Almond Flour Bagels

Yum, yum. These turned out way better than I expected, looking and tasting very much like a bagel should taste.

½ c. almond flour
2 T. flaxseed
1 T. arrowroot
1 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. xantham gum
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda

Mix above together thoroughly.

2 heaping T. almond butter
1 T ghee
1 T agave
2 large eggs

Use a blender on high speed to mix together thoroughly, about 1 minute. Mix dry ingredients in, should form a dough within about 20 seconds of blending together. Sprinkle a piece of wax paper with almond flour and/or more flaxseed. Place dough on the mixture, then sprinke more almond flour/flaxseed on top. Divide dough into 4 parts (more or less depending on how big you want your bagels to be) and roll into balls. Will need more almond flour/flaxseed to keep from getting sticky. Place on baking sheet, flatten to about 1/2 inch and place in freeer for about 15 minutes.

Heat oven to 425 degrees and bring a medium pot of water to a boil (add small amount of baking soda to water).

Remove dough from freezer, sprinkle a little more almond flour in the middle of the bagel and use thumbs to push a hole through. (You can push the dough back into the bagel to keep it uniformly round, but I found the ones I just folded over to be a little prettier after they baked). Place bagel in boiling water for approximately 40 seconds, remove with slotted spoon and place on baking pan. Add desired toppings (I used roasted and chopped garlic, chocolate chips and some dried basil for each different bagel). Bake at 425 degrees for 12-13 minutes.

We enjoyed these lovely delights for breakfast today with a large amount of butter.

Good recipe! I might add more flour to the initial mixture next time to see if I can get it to be more dough like from the beginning, plus I'd like the bagels to be bigger (Boo Boo, small army of one!). Will be working on this one for perfection purposes, but unfortunately I'm out of almond flour right now. Will need to make a coconut flour bagel recipe now!



The big one on the left is one of the "prettier" ones where I didn't work the extra dough back into the bagel.

Almond Flour Chocolate Cake

6 oz dark chocolate chips
6 T. butter
Melt in double broiler.

½ c. almond flour
1 T. arrowroot flour
1 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1/3 c. coconut sugar
Mix together. Beat into the chocolate mixture, just enough to ensure all the dry ingredients are covered with the wet ingredients.

3 egg whites
Scant of baking soda
Beat on high until strong peaks form. Stir into chocolate mixture.

Put mixture into 4 custard cups, or could probably use a large muffin pan as well. Bake on 400 degrees for 13 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit for 30 minutes. Loosen edges with a knife and flip over onto serving plate.

Notes: This was an accidental recipe, but still pretty good. The cake will be gooey on the inside, would likely make a good brownie bite recipe. I was trying to make a molten lava cake, probably would've helped if I hadn't forgot the egg yolks and cooked it less time.

Something I learned from my daddy is to make sure you whip your eggs with a very CLEAN set of beaters and CLEAN bowl. I like to use a glass bowl.

Why so much baking?

If you know paleo, you might be thinking a lot of my recipes aren't strict paleo lately. Well, there is a reason for that. I'm stressed and baking sweets helps me relax. We are still eating meals that consist of protein and veggies, but they have been super basic. The baking on the other hand has become very special for me lately, as just 6 months ago my GF baking was complete fail. When my entire day is wrecked and seemingly out of control, I love being able to come home and make the seemingly impossible possible. I've been using a lot of other people's recipes, but also making my own. Being able to make my own recipes is confident building, as I learn the different properties of new foods and how they mix together different from more "traditional" baking.

What else we've been eating this week:

Fritatta - eggs, spinach and a shredded cauliflower/green onion/red onion mix.

Shredded chicken - needed some broth because we have both been sick, so kept a good portion of the boiled chicken out to make into additional meals.

Ground beef with sweet potato, shallot and collard greens - slow cooked on low heat to make sure the collards got thoroughly cooked

Elana's Almond Flour pizza crust made into a pepperoni and sausage calzone for Kyle

Portabello mushroom topped with spicy sausage, green onion and spinach mixture and baked in oven, then topped with a small amount of cheese

Coconut Flour Donut Holes

So, the challenge was on.....to provide a "last day with us" treat for one of my (fantastic) co-workers, make it gluten free and once again PROVE that gluten free is tasty. Donuts were mentioned (and immediately shot down by ME), but by the time I arrived home I realized I could probably whip up some pretty tasty donut holes using either almond or coconut flour. I perused a couple regular donut hole recipes on the internet, not finding anything gluten free that used either flour I wanted to utilize. So, I made my own recipe. The trial batch was:

¼ c. tapioca flour
1/2 c. coconut flour
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. sea salt
½. Tsp cinnamon
1/3 c. coconut milk
1/8 c. grapeseed oil
2 eggs

Mix dry ingredients together. Whisk wet ingredients together and mix well with dry ingredients. Place large amount of coconut oil into a pot (smaller is better, will explain why) and place on medium heat. Scoop out approximately 1/2 tablespoon and roll into balls while waiting for coconut oil to heat. Once heated, place a few balls at a time into the oil. Watch carefully for browning and the ball to "pop" open (should be perfectly done at that time).

Ok, so I didn't have a lot of coconut oil, so I only used enough at a time to place half the ball in oil. In the future I need to make sure I have enough oil on hand to cover the balls completely. I used an approximately 4 inch wide pot to fry the donut holes, about 5-6 at a time. Immediately after removing the holes from the oil, I placed them on a paper towel for a few seconds then rolled in a mixture of shredded coconut and coconut sugar.

