Well folks... hubby is back to work already.  He is filling in for another guy at his squadron and has delayed his leave until later this week.  This means two things: 1) a tired/jetlagged hubby 2) I have to make lunches again :s.  I normally make the chocolate chip cookies I've included on this blog, but I recently found a seed/dried fruit mix (think trail mix for the nut allergy peeps) by Enjoy Life.  I bought the Mountain Mambo blend, which is delish, and I wanted to incorporate it into a cookie recipe.  So, I decided to bust out all the seeds in my house and give it a try. 

This is what I started with:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Ingredients:

1/3 cup coconut flour, sifted

1/4 cup coconut oil, melted

1/4 cup honey

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1/4 cup Enjoy Life Mini chips

1/3 cup Enjoy Life Mountain Mambo Seed & Fruit Mix

1 tablespoon hemp hearts

1 tablespoon flax seeds




In one bowl, whisk together your melted coconut oil, honey, eggs, and vanilla.  Set aside.  In a separate bowl, sift your coconut flour and then add in your sea salt, mini chips, seed/fruit mix, hemp hearts, and flax seeds.

Look at all that yumminess!!

Stir all the dry ingredients together and then add in the wet.  Stir to combine.  Let sit for 2-3 minutes to allow the coconut flour to absorb the liquid.  It should look like this.

Scoop your dough onto a parchment/silpat-lined baking sheet.  These cookies will not spread so wet your fingers and gently pat down the tops so they look more cookie-ish!

Bake for 10-12 minutes until they are golden around the edges.  These cookies are best left to cool before eating as the seeds are kinda mushy when they are warm. 

Once cooled, dig in!  These cookies smell exactly like a granola bar and taste super yummy!

So, I've seen a lot of different Pinterest recipes regarding broiled grapefruit.  I can't say I have ever thought of popping of those ruby red suckers in the oven!  Well yesterday, I did just that!  A lot of the recipes I saw involved  sprinkling sugar, spices, and even booze on the grapefruit beforehand and then caramelizing it all under the broiler. While that sounds delightfully sinful (booze for breakfast...that's earmarked for Christmas morning!), plain white sugar, and drinking on a Monday morning, are things that I have eliminated from my life!  I decided to "primalize" (I enjoy making up words) this broiled grapefruit idea.  So I started with this:

Simple eh??

Ingredients:

1 grapefruit

Raw honey

sea salt, just a pinch

That's a freshly washed grapefruit and beautiful, local, raw honey. 

Just for a moment...let's talk honey.  It's something I use on a regular basis but what's the difference between regular grocery store honey and lovely raw honey.  Raw honey has not been pasteurized!  This allows the honey to maintain most of the vitamins, nutrients, natural enzymes, and antioxidants.  Raw honey is also said to boost immune function, contain antifungal and antiviral properties, and promote digestive health.  The honey pictured above was found at Grills Orchard and came from a local farmer.  OMG guys...like no honey I've ever tried.  One thing to mention:  If you are baking or cooking with honey... DO NOT USE RAW HONEY.. it's a waste!  The heat will remove most of the beneficial properties that you paid extra for when you bought RAW honey.  For baking/cooking, I used a good quality organic honey.  Ok, back to the recipe!

In regards to the grapefruit, I took a serrated knife and cut around each segment so it would be easier to eat afterwards.

Place your grapefruit half on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  Sprinkle the tiniest amount of salt on top (Trust me!!)

Now, I will state that I left my oven rack in the middle of the oven.  I didn't move it up high because I didn't want a "whoopsie" moment as the parchment went up in flames.  I left my grapefruit in for 8(ish) minutes and pulled it out when it looked like this.

Carefully place your grapefruit half into a bowl and drizzle with a small amount of that delicious raw honey!  Enjoy!

Well it's Sunday morning and we are having a chill day today.  No running around, no stress... just a Walking Dead marathon planned after supper and there's a blanket with my name on it!  So today I decided to try and come up with a "set it and forget it" kind of meal.  Since going primal, I'm all over using my crock pot.  I use it for curries, bone broth, and one pot meals like the following.

This is what I started out with:

Ingredients:

Approximately 2lbs of beef short ribs

1/4 cup good quality balsamic vinegar

1 can (15oz) good quality tomato sauce

1/2 cup broth

2 tablespoons honey

2 carrots

1 shallot

3 cloves of garlic

fresh thyme




So let's get started.

Dice your carrot and shallot and mince your garlic.  Set aside.

Mix tomato sauce, honey, balsamic vinegar, and broth.  Add in carrots, garlic, and shallot. 

