Healthy Fried Fish (Low carb and gluten free, GAPS)

Much to my hubby's delight, I have been making fried chicken lately. It's actually healthy and good for you and it's something that we both love and are on bored with. That doesn't usually happen with many things with the word "fried" in it. That is, until I discovered coconut oil. I have been using it for a while now and wish I had discovered this stuff 10 years ago. Not only is it sooo good for you, with a long list of health benefits, it also has a much higher smoking point then most oils on the market that turn into trans fats at a much lower temp then you would think (or want to think). It can also help with weight management, as it actually speeds up your metabolism when you include it in your diet regularly.


This particular article, I have bookmarked and re-read and go over sometimes. It not only discusses coconut oil but saturated fats in general and why they are so good for you and why we NEED them. It also gives lots of great info on what fats to avoid and why. If you can get past all the technical mumbo jumbo and just get the basics from the article, it is a huge eye opener and really expanded upon what I had been learning, and really made me feel good about our family's food choices. It's a long article, but very well worth the read.

Coconut Oil and Its Virtues

For some "lighter" reading, here's a couple of articles about coconut oil that might be interesting to you:
Coconut Oil Burns Fat
Coconut oil can help your thryroid

So backed to the fried chicken. Basically, I started breading the chicken in coconut flour and frying it on the stove top in coconut oil. As Joe put it, "It tastes just like fried chicken!" This is especially exciting for him, as he pretty much grew up on fried chicken and I have never made it for him once until I started using coconut oil.

Over the weekend, I decided to mix it up a little by using some of the fresh tilapia I had picked up at Whole Foods. I changed up the seasonings a little bit and it was delicious. It got everyone's seal of approval. Especially the munchkin's! She couldn't shovel it into her face fast enough. As soon as she took her first bite, she smiled real big and looked at us and said "MMMMMMMM"!

I set up my assembly line. First we have our tilapia filets, rinsed, dried and seasoned with salt and pepper. In the next bowl, I scrambled up a couple of eggs. Then the final bowl, I have my coconut flour seasoned with some garlic powder, tarragon, onion powder and paprika... you can really use whatever you want.

I heat up my pan to just a little above medium and add in a few tablespoons of coconut oil. This stuff is outrageous at the stores locally. I order mine online for a much better price. I get the 54 oz tub and it lasts a LONG time. I use it almost every day for all kinds of things. I use it to grease my cake and muffin pans too. I also order my coconut flour from the same company. One bag goes a long way. I have some delicious baked goods recipes that I use this stuff for. Like these Banana nut muffins. Yummo!!

Salt and pepper the fish.

Dip it in your eggs.

Turn it around all over in your coconut flour mix until evenly coated.

Fry 'em up in your pan! I usually cook them until they are evenly browned all over. It doesn't take too long to cook, usually once it has browned and looks a little crispy its done, maybe about 15 minutes.

I usually have to not only flip them, but rotate them as well so they get brown on both halves, not just the half sitting towards the middle. I also leave out my tub of coconut oil and keep adding more as the fish soak it up and it gets dry in there.


And this is what they look like when they are done. Seriously, they were fantastic! What I love about using the coconut flour/oil combo is that it doesn't impart a strong coconut flavor like you would maybe think, just a hint of it. And it is wonderful.


I was not exaggerating. She was seriously shoveling this into her mouth!



We just picked up some pastured pork chops from a local farmer and we are going to try them out breaded in the coconut flour and fried in the coconut oil too. This recipe is so versatile, it could be used for lots of different proteins, like shrimp and even veggies, tempura style!

Superbowl Sunday

For Superbowl Sunday we had some friends over to watch the game. Ofcourse, being the sports fan that I am, I didn't even know who was playing until that day. But for me, it's not about the game. I just love getting together with my peeps and eating up some yummy food!

I made some homemade crackers (I subbed olive oil for the yucky canolo oil) and served them with cheese slices, Cremini mushrooms stuffed with grassfed beef and aged english cheddar, Dip consisting of cheese, rotel and pork sausage (the hubs nicknamed this crack dip years ago and that is now what everyone calls it), and ofcourse the Cake Pops. Everyone else brought food too, so we had quite a spread. Before everyone arrived I grabbed a photo of Joe and myself. I hardly have any pics of the two of us together. I need to work on that.



