Paleo Strawberry Coconut Cream Cheese Cupcake

Well, i hope that picture got your attention.

I love eating paleo, feeling thinner,  losing weight, eating delicious meats and vegetables, and more fruit than my husband :)

But every girl's got a craving - and mine has been cookies.

But cookies are verboten.  I don't like using unnatural ingredients :), and i thought there must be *some* way to get a yummy dessert without spending my cheat night card :)

So, i got out my Serene Allison cookbook, but i didn't see exactly what i was hoping for - my mind was saying "nut crust with butter", topped with cream cheese something?

So, with much fear and trembling, i started to assemble what i wanted to eat.  I wrote it down as i went in case it actually was eatable, and lo and behold, it was actually.... delicious.

The crust is actually completely fulfilling  my cookie urge, and the strawberry creamcheese filling on top is just the icing on the cake!

Stephanie's Paleo Strawberry Coconut Cream Cheese Cupcake

1 cup dried coconut

12 dried dates

1/2 tsp coconut oil

Vitamix this until it's a very fine powder.  Press into eight holes of a regular sized muffin tin (leaving four empty.  Sorry if you have OCD...  I was being parsimonious in case it was inedible!)

Next, vitamix 6 ripe strawberries with 1/2 c. dried coconut

Whip 1c. whipping cream, and fold in 4 oz cream cheese.

Add in the strawberry/coconut mixture and blend well.

Spoon the whipped cream mixture into the eight muffin tins and freeze/chill.

I hope you like this recipe as much as i do!  

Paleo Hospitality

I have been wanting to work on hospitality, to be better at it.  But it honestly is one of the hardest parts of eating paleo.

Eating paleo makes me feel so good, it is a really hard thing to eat something that i know will make me feel bloated, tired, and draggy.

But it is hard at public gatherings to go through the buffet line and ignore all the pasta, breads, and just grab all the "good things" - meats, salads, nuts :) and leave the rest.

and it's equally hard to invite someone over and serve just meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts.  It's not crazy, it's not bad, and it can be delicious.  But your choices are much more restricted, and i've had trouble feeling okay about hospitality, paleo style.

http://www.betterlivingdiary.com/cranberry-almond-and-coconut-bliss-balls-for-a-healthy-sweet-treat-and-energy-kick/

My friend Terry sent me a link to a blog that detailed a woman's "hospitality pantry" and it made me think.

 That it's not as simple as popping a frozen lasagne in the oven to "reheat" - it takes about 45 min to cook...

Same with chicken pies etc..  Although they are only about 30 min i guess...

Coach T does have a weakness for treats!!!  So, out of love for him, i do not buy packaged cookies/treats/sweets.  If i do, i buy them planning to use them immediately (i.e. that day or the next day at the latest), and if i buy, say, a bag of Oreos for the children - they get the whole bag at once.  (There are seven who can eat Oreos, so it's not like anyone is dying of sugar poison!)  And then there are none left to tempt  me or Coach T.

That makes the idea of a hospitality pantry problematic.  I did a lot of these ideas (which my friend Amanda shared with me, too!) - and they are great - but for me, hospitality does mean either a last minute dash to the store, or picking things up the day before, things we would not usually eat.

I AM planning to do a hospitality pantry in my own food language - which would mean, having treat balls made and hidden (sesame seeds, a little honey and a little oil,  or ground almonds, a little maple syrup, and a little oil - possibly dipped in very high cocoa chocolate), having salted nuts, keeping a few fancier cheeses (brie, that Irish one from Costco, the one with all the tiny holes, maybe some fresh goat cheese.. and meats on hand - sliced and ready to roll or serve. (i really really could use a meat/cheese slicer!  It would help make this diet so much more *beautiful* :), having fruits on hand (i have been buying those boxes of 20 lb of peaches - thinking i will can them, but 20 lbs of peaches last two days in my house, and that's in addition to the ~20 lbs or so of fruits and snacky veggies (carrots, cucumbers, celery that children will eat raw for a snack).  Crackers don't work for us, but jerky is a nice treat for us, although not too nice looking for guests.  Dehydrated apples are nice "chips", and kale chips are yummy, but again, weird looking to serve to people...  Salad can be a nice thing to serve, if it's full of fruits or cheese or meat and a yummy dressing.

It is a challenge to think "hospitality" without wheat or flour.  Maybe you all have some ideas for me?

stephanie

Fuel : Dinner Guests

So, apart from working out and nursing my baby and homeschool planning, i also am geared up for  hospitality.

I know it's not a strength for me, but i think i have found a game plan that might work :)

 (Why is this important to me?  Mostly bcz the Bible says it's a big deal.  And i believe the Bible)

So - my first step is inviting over "easy" people.  I will eventually get around to lepers and orphans (i hope!)  but for right now, i need a lot of practice with people who won't judge - and luckily my life is full of just that sort :)

Secondly, i asked for help.  My friend Amanda has cooked for huge crowds and was able to give me some really practical pointers about choosing food/selection/drinks and ways to make that end of things smooth.  (Check out my other blog for deets!)

But in this blog, on this post, i thought i'd share what is working for me, paleo wise, in having guests over.  Because it just seemed like one more insurmountable  hurdle - to have people over, but serve "plain" paleo food.  No matter how good it makes me *feel* to be in ketosis, i do not feel like a paleo chef yet!  My object is to get 'er done, and make it pretty later...

So, today, we invited over a fun family after church and here is what we served (sorry, no pictures!)

