Pumpkin Spice Cashew Coconut Butter

Here we go again. More #pumpkinspice. I promise I won't get too outta control this season. But I was inspired by saving money and not buying the @youfreshnaturals nut/coconut butter...and I totally nailed it. Here it goes:

1 cup roasted/salted cashews (with the dates and the salt on here, it gets a sorta caramel flavor)
1.5 cups shredded unsweetened coconut
4 pitted dates
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground clove

Start with the coconut. Toss it in the vitamix and butter it. If you haven't buttered coconut before, be patient. You're going to have to crank up the engine on the vitamix (or whatever super high speed food processor you have), and let it ride out for a while. When it is super smooth, add the cashews, dates, and spices (feel free to add/subtract spices per your taste preference). Let it go some more. Timing on this is really up to you. I like my nut butters extremely smooth, so I go until I nearly overheat my engine. But do what you please for your desired texture.

This stuff is good. I may try to add some protein next time...not sure yet, because I don't want to taint this deliciousness.

(Paleo) Apple Cinnamon Raisin Muffins

'tis the season. Yes, 'tis the season for an abundance of apples. Peaches are less sweet and becoming more scarce...but the farmers markets are boomin' with apples galore! Partner this piece of seasonal evolution with my buddy Matt seeking some sweet "cake-like" treats that won't hinder his stellar CrossFit performance. He didn't want paleo, but they ended up being paleo anyways. Go figure. Here we go.....

Apple Cinnamon Raisin Muffins

3/4 cup sifted coconut flour
6 eggs
3/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
handful of raisins
1/2 peeled, diced apple

Preheat your oven to 350 (surprise, surprise). I used my silicone muffin "tin," so no greasing needed. Mix all dry ingredients in one big bowl and whisk together. Grab another small bowl and mix all of the wet ingredients (sans raisins and apple). Mix in the wet mixture with your dry mixture. Whisk/stir until there are no lumps. If you're not familiar with baking with coconut flour, the texture may seem kind of weird. It's kind of thick, quite stiff, and spoonable. Go ahead and mix in your raisins and diced apple (feel free to get creative here...currants, nuts, etc). Evenly distribute into your muffin cups, and bake for 25-30 minutes. I checked mine at 25, and they were still not quite ready, so I gave them another 2-3 minutes. Just keep an eye on them, and when they're browning slightly, and you can toothpick test them, you're good!

Share this season with all of your paleo (and even non-paleo) friends! Simple, minimal ingredients, and delish! #sharethewealth

Paleo Pumpkin Bars

Yes, 'tis the season...for the infamous #psl (and all of the artificial cancerous caramel color it contains)...and pumpkin EVERY-thaaaang. I decided to get creative last night and make some pumpkin bars...until, to my surprise, Whole Foods was literally completely OUT of canned pumpkin. Whaaaa? Too many chickees must be high on this pumpkin bandwagon. Was I gonna let that stop me? No sir. How about a kabocha/butternut bar? #giveittome. They turned out fabulous....and today I decided to give it a shot with a different crust, mostly because I want to bring a client of mine a treat to tomorrow's session....and she's got major nut allergies.

Filling
1 1/2 cups of whatever kind of squash you want
1/4 cup coconut milk (or lite...it works just fine too)
2 eggs
3 Tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp clove
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg


Crust Option 1:
10 pitted dates
1/3 cup ground flaxseed
1/3 cup pistachios
1/3 cup walnuts
1 Tbsp water
sprinkle of salt

*blend all together until a paste is created

Crust Option 2:
10 pitted dates
1/3 cup ground flaxseed
1/3 cup cashews
1/3 cup pistachios
1/3 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 1/2 Tbsp water
sprinkle of salt

*blend all together until a paste is created


Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Blend all of your crust ingredients together (yay Vitamix!). Remove and spread evenly over a greased (coconut oil and/or parchment paper lined) 8x8 baking dish. Clean the blender thoroughly, then add in all of your filling ingredients, and let 'er rip until it is nice and smooth. Pour Filling over your crust, spread evenly over your crust. Put in the oven and bake 35-40 minutes, or until firm (go ahead and use the toothpick method, making sure it comes out clean).
Here's the tough part...COOL COMPLETELY! Be patient. I set mine, in the baking dish, on the cooling rack for about 30 minutes. Then, removed, cut, and let continue to cool a bit longer. Quite delicious!

