Paleo Banana Apple Muffins

Here's a quicky! Appana muffins? Banapple muffins? Palappanana muffins? Nope.

Paleo Banana Apple Muffins

Ingredients

1/2 an apple 

1 large ripe banana

3 eggs

3 Tblsp coconut milk

2 Tblsp coconut flour

1-2 Tblsp cashew nut butter

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

ghee or oil of choice for frying

Preheat oven to 200°C. 

Heat oil in a pan over medium high heat.  Slice apple thinly and then chop into smallish pieces. Fry until soft and slightly caramelised, stirring frequently so they don't burn. While the apples are cooking, place all other ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Mix in cooked apple pieces, then spoon/pour mixture into a silicon muffin tray (if you don't have silicon tray, you should be able to use a non-stick pan but I haven't tried.  The silicon trays are brilliant!).  Bake until top springs back (or doesn't dint) when lightly pressed. 

My batch came to ten but it will depend on how much you put in.  The mixture doesn't rise much so you can afford to fill the tray pretty high. You could try adding some baking soda to the mixture to see if they rise, but I haven't managed to find any aluminium free baking soda so refuse to use it. But if you do please let me know how you go!

If you are expecting these to be like cake, you will be disappointed.  They are not like cake. But they are little bites of deliciousness! And high in protein and low in carbs :). And of course you can replace the apples with any fruit you like!  Mmmm I think I will try blueberries next time...

Jas xo

Spicy Chicken Laksa

So I've been in bed sick all day with some kind of fluey headcoldy thing. It's been rather unpleasant! As a result, for dinner tonight I was craving something spicy & brothy. Soupy. I always crave soup when I'm sick. So I made a Laksa.

Spicy Chicken Laksa

Ingredients:

1 large chicken breast, sliced thinly (or some prawns, or both!)

1 onion, chopped into 2cm pieces 

1 carrot, sliced thinly

1 zucchini, sliced

4 largish mushrooms, quartered

Juice of 1 lime

1 tsp fish sauce (optional)

4 Tblsps Laksa paste, or your favorite thai curry paste

3 cups of chicken stock (preferably home made)

1 can of coconut milk

1 packet of Angel hair SlimPasta (or shirataki noodles) 

Heat a spoonful of coconut oil in a decent sized saucepan.  Fry the laksa or curry paste until fragrant, add the onion and the chicken and fry until chicken is mostly cooked. Add the chicken stock, vegetables (you can use any vegetables you like, I just used what was in my fridge - bok choy would be nice), and coconut milk, and simmer on medium heat until vegetables are cooked. Drain the noodles and chop them roughly, add to the soup with the fish sauce and lime juice, and heat through.  Top with fresh coriander to serve (I had run out. Booo).

NB: If you've never heard of SlimPasta, it's not really pasta, but rather, a noodle, traditionally called a Shirataki noodle by the Japanese, who apparently have been eating it for over a thousand years. It's a lot like a rice noodle, and it's technically processed, so whether or not it's Paleo is probably debatable. I however, have made the executive decision that it's fine, based on it's ingredients.  SlimPasta (the angel hair variety only, not the spaghetti - it has extra ingredients which are definitely NOT paleo) , has three ingredients only - Spring water, Konjac Flour, and mineral salt.  Konjac is a vegetable which produces a fibre (called glucomannan), which is suuuuper low in calories and carbs.  I'm open to advice on it but for now, it seems good to me so I'm eatin' it! You can get it in the health food section of most supermarkets these days.

Enjoy!  I'm about to go back for my second bowl. ;)

Jas xo

Crispy Salmon Cakes

This recipe turned out better than I had hoped.  I'm normally a bit "meh" about salmon. It's ok, but I don't get excited about it. I wanted something different today though, instead of chicken. I've been eating a lot of chicken! I am thoroughly sick of it. So I had a look through my cupboard and found some tins of salmon in spring water that have been there since about 2003. Not really. I was thinking dill would have been nice with it, but all I had was fresh coriander or fresh basil. So I went with the coriander, and I must admit, my pretty standard flavourings of chilli, lime, and coconut. But it turned out a bit different with the salmon flavour! Hope you enjoy!

