Author Archives: ebchr

Paleo Morning Glory Muffins

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Good morning sunshine! Bananas, dates and pineapple make these muffins delicious and sweet. Enjoy hot or cold or freeze for later.

Blog morningglorypaleo

Ingredients

  • 4 eggs
  • 1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
  • 1 ripe banana mashed
  • 1 cup of carrots, shredded
  • 1/2 cup chopped pineapple
  • 4-6 dates, chopped
  • 1/2 shredded coconut, unsweetened
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
  • 1/3 cup coconut flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 Tbsp cinnamon

Directions

  • Beat eggs till creamy (food processor works great!) and add oil and banana and blend well
  • Mix in shredded carrots, chopped dates, coconut and pineapple
  • In separate bowl mix flour, baking powder/soda and cinnamon
  • Mix everything together
  • Bake at 350* for 25-30 minutes or when a fork comes out clean

dit-elle-Esther

Bacon-Wrapped Asparagus

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Bacon & Asparagus Spears! This is a wonderful paleo appetizer/snack! 🙂

Blog baconasparagus

Ingredients

  • 1 lb fresh asparagus (16-20 spears)
  • 8-10 strips bacon

Directions

  • Wash & trim asparagus spears
  • Cut bacon strips in half crosswise
  • Wrap one half strip bacon around 1 or 2 asparagus spears (depending on how fat/skinny they are), leaving tip and end exposed
  • Lay on cookie sheet or large baking dish and bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until bacon is cooked
  • Serve warm or at room temperature

dit-elle-Esther

Beet & Walnut Salad

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This combination of beets, oil & vinegarette and toasted walnuts is delicious! Great as an appetizer, side or salad. 🙂

Blog beetwalnutsalad2 Blog beetwalnutsalad1

Ingredients

  • 3 pounds beets
  • 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
  • 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
  • dash of salt and pepper
  • 1/4 cup olive or walnut oil
  • 1/2 cup walnuts
  • 3/4 bunch green onions, sliced
  • 1/4 red onion, sliced into thin half-moons (optional)

Directions

  • Steam or boil beets until fork tender, it will really depend on their size, but about 20-40 minutes. Cut off root and stem ends and slip off skins under cool, running water while beets are still warm (easiest way to do this is to sort of ‘massage’ the beets and the skin will come right off). Cool beets.
  • Whisk together vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper and oil until dressing is blended.
  • Cut cooled, peeled beets into 1-inch wedges and toss with dressing.
  • To toast walnuts, preheat oven to 350° F. Spread nuts on a cookie sheet and toast for about 4 to 5 minutes. Let cool. Roughly chop toasted walnuts.
  • Add walnuts, green onions and red onions to dressed beats; toss to combine.

Super mom tip: Beets can be cooked days in advance and stored in the fridge. Just keep them unpeeled until you are ready to use.

Thanks PCC deli and recipes! :)

dit-elle-Esther

Chicken soup for the..

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Everything! A hot steaming bowl of chicken soup served for lunch or dinner is especially nice on icy damp January days like we’ve been having around here. Also great for sore throats, a perfect simple protein/veggie meal for little tummies, and the ultimate comfort food. This paleo friendly recipe is extremely easy to throw together, although there is some ‘de-boning’ work involved in the prep, but makes a large batch (for freezing/reheating, yay!).

Blog chickensoup2

Ingredients

  • One whole fresh chicken (usually found bagged in the refrigerated mean section of store)
  • 2 + 3 carrots, divided
  • 2+ 3 celery stalks, divided
  • 5 cloves garlic
  • 1 onion, quartered
  • Fresh ginger (optional)
  • Bay leaves
  • Salt/pepper to taste

Directions

  • Rinse chicken and put the entire bird in a pot
  • Fill with water, so it just covers chicken
  • Add a couple of roughly chopped carrots and celery stalks, garlic cloves, onion also roughly chopped, ginger and bay leaves
  • Bring to boil and let simmer for an hour or so
  • Remove chicken from pot (but save broth!) and let cool
  • Save all the broth, but discard veggies, bay leaves, ginger and anything else you don’t want in broth
  • Note that carrots/celery/onions/garlic get mushy after an hour cooking, so you will add new ones later. Mom tip: Carrots tend to be perfect for mashing into baby food though! 🙂
  • Once chicken is cooled, pick all the meat off the bones
  • Put broth back on heat and throw in sliced carrots and chopped celery
  • Bring to a simmer, add the now de-boned chicken back to soup
  • Season with salt & pepper and serve hot!

 

dit-elle-Esther

Simple Island Breakfast

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We just spent a few weeks on the beautiful island of Kauai eating papayas and avocados every day for breakfast. Papaya is very sweet and is beautifully balanced with the tartness of lime juice. Here’s my favorite way to eat and serve papaya – with lime and coconut milk! Aloha! 🙂 Blog papaya1

Blog papaya2

Ingredients

  • Fresh papaya (you’ll know it’s ripe when the skin starts to get yellow and the fruit is soft)
  • Fresh squeezed lime
  • Coconut milk (from a can)

Directions

  • Cut papaya in half lengthwise and scoop out and discard seeds
  • With a spoon or knife, carve some papaya chunks from the sides
  • Top with plenty of fresh squeezed lime juice and coconut milk

dit-elle-Esther

Festive Felted Wool Ball Ornaments

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Felted Wool Ball Ornaments are one of my favorite Christmas tree decorations to make. Super easy (you need some wool, Styrofoam balls, soap and hot water!) and a fun activity to do with a toddler or older kid. After all, who doesn’t like playing in soapy water!