And ofcourse I had to take a pic of the munchkin too, who now says "cheese" really loud when she sees a camera and smiles really big. She's so awesome.


My girl Anna came over early. This was nice, we could sit and chat while I got the food ready and before everyone else arrived. She also helped entertain the munchkin for me.


A few of my girls, Anna, Brenda and Amber chatting around the table.


We welcomed everyone to bring their children, but only one playmate showed up. Rhys and the munchkin get along really well. He doesn't even mind all her girly toys and playing tea party with her.

Healthy Cake Pops? No Way! (sugar free • gluten free • low carb • dairy free)

Healthy Cake Pops?! Is that even possible? Are they actually any good? I was on a quest to find out... and it turns out that you can, in fact, make cake pops that are not only healthy and nutritious for you, but delicious too!

I initially decided to make these for our superbowl party with my friend Gina's son in mind. He has food allergies and I wanted him to be able to eat the dessert that all of the other kids were eating too. He can't have gluten or dairy and I also wanted to make them sugar free, without the use of any "fake sugars" or highly processed alternatives either. I knew this wasn't going to be easy, but I figured there had to be a way.

My sister makes traditional cake pops often and they are always a huge hit. All she does is make a boxed cake, crumble it up, mix in icing with the already baked cake, roll into balls and coat them with different flavors of candy coating. They are yummy and everyone raves about them. Plus, they are super cute to boot!

I wanted to try to take that idea and make it healthy and safe for my gluten-free, dairy-free little friend. Ofcourse, there are no recipes out there for this, that I could find. So I had to kinda wing it. I might make some adjustments in the future to play around with it a little more, but I was pretty happy with the results and everyone who tried them at the party really like them as well. No one could believe they were actually good for you!

I started by making a chocolate cake with almond flour, some baking soda, sea salt, eggs, vanilla extract, unsweetened cocoa powder, unsweetened apple sauce and a little pure stevia extract powder. I was pretty excited when it came out of the oven actually resembling a chocolate cake! You can see some tiny apple chunks in it. I only had chunky applesauce on hand, which I tried to mash up further but obviously not enough. Next time I would definitely use a more creamy applesauce. It was a last minute decision to add it in, and I had to work with what I had.


After I took the first pic, my camera flaked out on me. It started (sorta) working again the next day. So the rest of the pics are taken with my blackberry. Sorry for the crappiness! I am working on getting a new camera for Valentine's Day. I have been drooling over a particular one and am long overdue.... wish me luck!

After I baked the cake and let it cool completely, I added in some rasberry fruit spread (instead of the icing my sister usually uses) and mashed it all around. I got this idea from a recipe from Elana's Pantry. I also used her chocolate cake recipe for inspiration, but she uses agave nectar, which is actually worse for you then high fructose corn syrup, so I had to change things up quite a bit. If you have been using this in an attempt to be healthy, please do some research and consider another alternative. Agave nectar is really no good for you at all.

I love the Trader Joe brand fruit spreads. They are delicious and are only sweetened with fruit juice. I love them in the morning with breakfast on some toast or a muffin!


Once the fruit spread was mixed throughout, I rolled little 1" balls in my hands and placed them on parchment paper to cool in the freezer for a couple of hours while I ran some errands.


After I got back, I melted down a chocolate baking bar and added a little vanilla and stevia. I used a Sunspire organic unsweetened baking bar that I found at Whole Foods. There was nothing icky added to this bad boy when it was made, nothing but pure unsweetened chocolate. I then stuck the lollipop sticks into the balls and dipped them into the melted chocolate. I stuck each one in a styrofoam block to cool. They didn't take long, as the frozen cake balls cooled the melted chocolate pretty quickly.


Here are the lollipop sticks and treat bags I used to assemble the cake pops.


After they cooled, I pulled a treat bag over the top and tied it with a ribbon. I think strings would work better, but I already had the ribbons on hand.