Crispy Salmon Cakes

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1 Tblsp coconut flour

1 tsp mexican chilli powder*

juice of 1 small lime

1 Tblsp coconut cream

150g salmon (in spring water)**

1/2 medium to large zucchini, sliced

1-2 Tblsp fresh coriander (approx.)

seasoned coconut flour & almond meal mixture to crumb.

In a food processor, combine eggs, coconut four, chilli powder*, lime juice and coconut cream, blending until well mixed. Add salmon, zucchini slices, and coriander (I don't pre-chop the coriander, I just rip a bunch of leaves off the plant and throw them straight in, so the measurement above is approximate). Blend until you have a think mixture with small chunks of zucchini.  Be careful not to over-process to the goo stage (which is why you want to blend the other ingredients before adding the solid ones).

The mixture will be quite moist and soft but don't worry, this is why the next directions are not your normal crumbing directions... Take some of the crumb mixture in your hand (enough so that the mixture doesn't stick to your hand), then plop a spoonful of the salmon mixture on top.  Sprinkle some crumbs on top, enough to coat the blob so there are no wet sticky bits, and do a bit of patting from hand to hand bla bla bla I don't really know how to explain this bit but I'm sure you have a brain. (If you try and do this on a plate and have to flip the pattie or try and pick it up, basically you will end up with a giant mess).  Once you have a nice, dry (though soft), evenly coated pattie, gently plop it in a medium hot pan filled with a decent amount of animal fat or coconut oil.  Continue process with the rest of the mixture, flipping the patties when they are nice and crispy brown on the underside. Coconut four really sucks up oil, so don't be stingy with it in the pan or the crumbing will end up dry and burnt in places. You may need to add more oil as you go if your pan is looking a bit dry mid fry.

Service with some steamed veges or an avocado salad, whatever really, but these are tasty little morsels so you don't need a massively impressive side to go with them.

*I use Coles brand mexican chilli powder, which is quite mild and has a hint of garlic, as I like the flavour but not so much the heat.  If you are using normal chilli powder, adjust to your taste. 1 tsp of hot chilli powder might be a bit much!

** I use John West skinless and boneless salmon slices because I am a bit fussy with my salmon and don't like all the bones and skin you get in a normal tin.  They come in 125g little sardine shaped tins, but when drained the salmon weighs about 75g, and I used two for this recipe, hence the 150g measurement.  You can use any salmon you like though, red would be nice!  I also make sure my salmon is in spring water because most of the salmon in oil uses either soybean oil (evil!) or an unidentified vegetable oil which I don't trust.

Jas xox

Apple Pie Pancake

It's been a while since I've posted anything. Sorry! To be honest I've been struggling a bit with the whole "Whole30" thing. Actually.  I failed. Haha.  It turns out I just can't live without cheese! So anyway, I cheated, and had some cheese.  Twice. And MY GOD it was amazing. So I'll have to maybe Whole30 another time. Maybe. Unfortunately, if you cheat on Whole30, you have to start again from the beginning.

I'm still keen on sticking with the paleo thing, but I think my compromise will be a bit of dairy once in a while, I'm comfortable with that. Grass fed organic dairy has a lot of health benefits. And OMG the taste of raw organic grass fed milk just does not compare to anything. But it will still be a once in a while thing.

So anyway, on to the next recipe!

I had another sweet craving, so I adjusted my Strawberry Scramble recipe, and it was the BEST DECISION EVER.  When I posted the strawberry scramble, I had said that I used strawberries because I don't get that excited about apple.  But I decided to give the apple a go anyway for something different. Now I like this one better.  It tastes like apple pie!

Apple Pie Pancake

Ingredients

1/2 an apple 

1 medium ripe banana

2 eggs

2 Tblsp coconut milk

1 Tblsp coconut flour

1 Tblsp cashew nut butter

1/2 tsp cinnamon (plus some)

ghee or oil of choice for frying

a pinch or 3 of salt

Heat oil in a pan over medium high heat.  Slice apple thinly and place in one layer, fry until soft and slightly caramelised, then turn. While the apples are cooking, place all other ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Pour over the apples, shaking the pan a little so as to get some batter under the apples. Fry until brown and mixture is set on top, then flip like a pancake or omelette.