Place beef short ribs in crock pot (mine were still frozen) and pour mixture over top.  Set crock pot on high and cook for 6 hours.

After six hours, season with salt and pepper and serve with a side salad or veggie!  Easy peasy Sunday recipe!

Hey peeps!

Hubby made it home from Afghanistan!! YAY!  He even made it on the news and in the PM's pictures.  Very cool and oh-so-proud of him!  Since he's been away for a bit, I informed him of my little side project (this site) and he was intrigued and uber encouraging.  The first words out of his mouth were, "You need to post 'the hash' recipe"!  I hadn't thought about that recipe in a long time!! 

Rewind a few years, and you will find me pre-primal and struggling to feed an overly picky boyfriend.  One evening I finally stopped caring, threw everything I could think of into a pan, and called it hash.  He ate it until he was almost sick.  It was that good!  I haven't made hash in awhile because it had a lot of white potatoes in it, and while still being primal, potatoes aren't something I cook on a regular basis anymore.  I decided it was time to convert this recipe into something we can enjoy on the primal side of life!

So here's what I started with:

Ingredients:

4 Salt & Pepper Sausages (Mine are from Springbook Farm)

2 parsnips

2 carrots

1 onion

1 sweet pepper

3 cloves of garlic

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1 teaspoon dried rosemary

1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

1-1 1/2 cups broth

1 tablespoon coconut oil 

Fresh thyme


Fresh chives

First things first!  Place your sausages in a pan and cook until almost done. 

While sausages are cooking, cube your parsnips and carrots and chop onions and peppers.  Remove your sausages from the pan and set aside so they will cool off enough to slice.

Pour of any fat from the sausages.  Melt the coconut oil and add your carrots and parsnips to the pan.  Cook over medium heat until caramelized on the edges. Add in your onions, peppers, and garlic.

Continue cooking until the onions are golden on the edges.  Add in the spices.  Pour in enough broth to submerge most of the vegetables.  Simmer over medium-low heat for 15-20 minutes. 

While everything is simmering, slice sausages on the bias and chop fresh thyme and chives.

Once most of the liquid has evaporated from the pan, add in the sausages and fresh thyme. 

Season with salt and pepper, to taste.  Garnish with fresh chives and serve with Paleo ketchup.  OMG yummy!

I miss my hubby... and I'm super excited for him to get back from Afghanistan!  For some reason, while thinking about new recipes, I recalled a conversation with my MIL where she told me my hubby used to live on pizza buns.  Like, it was the only thing that kid would take for lunch.  That thought inspired me to create a tasty, primal, pizza bun concoction.  It was a huge success!  I apologize in advance for the lack of photos during the "making of" stage as it was a last minute recipe I came up with. 

This recipe is actually a play on the cauliflower pizza crust, which I already admitted I wasn't a huge fan of.  The recipe I tried had too much cheese and had an odd squishy/squeaky texture that I was not a huge fan of.  For this recipe I paired the shredded cooked cauliflower with cheese, and coconut flour to give a more bread-like texture.  It was a hit in my book!  Hopefully you'll like it too!

So let's get started!

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

For the bread:

1 head of cauliflower, grated/chopped super fine

1/4 cup coconut flour

2 tablespoons olive oil

3 eggs

1/2 cup chopped pepperoni

1 cup shredded cheese, not packed (I used a blend of parm, romano, and marble)



Cauliflower time! 

Take the raw head of cauliflower and grate it on a box grater or chop finely in a food processor.  Place the grated cauliflower on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  Bake for 20 minutes until cooked through.  Remove from oven and let cool until cool enough to handle. 

Once cool dump the cooked cauliflower into a clean tea towel and wring out all the excess moisture from the cauliflower.  This is super important for texture!  You'll be left with a mushy mess if you leave all the moisture in the cooked cauliflower.  Once you've wrung out all the moisture, place the cauliflower in a bowl with the rest of the "bread" ingredients.  Stir until combined.

Line a half baking sheet with parchment paper and then press the mixture evenly into the bottom of the pan.

Place the baking sheet into the oven for 15 minutes and remove when the top is golden brown.

Spread on pizza or marinara sauce (approximately 1/2 cup) and sprinkle with another 1/2-3/4 cup of cheese.  Return to the over for another ten minutes, or until it is golden brown and bubbling.  It should look like this.

Pick up this monstrosity by the parchment paper and place onto a cutting board.  Cut into whatever shape floats your boat!  I cut mine into finger-like breadsticks and served with some warm marinara sauce.    Enjoy!!

