Paleo, Four Months

At least I think it's been four months--I'm starting to lose track! Either that or my brain is officially on summer vacation. Hee hee. I have definitely been slacking in the food photography area--I haven't tried too many new recipes lately, so that's probably the main reason. But let's face it, I'm no food blogger, so my focus varies. But I have pictures today! :-) Let's start with this:

Elana Amsterdam's "The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook".

Notice all my post-it notes marking recipes I want to try?! :-)

I actually was perusing Elana's site so much, and ended up using her cake pop recipe as a guide for Lindsay's birthday treats, that I decided to order her cookbook. I am so glad I did. If you've been following this blog for any length of time you know that I enjoy baking. Well, actually I love it. And that has been the one thing I've really missed since going paleo--I've tried a few "paleo baked goods" but none (except for the Food Lover's Choc Chip Cookies) have really inspired me or my family. And actually, I think that recipe is based on Elana's, so it figures that I would fall in love with both. Yes, I love this cookbook. It has a variety of things, not just desserts, and all are made out of either coconut or almond flour. I'm not sure how strictly paleo these recipes would be considered since they use agave nectar as sweetener--actually it probably totally depends on who you ask since everyone has their own opinion. But for me and my family this cookbook totally fills the void left by giving up gluten and sugar filled baked goods. I'm still not gonna bake all the time but at least I have options now!

The girls and I decided to try  making the chocolate scones last night....

Yes, I said last night. The recipe made about 15 scones (shaped more like giant cookies).

After breakfast this morning there is one left. My family liked these so much that Erik proceeded to eat three upon his arrival home from work yesterday.

They are perfect--moist, fluffy (not grainy at all) and not too sweet. Very tasty!!

Kera's birthday is coming up (the 20th) and so the other day I was trying to figure out what to do for her cake. At first she wanted a fish cake, but I was showing her pictures of cakes and asking what flavor of cake she wanted, and she requested (on her own) a gluten-free cake. What? Yes!!! Seriously?! I'm so proud of her. So, we visited Elana's Pantry and she chose this for her birthday cake. I think they will be really fun for an "outside play in the water" party. Now I just gotta plan the food for dinner afterwards! :-)

So, I actually made up a recipe the other day! Wait, maybe I am becoming a food blog. ;-)

All you need are some fresh berries --we used strawberries from the farmers market

and coconut butter.

You swash and slice up the berries and put on a plate--you want them mostly dry.

Then take a few spoonfuls of coconut butter and warm up in the microwave to make it smooth. It takes less than 30 seconds. You have to warm it, at room temperature it's hard.

Now, use a spoon to drizzle the coconut butter onto the berries.

Grab a fork and eat the wonderfulness that results.

The coconut butter hardens once it's on the cool berries and so they are like chocolate dipped berries only in coconut instead of chocolate. The girls LOVE this for dessert and I LOVE it too, because they are getting all the healthy coconut fat with berries.

I didn't get to the camera til they had almost totally inhaled the plateful of berries. Hopefully next time I can get a picture of it before they dig in! :-)

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I weighed myself this morning and was delighted to see some results!

My scale is messed up and sometimes it registers 2 lbs heavier and sometimes its 1.5 lbs, so I'm not exactly sure how much I weigh. It's either 160 or 161.5, but either way I've lost since last month, which totally makes my day!