SOOOO YUMMY!!! The cashew but butter in this recipe is really important, it's what gives the recipe it's "pastry" pie flavour!  Do yourself a favour - eat it straight out of the pan!

Jas xo

Decadent Chocolate Pudding

Hello there!  Good to see you. Thanks for dropping by!

Well, it has been 6 days now.  I have stuck to Whole30 guidelines like my life depends on it.  I guess in a way it does, that's why I'm doing it! All in all it's been pretty easy really, I'm not sure why.  Perhaps the detox that I did prior? Perhaps it because I have been being so creative.  Who knows? Who cares... My jeans fit me again!  

I can honestly say that even after just 6 days of eating Paleo, I am feeling better.  I have more energy, my brain is about 20 times sharper.  This is actually what I have noticed the most.  My brain isn't foggy any more.  I can think. It's wonderful!  Oh and did I mention my jeans fit me again?  For the last... I'm not sure how long to be honest, maybe 6 months? Maybe 9? My jeans have been so tight that I avoided wearing them because I could barely sit down without getting a hernia.  And that's if I could even get them up.  The week before last I resorted to attempting to pull the fly up with a coat hanger (you know, hooking the hooky end through the zip tag and pulling upwards?). Even that didn't work. But I wore them to the ekka on saturday because I could get the zip up without doing that jump up and down thingy or holding my breath, and I wore them to work yesterday, and I wore them to work again today, and now they are actually loose!  It's crazy! (and yes I may wash them before I wear them again... or I may not.  They're jeans, it's what, at least 5 wears before the compulsory wash, right?  Right? Ok maybe four).

Anyway, today I really had a sweet craving. Getting home from work at about 9pm, I really didn't feel like cooking a big meal, so I made dessert instead.  Gooey, chocolatey dessert.  A version of this recipe has been around for quite a while, I think I originally got it from Chocolate Covered Katie. This is my version though.  And yes it's still Paleo, still Whole30, which means it has NO. ADDED. SUGAR.

Decadent Chocolate Pudding

Ingredients:

1 ripe avocado

1 ripe banana

1 Tblsp of coconut cream

2-3 Tblsp organic raw cacao powder

dash of vanilla 

1/2 tsp of cinnamon

1 Tblsp cashew nut butter (optional)

Simply throw all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.  That's it! (if you are not on whole 30 and like a bit more sweetness, you can add a tsp of honey or coconut sugar, but I find that with a ripe banana, that really is enough sweetness for me. Too much sweet and it will get sickly).  I added a few chopped strawberries, SUCH a great combo.  

Ps. I know it sounds weird with the avocado and all, but seriously please try it before you judge it! You can't taste the avocado at all, but it's the avocado that gives the dish it's nice creamy puddingy texture. Even the banana taste is minimal (which is why I don't call it a choc-banana pudding).  There's just something about the combo of ingredients that makes none of them overpowering, and you really do get just a nice chocolate pudding!

Enjoy! 

Jas xx

Crispy Coconut Chicken Strips with Avocado Dipping Sauce

I had been planning tonights dinner for a while... Well, half of it.

I really, really, really, wanted crispy crumbed chicken strips with home made aioli of some variety.  Alas, I have never made my own mayonnaise before, and despite following all of the instructions I could find anywhere on the whole of the world wide interwebs, I could not get it to work. I mean it worked, as in it emulsified, but it kept tasting really bitter, so I just kept throwing it out! I discovered (after googling "bitter homemade mayonnaise"), that this is quite a common problem, and it's the olive oil that turns bitter if it's blended or mixed at too high a speed.  So I did all the recommended things to avoid the bitterness, and after about 8 eggs and a whole bottle of olive oil, I settled on a batch that was the least bitter of all of them.  But I was really disappointed.

