the pan. I got the pan nice and hot and put a little bit of oil in it and just did batches. Tip: Make sure you make the balls small otherwise when you cook them in the oil the outsides get burned and they still aren't cooked inside. If they are getting dark and aren't done, put them on a cookie sheet with parchment and put them in the oven for a little bit. I still ate the burned ones(I call them extra crispy)...yum!


The coconut and almond flour crisps up perfectly! I moved them around in the pan with some tongs to make sure all sides were crispy and cooked and the chicken was completely done, when they got that golden brown tint is when I would rotate. I added coconut oil as necessary, but usually after each small batch was done. Let them cool on a paper towel for a little bit and dang they almost look as good as the picture and it was super easy. Now for the taste test!

I didn't have time or all the ingredients to make any of the sauce they have, but I'm sure they are great. I had some Paleo BBQ sauce I got from a natural grocers (check those ingredients!) and some Agave (I can't help it, I LOVE it!) and dipped the little balls of love into them. Oh man...they taste ten times better than any McDonalds nugget and about a gizzilion times healthier, yea i said gizzilion and I made it up. The crisp of the coconut and the flour on the outside give it a good crunch, and the chicken is tender and moist..ahh I hate the word moist, lets go with juicy! I served this with some kale and sweet potatoes and even surprised myself on how good they turned out. I have since made these 2 more times....so you know you can do this too!

I ate way more than this in one sitting...

They took me about 45min to get the whole thing done. I did small batches so I 'm sure you could bigger ones and it could go by a little faster. I guarantee not only you and your friends will like this, but your kids (if you have them!) will LOVE this also. I made about 30, and they lasted a few days in the fridge..so I might of eaten them for breakfast, don't judge. I just had to prove that they are good for leftovers too... Happy Cooking!

Paleo Coconut Pancakes

So I have an obsession with pancakes, waffles, and all baked goods. And some mornings (especially weekends!) I just don't feel like eggs. So I went on a search for a paleo pancake recipe. Their are sooo many out there and this will be one of many. I have had numerous failures in the past and if I had remembered where I got those recipes, I would share them, but they were dry and icky, but I forced myself to eat them since paleo ingredients are not cheap! So I wanted to try again. Yes anyone can come over to my house and have a Pancake (or Waffle!) party with me anytime, as long as you don't mind that they are paleo!


So after deciphering through a bunch of recipes I came to this one:
http://paleospirit.com/2011/coconut-flour-paleo-pancakes/

I decided on this one because they really explained the recipe and one thing I always look for is that they have tried it numerous times and have found this recipe was the best! Alright time to find the ingredients and cook!
Ingredients:

• 4 eggs, room temperature (Mine came from the fridge..oh well)
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon coconut nectar (coconut sap)<----- I used Agave
• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• coconut oil for frying

They use something called Coconut Nectar in this recipe though...no ideas where to get that, I had Agave, so I used that instead. Ok Paleo Nazi's I know agave isn't the most Paleo thing, but you hardly need much of it and Juli over at Paleomg.com uses it, so its ok. (Umm check out her blog, it rocks and I cook a lot of things from there and will be writing about her recipes a lot!).

I followed the recipe exactly and used medium heat for the cakes. I didn't use very much Coconut Oil. Make sure you make your pancakes small, those b*tches are tough to flip! I might have had some bad flips, which means those got eaten first.

After making a butt load of pancakes I put half in the fridge and sat down to eat the rest! YUMM! I slathered them in some Organic Grass-Fed butter and inhaled. I was pleasantly surprised how good these were! They had a great texture similar to regular pancakes and really melted in my mouth. (I may or may not have gone back and ate the rest in the fridge..) Next time I might make a strawberry sauce and throw some fruit on top too. The combinations are endless. So if you are looking for a pancake recipe this one is a good one to try!! I'll probably make this again, but there are soo many more out there I want to try and see if they are good, which means LOTS of pancake parties!

