My family once had this weird discussion starting with “If you had been starving for two weeks on a desert island, and you were finally rescued, what would you most want to eat?” Nobody really said much about sweet desserts or chocolate. Most of the responses included “good thick bread with butter” and “very creamy mashed potatoes.” All responses included some kind of meat. I mean, we grow beef for a living. Of course we’re going to eat it. A high number of the responses included a ...
Refined Sugar Free
Paleo Pancakes Without Bananas
I figured that if I’m going to have some paleo recipes on this blog, I should have a pancake recipe....a recipe for paleo pancakes without bananas. Something I’ve noticed about paleo people: They must all love having bananas in their pancakes, because pretty much ever recipe I've seen contains bananas. I hate to disappoint them. But there are paleo pancakes without bananas. So in other words, you won't take a bite of these pancakes and get your mouth filled with ...
Gluten Free Dutch Baby Pancake
A Dutch Baby, as near as I can figure, is a baked pancake that puffs up and turns a delicious golden brown. It sounded good to me. I had to experiment a few times. The first one didn’t puff quite like it should’ve, the second one was too eggy. But this one was good. So enjoy. This recipe makes one 10 inch gluten free dutch baby pancake. Cover it with maple syrup, cinnamon, butter, and a dash of cloves. (And, yes, you'll notice that I changed my recipe format--Hopefully ...
Lemon Cake
Yes, yes, I know it’s been a while since the last recipe. But you know that cold that has been sweeping across the entire world? Yep. I’ve had this lemon cake recipe ready for a while, but haven’t gotten around to posting it. Until now, of course. For some reason I’ve developed a fondness for lemons. Maybe it’s just the idea behind a lemon—sweet but sour, tangy and romantic—or maybe it’s that I read a book about lemons. Now you’re weirded out. Who reads books about ...
Lemon Vanilla Crepes
I really should stop going on pinterest. A few days ago some beautiful lemon vanilla crepes flashed before my eyes, and suddenly I remembered that I hadn’t made crepes for a long time. But these ones were gluten-stuffed. And sugar stuffed. And they were too hard to make. And you had to let the dough refrigerate for a whole hour, or (gasp!) overnight. I don’t usually plan ahead the night before, and I especially will not get out of bed an hour earlier. Will not. So I made my ...
Gluten Free Strawberry Crisp
My Mom recently bought a whole bunch of strawberries for a really good price. We enjoyed them very much, but even a family as big as ours failed to eat that many strawberries in just a few days. My sisters and I polished off the last few (anything that wasn’t completely rotten we managed to use) in this easy and delicious gluten free strawberry crisp. I made the topping oat free, so if you don’t eat oats there’s not a problem. If you do eat oats and you’d prefer an oat crisp, use the ...
No Bake Peanut Butter Cookie Bars
I’m not a big date lover. For some reason dates remind me of dried figs and dried figs remind me of what my Dad used to tell us: Figs are filled with small, disgusting worms that crawl around inside your throat after you’ve eaten them. I apologize for telling you that. You’ll probably never eat figs again either. But all the same, dates aren’t figs. They might remind you of figs, but they aren’t filled with disgusting worms like figs are. And even though I don’t like them plain, they are ...
Paleo Carrot Cake
Lately I’ve been experimenting a little more in the world of paleo. It’s a strange world, full of aliens like coconut flour and chia seeds (still not real sure about the chia seeds but everyone else loves them so that’s terrific for them). I’m not even going to say that half (or a third) of my paleo baking attempts are exactly successful, but I can say that this one is. So, here you have it. Paleo Carrot Cake with some Coconut Spice Frosting. Dig in. Ingredients ¼ ...
Chocolate Smoothie
You didn’t think I’d dare to go and post a recipe for cold chocolate smoothie when it's still freezing at night out here. But I dared. Mostly just to be mean. Hopefully you’ll make this smoothie, and, realizing how good it is, you’ll drink it all before you realize how cold it is. And then you’ll sit there shivering in a blanket. The best thing I can recommend is that you buy one of those blankets with sleeves that everyone has been raving about lately. Those things aren’t exactly beautiful ...
Breakfast Pizza
I’m really excited to give you this new recipe for gluten free breakfast pizza.. I’d thought that I had exhausted the breakfast possibilities, but really breakfast can be much more interesting than just eggs and pancakes. You can have pizza for breakfast. Honestly, what could be better? I was delighted with the flavor of this pizza. I’m usually not big on cooked eggs (I hate keesh), but the spinach, yeasty dough, and cheese toned the eggs down and made them delicious. The ...
