Paleo BBQ Beef

This recipe is a favorite in our household. It is easy to make and so delicious! The sauce is sooooo awesome you could literally drink it! Freeze the leftover sauce and put it on EVERYTHING...especially boneless, skinless chicken thighs!

Recipe adapted from Tammy Credicott's Paleo Indulgences

3-5 lb. beef chuck roast

Sauce

15 oz. strained tomatoes
6 oz. tomato paste
3 TB organic raw honey
2 TB raw apple cider vinegar
¼ medium yellow onion, minced
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp paprika
1TB coconut aminos
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp Liquid Smoke
Black pepper to taste

Mix together all sauce ingredients in a medium bowl. Put roast in crock pot. Pour sauce over roast. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Serve over sautéed spinach, cauliflower rice, mashed cauliflower or spaghetti squash. Top with avocado! Make a BBQ beef sandwich using my fried plantains recipe! 

Polenta "Lasagna"

This recipe is gluten-free, but not Paleo. Corn is a grain and therefore should be consumed in moderation. If your body can tolerate corn, then go for it....it's DELICIOUS!!!

Polenta is made by boiling cornmeal into a thick, solidified porridge. It can be baked, fried or grilled. Making polenta from scratch can be time consuming so I buy it pre-cooked in this convenient tube.

Photo courtesy of Google

It's fairly easy to find in the grocery store and it's organic (which means it's not made from genetically modified corn)!!

This recipe is not Paleo-compliant, but for those of us who can tolerate corn on occasion it's a great alternative to the layered pasta version. This is such a simple recipe you'll have on the table in less than an hour. Feel free to add vegetables, meat and/or extra cheese to your liking. My version only has two layers, but you can also make this in a larger pan and add as many layers as you want!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Slice the polenta into half inch thick slices.

Spread some tomato sauce (I used strained tomatoes, but feel free to use any tomato sauce you like) in the bottom of a baking dish. Top with one layer of polenta slices. Cover with cheese (I used sheep's milk grated romano, but shredded mozzarella would also work great), and your choice of spices (I used oregano and basil). If your tomato sauce is seasoned, you might not need to add extra spices. 

Add another layer of sauce, polenta, cheese and spices. Top with some more sauce and cheese. 

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes, until cheese is bubbly and the whole casserole is warmed through. 

Fried Plantain Sandwich

Over the summer, we had dinner at The Blue Eyed Crab in Plymouth, MA. It is a cute little place across from the water and we had never been there before, so we figured we’d give it a shot. Little did we know we’d return numerous times for one of their awesome appetizers. The Jibarito Plantain Sandwich is crispy plantains with jerk chicken, habanero aioli, pickled red onions, avocado, greens and farm cheese. What was so amazing about this sandwich is that it uses fried plantains as the “bread.” In the Paleo world it’s practically impossible to eat anything resembling a sandwich in a restaurant! Genius idea Mr. H@H and I thought and we quickly got in the kitchen to recreate it!

Plantains are very versatile and frequently used in Paleo dishes. A member of the banana family, plantains are starchy and low in sugar. They are usually baked or fried and used in Caribbean and West African dishes. Plantains are a good source of potassium, fiber, vitamin A and vitamin C.

For this recipe you must use green plantains. Plantains get sweeter as they ripen so a yellow/brown plantain would not work for this recipe.

Cut the ends off the plantains and peel (sometimes this can be difficult). 

Slice the plantains in half and then slice them lengthwise.

Heat up about 1 inch of oil (we used avocado oil, but coconut oil would work great) in a pan. Place the plantain pieces in the pan and fry until slightly browned (about 2-3 minutes). 

Remove the plantains from the oil and place on a paper towel lined plate to drain while you continue frying the rest of the plantains.

Place each individual piece of plantain on a hard surface (we used a cutting board) and find something heavy and flat to use to flatten them (we used a small Pyrex dish, but a plate would work also). Press down on the plantain until it is about ½ inch thick. Repeat this step for each piece of plantain. 

Place the flattened plantains back in the oil and fry until browned (about 2-3 minutes). 

Repeat for all plantains and drain on a paper towel lined plate.

Your plantains will be crispy, but not too hard. These can be used to make any kind of “sandwich”. We used pulled pork, but turkey and guacamole would also be amazing! These are totally addictive and you will find yourself making them at least once a week!!

Cinnamon Coconut Granola

I just made a batch of this granola and my house smells soooo good!! 

Adapted from Tyler Florence's recipe.

I have substituted gluten free oats, coconut oil and coconut sugar so this recipe falls into the realm of "modified" Paleo! Technically, oats are not Paleo because they are in the weed family as a cereal grain, but some Paleo dieters choose to add these grains into the mix in moderation. Recently there has been some new evidence revealing that oats may have been eaten during the Paleolitic Era. If you can tolerate oats you will love this as a treat. My girls load it up in their plain goat's milk yogurt (Redwood Hill Farm or Trader Joe's) and the Mr. eats it like cereal with coconut milk. This would be amazing as a topping for apple crisp and it's also great on its own!