So I was cooking my chicken, mulling over my less than satisfying aioli (by this stage I had added some more ingredients to try and mask the bitterness) when I had a brain explosion!  I was immediately excited and set to work.  Below was the result :)

Crispy Coconut Chicken Strips with Avocado Dipping Sauce (serves 2)

Ingredients:

Chicken strips

6-8 chicken tenderloins

1/4 cup of coconut four

1 egg

3 Tblsp of coconut milk

1/2 cup of almond meal

1/4 cup of shredded coconut

salt and pepper to taste

Sauce

1 avocado

1/3 cup coconut milk

juice of half a lime

1/4-1/2 tsp mexican chilli powder (variable, see below)

1 Tblsp fresh coriander

salt and pepper to taste

To prepare the chicken, you will need two plates and a bowl.  Mix the egg and the coconut milk in the bowl with a fork until well combined. In another bowl, mix the shredded coconut, almond meal and some salt and pepper, and spread on a plate (or just leave it in the bowl if the bowl is big enough to spread your chicken tender out in. Finally, spread some coconut flour on the other plate.

Coat your chicken in an even coat of coconut flour, then dip in the egg mixture (I use a fork for this because if you use your fingers, they take the coconut flour and the egg mixture back off the chicken). Lastly, coat in the almond meal mixture (be generous).  Fry in a good amount of coconut oil over medium-high heat, turning once.

While the chicken is cooking, throw all of the sauce ingredients in a blender and blend! I use Coles brand mexican chilli powder which is quite mild and has a little bit of garlic in it as well, though barely enough to taste.  Obviously be careful with the chilli depending on what kind you use and how hot you like things.  I like the flavour but not too much of the heat.  So just adjust the seasonings to your taste.  If it doesn't taste right, add some more and keep blending!

This unexpected delight really hit the spot.  The chicken was perfectly crispy, and the shredded coconut gives the crumbing a really great texture (if you use desiccated coconut I don't think the texture would be as utterly delightful!). The combo of the chicken with the sauce was just mouth watering. I made noises while eating, and kept shaking my head over how good it was.  I rarely do this for my own cooking! :).


Whole30 Update

If you're interested. Today is the end of day four.  Still early days but I'm going strong, sticking to Whole30 guidelines and honestly loving every minute of it.  I haven't had to fight sugar cravings, I think partially because of the detox I did just prior.  I went to the Ekka today and took a packed lunch, and didn't feel an overwhelming need at all for the junk food I would normally eat there.  I did have a wistful moment thinking about how much I love dagwood dogs (corn dogs), but it passed pretty quickly.  I already have more energy than I am used to.  I have been been walking everyday (I'm including the Ekka today). What astounds me is that I haven't had to talk myself into it.  I have done it purely because I wanted to at the time.  As in, had an urge to exercise...  WHAT?!  Yep.  It's been nice :)

Jas xx

Strawberry Scramble

Right now, as we speak, I am chowing down on this - 

It probably looks a bit revolting I know, but let me tell you, I am SCOFFING. I got the inspiration from the lovely Livin Paleo's Apple Cinnamon Omelette, but I changed it up just a little. For one, I'm not a huge fan of apples.  They're ok, but they don't get me excited.  Plus I'm trying to keep my carb intake to an absolute minimum, and strawberries are lower in carbs than apples.  Why am I eating fruit at all if I want to keep my carbs to a minimum I hear you ask? Well, because I wanted some. And I can. 

So here it is.

Strawberry Scramble

Ingredients:

1/2 a punnet of strawberries (give or take a couple), chopped into quarters

Ghee for frying (or coconut oil)

A couple grinds of celtic sea salt

2 eggs

2 Tblsp of coconut milk

1 Tblsp of cashew butter

1/2 tsp of cinnamon

1/2 tsp of nutmeg

1/2 tsp of vanilla extract

Heat oil of choice with the salt in a pan over medium-high heat. Throw in strawberries and cook for a couple of minutes to brown and soften.  While the strawberries are cooking, mix remaining ingredients. If the cashew butter sticks to your fork, just scrape it off a few times and keep mixing.  It'll happen.  Alternatively you can use a stick blender if you can be bothered getting it dirty.

Once the strawberries have browned slightly, pour over the egg mixture.  Let cook at somewhere around medium heat (hot enough that the mixture browns but not hot enough to burn while the top side is still raw - I'm sure you know your stove better than me). Once mixture has set and underside is nice and brown, flip it! (So I called it a scramble because when I flipped mine, it got a bit messed up.  I like it though.  It's rustic.)