Stuffed Apples
It's a blizzard outside. That may have been a slight exaggeration. But it’s cold and windy and there’s snow blowing everywhere. Our big white Great Pyrenees may be impervious, but the rest of us would rather stay inside, thank you. On a day like this, you need something warm stuffed with cinnamon and little juicy bites of apple. You need this. You need it with a flood of cream on top. Uh-huh. Stuffed Apples: Butter a small pan. I used a glass pie ...
Paleo & Nut Free Vanilla Cupcakes
I made these with very low expectations. Shocking, right? I expected it to fail before I even tried. But pretty much everything paleo that I’ve made (except for the few paleo recipes on this blog) has not turned out very well. There just isn’t much to work with. If you asked me what is in these cupcakes, the honest answer would be “nothing.” Because I myself have absolutely no clue how these cupcakes even existed. The only proof I’ve got is one solitary, lonely little ...
Chewy Granola Bars
I’ve made so many batches of non paleo, somewhat paleo, and completely paleo granola bars that I'm surprised anyone dared to eat these at all. It isn’t that the former batches were bad. They just…weren’t…good. They had all the granola bar flavor, but none of the “stick-together-ness.” Actually, never mind. I was intending to make breakfast granola every single one of those times. Not granola bars. Crumbly breakfast granola. That’s it. Even though I did perhaps mistakenly call it ...
Four Layer Cheesecake
Yesterday was my youngest sister’s birthday. Last year, my second-to-youngest sister ordered a two-layer cheesecake for her birthday, which at the time was quite the request. Not to be beaten, this year my youngest sister asked for a four layer cheesecake. I confess that I’m afraid of what will happen next year. This cheesecake was quite an effort because I had to make it in two batches since I only had two pans. So if you wish to attempt it, please have four pans. Believe me, your ...
Gluten Free Cinnamon Roll Pancakes
There's something fun about taking pictures of food. Maybe it's because the food isn't impatient. It sits perfectly still and lets me do what I want with it. When I'm taking pictures of my sisters, they never sit perfectly still and they have their own ideas about what they want to do. It's also difficult to tell someone that the pose they are striking doesn't look that great. The food never has hurt feelings, even though sometimes I make it look terrible. Food photography is much ...
Apple Quick Bread
I intended to make yeast bread today. I’m a planner, so of course I had it all figured out that I was going to make yeast bread and it was going to be terrific and you were all going to love it and the pictures were going to be excellent, etc, etc. I should stop planning so much. Last week I tried to make yeast bread (you know, the kind that was going to be terrific, etc etc), but for some reason it didn’t rise. It was the worst bread I’ve made in a very long time. Fortunately, I ...
Chocolate Lava Fudge Cakes
First off, this is grain free, refined sugar free, fudgy, delicious, and super evil. You can have it three ways: Ultra dark fudge, regular dark fudge, and chocolate lava fudge. I’ve been having this for a snack. After all, it’s grain free and refined sugar free, so what do I have to lose? It isn’t the most unhealthy snack ever. It takes a little longer to make than a typical snack (20 minutes to cook, 5 minutes prep), but I fully believe that it’s worth the wait. But by now, you’re ...
Chocolate Coconut Bars
These are good. You think I’m joking? Crunchy coconut in a rectangle, wrapped in super dark chocolate. Do you still think I’m joking? Healthy. Sugar free, dairy free, grain free, soy free…etc. How about now? Hey, if you’re still not convinced, I feel bad for you. Coconut might not be for everyone, though it’s definitely for me. I used to hate coconut, but coconut is like the best now. But if you don’t like coconut, if you are convinced that you never will (how can that ...
Paleo Banana Muffins
These are: Dairy free, grain free, gluten-free, and soy free. They can be made sugar free fairly easily. The only thing that’s counting them as non-sugar free is a little bit of honey, which can be substituted with another kind of paleo sweetener. You can also go with no sweetener at all, since the banana does add quite a bit of sweetness. Makes: 8 muffins Time: 10 minutes prep, 40 minutes cook Ingredients 1 ½ cups almond flour 2 tablespoons ground flaxseed (optional. I find ...
Two Layer Cheesecake
(If you prefer to make just a single layer cheesecake, try Grain-Free Cheesecake). I recently made this for my youngest sister’s birthday. She’s never been one to go halfway on her birthday requests, and this year was certainly no exception. I tried to convince her to do an all-vanilla cheesecake, but she insisted on having one layer chocolate and the other vanilla. In the end, she was probably right. It was good that way. This cheesecake recipe is (sort of) paleo friendly...depending ...