Stuffed Peppers and Chili and Ice Cream, Oh My!!

Hi Everyone...I haven't blogged so much lately, mainly cause I've haven't made many new recipes. I tried two new ones from Paleomg and I will say more about those later.

Some awesome new news that I have is that I recently got the book It Starts With Food! It is an awesome book. It is the best thing I have read on nutrition and the effects that food has on our bodies since Rob Wolfe's The Paleo Solution. It kinda rocked my world in just the opening paragraph basically stating that there is "no food Switzerland". Either the food and drink we consume will make us more healthy or more unhealthy. There is no middle ground. There are so many times that we just consume crappy food, because we are craving it, because we are bored, or because it is just there, and we aren't very mindful of the consequences. I'm not talking about the scale or gaining weight...I am SO over all of that. I'm talking about what is actually going on in our body. When we take that bite of pizza, what exactly is happening to our gut lining, how much inflammation is that gluten causing, and how is that inflammation going to end up effecting us. Much, much, much more so if you are struggling with an auto-immune disease.

SO.... onto food!! I actually made two recipes in one day from Paleomg. I like both of these a lot. The first one was for Spicy Mexican Stuffed Pablanos. Here is what mine looked like...

The next one I tried was Smokey Bacon Chili...really good! Here is my pic....

Oh I forgot another exciting thing that happen was I received my first order from US Wellness meats.....

I was SOOOO excited. I got grass fed beef, pastured pork and chicken, and some other goodies. Looking forward to consuming this in the future!

Now on to treats. You know we gotta have them since I have two little ones running around who want treats just like the next kid! :) SO here we go.... I froze two banana in the freezer and processed that with 6 pitted bing cherries and a tad bit of honey. (didn't really need any, but my 4 yr old insisted she add some honey. She is an aspiring cook you know! ) They LOVED it! That little bit was enough for me and the girls to have a bowl. It is quite pretty too, if I do say so myself.

Finally, last night we whipped up some fatty bars. Good fats that is....
We melted about a cup of coconut oil, 1/2 cup of almond butter, and a tbs of honey. We coarsely processed some pumpkin seeds, almonds, walnuts, and pecan. Dumped both the melted mixture and the nut mixture in a big bowl added some unsweetened shredded coconut and dried unsweetened cranberries. We lined a cupcake tin and poured a little over a tablespoon in each and stuck it in the fridge to harden. We come up with so many typed of these bars around here and you really can't go wrong. Start with coconut oil as your base, and then go CA-RAZY! We've added "enjoy life" chocolate chips before, with dried apricots. I mean seriously the possibilities are endless. We are gonna try some peppermint patties pretty soon. I'll keep ya updated!! :) Oh, once we make these. It is so hard to keep them around. So beware. wThe kids would eat them in one sitting if I would let them. First thing I heard after getting home from church today was....."Can we have a bar?!?!?"

A few good recipes

I have made some YUMMY stuff lately. I love the past few recipes that I have tried from my favorite blogs. First of all I made Coconut Candy. I didn't take a picture because it was gone REALLY fast. My daughters LOVED it. Here is the recipe from Tropical Traditions.

1 cup of coconut cream concentrate or coconut butter
1/2 cup of raw honey (I didn't have nearly this much honey on hand, so I only added like 2 Tbls. And it was still yummy!)
1 tsp lemon zest
juice of 1 lemon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
shredded unsweetened coconut (optional)

Mix the first 5 ingredients together until smooth. Form into balls. I made them about an inch around. Then roll them in the shredded coconut. Place on a baking sheet and put in the fridge. They will harden a bit as they are chilled. Then eat em'!

Next up was stovetop carnitas from www.theclothesmakethegirl.com

These were very easy to make and they had good flavor. But the flavor was VERY strong for me. For some reason though, when I ate some the next day it seemed to be more tame. Either that, or I was just famished and didn't really care. I thought since the flavor was so bold that it would be good in a salad. So that's just what I did. My husband really like this as well.

I just chopped some lettuce and topped it with cucumber, red onion and shredded carrots. Added salsa, carnitas and guac. It was really tasty!!

Another awesome recipe, which I will be taking to my box tomorrow, is these bluebery espresso brownies by www.civilizedcookingcaveman.com 

I think the pic speaks for itself, but incase it doesn't...........OH MY WORD THESE ARE FANTASTIC! That should do it! Very easy recipe. Even my husband LOVED these, and he usually thinks that paleo baked goods are "weird".  Go make these........now!

Now, I get lots of questions about eating out while Paleo and even though there are some down sides.....it is still doable. More than likely you are going to be eating some canola oil, or vegetable oil, or some other yucky oil that you wouldn't use at home. But the other stuff you can control. One very important thing is Gluten. Make sure you let your waiter know that you are avoiding gluten. That is the one thing that we want to avoid at all costs. We just went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse the other night and this is my dinner. I've got 2/3's of that sweet potato in my fridge for after my CFN workout tomorrow. That sucka was HUGE!

I've got 3 new recipes coming up to try in the next couple of weeks and I will let you know how they turned out!! Have a great week!!