Here is the full recipe. If you try them out, please let me know!

Healthy Chocolate Cake Pops
Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Sugar Free
Makes about 50 Cake Pops

Special Equipment Needed:
Lollipop Sticks
Styrofoam blocks
Small Treat bags
Ribbon or String

For Chocolate Cake Insides:

• 4 cups almond flour (not almond meal)
  
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1.5 cup applesauce
• 6 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon pure stevia extract powder
• 1 C Raspberry Fruit Spread, no sugar added (for after the cake is baked)
  

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. Grease a 13x9-inch cake pan with coconut oil.
3. In a large bowl, combine almond flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda and stevia with a large whisk.
4. In a medium bowl, combine applesauce, eggs, and vanilla extract with large whisk.
5. Add the wet ingredients to the dry until thoroughly combined.
6. Pour Batter into cake pan.
7. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
   
8. Let the cake cool completely before moving on to the next step.
9. Crumble cake in large bowl and mix/mash in raspberry fruit spread until well combine.
10. Roll mixture into 1" balls and place on a tray covered in parchment paper.
11. Set cake balls in Freezer for atleast 1 hour.
    

Chocolate Candy Coating

• 2 (4oz) unsweetened 100% Cacao chocolate baking bar
• pure stevia extract powder, to taste
• 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract

1. Melt Chocolate in a small sauce pan over very low heat.
   
2. Add in vanilla extract and stevia to taste. Start with a very small amount of stevia, taste, then add more if needed.
3. Once melted and mixed together, insert lollipop sticks into cake balls and dip into melted chocolate.
4. Insert into a styrofoam block until cooled.

Final Assembly
Once the cake pops have cooled completely and candy coating has hardened, place a treat bag over each pop and tie with a ribbon. Store them in the refrigerater until ready to serve.

Enjoy!

I have added this recipe to the Monday Mania Carnival. You can check out lots of other whole foods recipes there too.

A Photo Update of the Munchkin and A few Other pics for fun... Oh and a Video...

I haven't posted any pics in a long time, so I am throwing up a few from the last couple of months.

Crayons at the sitters house. I leave my camera in her diaper bag and sometimes I get surprise pics on it!


Snuggling up with the grinch...


Checking out the tree with dad...


All ready for the snow...


Running around in the snow. This didn't last too long, it was way too cold and windy!


Sharing Sweet Potatoes and Black Beans with her cousin...


Michele, myself and Amy at Erin's Christmas party...


Me and Michele...


Spaghetti!



Cutie Pie!


Joe and I on Christmas Eve...


The Munchkin on Christmas Eve. She managed to find something to stir...


Christmas Morning!!


She loved her new Doggy book. One of her first words were "goggy".


My little niece Q.


She was obsessed with this shower scrubber...


My parents with all of their grandchildren. They had all girls and their girls had All girls (s0 far)!


The Munchkin with her grandpa...


Snuggling on the couch...


We got her this Rody horse for Christmas and she just finally started riding on it and enjoying it the other day. She can't quite get off of it on her own yet because his tail gets in her way, so she just rides on it for a while and then says "down" when she's ready to get off.



Today I am working on a gluten free, dairy free, sugar free cake.... I'll let you know how it goes!

Blueberry Flax Muffins (sugar free • gluten free • low carb • dairy free • gaps)

I finally have my flax muffin recipe just where I want it. After many trials and errors, I finally come out with a muffin that is moist, fluffy, sweet and delicous! You wouldn't even know it was low carb and sugar free! Not to mention extremely nutritious. I have also since omitted the use of any fake or chemical sugars in my diet as well, so this one uses erythritol (a sugar alcohol) and stevia (a natural sweetener from the stevia plant). I have had a few requests for the recipe lately after being told how yummy they were, so I am finally ready to share it again. It's come a long way from the original recipe and it is definitely much better now. Enjoy it plain, warmed up with some butter or add some jam.

If you aren't concerned about having your muffins sugar free and would just like to incorporate the healthy flax into your diet, just omit the erythrital and stevia and use 1/2 C of sugar in it's place. Also, I am not strictly a gluten free, but much of the food I eat happens to be so naturally.

