The ABSOLUTE BEST paleo pancakes on the planet... Seriously

I have been making versions of paleo pancakes since I began to paleo and FINALLY I have found the holy grail of paleo pancake recipes.

Here's the secret: ALMOND FLOUR!!!

No not the almond meal you get at whole foods ( bobs red mill) the kind you must buy online .

I have been baking with this non stop since I got my flour in the mail and I am in love.

I got the recipe from Elana's cookbook and thankfully her recipe is online because I can't reproduce it.

I replaced the agave nectar in the recipe with applesauce because I am not doing sugar due to my 30 day paleo challenge and I probably will keep it that way because it still tastes great! I believe I had to lower the cooking temp because I think the apple sauce is prone to browning quick. Keep them smaller than regular pancakes. About two inches in diameter.
I experimented with berries in the pancakes, it turned out really well.

Tips on Clean Eating

Tips on Eating Clean
1)Keep your pantry and your recipes stocked.
• If you are going to live without temptation you had better keep your house full of nutritious foods you can feel great about eating and snacking on.
• I look for new recipes daily. Learn how to take a recipe you find interesting and modify it to what you can have. Find a great chili recipe, and use some other veggies instead of beans etc.
2) Pre-Cook
• Spend some time Sunday making 2-3 meals that will last for the week. This will cut down your cooking time during the week and save you that thought on the way home “what am I going to make tonight?”
3) Cook more than you need
• Going off the last item, when you cook more, you have left overs. Yumm!
• Don’t keep food you don’t want to eat in your house
• Keeping unhealthy food in your house where you can be tempted to eat it is a no no. Keep it out of your house and you’ll never have an issue.
4)Utilize Tupperware
• Get lots of sturdy Tupperware to keep all your pre cooked meals and leftovers in.
5) Get a food processor and a Crockpot
• I use my food processor almost every day whether I am making paleo ice cream or pesto sauce or baking
• I use my Crockpot at least once a week. It’s easy, it saves time, and it’s delicious.
6)Keep clean snacks on hand… just in case
• Nuts, fruit, veggies, beef jerky….. keep safe food close to you in times of supreme hunger or change of plans happen
7) Learn to use spices
• Changing the way you eat, means learning a new way to cook… or learning how to cook in the first place.
8 Learn to cook!
• Eating clean involves rethinking how you cook food as well as how you eat food. Once you realize how many options you really have, you will love the variety of veggies, fruits, and how creative you can get in the kitchen.
• Take a cooking class if you are seriously deficient in this area.
9)Create your menu for the week
• Spend some time researching recipes for your week’s menu before you go to the grocery store and buy food for the week. This makes shopping easier and more purposeful. And will save you extra trips.
10) Choose free range and grass fed meat whenever possible
• http://www.eatwild.com/basics.html
11)Craving something? Find a recipe and modify and experiment
• Try out your kitchen skills by finding paleo versions of recipes you love on the internet, or finding a recipe you love and modifying it to your new way of eating.
12) Love to bake?:
• Discover Honeyville blanched Almond Flour and www.elanaspantry.com
• Just be cautious, don’t be going crazy with muffins and cakes and agave nectar. Especially no agave nectar if you are doing your 30 days.
Eating out? Use caution, willpower, and authority
• Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want! If you don’t see it on the menu, ask if they can make it. Now I’m not talking about asking for some random thing, be reasonable here.
• Find something on the menu that you can modify to your liking. Sometimes there isn’t much. Most places have chicken breasts and can cook one up for you separately if its not on the menu.
• Obviously if you are out you are at the mercy of that kitchen, but sometimes you have to compromise. For example, I go to a networking every week at a restaurant and I usually order some kind of chicken breast sandwich without the bun or cheese and ask for fruit, veggies or salad on the side.
• I always bring nuts or fruit or something with me just in case.
• I always order something off the menu. It is debatable to me whether it is ruder to go to a restaurant and not order food or to bring some “extra snacks” and order off the menu and be the crazy person with all the modifications. So, I always go with the second one and I always leave a nice tip.
12) Eat Local
• Find the farmers markets in town and get your meats and produce there.
• There are some great resources for getting local and in season foods like Door to Door organics and Grant Family Farms here in fort Collins
• Get really local and grow your own garden!

Zuchinni Onion Soup

I love this recipe for zucchini soup! It usually has little ditalini pastas in it, but since I can't have pasta, so I added ground chicken, and the base is still wonderful tasting. Since it's beginning to become fall, squash is really in season right now and the zucchinis I bought at the store looked amazing and ripe and plump!

What you need:

4-5 large zucchini squash, quartered
4-5 med sweet onions, chopped in large pieces
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
4 tblsp olive oil
1 tbsp tomato paste
Salt and pepper to taste
1 pound Ground chicken, cooked

Place garlic and olive oil in a large skillet and saute for about a minute on med heat. Place the tomato paste on the skillet then Place the onions in the skillet and saute until translucent and soft, stirring occasionally and trying to break up the onion layers: about 20 minutes.

