Flexible Meals

I had planned on posting yesterday, but instead thoroughly enjoyed the day off with my family. We had a great 3-day weekend, adding 2 new "members" to our family, and a day of playing in the snow. {Photo courtesy of my mother-in-law, as I took NONE myself.}

Yesterday in particular was busy, tiring, and rewarding. I did something I have never done before, and that I don't plan to ever do again. Possibly the craziest thing I've ever done in my life. But I'll get into that tomorrow.

Now, about the food...

When I posted our meals for last week, I did not actually post what days I planned to make each meal. I knew that there was bound to be some variation. I had the ingredients on hand, but allowed for some flexibility. In fact, I ended up changing things several times. I decided to hold off on making the Chicken Enchilada Stuffed Zucchini Boats, as I thought Hubby needed some more time to adjust to that. He was craving some familiar food, so I moved the meatloaf up a couple days on the schedule. Unfortunately, he wasn't a big fan of that either. (More on the meatloaf later.) I also postponed a few meals, and replaced them with omelettes. This is becoming the fast go-to meal if something comes up and I don't have time for whatever I had planned. On Monday my in-laws treated us to Chipotle. I ordered a side of chicken for the kids, but it was too spicy. Next time I'll whip up something quick for them while the adults enjoy Chipotle. I've been ordering salad without the beans or rice, with guacamole as the dressing. I actually made my own yesterday with our leftover carnitas. It was delicious: organic mixed greens, plenty of carnita meat, topped with pico and a generous helping of guacamole. {YUM} In fact, Hubby enjoyed the carnitas (using lettuce leaves in place of tortillas) so much that he told me he was "starting to get used to this food." I took it as a compliment. :)

In preparation for some of our meals this past week I made some homemade condiments. I started with homemade ketchup. This was really easy, and I wasn't too concerned about the taste since I was using it as an ingredient in another dish. It doesn't quite hit the spot on its own, but I was also out of dry mustard, so that could be part of the problem. I used the ketchup in the homemade chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. You'd think living in the southwest it would be easy for me to find dried chipotle peppers. I was surprised at how much trouble I had finding them--probably searched 5 different stores! In the end it turned out well. I used a couple chilies in my carnitas (instead of the posted carnita recipe, I made my old faithful crockpot recipe, so it was ready when we came back from the snow). This week I plan to try homemade paleo mayo. I'll let you know how it turns out...

On our menu for this week:

• meatloaf (I actually made this last night. I made a slightly modified version of my old recipe, as Hubby did not enjoy the paleo version. I'll post my recipe next time I make this, as I was missing the bacon, which Hubby informed me last night is why he loves my recipe...)
• Crock Pot Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wraps (didn't get to these last week) I'm going to make the bleu cheese dressing modified from this recipe. I'm not a fan of bleu cheese, but Hubby recently discovered that he likes it, and I'm really trying to find some primal meals he'll love.
• Slow Cooker Coconut Ginger Chicken & Vegetables- I'm excited to try this. I'll nix the baby corn cobs, and sub arrowroot for the cornstarch.
• fish tacos
• shrimp scampi

This week we'll be hosting a dinner party, as well as Sister's 7th birthday {primal!} princess tea party. I'm excited to show our guests how mainstream a primal meal can be.

I also plan to try some paleo spaghetti (zucchini "noodles") with the kids for lunch this week, as well as these pancakes from my friend Anastasia. She has some GREAT giveaways going on right now. Go check her out!


Today I'm linking to Menu Plan Monday at OrgJunkie.com and Menu Monday!

{Caveman} Chocolate Chip Cookies

{This is a picture-heavy post, and I thank you in advance for overlooking my poor lighting, half-painted walls, and missing cabinet doors, as we are in the process of remodeling!}

I mentioned the other day that my husband is getting bored with our new eating habits. A few days ago he was lamenting his lack of sweets, and how he was missing chocolate chip cookies the most. I smiled and told him I'd make him some. "Not with anything weird in it," was his response. He even demanded to see the ingredient list before I made them. Ha! I denied him that request, and scoured the internets for a Paleo chocolate chip cookie recipe. BakerGal did a great comparision of 6 paleo chocolate chip cookie recipes. In the end I opted to try a recipe found on Fast Paleo. The recipe called for blanched almond flour, which is somewhat expensive, and I have yet to purchase. Fortunately, I happened to have raw almonds on hand, so I went to work making some flour. Almond flour is different from almond meal in that the skins are removed before grinding. This is done through blanching.






First, take a bowl of raw almonds.










Boil water on the stove, and pour it over the almonds. Let is sit for about a minute. If it sits too long, the almonds will get soggy.







I found that the next steps were very important. Drain the almonds. Rinse them in cool water, drain, and rinse again. I "rinsed" my almonds in a collander. I would recommend draining them in a collander, and then putting them back in the bowl to "rinse."






I turned the almonds onto a towel, and patted dry. (I'll skip the drying part next time, too. Dry almonds are harder to peel.) I also advise enlisting a helper. Or two.

 This step took me quite awhile. I found that the wet almonds peeled very easily, and had they all been that easy I would have been done in no time. Unfortunately, I had attempted to blanch quite a few almonds, and I dried them too much. I seriously spent an hour peeling almonds. While I will say that it was worth it in the end, I will never spend so much time doing it again. Let them say a little damp. :)




I let my peeled almonds dry, and piled them into my trusty Vitamix. My machine came with two containers: the traditional container, perfect for smoothies and making nut butters; and a "dry container", perfect for grinding. I haven't used the dry container much in the past, but after yesterday I can tell it will be getting much more counter time in the near future!



After a little processing, I had flour! I transferred the flour into a mason jar, careful not to waste any of the golden goodness, and pulled out the rest of the ingredients for my cookies. Each batch makes about a dozen cookies. I made one, sampled them with the kids, and then made another batch for us to share with the Hubby and the in-laws.





 Each batch requires blanched almond flour (preferrably organic), baking soda, Real Salt, coconut oil (I used the elite Tropical Traditions brand--review coming soon!), vanilla extract, maple syrup, an egg, and Enjoy Life chocolate chips (gluten, dairy, nut & soy-free!).



The first and most tedious step here is to sift out the flour. Even after quick processing in the Vitamix, there were some bigger almond pieces mixed in, and some of the flour clumped together a bit, so we sifted for a few minutes.

I set the coconut oil on the stove to melt, while my helpers mixed the dry ingredients.






 My older helper cracked the egg (notice our compost bin for the eggshell behind her!), and then we added the other wet ingredients.
During our second batch I only had half of the required maple syrup, so I added a little agave nectar.



We stirred the dry ingredients into the wet. Finally, we stirred in the chocolate chips. This batter is a little more runny than your typical chocolate chip cookie batter, so we put it in the fridge for half an hour while the oven preheated.



Once that was complete I was in a bit of a hurry to get the cookies baking before Hubby came home. I quickly dropped spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. The original instrustions say to gently push down on the cookies with a spatula after 5 minutes in the oven. I didn't think this was necessary the second time, and those cookies browned much faster, so I think I'll go ahead and flatten them a bit next time. Then we returned them to the oven for another 5 minutes or so--just until they started to look a little golden brown. I set these out to cool, but we sampled them before long. I really could not believe how amazing these were. I think I prefer them to a conventional chocolate chip cookie, and even the Hubby was impressed (I'm hoping he'll review them for you soon)! These are a great special treat, and we were needed a bit of sweet to break up the monotony of our past week's meals. Head on over to Fast Paleo and give these a try!


Today I'm linking to: Friday Free-For-All, Weekend Show Off Party, For the Kids Friday, F-It Friday & Pin Me