Cold roast beef with a horseradish mayo and a chili aioli (and butter)

buns

bagels

greek feta and apple salad

grapes

deli meat

cheese, sliced

chips

mixed salted nuts

pink grapefruit pop

diet coke

milk

and for dessert -  two kinds of pound cake, tuxedo cake, and our guests brought a pie and black forest cake as well.

This is very doable!  Instead of a bun or bagel, i used a knife and fork with my meat, and dipped it into the dips.

Salad, fruit, cheese, and nuts rounded out my plate, but there were carbs for regular folk :) and chips for the children.

Coffee and dessert for all who wanted it (but I'd rather stay paleo!)

It wasn't the fanciest ever table, but there was plenty to eat, plenty of variety, and best of all, no stress on my part about food, or what to eat, or feeling deprived *or* like a bad hostess...

I'd love to hear how other paleo mamas handle hospitality!

Fuel : The Church Potluck

Writing about food for a family who is trying to eat paleo could get pretty repetitive if we never ate anyplace but our own house.  Today i thought i'd share about eating paleo at potlucks...

First of all - yay for my church!  I love the church we are at so much!  Great people, great preaching, singing, community - a potluck every month, and birthdays to sing for every week...  And big boys like this who try to make my baby smile (and succeed!  That's where being the oldest of a very big family comes in handy, i think!)

The problem with potlucks is that you don't have so much control over what is there, so first off, you need to make sure that your contribution is paleo.  I think that's actually kind of hard, bcz most moms of many have a few potluck recipes that are their go tos - things that are tried and true crowd pleasers.  And then paleo seems kind of pricey compared to that, and also, kind of... boring.

For our church potlucks, we have to bring a main dish, a side dish, and a salad.  So today we brought a ham (no sugary glaze), a bag of buns (for everyone else!  And our carb hungry sons...), and a romaine, blueberry and feta salad with greek dressing - it's my favourite this summer :)

And when i moved through the line, i saw so many delicious things that i could eat!  Actually, i cheated a bit, because i had corn, which is a grain, but apart from that i scored all kinds of delicious things.

The salad and ham i brought, another salad with pecans, wild greens, and a balsamic vinegar dressing, chicken with a cheese topping, brazilian lime chicken thighs (yummy!), raw carrots, and goat cheese rolled in cinnamon (what a tasty idea! Usually cinnamon is found in sweet things, but it really worked just rolled on its own around the goat cheese.  (We do eat dairy with our paleo - i know not all paleo eaters do, but we've found it a quick source of protein and yummy, too...)

And for dessert, watermelon!

Once you steel yourself to avoid the big bread basket and pasta dishes, no  matter how tempting, the church potluck can be a fun place for some paleo variety!  

I know i'm going to make that goat cheese log again here at home :)

Paleo cookies!

I am seriously feeling way too deprived. And grumpy. The grumpy i think comes from ketosis, since it is abated if i eat a lot of fruit/veggies - but it seems like i'm always on the verge - but the deprivation... not much i can do about that. On the paleo way of eating, my "treats" have been fruits (which i am allowed to eat as much as i want now, as opposed to the Zone's miserly doling out) - and nuts (which i don't eat too many of since they are expensive :)...)

But today after running some errands, i had a brain wave. I had been oh so deeply desiring a coffee crisp chocolate bar with 70% cocoa chocolate - and been a good girl and even said no to my uxorious husband's offer of lunch at McDonald's...

I went to my recipe book cupboard and pulled out Serene Allison's cookbook, Rejuvenate Your Life, and double checked the ingredients for her "chocolate". It's a raw foods cookbook, and for awhile i was making a lot of things out of it - super healthy, really yummy - but a little time consuming, especially before we moved here where there is pretty much no moisture in the air and the dehydrator works like a dream (as opposed to several days to dry out flatbread in our last place)...

Anyway, not only was that recipe pretty kosher, but i decided to make halvah balls. Now i have, in the freezer of my fridge, delectable little balls of deliciousness that don't break the rules and that will give a little variety.

Here are the recipes i used:

Serene Allison's Chocolate

2 cups raw almonds, ground into almond butter in my vitamix
1/2 c. tahini
1/3 c. cocoa (i put a little less than she originally called for, which was 1/2 c.)
pinch sea salt
1/2 c. raw honey (again, i put a little less as i didn't have much and wanted some for halvah, too)

I mixed it all by hand in a bowl with a silicon spatula, oiled my hands with a little olive oil, and rolled them into balls, and put the plate into the freezer for an hour or so. Then i picked them off the plate and put them in a ziplock bag in the freezer, ready to eat...

Serene Allison's Heavenly Halvah

I ground 4 c. raw hulled sesame seeds (i bought a big bag of these through our natural foods coop and this is mostly what i use it for!) - i really made homemade tahini, since i ground them up into a paste
added in a little olive oil
a little raw honey

Mixed well together in a plastic bowl with a silicon spatula. Then, as it was really too soft, i chilled it in the fridge for awhile before i oiled my hands and rolled them into balls, put them on a plate in the freezer, till i can put them in their own ziplock bag. These are delicious little nougat-y balls, full of energy, and not too sweet (i didn't have a LOT of honey, and i prefer a little less over a little too much)

I asked T about the paleo acceptance of cocoa, since it is a bean, but he assured me that a lot of paleo people use cocoa, for whatever reason - if i knew why it's excepted from the beans restriction, i'd feel a little less like a cheater, but for now, these are a nice paleo alternative to the things i'd rather be eating (like fried cheese with mayonnaise and a side of fries... LOL!)