PS you can also make the filling alone,
put it in a single serving dish of your choice, and
make a delicious custard for yourself as well.
I looooove a personal dessert dish

Mini Meatloaf Muffins ... mmmmhmmm

Meatloaf is essentially anything you want it to be, right? I never understood the "ummm nah I'm good" that people would seem to communicate if invited over on family meatloaf night. I always thought my mom's meatloaf was pretty bomb. So, in the process of me trying to remove myself from my mundane (yet always delish) crock pot chicken breast, sweet potato, broccoli combo that has been my food prep staple for the past couple of months, I thought I'd knock out some mini meatloves.

Here's how it went down:

3/4 lb. grass fed ground beef
2 tandoori mango chicken sausages, removed from casing
1/2 sweet onion, diced
1/2 red pepper, diced
2 slices black forest bacon, diced and browned (optional, but always welcome)
Freshly grated cheese, quantity and type per your tastebuds
1 egg

Preheat oven to 350. Here's the tough part: toss it all in a big bowl and mash that stuff up with your hands. Don't do it too much, as you don't want to make the meat too dense. But just enough to mix it all together. Then...divvy it up into a muffin tin (don't even need to grease it), maybe 3/4 of the way full in each cup. Bake for 25ish minutes, remove, and let cool!

My plan with these bad boys is to grab one of those, and one of my egg white muffins, to take with me every morning for breakfast. #getsome

Egg White Muffins - #breakfastfordayssss

Okay, so many of my clients have gotten random variations of this recipe from me. Why? Because I never do it the same, and it is extremely adaptable...so I'm always encouraging my peeps to make it their own. #claimit

This is how today's version went:

12 eggs (removed 8 yolks...I typically go for a 1:43 or 1:4 egg white:whole egg ratio)
3/4 of a pound fresh sausage (or 3 fresh sausage links, removed from casing)
1-2 slices of black forest bacon
1/4 sweet onion, diced
1/2 red pepper, diced
handful of spinach, shredded up
whatever seasonings you want to add, to taste (this will change for me, depending on the type of sausage I use

Preheat oven to 350. Brown the sausage and bacon on the stovetop until fully cooked, then let cool. Toss everything in a bowl. Mix. Distribute mixture into muffin tin (I strongly recommend investing in a silicone muffin "tin." Nothing will stick to it, and it is incredibly easy to clean. And, probably costs the same as a normal muffin tin, so save yourself the scrubbing). Leave in oven until the muffins are firm. When removed from the oven, immediately remove from the muffin tin so too much condensation doesn't build up around them, and they can cool properly.


I typically grab a couple of these for a snack, breakfast, evening snack, all of the above. So easy to make in mass quantities, you really have zero excuse to make that stop at starbucks for a "protein box" with cheese and peanut butter (ummm...where's the protein?) breakfast. #grabandgo

Vanilla Maple Coconut Butter

There's really nothing easier than this stuff. Well, assuming you've got a Vitamix (or super high power food processor) on hand. What do you need? One ingredient. And then make it your own however you want to.