This recipe make a lot of granola, but it doesn’t last very long in my house!! I store it in a large air tight glass container.

Printable Recipe

3 cups gluten free oats
1 ½ cups crushed walnuts*
1 ½ cups crushed pecans*
1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
2 TB cinnamon (we like a lot, but you can adjust to your own taste)
½ cup sunflower seeds*
¼ tsp sea salt
½ cup coconut sugar
¼ cup coconut oil
¼ cup maple syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract
Optional: 1-2 cups dried fruit and/or raisins (optional) – I didn’t include this time

*Feel free to substitute any nuts or seeds that you prefer or have available. 

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

Put nuts in a sealed zip-lock bag and crush with a rolling pin. 

Mix oats, nuts, seeds, salt and cinnamon in a bowl. 

In a saucepan, on low heat, melt the coconut sugar, coconut oil and maple syrup. 

Whisk in the vanilla extract.

Pour this mixture over the oat mixture and mix gently, but well. Mix with spatula and eventually your hands. Spread out into an even layer on a sheet pan covered with parchment paper.

Bake for 40 minutes (stir after the first 20).

Enjoy!!

My Favorite Green Smoothie

This might look intimidating because it’s green, but believe me you don’t even taste the spinach. Make sure you don’t leave it out though because it adds lots of important vitamins and minerals!!

I love to drink green smoothies any time of the year, but now that fall is here I love to add the pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice! If you don’t like pumpkin, you can easily create your own variation using this basic formula. Try using a whole banana instead of the pumpkin, peanut butter instead of the Sunbutter and 1 TB of cacao powder in place of the pumpkin pie spice! Delish!!

I don’t typically use protein powders, but if you do you could easily add a few scoops into the mix!

Printable recipe

1 cup ice

1 cup milk of your choice (I used Whole Foods organic Almond Milk. I usually use Trader Joe’s light coconut milk, but they have been out of stock for a few months now L)

1 cup coconut water

½ banana (not pictured)

2 heaping TB organic pumpkin puree

2 heaping TB organic Sunbutter (you could use any nut/seed butter here)

2 tsp ground flax seeds (not pictured)

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (I used Trader Joe’s brand, but I usually make my own. A good recipe can be found here )

6 drops Sweet Leaf Vanilla stevia (adjust to your personal taste)

2 large handfuls of fresh spinach (you can use about ½ cup of frozen spinach too and cut ice in half)

Throw everything in the blender and puree until completely smooth.

Enjoy for breakfast, lunch or a snack! This is really filling and will keep you satisfied for hours!

The Environmental Working Group's Dirty Dozen Plus and Clean Fifteen List

The Dirty Dozen + and the Clean Fifteen

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that leads investigations and research on toxins and environmental health, food and agriculture, and water and energy. Every year they test pesticide contamination on 48 popular fruits and vegetables and report their findings in a shopper’s guide. This guide is very helpful for those of us who can’t afford to buy everything organic. It helps us to make more informed choices when choosing produce.

The Dirty Dozen + are the fruits and vegetables found to contain the highest amount of pesticide residue (peeled or unpeeled). The Clean Fifteen are least likely to contain pesticide residue.

I know it gets really expensive to buy everything organic, so this guide is extremely helpful when shopping so you can spend your money wisely. If you eat apples every day, it would be in your best interest to buy organic ones. On the other hand, even if you eat avocados every day (like I do), you don’t really need to spend the extra money for the organic variety since the pesticide residue is so low. Typically the fruits and vegetables with thicker skin will have lower levels of pesticide residue. I would suggest always buying organic greens because the pesticides can easily get trapped in the leaves. And if you’re eating greens at every meal you will want to prevent repeated exposure.

Following is the Dirty Dozen Plus and Clean Fifteen lists. The “plus” category contains foods that have been found to have trace levels of highly hazardous pesticides. They do not meet the traditional ranking criteria, but were frequently found to be contaminated with insecticides toxic to the human nervous system.

You can read more about the EWG’s testing processes and find the full report here.

EWG’s Dirty Dozen Plus

1. Apples
2. Peaches
3. Nectarines
4. Strawberries
5. Grapes
6. Celery
7. Spinach
8. Sweet bell peppers
9. Cucumbers
10. Cherry tomatoes
11. Snap peas – imported
12. Potatoes
+ Hot Peppers
+ Kale / Collard greens

The Clean Fifteen

1. Avocados
2. Sweet Corn*
3. Pineapples
4. Cabbage
5. Sweet peas frozen
6. Onions
7. Asparagus
8. Mangos
9. Papayas*
10. Kiwi
11. Eggplant
12. Grapefruit
13. Cantaloupe
14. Cauliflower
15. Sweet potatoes

* A small amount of sweet corn, papaya and summer squash sold in the United States is produced from genetically engineered seeds. Buy organic varieties of these crops if you want to avoid GMOs.

The Unhealthy Truth

A GREAT READ!!!! Everyone should read this and hopefully it'll change the way you think about what you're feeding yourself and your family.

Photo courtesy of Amazon.com

You can buy it here!