Against All Grain Chocolate Chip Cookies

While I was in Atlanta for Thanksgiving, my parents and I hosted a drinks and desserts event at our home. I threw Paleo out of the window and made my pumpkin trifle and pumpkin chocolate chip bars, to go with the giant tray of chocolate that my mom tossed together and the blueberry-lime cake and fruit tarts that our friends brought. I wasn't intending on partaking in any sweets (I tried, but it's hard sometimes), but because I knew that my best friend's boyfriend is Paleo as well, I did make a batch of chocolate chip cookies, Because I was feeling a tad lazy and didn't want to come up with my own recipe at the last minute, I use the Real Deal Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe from Against All Grain.

It turned out well. Honestly, the people who came over said that if I hadn't have told them about the whole non-grain aspect of the cookies, they wouldn't have known. Instead of grain, the recipe called for almond flour and coconut flour. Personally, they were a little dry/fluffy for my taste (I'm a chewy cookie sort of gal), but they did taste pretty good. I only got the chance to eat one, because everyone else ate the rest, but I do recommend it.

Some things to note about this recipe...

1. The recipe does include dairy - grass-fed butter and dark chocolate. (The recipe uses both Enjoy Life chocolate chips and dark chocolate.

2. The resulting mixture ended up very sticky. I recommend using two spoons to kind of scoop up the mixture, get it roughly golf-ball sized, and then get it onto the parchment paper-lined tray. I'm not sure how to describe the process that I used, but it was kind of like scooping the mixture from one spoon to the other repeatedly until it formed the shape I was looking for. Yeah, that's a terribly explanation, but that's the best I got without a video. Something to work on?

Pumpkin Blackberry Pancakes

I haven't been posting much lately because I haven't been doing much cooking (at least nothing new). Somehow, I managed to wake myself up this morning, and whip this together though. I'm pretty impressed with myself, because I rarely take the time to make breakfast. I normally just eat leftovers.

Pumpkin Blackberry Pancakes

1 Tbls coconut oil

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup almond flour

1/8 cup coconut flour

1 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/2 cup blackberries, cut into quarters

1. Heat 1 Tbls coconut oil over medium-low heat in a large pan.

2. Mix wet ingredients together, then mix in the dry ingredients.

3. Fold in the blackberries.

4. Transfer to hot pan by the heaping tablespoon full. (If you make each pancake too large, they'll just fall apart when you try to flip them.)

5. Cook for about 3 minutes per side. The pancakes are ready to flip when the edges of the pancake have turned a darker brown. Serve with maple syrup.

Meatloaf Muffins

I have no recollection of ever eating meatloaf growing up. I asked my mom and she insists that we she did make it a few times, and I guess I can't remember every meal my family ever ate, so if I forgot a a few servings of meatloaf... oh well. If I go with my memory though, these "muffins" are the first meatloaf I've ever had. For some reason I had this preconceived notion that I didn't like meatloaf... that it was gross. It appears that I was wrong, because I thoroughly enjoyed these.

Meatloaf Muffins

1 lb ground beef

1/2 onion, diced

1/2 cup shredded carrots

1/2 cup shredded cabbage

2 Tbls tomato paste

3 Tbls almond flour

1 egg

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Mix all ingredients together and distribute into muffin tin, filling to the brim. (The mix makes roughly 8 muffins)

3. Bake for 30 minutes. Then transfer to paper-towel lined plate.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars

I gave it a try. I attempted another recipe of Paleo pumpkin chocolate chip bars. The results? It's a bit closer to the consistency (but it's not quite there) and the pumpkin flavor got a bit overwhelmed by the coconut sugar. I've never used coconut sugar before, so I wasn't sure how it would turn out. So here's the recipe I created today. Again, it tastes good, but it's not exactly what I was aiming for.

Paleo Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars (#2)

1/2 cup walnut chunks

4 Medjool dates, pitted

1/4 cup almond flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 Tbls pumpkin pie spice

1/4 cup coconut sugar

1/4 cup melted ghee

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla

1 cup pumpkin puree

1/2 cup almond butter

pinch of salt

3/4 cup Enjoy Life chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Use coconut oil to grease a 8"x8" pan.

2. Put walnuts and Medjool dates into a food processor for a couple minutes (or until they almost form a paste)

3. Mix the almond flour, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, and salt into the walnuts and dates.

4. In a separate bowl, use a hand mixer to mix the coconut sugar and melted ghee.

5. Once the sugar and ghee are combined, add the egg and vanilla. Mix in the pumpkin puree and almond butter.

6. Now mix the "dry" ingredients (everything from the food processor) into the "wet" ingredients.

7. Fold in the chocolate chips.

8. Transfer the mixture into the baking pan, and place in the oven.

9. Cook for 35-40 minutes. The sides of the pumpkin bars should pull away from the edges of the pan, and a toothpick entered into the center of the pan should come out clean. Let cool before slicing.

Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins

I made a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip bars last night. The non-Paleo kind. So tempting! My goal for this week(end) is to tweak my Paleo-ified version of it. I brought the pan into work, and it was cleaned out by noonish. Any some of my co-workers didn't even get any. Fortunately I have enough ingredients to make another batch. You're welcome, co-workers!

I really need to get back into good sleep habits. This morning, I either slept through a series of alarms or I partially woke up, turned off four alarms, and immediately fell back asleep.  My alarms are set at 5:00, 5:30, and 6:00, and sounds every 5 minutes if you don't turn it off. The first alarm to go off would be my sleep cycle alarm in the 4:30-5:00 range. The remaining alarms are on my phone. I finally woke up at 6:05 If I happened to sleep through all of the alarms (plus 5 minute reminder alarms), that would mean that my phone sounded 14 times this morning before I managed to rolled myself out of bed. I shuffled a few feet closer to the bathroom, and then dropped into 50 squats.

I'm doing a 30-day, 6000 squat challenge, meaning 200 squats per day. (Feel free to join in! Though you would need to catch up for a couple days.) Today was day two, and I'm 450 squats in. Unfortunately, I'm also already icing my knee. Though technically I started doing that yesterday evening. Maybe it's time to invest in a knee brace again. Each time I do a squat I can hear my knees creaking. It's a bit disconcerting. Anyways, to the good stuff...

Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins

1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup cranberries
2 eggs
1/2 cup almond flour
1 Tbls pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 Tbls maple syrup

1. Preheat oven to 325 F.
2. Mix together wet ingredients (pumpkin, eggs, vanilla, and maple syrup).
3. Then stir in remaining ingredients. And spoon into coconut-oil greased muffin tin.

4. Bake for 35-40 minutes,  until toothpick inserted into the center of the muffin comes out clean.

Whole 30 - Day 5

So there's a concept to be avoided in the Whole 30 called "Sex With Your Pants On" (SWYPO). This term refers to paleo-ifying junk food, such as pizza, pancakes, etc. So even though I can make a paleo pizza with all paleo-friendly and even Whole 30-friendly ingredients, I shouldn't. By substituting ingredients, I'm just giving myself a way of continuing my cravings for non-paleo foods, because just like SWYPO, it's just not as good; you always end up wanting the real thing. Am I right? I'm right.

Anyways, I find this concept somewhat difficult to understand. I mean, what is really considered SWYPO? Is my zucchini pasta with meatballs considered SWYPO? I mean, it's veggies and meat with some almond meal mixed in. Where does that line get drawn? Because technically, I'm taking a traditional non-Paleo meal of spaghetti and meatballs and making zucchini and meatballs. Does that count as SWYPO? I vote no. I'm choosing to believe that SWYPO refers to junk foods that contain significantly more grains, such as cakes and brownies, and Paleo-ified versions of things like ice cream or pizza.

Buffalo Meatballs

1 lb ground buffalo
3 Tbls almond meal
1 1/2 tsp parsley
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp parsley
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

1. Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl. Use your hands; they work best.

2. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit in the fridge for an hour or so.
3. Preheat oven to 350 F.
4. Separate into heaping tablespoon-sized pieces. Shape into spheres.

5. Spread on an oiled baking pan.
6. Bake for roughly 20 minutes, until there's no pink in the middle.

Serve with ribbons of zucchini and pasta sauce. YUMMMM!

I ate mine with a side of heirloom tomato salad... And boy was it good.

I was starving by the time I finished crew practice last night (and my stomach was grumbling while I was rowing), but this is so filling that I had to make myself keep eating. I've been using PaleoTrack to check my protein, fat, carbs, omega 6:omega 3, and potassium:sodium intake, and yesterday's grand total of food came out to be 1053 calories, including this dinner. Factor in a moderately intense crew practice for an hour and half, where I burned around 600 calories, and that would mean my calorie balance for the day is 500-600. You may think that's awesome if you're trying to lose weight, but it could also trigger your body into thinking it's in starvation mode. So I sat and at all of my zucchini and meatballs, and 3 tomato slices, because I just couldn't force myself to eat more at 10 at night. Oh well. It was yummy, so I suffered through.

In exciting news, I got the "Optimal Primal" designation yesterday.