Sometimes I add 1 C almond meal and omit 1 C flax meal to change it up a bit. I usually double the recipe and freeze some so I don't have to make them again for a while. Some of the ingredients may seem expensive at first, but once purchased, they last a long time and can make many things.

Blueberry Flax Muffins

Gluten Free, Sugar Free, Dairy Free Options

Ingredients:

• 1/2 C Erythritol (powdered)
• 1/3 C filtered Water
• 2 C Organic Golden Flax seed Meal
• 2-3 Tb Cinnamon
• 2 tsp baking powder (made from 2 parts cream of tartar to 1 parts baking soda)
• 1 tsp nutmeg
  
• 1/4 tsp unrefined sea salt
• 1/8 tsp pure stevia extract powder
• 4 Organic Cage Free Eggs
• 1/2 C (1 stick) unsalted organic butter, melted (could sub ghee or coconut oil for dairy free option)
  
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 C blueberries

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease muffin pan with butter (I like to use the silicone muffin pans, which are very easy to clean and also good for the environment).
2. Mix together erythritol and water. Set aside.
3. In separate bowl, mix together flax meal, cinnamon, baking powder, salt and stevia with a large whisk.
4. In another bowl, beat eggs and add melted butter and vanilla with whisk.
5. Mix erythritol and water with the wet ingredients, then combine wet ingredients with the dry ingredients using the whisk. Fold in blueberries.
6. Pour into greased muffin pan filling each one almost to the top.
7. Bake for 28 - 30 minutes. Makes 12 muffins.
8. Store in the fridge in an airtight container or you can freeze them.

This recipe is part of the Pennywise Platter at the Nourishing Gourmet

A Missing Post?

I just realized that I had uploaded all of these pics back in December after Thanksgiving and after we bought the munchkin her new table for her christmas present. They are a little late, but I am going to to ahead and post them anyway :)

This was the old (atleast 10 yrs) pottery barn table that I found on Craig's list for the Munchkin's christmas present. It's the sturdiest table and so cute in her playroom.




I took these pics at Thanksgiving. The spread was amazing. It was the first time we ever tried to give the Munchkin mashed potatoes and she hated them! Joe says I ruined her with my caulitators (mashed cauliflower).



Here's my littlest sis Erin and her boyfriend.


My hubs passed out after dinner.


He wasn't the only one....


The girls playing in the ball pit.



Me and my sisters. I'm not sure what was up with the really awkward positioning here...

"A bachelorette party is a bachelor party...gone wild!" - Unknown

I fully intended on posting more about the bachelorette party by now and posting some pics, but we have been snowed in and I have been taking full advantage of the bonus time with the family. I will have to share the pics from the party later.

The party was a blast. I hope our bachelorette feels she went out with a bang, because I sure believe she did. According to her she was hurting for days, and I definitely felt bad for her. It was so much fun though to see her tear up the town and especially the dance floor. She was a woman on a mission!

The day started at 2:00pm with the couples shower. You can tell that this couple is dearly loved and for very good reason. They truly are fantastic. They played some funny games which had everyone laughing. After the shower, I followed my girl Julie and her hubs out to her loft to visit for a little while before heading back to the Bachelorette’s house for dinner/pre-drinks/getting ready for the night. I brought my own dinner (a cheeseburger and a salad), along with some snacks to share with everyone (a cheese ball, homemade crackers, cookies and brownies). I am posting an entire blog about this later, as it really incurred some interesting dialogue throughout the entire evening and apparently some awkwardness (although this was all unbeknownst to me until later).

The limo bus picked us up around 10:00pm and we headed out to the bars. We started down on Main St. in old town St. Charles at a pretty nasty bar, but it was still fun and many of us had frequented it often in our younger days. The whole point of the evening was to hit up all of our bachelorette’s favorite spots from her younger single days. This is where my video from the previous post took place. One of our bridesmaids found the guy on the dance floor, stole his hat and started mimicking his moves. I missed the funnier parts, but caught what I could. Everyone in the crowd was laughing so hard... it was hilarious! The funniest part was how serious this guy was, he was definitely not laughing. The was serious business to him.