What you need:

Unsweetened coconut flakes (shredded, large flakes, whatever)...toast them beforehand if you'd like! I'm not specifying a quantity, because it's all about how much you want! I had about 2 cups of medium shreds...and it made about 8 oz of butter

What I added:

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/2 tsp maple extract

10 drops liquid stevia

Add coconut to Vitamix. Let it run for a few minutes. It'll go from flakes, to getting kind of pasty, to getting a little more liquified. Keep going. Add in your other ingredients (get crazy here! any kind of extract, nuts, cocoa powder, etc)...and crack it up on high for a few minutes. Take a look at it. It'll be getting hot, looking runny...keep going! When you're sufficiently satisfied with the smoothness of it, distribute into jars or whatever container(s) you'd like to store it in! Don't cover yet. Let it sit on the counter to cool off first, then put in the fridge for another day or so before covering, so you're not locking in any condensation.

Be careful....you may want to recruit someone to distribute this to you....or just grab a spoon and get ready to kill the whole batch. No guarantees on the aftermath of that, but it'll be pretty fabulous going down. 

Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie

So, I used to make this more often back in my strict paleo days. This morning, as I was brainstorming about what to food prep this week, it decided to creep back into my mind...and I decided to run with it. This easily makes a good 5 servings, so I'll be set on one meal for the next several days with this guy. 

my extra went into this awesome mini cast iron
skillet. Worked well for the photo shoot.

Filling:
1 lb. ground turkey breast
1/2 sweet onion, diced
1/2 red pepper, diced
1/2 green pepper, diced
1/2 zucchini, diced
1/4 cup raisins
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tbsp. smoked paprika
1 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. rosemary
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
salt and pepper to taste

Sweet potato topping:
1 large sweet potato
2 Tbsp. coconut milk
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. smoked paprika
1/2 tsp. sea salt
2 egg whites

Preheat oven to 350. Heat large skillet on stovetop to medium-high, and add all vegetables, stirring until they sweat down a bit. Add all seasonings, then add ground turkey breast and raisins. Continue cooking until turkey is browned, and there are no excess liquids in the pan. Add mixture to 8x8 baking pan.

To prepare sweet potato topping, peel and roughly chunk your sweet potato, then add to pot with a few inches of boiling water (doesn't have to cover the sweet potato). Cover the pot, and bring heat down to medium-low. When sweet potato cuts easily with a fork, remove from the water (I strained it, to remove as much of the water as possible), and add chunks to Vitamix (or other blender/food processor). Add coconut milk, cinnamon, smoked paprika, and sea salt, and blend until smooth. Let cool for 10-15 minutes, then add egg whites (this will help you get the sweet potatoes to firm up on top of your mixture).

Add sweet potato topping atop of your filling, smoothing out the top, and place in the oven for approx. 25-30 minutes. If you like the top browned, turn the broiler on for an additional 5 minutes, but be sure to keep an eye on it so it doesn't give you blackened shepherd's pie (not a good look).

This, as "typical" shepherd's pie, is ideal if it is baked in individual serving vessel's...but if that's not possible, the 8x8 pan will do...but beware that it'll get kind of messy when scooping it out! It's worth it though!

Protein Nut Butter...intrigued??

Please don't tell me you fall into the category of those that consider nuts a protein. PLEASE! Look at the nutrition label. What is the "overwhelming" macronutrient (fat, protein, carb) in that can of cashews. Protein? Nope. Try fats. "Good" fats, yes. Although, I'm going to go ahead and recommend to not go buck wild on them because they are "good" fats. So scooping out peanut butter for that afternoon snack might not be a bad idea, but don't consider it a significant protein source. Eat a piece of chicken.

...moving on. So lately I've been seeing a lot of "protein" nut butters, marketed primarily on Instagram. G-Butter, ManBake, p28...basically, different flavors of nut butters, packed with additional goodness, in the form of flax, protein, etc. Right before shelling out $15 (before shipping) to ManBake for some "cookie butter" nut butter, I decided to have a peek at the label, and see if I could make something similar myself. What did I find? Yep...let me go about it the "do it yourself" way. Here's what it's looking like:

finished product! cooling, as it
gets pretty hot from the high speeds!

butter me up!