I promise I will start taking better pictures :-)

Paleo Butternut Squash Lasagna

So this is one the first recipes that I decided to make since I had most of the ingredients and it seemed easy enough. Their have been tons of different varieties of this recipe, but the one I used is from Health-Bent. Health-Bent is a GREAT place to find lots of great paleo recipes and they haven't stirred me wrong yet!
Health-Bent 'Paleo Lasagna"

I follow their recipes almost to the T, except I used Grass-Fed ground beef instead of Italian Sausage since it is what I had on hand and used a marinara sauce that was Paleo that I found in the grocery store. I forgot which one it is, but just look at the ingredients and make sure sugar isn't one of them!

Some Butternut Squash pieces

Peeling a butternut squash is a b*itch!! I think that is what took the longest since I never had peeled one before and I wasn't sure how to cut it either. After I peeled that sucker, I cut the bulb side off and then the long part I carefully tried to cut equal thickness round circles. The description said to cut length wise again, but that was confusing, but here is a picture to the left of some planks, it is ok if there is space in between the squash when you put them in the dish, just make sure they aren't overlapping. After taking a lot of time to cut the butternut squash (I suggest a Mandolin if you have one,  I just got one today, and OMG equal size pieces...what a concept). I finally had all the pieces. I actually didn't even use the 'bulb' part, but just got that up into cubes and made some butternut squash bites! (Just added salt and cinnamon and threw them in the oven on a cookie tray with the lasagna and just watched until they were done!)

I didn't feel like bringing out a food processor, hence why I just got pasta sauce from the store and it was SO much faster, but making your own like the website says probably would taste awesome also since its fresh!

I also added mushrooms, thyme, oregano, and kale to the ground beef, onion, basil, garlic mixture. Not sure about the Kale, if you don't like it, I'd probably keep it out. I thought I would experiment for once, and add a little superfood to it. For those of you who don't know about Kale, just know you should eat it, Duh!

After I did my prep and browned my meat, which probably took about 30min I started to assemble the 'lasagna.' Now it does take me a little longer than those expert cooks out there as to chop an onion took me forever because my eyes kept watering. I hate cutting onions, I wish someone could always do that for me.

So this is how it went...little sauce, butternut squash pieces to cover the whole bottom of the 9x9 pan, then a layer of ground beef mixture followed by sauce, then repeated with the butternut squash pieces, beef, sauce. Simple! It only took me about 5min to put that together. Now that is more like it. Popped it into a preheated 400 degree oven for about 35min and checked until the top was bubbly.

Now here is the hardest part! After you take the lasagna out of the oven, immediately throw aluminium foil on top of it and let it sit for at least 30min. Trust me it still will be hot, but this is super important otherwise it is really soupy. If you let it sit then the juices get soaked up and when you plop it on your plate the juices won't seep out into the other great things on your plate. I don't know about you, but I hate it when my food juices mix...eww sorry that was gross. You get the idea!

So all in all, I give this recipe 5 stars in being tasty and super easy! You can make this for sure and don't be afraid to add whatever you want into the ground beef. The first time I made this my boyfriend and I ate the whole 9x9 serving and I made it for a bunch of crossfitters with high remarks also! Leftovers were great the next day too, so I recommend making extra! Give it a try and let me know what you think too! YUM :-)

IF I CAN COOK THE RECIPE, SO CAN YOU!

So I decided to start a blog about the paleo recipes that I cook. Their are so many websites with recipes, but I never know if they are good or not because people rarely review them. Since I cook A LOT, I'm going to start trying out lots of different recipes and talking about them here. I also want people to recommend recipes for me to cook.

I'm not a cook at all, I actually just recently started to cook and was posting a lot of my recipes to Facebook and people were always asking me about the recipe and if it was good, etc etc. I love cooking paleo recipes, and I have some good ones and some not so good ones. And I know if I can cook it and make it taste good then you KNOW that you can!

So recommend some recipes that you are too scared to try or just have no idea if they are good or not and let me try! I'll be honest and will follow the recipes however the website or book wants me too! I'm excited to start sharing some of the great recipes I have made and the amazing people that have made them. I'll make sure I'll give credit were credit is due so everyone knows that your recipe is the bomb-diggity!