Kyle declared these "quite delicious and I want some more" but probably not sweet enough for my carb-addicted co-workers. For the second batch, I added 2 T. of honey, 2 tsp. of vanilla and "heaped" the flours (probably an extra tablespoon of each). Although still good, the dough became sticky and difficult to roll into balls, so I ended up doing "drops" into the oil instead.

Overall, the shredded coconut and sugar mixture did NOT adhere well to the donut holes. Coconut flour is super absorbent, so despite having a large amount of coconut milk, egg and then coconut oil with it, there was still not enough moisture to adhere the mixture (even when put directly in the bowl from the pot). In the future, I may saute the holes in butter, then mix the sugar and shredded coconut in.

As with most gluten free baking, the holes taste best at the 12-24 hour mark.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

So there I was sitting, leafing through the Fall issue of Eating Well (yes, it's a little late), taking note of the paleo friendly recipes and processing substitutions through my mind for those recipes that were not.....when I suddenly came upon a step by step recipe for gnocchi.

I have never had gnocchi. I have no clue how to pronounce "gnocchi" (and am grateful I only need to spell it correctly for this blog). I'm not even sure what purpose gnocchi serves in Italian cuisine (side dish? main dish? by itself? with other foods?). But I had to make it. A low carb, paleo friendly version, of course.

3 cups peeled and 1/2 to 1 inch diced sweet potatos
1/4 tsp. celtic sea salt
1 large egg yolk
1 T. coconut oil (liquified)
2 T. arrowroot flour
1 cup hazelnut flour

Roast potatos in oven at 400 degrees until tender. Let cool, then mash with salt in a medium to large bowl.

Beat egg yolk with coconut oil, fold in to sweet potato.

Mix arrowroot and hazelnut flour together, fold into sweet potato mixture until it starts to make a dough. At this point, sprinkle some hazelnut flour on a clean counter, place the dough on the counter and start kneading the mixture until everything is mixed well together.

Place a medium sized pot of water on the stove and bring to rolling boil.

Divide sweet potato mixture into 4 pieces. Roll one piece at a time into a long "snake" approximately 1/2 inch wide. Cut the snake into 3/4-1 inch pieces, making a slight indent in the gnocchi with your thumb.

Drop one quarter of the dough at a time into the pot. When the gnocchi float to the top, take them out with a slotted spoon and place on a baking sheet to dry. Repeat until all gnocchi is complete.



Although this is a fine and dandy dish for myself, I know I will need to experiment a couple more times to get it up to actual gnocchi standards (and find out what a gnocchi is supposed to taste like, I suppose).



Late night snack.

Approximately 2 oz. ground hamburger cooked with a sprinkling of salt, 5 gnocchi sauted in a big dab of butter, mixed together with 1/2 tsp. cinnamon. Yes, cinnamon. It's yummy.

Stir Fry (ish)

Back when I lived with the always fantabulous Tamara, we used to get a little overzealous in our vegetable buying. Of course we would forget about a few of the veggies, and end up with questionable "to eat or not to eat" every few weeks. This was easily solved by turning all questionables into a stir fry type meal. Stir fry is fun because you can go with the basic oil and soy sauce, or get creative with various oils, nut butters, and spices. One of my old time favorites was Srihacha (spell check?) sauce - spicy! With my leave coming to an end, I wanted to get the fridge cleaned out, and made a huge helping of stir fry that will likely last us the next 2-3 days of dinners/lunches. I kept it simple so we can individually season our servings.



White onions, brocolli florets, two kinds of potato, sweet potato, kale, carrots, garlic.....I did not add the habanero in the end. Also, although I DO eat brocolli stalks, I did not add them into the mixture. I chopped and pan fried those and will add to the dogs dinner bowl later. I chopped the garlic, and pan fried it in copious amounts of olive oil. I then added the veggies (not the kale), more oil, mixed all together and covered with a lid to steam it all. This mixture is higher GI than I would normally cook with, but that is part of me also cooking seasonally.




Kyle rotisseried a duck on the grill yesterday, it was stuffed with red onion, whole garlic cloves and kale. It's "cajun", not burnt, just ask him!



My wok pan was too small in the end! I put it all, including the kale, into the largest glass bowl I could find and mixed thoroughly.




Covered with the glass lid again, let it sit to continue cooking the kale and flavors together.

p.s. another reason I like stir fry so much is because I can eat the leftovers cold to room temperature. No, we do not own a microwave - so all our leftovers are eaten either cold or warmed in a pan. Although I will occassionally use the microwave available to me at work, overall I prefer not to. The various issues associated with microwaves and reheating plastic, I'd rather not deal with them.

Duck Fried "Rice"

Along with all of our regular Christmas leftovers, we also have the leftovers from Kyle's mom thinking we never have enough food.....so tonight I pulled out some already cooked duck and 2 small heads of cauliflower and went to work.

For quite some time I have been wanting to try making cauliflower "fried" rice. Only problem is it required a food processor.....which we FINALLY replaced the one I broke a couple weeks ago.

Chop raw cauliflower to fit into food processor spout. Use the shred setting to make your "rice" kernels.

I used duck grease (from the duck bacon we also have in the fridge), and pan fried 5 cloves of chopped garlic, one small chopped white onion, and several chopped baby carrots along with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper. Make sure you use a deep pan or wok style pan or you will get a bigger mess then I did!

Once this mixture is cooked, add a bit more oil or grease and dump in the cauliflower rice. Mix well together. Add 1 large spoonful of sunbutter, mix well together (may clump, just keep mushing it all together to break it up). Add two eggs, mix well together until egg is cooked. Shred duck into the mixture and heat through.

This was a quick, one-dish, delicious meal!