1 cup raw cashews (or use whatever blend of raw nuts you'd like)
2.5 scoops of protein of choice (I used MusclePharm Mint Chocolate Chip...why? because it had it)
2 Tbsp ground flaxseed
1 Tbsp chia seeds

Toss it all in the Vitamix (pretty crucial to have a high powered blender or food processor, otherwise it just won't "butter," no matter how much you kill the engine). If it needs to be smoothed out at all, add in a little bit of coconut oil, to create a more creamy texture.

There ya have it! Customized protein nut butter with other healthy goodness....just store in a mason jar! Cost me about $6, if that, and literally took 5 minutes to make.

Teff Ginger Molasses Cookies

Teff?!? Heh? I'll straight up admit that I had zero idea what teff was until recently. And when I learned what it was, I also learned that it is what's used to create injera...the airy pancake-like things that I love eating Ethiopian food with. Then...during a recent trip to Whole Foods, an African woman was sampling some of her cookies...made with teff flour. Whaaaaaat? Of course, I had to taste (sample-master right here)...then proceeded to purchase a container of them. Gotta support local businesses, right?

Of course, the next immediate thought was "why don't I make these? How do I make them? I got this." ...and perused pinterest for a while in search of recipes. So...the following is a bit of my own version of this one I tracked down

Teff Ginger Molasses Cookies

2 cups teff flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 cup almond butter
1/2 cup molasses
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup ginger beer
2 tsp tamari
1 Tbsp fresh grated ginger

Preheat your oven to 350. Combine all dry ingredients, combine all wet ingredients. Then mix it all up! Drop whatever size cookies you'd like on parchment-lined cookie sheets, and bake for about 12 minutes (if you like them nice and soft!).

These are pretty awesome, if you're into gingerbread! Gluten free, vegan, paleo...sign me up! I'll definitely be making these again.

DIY Quest Bars....yes, please!

So, if you're into fitness and/or health supplements, you're well aware of the existence of the infamous Quest bar. So many incredible flavors to choose from, budding fitness culinary artists figuring out different ways to consume them (quest pop tarts, cookies, cannolis, you name it), and did I mention the cookies 'n cream one?!?! <insert watering mouth>

After PR'ing my squat today, and watching a random Netflix movie...I decided to conjure up my own version of one of my fave afternoon snacks...in the form of my absolute favorite flavor of all time: Mint Chocolate Chip.

I'm not going to sit here and preach about how I've outdone the Quest bar. Please. Not trying to do that. However, if you're in the mood for some DIY snacks, it is definitely worth giving it a go. Cost savings per bar is maybe around 50 cents...but hey, money in the bank is money in the bank.

supplies ready for action

ready, set, consume!

4 scoops of your fave protein powder (I used Muscle Pharm Mint Chocolate Chip)
1/4 cup ground oats
1/4 cup nut butter of choice (I used Peanut Butter & Co. Dark Chocolate Dreams)
1 Tbsp ground flaxseed
1/4 cup water (you may or may not use it all)
1 Newman's Own mint chocolate cup, finely chopped
1 Tbsp raw cacao nibs

Mix all dry ingredients together. Slowly add the water until it is fairly sticky (then don't add more!), and all dry ingredients have been incorporated. Then, flatten out onto some parchment paper and place in the fridge for about 30 minutes. Cut, eat, and store! Should make about 6 bars.

Clearly, my cacao nibs and my mint chocolate cup were the icing on this mint chocolatey cake...so feel free to get creative and create your fave flave!

Here's the approximate nutrition info per bar:

Calories: 189
Fat: 7g
Protein: 20g
Carbs: 12g (5g sugar)

*nomnomnom*

Let's Talk About....

...Cheese, bay-bee. Let's talk about you, and me. Let's talk about all the good things, and the bad things, that may be.

...no? Was I the only one that was tickled by my salt 'n pepa reference?