Well howdy folks! 

If you haven't picked up from the blonde hair and the wide-set, blue eyes... my fam is Swedish.  Needless to say, I'm a fan of ginger snaps (pepparkokar), lefse, and good ol' Swedish meatballs. 

Now, I'm not going to lie and say that Swedish meatballs were a staple in our household.  My family is mad for my mom's sweet and sour sauce (drool!) and my first real exposure to Swedish meatballs was at IKEA.  I know I know... a shame to my heritage!  But IKEA knows what they are doing... they are delicious!! Albeit, full of grains and fillers so I set out to make a primal-friendly version of these yummy eats. 

So let's talk ingredients!  This is what I started out with.

For the meatballs:

1/2 lb ground beef (grass-fed organic is best)

1/2 lb ground pork

2 eggs

1 teaspoon coconut flour

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 tablespoon coconut oil

In a bowl, combine everything except the coconut oil.  I use my hands.  It's messy, but somehow therapeutic, and gets the job done a lot faster than using a spoon or fork.

Once the mixture is combined, use a small scoop or tablespoon to portion out small meatballs.  I used my trusty small cookie scoop!

Melt the coconut oil in your pan and brown your meat balls in small(ish) batches.  Once brown, set the meatballs aside.

Once the meatballs are all browned, we are ready for the sauce.

For the sauce:

1 1/2 cups broth or water (I used homemade bone broth!  If using broth, make sure it is low or no-sodium broth as the liquid will be reduced by about 3/4)

1/2 cup heavy cream (or coconut milk - place in fridge and scoop the cream from the top to measure)

4-5 springs of thyme

Sea salt, to taste

Add the broth/water first and gently scrape the yummy brown bits off the bottom of the pan.  Add the cream and fresh thyme sprigs (I left mine whole and just fished the stems out after it was done reducing).

Bring the sauce to a boil and add back the meatballs.  Lower the temperature to medium/low and simmer for 20-25 minutes, until it reaches your desired consistency!

After 20 minutes you are left with tender meatballs and a beautiful sauce! YUM!

Note: Do not add the salt until the sauce has reached the desired consistency.  If you add the salt before it reduces it will become waaaaaaay too salty!

Hope you enjoy!  Adjö!

Move over Pizza Pizza and Domino's!!  You no longer have a hold on my husbands pizza addiction.  I have a creation that meets all his pizza requirements AND also meet all my nutritional requirements! 

So here's the thing, paleo and primal pizza crusts are hard to find, almost never nut-free, and almost always taste like a pile of crap.  I have a pizza-loving hubby to contend with!! A pile of crap is not going to cut it!!  So I've tried the cauliflower crust.  It was ok!  Very chewy because of the sheer amount of cheese in it.  It also was pretty greasy for the same reason.  It was also squishy...  like squeaked-when-you-ate-it squishy which was a weird texture for me.  I'm going to tweak with that recipe and see what I can come up with that still has all the nutritional yumminess of cauliflower but with a drier, crispier, bread-like texture that we are hoping for with a pizza crust.  Will definitely post if I'm successful!

So, onto our current pizza crust!  It's made with coconut flour, which is my go-to flour being primal and nut-free.  It also has some cheese, so definitely nixes any hope of advertising this as "paleo", but it is delish and totally worth it! 

Let's start with the crust!  It's thin and crispy and just what we are looking for in a pizza crust.  If you're a thick crust pizza lover, this may not being for you because this is NOT a doughy mass kind of crust.  You could try rolling this thicker and see the results.  I have not tried this so I can't attest to the texture it would deliver but, hey, fill your boots!! (And let me know said results!) 

Crust:

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

1/4 cup coconut flour

2 eggs

1/2 cup of shredded full fat cheese (hopefully from grass-fed organic milk, but I know that's hard to find in Canada)

1 teaspoon of Italian seasoning

Pinch of sea salt

These are my ingredients.  I also have my tomato sauce in the picture as I was about to make the pizza sauce for the pizza (recipe will be posted soon).  I use organic ingredients but that is a call only you can make. 

No here's the easy part!  Dump your dry ingredients into the bowl, add the cheese (I used a combination of marble, pecorino romano, and parmagiano reggiano), and give it a quick whisk to combine.  Crack your eggs right into the dry ingredients and add your oil.  It will look just like this!

Mush it all together and you get this!