Ava and I had fun making these. Unfortunately I did not get any photos of us doing this project as soap was flying and Anders has just started crawling (read: tearing around the house)! But we had a blast! 🙂

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Ingredients

  • Styrofoam balls – they come in different sizes and can be found at craft stores like Jo-Ann’s Fabric
  • Wool (find carded wool or roving online or your local yarn store)
  • Decorative long pins (optional)
  • Ribbon or yarn for tying around the balls
  • Soap & Water (liquid soap for hand or dish washing works great)

Directions

  • Wrap a bunch of loose wool around Styrofoam ball – it should be loose and fluffy
  • Dip in hot soapy water and start ‘packing a snowball’
  • Repeat this – making the ball very sudsy and keep ‘packing’ and rubbing it for 5-7 minutes
  • The loose wool will shrink and turn into felt and ‘hug’ the surface of the Styrofoam ball
  • Rinse in warm water and gently squeeze off excess water with a towel
  • Decorate and let air dry

blogfeltballs4 blogfeltballs3  blogFeltBallsx2-2

 

dit-elle-Esther

Indian-Spiced Cocktail Nuts

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With hints of cinnamon, coriander, cumin and the heat of cayenne, these nuts fill your house with a savory warm aroma while baking and make a delicious snack (with or without cocktails). Garam masala is a fragrant Indian spice blend, often found in bulk.Blog indiannuts

Ingredients

  • 2 cups lightly salted mixed nuts
  • 1 1/4 tsp garam masala
  • 1/2 tsp olive oil
  • 1/2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1/4 tsp ground red pepper (cayenne)

Directions

  • Preheat oven to 325
  • Combine all ingredients and toss to coat
  • Spread in a single layer on a parchment paper lined pan
  • Bake for 25 minutes or until lightly toasted, stirring once or twice during cooking
  • Store tightly covered, up to one week

dit-elle-Esther

Coconut-Sugar Butter Cookies

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Super yummy, crispy & light butter cookies made with coconut palm sugar and almond flour! Let the holiday season begin! Oh wait..  Blog buttercookies1

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups gluten free flour (I used half and half rice flour and almond flour)
  • extra almond flour or unsweetened coconut flakes for rolling cookies in
  • 1 c coconut palm sugar
  • 1/2 cup potato starch (or tapioca flour)
  • 1 tsp cream of tartar
  • 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • dash of salt
  • 2 sticks of cold butter, cut into pieces
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1 Tbsp milk
  • 1tsp vanilla

Directions

  • In your food processor, combine all dry ingredients and pulse until well blended
  • Add pieces of butter and pulse until dough becomes crumbly
  • Add egg, milk and vanilla and pulse until dough starts to resemble.. well, dough!
  • Refrigerate for 2 hours
  • When ready to bake, set oven at 350*
  • Shape dough into small balls (about the size of large marbles) rolling some in almond meal if desired
  • Bake for ~12 minutes or until they are golden brown
  • Serve warm or freeze (yummy as a crispy cold snack too!)

Blog buttercookies2

dit-elle-Esther

Salmon, potato and spinach soup

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I’ve been making a lot of soups recently – especially since we are having this unusual cold spell with temps in the teens at night and barely above 32 in the day! Brrr…! Hot soup to the rescue – easy, yummy and quick!

Blog salmonspinachsoup

 

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 leek (white and pale-green parts only) — halved, rinsed and thinly sliced (or 1 onion, chopped)
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 4-8 small red or gold potatoes, scrubbed and halved (some paleo purists don’t eat white potatoes, so cauliflower would be a great substitute)
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • 5 cups vegetable or chicken stock
  • 1 1/2 pounds salmon fillet — skinned, boned and cut into 1-inch cubes
  • 1/2 cup half-and-half (or coconut milk for paleo)
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill  (I used 1 tsp dry)
  • 5 ounces baby spinach

Directions

  • Melt butter in a heavy sauce pot over medium heat.
  • Add leek and garlic, stirring occasionally, until leek is soft, about 5 minutes.
  • Stir in potatoes and cauliflower; season with salt and pepper.
  • Pour in stock and bring to a boil.
  • Reduce heat to a simmer and cook until vegetables are fork tender, 7 to 9 minutes.
  • Add salmon and simmer until just cooked through, 3 to 5 minutes.
  • Stir in half-and-half, dill and spinach and briefly cook until spinach wilts and soup is heated through.

You can make this paleo by substituting coconut milk for the dairy.

dit-elle-Esther

Paleo Spaghetti.. before the Italians even invented Spaghetti!

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I was inspired by Elana’s Pantry’s post on how to EASILY make Spaghetti Squash. It IS super easy, super fun, and makes super awesome paleo noodles! 🙂 Yes it takes a while to bake, but plan ahead, throw this squash in the oven while you are doing other things and the actual preparation part (scraping out the flesh into noodles takes <1 minute)! Serve with a hearty Bolognese meat sauce, like this Paleo Sloppy Joe’s sauce, or simply as a dessert with some butter (or coconut butter) and cinnamon! 🙂

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Ingredients

  • One large spaghetti squash (~3 lbs)

Directions

  1. Place whole (uncut) spaghetti squash on a parchment paper lined baking sheet
  2. Bake at 350° for 60-80 minutes
  3. Allow to cool
  4. Cut squash open (long side) with a knife
  5. Scoop out seeds
  6. Scrape the flesh out of the squash into stringy noodles
  7. Voila!

dit-elle-Esther