My fish oil supplements and flax seeds (0.3:1 omega-6:omega-3) on my lunch salad helped significantly in bumping up the omega 3 to omega 6 fatty acids ratio. It's believed that our paleo ancestors had a 1:1 ratio of omega 6:omega 3, though the PaleoTrack website says to aim for a 2.3:1 ratio, whereas most people today have a 10:1 or 20:1 ratio. Also, the potassium to sodium ratio should be at least 5:1, while most of today's society gets about a 1:1. The zucchini, tomato sauce, and freshly sliced heirloom tomatoes helped with the potassium to sodium ratio. I've basically decided that you can't add salt to your food at all to try to meet this last ratio. It's rather difficult to achieve, but fruits are a good source of this. Kind of makes me wonder how to get my potassium when doing a 21DSD.

Also, I've noticed that foods that have a good fatty acids ratio, tend to do poorly on the potassium:sodium front, or vice versa. For example, an avocado has a 69.3:1 potassium to sodium ratio, but also has 15.2:1 omega-6 to omega-3. Sad. At least flaxseeds have a decent ratio for both, even though the 27.1:1 potassium:sodium isn't a lot of potassium when compared to the sodium intake.

Paleo Chocolate Mug Cake

Clearly I'm on a bit of a sweets kick. Part of it comes down to the fact that I'm trying to use up the food/cooking supplies that I have at my apartment so that I don't have to move the food.

Paleo Chocolate Mug Cake

3 Tbls almond flour

2 Tbls cocoa powder

1 1/2 Tbls honey

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1/2 tsp cinnamon

pinch of sea salt

Mix the ingredients together in a microwave-safe mug.

Cook in microwave for 2 minutes. And... you're done. Three minutes of work and you get a cake out of the deal. What's better than that?

Paleo Peach Cobbler

Paleo Peach Cobbler

2 small peaches
1/3 cup water
2.5 Tbls honey
1 Tbls + 1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/3 cup almond flour
1 egg
2.5 Tbls coconut oil
pinch of sea salt

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Prep a baking dish by greasing the dish with melted ghee or coconut oil.
2. Peel and dice the peaches. Mix in pan with water, honey, and 1 tsp cinnamon. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes, or until you hit your desired thickness.

3. Transfer peach mixture to your baking dish(es).

4. In a separate bowl, mix the almond flour, 1 Tbls cinnamon, egg, coconut oil, and sea salt. Scoop over the peach mixture.

5. Bake for 30 minutes.

6. Let cool for a couple minutes. Then serve. I topped mine with coconut cream (milk).

Chemo - Part 6 - Day 5

It was our last day of cladribine! Thankfully we've survived the first 5 days of chemo without any major issues. Overall the side effects have been tiredness, nausea, and a fogginess in the head, but we've attributed that last one to the anti-nausea meds. When I was talking about the fogginess with a few friends last night, we discussed how one of my friends thinks that the anti-nausea medications generally just makes you tired so you sleep through the nausea and wake up after it passes. I can see that being true. It's kind of the same way with migraine medications, though I'm not sure if it's the medication or the migraine that actually makes me pass out and sleep through the worst part of the migraine. I'd say that I'd experiment with it, but when I have a migraine, testing to see if I can stay awake through it is the last thing on my mind.

Some bone-deep leg pain has also kicked in. I think that's the hardest thing we've dealt with so far. We've tried ice packs, but I don't think there's anything to do for bone pain, besides maybe pain killers? Suggestions, anyone?

Anyways, I appreciate all of the well wishes we've received. It makes me relieved to know that my family has a good support system here in Atlanta. I won't worry as much when I head back to Texas. Our next-door neighbor called earlier today to see when he could bring some grilled goodies for us. And some other family friends have already offered to help out with the transportation to the future chemo treatments.

Last night, I went to Leon's Full Service in downtown Decatur. I ordered the Chicken Sausage, with charred scallion, ginger, baby bok choy, green curry, and fried shallot pickles. It was really yummy. And I had the Bitter in a Bottle cocktail. Go there and try it.

Though I think my friend LF got the best option: Bacon in a Glass, with a side of peanut butter.

Here's another banana-based dessert that I baked last night. It has a very strong banana taste, so if you're like my dad and don't like bananas, then don't make this. I know, it's a really complicated concept... Don't make something you don't like? Go figure.

Two-Way Banana Bread

5 frozen bananas, peeled

6 pitted dates

4 eggs

2 1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup coconut flour

1/4 cup almond flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

2 tsp cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

2. Put the dates into the food processor and run until the dates have been broken up into little chunks.

3. Cut up the frozen bananas into a separate bowl. Mash the bananas with a fork (you could also put these into the food processor and use that instead of the manual effort needed to mash the bananas with a fork).