Our second attempt failed after the doorman told us he couldn’t serve our bachelorette because she was too intoxicated. Her response “Are you fucking serious?!” She repeated this several times and kept yelling at him as we pulled her away. The guy was definitely an ass and clearly our bachelorette was not drunk (okay maybe a little). We then headed to the next bar which had much better music (awesome guy playing the guitar and singing some great songs) and was much less smoky. After some initial confusement about the whereabouts of our bachelorette’s sister (they found her wandering down the street, pissed off that we had left her), we found her safe and sound and returned to the festivities. We headed to the next bar and found our way onto the 5’x 5’ dance floor and really broke it down with the live band playing some awesome 60’s and 70’s tunes. After a few songs, though, the regulars revolted (as Julie put it) and wedged their way back onto the dance floor, not so politely pushing us out of their way. We felt maybe we had overstayed our welcome and decided to leave (somewhat) gracefully.

After we left the bar, we called our bus driver to take us to our next destination. He was having a hard time finding us and we kept seeing him drive away in the wrong direction or down the wrong street. Next thing we knew we saw a cops cherry lights turned on and our bus pulling over. Apparently, our bus side swiped the cop car. Really. I am not sure how he did it, but he sure did. In his defence, he was trying to navigate cobblestone streets, filled with cars and drunk pedestrians, and also trying to keep in eye out for us. It didn’t take long though, and we were up and moving once again. We were headed downtown to our bachelorette’s favorite bar to end the evening.

We had quite a drive to get there though and made good use of our time with lots of dancing and drinks on the bus. We got stuck in some traffic and our driver got off the highway and headed down the service road. As we pulled up to all the lights, we saw (literally) about 30 cop cars sitting on the highway. As we drove past it all some of the girls started screaming and yelling and shouting “Don’t look, there’s dead bodies on the ground!” I was already looking, and really trying hard to see what was going on. I didn’t see any dead bodies on the ground, and after watching the news the whole next day, I don’t think they did either. Apparently, there had been some kind of high speed chase which did end in a shooting, but there wouldn’t have been dead bodies laying on the side of the road. Whew. After a pit stop at the gas station for supplies and water (thank god) we headed to our final destination.

The last bar was my favorite (aside from the blazing fireplace threatening to singe my hair and eyebrows (also not a good component for extreme dancing). We entered with our bachelorette falling flat on her ass at the entrance to the bar. We were initially afraid we weren’t going to be allowed to enter, but one of the girl’s assured the doorman that she was just “really excited” and he welcomed us in. We danced for a couple of hours (I think? My reference of time here is really skewed) and I seriously had a blast. I had made the (in my opinion) very wise decision to stick to my captain morgan and refrain from drinking anything else. Past incidents have led me to believe that the outcome of the evening will always be better and the morning much more tolerable. I’m so glad I did, because although quite tipsy at the end, I wasn’t feeling too terrible. I was also on a really tight budget and had brought a bottle with me on the bus and was just drinking from that (Thank you to my dear friend Julie for offering me a couple of drinks at the bars, you are such a sweetie!)

We arrived back at our bachelorette’s house around 3:00 am. After some snacking, water guzzling and some recapping of the evening’s events, I finally crawled into bed around 5:00am. I couldn’t believe that by 8:00am everyone was already up and moving around, making it impossible for me to sleep any longer. I finally rolled out of bed, brushed my teeth, washed my face and started gathering my things. I was thanking myself over and over again for bringing my coffee cup pre-filled with instant coffee and all the fixings to go with it. It was a huge help.

Sunday was a wash. Without much sleep and too many drinks, I wasn’t able to get much done. It took till Monday to recover completely and get back into the swing of things. Then came a big snow storm (or atleast that’s what the weatherman told us, it ended up not being that horribly bad... they even called in the national guard!) All of the authorities begged everyone to stay home. I was so grateful for the day off Tuesday to have the extra time to spend with the munchkin and to get some cleaning done around the house in preparation for our Superbowl party.

Stay tuned for some pics of Saturday night and my food blog follow-up....