Ok, this is the pain the butt part.  I've tried pressing this into a shape and it usually ends up way too thick and a huge gloppy mess.  The easiest way I've come up with to roll this out, is to use a extra large piece of parchment paper.  Tear off a piece of parchment paper that is twice as wide as your cookie sheet and fold it in half so it is approximately the same size as your pan.  Open up the folded parchment like a book and put the dough in the middle of one size.  Cover the dough with the other side of the parchment and pat down until it's a thinner disk.  After this, I usually just use a rolling pin and roll it out, on top of the parchment, until I get it to the thickness I'm looking for.  This is how mine turned out.

From here, trim your parchment paper so it will fit onto your cookie sheet and pop the crust into the over for 12-15 minutes.  I'd start watching it around the 10 minute mark so the edges don't burn.  This is what it should look like after baking.

Let it cool for a couple minutes. Basically you just want it to be cool enough to flip over.  Once you flip it over, pile on your sauce and toppings.  For ours, I piled on mushrooms, peppers, sausage, and pepperoni (hubby's favourites - it was his last dinner before he deployed) and then topped it all with more cheese.  Pop it back into the oven and bake until it's bubbly and hot!  This is it when it came out!  YUM!

Now...I know what you're thinking... there's all those toppings on such a thin crust.   And it's a primal crust... this is one of those rip-off, knife-and-fork pizzas.   Oh no no!!  Knife-and-forking a pizza in our house is a crime!  So here's the proof!

Pizza in hand!!!  Happy hubby with yummy primal pizza.  Another win for me!  Happy pizza building folks!

Ok, so these babies are the first "you would never know it's primal" recipe that I've made.  I'm talking small children have ate these, I've served them at dinner parties, and no one was the wiser.  That's the sign of a good cookie!  You will have to bear with me as my food photography is terrible (at best) but hopefully it'll pick up once I'm doing this on a regular basis.  So here is my recipe:


1/3 cup coconut flour, sifted

1/4 cup coconut oil, melted

1/4 cup honey

2 whole eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1/3 mini dark chocolate chips, I used the Enjoy Life mini chips



1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

3. I combine my coconut flour, and salt in one bowl and then whisk all my wet ingredients together in another.  Combine the wet and dry ingredients and then dump in the mini chips.

4. Let the batter sit for 3-5 minutes.  Coconut flour absorbs liquid like crazy so give it a couple minutes to do it's job! 

5.  Using a mini cookie scoop, scoop your batter onto the parchment paper.  (NOTE:  These cookies do not spread!!  So wet your finger tips and tap down the tops to make them look less ice cream-y and more cookie-y.  They are cuter that way!)

6. Place in oven and bake for 10-12 minutes until the bottoms are golden brown. 

This recipe makes approx. 30 small(ish) cookies that look just like the picture below!  Enjoy!

Okay, so here we go!  First post, I'm nervous!

A little introduction and then we will get right into this.  I'm Lyndsay and I'm a proud Air Force wife.  My hubby, Ty, is a military pilot and we live together with our two Newfoundland dogs.  After struggling with countless autoimmune issues, I finally stumbled across the Paleo diet.  Since 2012, my husband and I, have eliminated grain, refined sugar, and legumes from our diet.  I'm an odd ball, in that, I have a severe nut allergy, which makes being Paleo a bit more challenging.  So, this is my attempt at sharing some of my "wisdom" and recipes with similar folks!  So here goes!

Paleo vs. Primal -- There's a ton of technical differences but I'm going to simplify this as much as possible.

Paleo, or Paleolithic diet, is a way of eating that is based on what our ancestors would have ate.  Essentially, if you are eating grass-fed meats, eggs, vegetables, fruit, and healthy fats, you're Paleo.  The diet excludes all processed foods including refined sugars, all grains, legumes (including peanuts!), table salt, and processed oils.  The paleo diet has been found to have numerous healthy benefits, including weight loss and reducing the inflammation in your body (more on this later).  Some versions of the Paleo diet have taken to encouraging the use of diet drinks and reduced saturated fats, which isn't really the how our ancestors ate, so some people stick with a more natural approach.  That's your choice to make!

Primal is basically Paleo plus dairy.  Now, even though I keep my family in the "Primal" category, I'm not advocating for milk products.  It's a personal choice and should be made based on whether your body tolerates them or not.  Our family has no issues with delicious grass-fed, full fat dairy and we like to incorporate butter, cream, and fermented dairy (kefir). 

If you would like more information on Paleo and Primal some fantastic resources are:

http://www.marksdailyapple.com

http://thepaleodiet.com/

http://robbwolf.com/

Stay tuned for my Primal Recipes!