Give it another 3 or so minutes and your done.  I had to fight with myself not to eat it straight out of the pan, damn having to take photo's! ;)

Oh and as an aside, you know about celery and peanut butter right?  Well, peanuts are actually a legume, so there a paleo-no-go.  So I was looking for an alternative, because it's an easy tasty low carb snack.  Tonight it was actually my dinner.  But anyway, I digress. CASHEW BUTTER. If you love celery with peanut butter, celery with cashew butter may just make you make inappropriate noises and make everyone else in the room slightly uncomfortable.  You can thank me later.

Jas xx

Thai Chicken Cauliflower Curry

Well, I told you all I would upload a pic of my lunch today so you could drool.  Here it is!

I just fried up some chicken and mushrooms in some extra Thai curry paste and added it to my Creamy Thai Curried Cauliflower Soup. You think I could have picked a better name for that one?  I do.  Let me know if you have any suggestions...

I think this would have been great with some strips of capsicum too but alas, I didn't have any. You can chuck in any vegatables you like of course. Broccoli would go well also. Topped off with a bucket load of coriander of course!

Jas xx

Creamy Thai Curried Cauliflower Soup

I only ate two meals today, thanks to a lunch (rather than breakfast) time decision that I would bail on my detox.

Traditionally on Whole30 you are supposed to have three meals a day, and only three. Apparently it is thought that our Paleolithic ancestors didn't really snack. Kind of makes sense I guess. They probably didn't even eat three meals a day. Due to my eggy breaky making me a bit icky, I decided to go without the protein tonight, just to give my tummy a bit more time to deal with the change from no food to food.  It's still struggling a bit. Nevertheless, it enjoyed it's dinner.

Creamy Thai Curried Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients:

1/2 a head of cauliflower, broken into florets

1 small (or half a palm sized piece of a large) golden sweet potato, chopped

1 medium onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

Approx. 4 tablespoons of Thai curry paste of choice (I use panang because it's quite mild)

1 tablespoon of coconut oil

2-3 cups of water

1 tin of coconut milk

A splash (maybe a tablespoon?) of fish sauce, optional

Juice of half a lime

Coriander (aka. cilantro) to serve

Heat oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat and sauté onion, garlic and curry paste until fragrant. Add cauliflower, sweet potato and water to the pan and return to the boil with the lid on (the water doesn't need to cover the veges, they will steam with a lid on the saucepan). It might be preferable here to add only part of the water, as too much will make your soup runny and a bit tasteless.  You can add more later if your soup is too thick.

Boil, stirring occasionally, until your veges are soft.  Remove from heat, add the coconut milk, lime juice and fish sauce and blend until smooth.  I use a Bamix stick blender straight in the saucepan.

Have a taste and add seasoning if necessary. Salt or maybe a bit more fish sauce if it's not tasty enough (it's amazing the flavour a bit of extra salt adds). Traditionally Thai curries have some kind of sugar to add the sweet component to their famous salty/sweet/sour flavour. The small amount of sweet potato in this recipe serves this purpose nicely.

Serve with a bunch of fresh chopped coriander sprinkled on top. (I like A LOT of coriander..)

This soup is thick enough to serve as a curry sauce so tomorrow, when my tummy is a little bit stronger, I'm going to add some chicken, mushrooms and maybe some capsicum, and have a chicken curry lunch!  Will upload pics so you can drool ;)

NB: if you're sticking to paleo guidelines, make sure you check your curry paste ingredients to make sure they are all paleo friendly. I use Valcom, nothing in there that I can't pronounce ;)

Jas xx

Day 1

So, as previously mentioned, today is my Day 1 of Whole30. Eek!  