When the onions are soft, use your food processor or blender to liquify the onions. It should be a thick onion base with not chunks. Put the onion base into a large soup pot.

One zucchini at a time, pulverize them in the food processor. It shouldn't become a paste, but it should be small chunks. Place the zucchini in the soup pot. Add the cooked ground chicken.

Stir everything together and add salt and pepper to taste. Bring the soup to a boil and then drop the heat to low and let simmer for 20 minutes to let the flavors meld.

Why Dairy is not as good as you think

The question I get the most when i ask people to give up dairy for health and anti inflammatory reasons, is " But why do I hear all the time that I need 2 servigs of dairy a day to help me lose weight?" My answer: Advertising dollars. We don't need it, it's terrible for your digestion, and it's a terrible source of calcium.

Read more below
http://www.vibrancyuk.com/dairy.html

http://gomestic.com/consumer-information/10-facts-the-dairy-industry-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about-milk/

Paleo Pesto Spaghetti Squash

I have been loving spaghetti squash lately and last week I decided to make a pesto sauce for it. It is soooooo good! Its dairy free too!

The recipe is as follows.

1 small Spaghetti Squash
2 packets of organic basil(about 1 cup)
3 cloves garlic
1/2 cup pine nuts
olive oil
salt to taste

Cut your spaghetti sqaush lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Place it face down on a baking sheet and bake in the oven at 450, COVERED with aluminum foil so the outside doesn't burn, for 30-45 minutes or until the inside is tender enough to scrape out. Scrape out the spaghetti and place in a large bowl.

While squash is cooking, in a food processor, place basil, garlic, and pine nuts. Blend until a paste forms. Next put the processor on and add olive oil until the paste becomes a sauce and is the consistency you want. I failed to measure how much olive oil I used because I just went by what I saw, but when I eyeball my olive oil bottle it looks like I used about 3/4 cup. I really wanted it to be saucier rather than thicker so it would blend in my squash easier. Add salt to taste.

When your squash is done, pour on the pesto and mix. I put my squash in a pan and added the pesto in it over the heat because I wanted it to soak up the flavor more. You don't have to do this though.

Eat as is, or with veggies, meat, tofu, whatever you think will taste delicious. If you add veggies, you might want to add them to your pan while you saute the squash in the sauce so they get that flavor in too.

If you are allergic to pine nuts, walnuts would work well with this. Im going to try another version with cilantro next time because Diego doesn't like basil... weirdo....

Inspire me Monday: How Many Hats do you wear?

How Many Hats do you Wear?
Daughter, Entrepreneur, Fitness Chick, Dancer, Girly girl, girlfriend, coach, friend, teacher, music lover, motivator, confident speaker, student, Paleo girl, Crossfit addict , sweet tooth, over achiever, procrastinator, control freak ….. Those are all my hats I can think of off the top of my head but I know there are more.

What I challenge you today to think about is how many hats you wear? Are you a mother, a father, a spouse, a comedian, a smiler, a listener, a caretaker, a supporter…. However you can define yourself, however you can finish the sentence “I am.”
I have been taking an eastern religions class online to fulfill my requirement for humanities before I go to chiropractic school and we are studying Hinduism right now and the concept of one true reality, called Brahman, that is manifesting itself in many forms can really speak to our own lives. (and is the reason I thought about this topic for today’s email)

Many people think Hinduism is polytheistic (believing in many gods), which it is but it’s not quite because actually, all of the Hindu gods are manifestations of the one true god, the ultimate truth. So I thought to myself, “just like me.” NOT because I think I am a god, but because I say things to myself daily, like “who do I feel like being today, Lauren the fitness chick, or Lauren the girly girl?” We ourselves are one person, and we are so many people all at the same time. How do we juggle through all these people we are daily?

So what’s my point? Know who you are, every part of you. Appreciate how many things you are to so many different people but most importantly to yourself. Do you have enough hats that are just for you or are they all for other people? Do you have any hats that you’ve forgotten about or pushed down?
Know how all your hats work with each other. If you are stressed out, feeling overwhelmed, just feeling like something’s not right, it’s probably because one of your “yous” isn’t playing well with the others.
There are always good and bad hats. We can’t all be perfect. You might find that you want to permanently take off one of your hats, like my sweet tooth hat. I am working very hard right now to just get rid of that thing.

Most of all know that these hats don’t own you. You own them, and you can change them any time you want. You can choose to wear the “emotional eater” hat or not. You can choose to wear the “I hate exercise” hat or not. You can choose to wear the “I have fill in the blank disease “or not.

Whatever you are, however many hats you wear, make sure they are the ones YOU CHOOSE.

Butternut Squash Latkes

I found this recipe at Elanas Pantry and I am sure you will see many more from her website here.

These latkes were fresh, sweet, and nutty flavored and gave Diego and I just enough of that "potato" feeling. I wish I would've remembered to take a picture of them but we ate them too fast!

I also made the homemade applesauce to go with them. They were super easy to make.