...anyhoo, I'm going to deviate a bit from mere recipe sharing. Why? Because I had a fabulous cheese experience, that has inspired me to perk up and become inquisitive about cheese and their interesting origins. I've had thoughts of educating myself more on the wondrous art of cheese making in the past, just never really felt like investing the time to get to know my cheeses a bit more personally. But...thanks to gouda reserve...I'm in.

My little heaven at Whole Foods

I often find myself perusing the small basket in the corner of the cheese section at my P Street Whole Foods. You know, the one where they put the odds and ends of cheese that can't really be sold with the rest of their coagulated compadres. See, I'm a "let me taste that" kind of girl...wanting to experience as many flavors, textures, aromas as possible in the things I eat...not necessarily wanting to commit to a large portion of any one of them. <smorgasbords are perfect for me> So I loooove when the little basket at Whole Foods is filled up with various cheeses for me to try. I'll often get one or two per week, trying to remember what I like and don't like, occasionally googling the whereabouts of particular ones that stood out on my palate (and creating no form of actual notes to re-reference either. #colormelazy). But never have I been completely compelled to dedicate some weekly time to cheese discovery.

Without further adieu, here's my first cheese review and knowledge bomb...

GOUDA RESERVE

This cheese is quite hard. At first, I thought it was mislabeled. Gouda, not soft? Won't bend? Huuh? I wouldn't necessarily consider it super hard like a grana padano (my heart belongs to this guy, btw), but just seems like it's been sitting in the fridge too long and lost its moisture. The taste is one-of-a-kind. Strong, tart in its own way, with a bit of a bite. There are interesting crystals inside that crunch while you chew, and if you let it rest in your mouth, it'll slowly become slightly creamy. This leads me to wonder how delicious it'd be shaved onto a warm, tomato soup for garnish. Hmmm....

• Ingredients: Pasteurized cow's milk, salt, cheese culture, animal rennet
• Country of Origin: Holland
• Aged: At least 18 months
• Price: $16.99/lb.
• Verdict: Buy buy buy!! (you won't regret it)

...until next time...

Back at it....with Cinnamon Currant Protein Bars!

Excuse my absence. I know, excuses will likely go in one ear and out the other. So I'll refrain from concocting any creative reasons to beg for your pardon of my slacking off. You're welcome :)

So. I'm staying at my friend @goldiesquats place, watching her little cuddle bug, Tansy. Being the meal prep fanatic that I am, I wanted to make sure I brought my full arsenal of goods, so I wouldn't have to be all up in her kitchen this week. I did my typical slow cooker chicken, roasted sweet potatoes, and broccoli. But I didn't want to keep raiding the local GNC for more and more quest bars (slight addict)....so I thought I'd give a go at making something fun to bring for myself. I recently got some Cellucor Cinnamon Swirl protein....and it is gooooood. I was reminded of loving some cinnamon raisin toast as a kiddo, so I thought I'd create some cinnamon raisin protein bars. The currants came about because I pictured my bars being fairly small, and imagined the raising taking over the whole bar. So...solution? Mini raisins :)

Here we go:

1 cup raw cashew pieces (got them from whole foods, they're cheaper than whole cashews)
3/4 cup organic oats
1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
3 scoops Cellucor Cinnamon Swirl protein (or whatever you want, really)
1/4 cup dried currants
1 1/3 cup coconut almond milk (I use blue diamond, but do whatever kind of milk you'd like)
*optional dash of cinnamon if you want!

Cashew pieces go in the vitamix and get chopped pretty finely. Don't go crazy and butter it, just make it like a fairly fine cashew meal. Next, grind up your oats in the vitamix as well. Add all dry ingredients to a big bowl and mix. Then, add in the milk and stir. The mixture should be really sticky. Then, lay out the dough/batter on a parchment lined baking pan, and spread until it is maybe 1/2 inch thick. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 25 minutes, or until the top is slightly brown, and your big bar is pretty firm. Remove from oven, let cool on a rack for a few minutes, then cut into whatever shapes/sizes you want! Mine made about 12 bars that were about the same size as a quest bar. Yummo.