I should start by explaining that I have just come off a detox/colon cleanse thingy.  I didn't eat for two and a half days.  It was supposed to be five... but well, of course that didn't happen.  I gave up at around lunch time today.  I had to take approximately, no, exactly 26 herbal capsules a day, designed to "clean me out". They worked pretty well.  Needless to say my tummy was pretty fragile today, so I started out gentle.  Unfortunately it was not quite gentle enough, and I ended up a bit sick.  But my breakfast-lunch was delicious nonetheless.  Actually, after not eating for two and a half days, it was pure heaven.  This is what I had -

Poached Egg with Tomato, Zucchini and Mushroom Hash 

Ingredients:

1/2 a tomato

1/2 a large zucchini

4-5 average sized mushrooms

2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed

1dessert spoon of coconut oil or ghee

1 egg (or two if you're hungry)

Chop all of your veges to desired size (personally I like my tomato small, zucchini medium and mushrooms large, but clearly this is irrelevant). Heat your oil of choice in a pan over medium heat.  Add your crushed garlic, and sauté for a minute or so. Add all veges and keep sautéing! (don't you just love that word? It's so much more professional that "frying"...)

While your veges are cooking (making sure you stir them frequently of course, so they don't burn), poach your eggs.  People use all different methods poach eggs.  Technically mine are broiled? I think.  Anyway, it's the way my mum taught me to poach them when I was growing up. Pop another small frypan on the stove, put maybe 3 centimetres of water in and bring to a strong simmer (a boil will make the pan entirely too chaotic for your poor egg). Add a dash of vinegar (this stops the egg from spreading too much), and crack and gently drop in your egg.  Simmer away until the egg is at your desired consistency (I like runny!) and finish off the top by splashing some hot water from the pan over the egg with a spoon. Works a treat!

Season your veges to taste (I usually like my mushrooms cooked in butter but as it is a no-go on Whole30, I added a nice amount of Celtic sea salt,

Assemble on plate as desired and voila! Seriously yummo.

NB: I like to use organic veges and free range eggs, but you don't need to.  I find they taste better though, and won't have all the nasty chemicals and pesticides and genetically modified-ness that your non-organic may have.

Meal 1, day 1 success I think!

Hola!

Hello there to the very few wonderful friends who I'm sure will read my first couple of blog posts out of polite curiosity and obliged support ;).  I don't care how you got here or why but I'm glad you are!

I was encouraged to start this blog by a couple of wonderful friends who, after seeing some recipe posts on my facebook page, decided that the best thing for me to do would be to share my goodies with the world.  World is probably a bit big right now. But I can dream, right?

I'm not the worlds greatest cook, not even close!  But I am creative.  I love creating random dishes, or changing up tried and true recipes. And I love sharing them.  And I love knowing people might be drooling over them.

Right now, I'm doing my first day of Whole30. In a nutshell, it is 30 days of eating hardcore Paleo.  If you haven't heard of "paleo", in essence it is eating what our ancestors have eaten for a millennia or two. Or however many millennia there have been. Paleo is short for Paleolithic. The theory is that our bodies really haven't had the time to adjust or evolve to eating the foods we have in abundance today.  Of course I'm talking about processed foods, but also grains and dairy.  Even in their natural and most unprocessed forms, our bodies have only really had a few thousand years to become accustomed to these foods.  Since about 8000-5000 BC to be (not very) precise. This may sound like a long time, but, if you subscribe to the theory of evolution (or even if you don't, it's been a while since the days of Adam and Eve right?), compared to the MILLIONS of years we spent hunting and gathering, it's pretty much a drop in an ocean. Which may go some way towards explaining all the health issues we have today that stem from problems with sugar and grains. There are most likely THOUSANDS, but let's just point out Diabetes and Celiac disease to start with.  Not only are we suffering from more nutrition related diseases than ever before, as a society, we just seem to be a bit "off", you know what I mean?  Tired, sick, fat, depressed, anxious.  I, at least, am all of those things. I would dearly love for this to change.

So, that's what I'm doing here. I'm not going to tell you that this is the absolute way because I think appropriate nutrition is going to be a bit different for everyone.  But this is the challenge I want to take, so for me, for the next 30 days (God willing, or me willing, whatever), there will be no grains, no dairy, no legumes, no added sugar, and no alcohol.  It's gonna be a journey. So maybe come with me?

This blog might change in direction, but for now, I'll be posting my daily (or bi-daily, or whenever really) thoughts about my journey, as well as recipes and inspiring meals that might help you out if your wanting to give this paleo thing a bit of a go.

Oh and hopefully I'll make the blog a bit prettier too ;)

xx Jas