4. Mix with the dates.

5. Whisk the eggs, then stir into the banana/date mixture. Add in the rest of the ingredients in order, stirring after each one is added.

6. Transfer to two coconut-oil greased loaf pans.

7. In one pan, stir in 1 cup of chocolate chips. In the other pan, mix in dried or fresh fruit. I used dried blueberries and dried cherries.

8. Transfer to the oven and bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the loaves cool completely before trying to remove from the pans.

Cherry/Blueberry

Strawberry-Banana Bread

Strawberry-Banana Bread

Ingredients:

3/4 pint strawberries

1 banana (can use a frozen banana)

1/4 cup coconut butter

1 cup almond flour

1/4 cup coconut flour/shredded flakes

2 eggs, whisked

1 Tbls coconut oil

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease the bottom and sides of a loaf pan with coconut oil.
2. Rinse the strawberries and cut off the tops. Dump into a food processor/blender and process until smooth (you can leave a few chunks if you like).
3. Remove 1/4 cup of the strawberries and set aside.
4. Chop up your banana and add to the food processor until fully combined with the strawberries.
5. Add in your coconut butter. Once combined, followed with the almond flour and coconut flour. (You'll probably need to grab a spatula and push the mixture down from the sides of the processor.)
6. Mix in one egg at a time.
7. Transfer to your greased loaf pan and bake in the oven for 25 minutes, or until the center is firm.
8. Let cool for 15 minutes before removing from pan.
9. While cooling, heat 1 Tbls coconut oil on the stove. Once hot, add the 1/4 cup of strawberry puree that you had set aside in step 3. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. The mixture will turn a deeper red and start to clump together.
10. Slice up a piece and top with the warm strawberry mixture.

Paleo Pizza and Tuesday/Wednesday Workouts

Because my computer decided not to post this when I planned to, you get Tuesday and Wednesday wrapped into one. Lucky you!

Tuesday's 5 am workout took about 45 minutes to do.

Warm-up: 20 lunges

Side-to-Side Squats: 2x20, 15 lb

Straight-Arm Raises (Front/Side): 2x20, 10 lb

Step Back Lunges: 2x20, 15 lb

Inchworms: 5

Punches: Jab-Cross – 20 each side, Hook-Uppercut – 20 each side

Wall Sits: 1x1 min, 2x30 sec

Bench Press: 10-8-6, 50 lb

Angled Leg Press: 20 @ 120 lb, 20 @ 180 lb

Abs (Lay flat on your back. Lift your legs about 6" off of the ground and rotate to the right. Rotate your legs over your head and then to your left, returning to your starting position. Switch directions. Repeat 20 times - 10 in each direction.)

Cool-down: Stretching

By Wednesday morning I was so sore from my recent reintroduction into weight lifting, that the effort of  ignoring my muscles to roll over and turn off my alarm was almost too much. I had a very serious debate with myself over whether I should just let the alarm keep going off. I mean, it'll turn off eventually, right? Instead I turned it off and went back to sleep until my next alarm.

Sitting at my desk for the day at work was rough, too. Because I sit on my ass for most of the day, my muscles, such as my hip flexors, like to tighten up so that when I do try to stand up, it becomes a very slow process of stretching out my muscles first. Therefore, my exercise for the day was to go for a nice relaxing walk... outside. It was wonderful getting fresh air.

And you know what else is wonderful? Pizza. Especially pizza with a yummy crust, like the one from the picture below. So keep scrolling for the recipe. Yum!

Paleo Pepperoni and Sausage Pizza

Pizza Crust

1 cup almond flour

1/2 cup shredded coconut 

2 Tbls flax seeds

2 eggs, thoroughly whisked

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp parsley

1/2 tsp ground pepper

sprinkle of salt

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease the bottom of a round cake pan with coconut oil.

Mix the ingredients together and transfer to the cake pan. Use the back of a spoon or your hand to spread the mixture evenly across the bottom of the pan. It'll be pretty sticky.

Bake for 20 minutes or until top is browned and crust-like.

Topping

1/2 cup pasta sauce (like this one I found in Whole Foods)

6 pieces of pepperoni

1/2 cup sausage crumbles, precooked (I used mild Italian sausage)

5 basil leaves, chopped

1 green onion, chopped

1/2 cup sliced cherry tomatoes

Once the pizza crust is made, spread the pizza sauce over the crust and sprinkle with the basil and green onion. Spread the meat across the sauce...

... and top with the cherry tomatoes.

Bake for 15 minutes (this is basically just to heat the meat and roast the tomatoes).

Slice into quarters and serve hot.