Arrowroot Powder Pizza Crust Recipe

Most people who are paleo will tell you that at some point or another, they just really miss pizza. We’re no exception to this rule. Finding a good paleo pizza recipe, however, can be tough. It’s a lot of trial and error, and sadly, some not so good dinners along the way. Well, I happened upon this recipe from Paleo Spirit. I don’t have, and have never actually used Tapioca Starch, so I substitited arrowroot powder, since I’ve heard that they can be substituted for one another. I also always add some italian seasoning (oregano, basil, thyme, and a little rosemary) to my pizza crusts. I add the dried herbs on top of whatever liquid the recipe calls for. This refreshes the herbs so to speak and makes them a bit more flavorful. Here is a picture  of the cooked crust.

I then topped it with some home made pizza sauce, cheese (we eat dairy) and some pepperoni. It turned out to be really tasty.

Jamberry Nails Revew

A few weeks ago, my sister in law invited me to her online Jamberry party. I have been invited to a few of these in the past, but to be honest, I wasn’t really all that interested. I love the idea of my finger nails looking great, but I am a mom. I live in the real world. If I sit down to polish my finger nails, it is a fool proof way to get one, or both of my children to suddenly and urgently need something from me. Even if they are sleeping, they will wake up and need me. Every time. And I certainly don’t have the disposable income to be shelling out to go to the salon and get real manicures all the time. They were mailing out samples for this party, though, so I figured I would try one.

Jamberry is bit different, though. They call them wraps, but they basically look like really fun stickers for your finger or toe nails. You take a wrap, cut it to slightly longer than you need, grab it on the end with a pair of tweezers (or their fancy application tool), heat them up for a few seconds with your hair dryer (or their fancy heat tool),  set it on your nail, and press down to set it. Then you can trim, or file off any extra and apply a bit more heat. It sounds complicated, but it’s really pretty easy. I was able to an accent nail on each hand in a few minutes. I would guess that you get faster the more you do it. They last longer than nail polish would, around 2 weeks for each application. Each set costs $15 (although they sometimes offer deals), and you get about 2-3 manicures per set. So, even if you only got 2 manicures, you’re paying $7.50 per manicure. That’s significantly cheaper than a trip to the nail salon, but about the same price as a good bottle of polish, which would get you way more than 2-3 manicures. So, if it’s money that you would spend anyway, I would definitely check it out. They have a ton of different styles and they really are fun. So, while I can pay shell out the money for them all of the time, l definitely be sporting some once in awhile.

If you are interested in learning more about them, or what to give them a try, check out this page.

(PS. Nobody asked me to write the review or to post their link. If you buy anything, you’re just buying from a friend and a really great mom. I get nothing out of the deal.)

Korean Beef

You will have to forgive this horrid picture. Believe it or not, I am trying to improve my photography skills. Regardless, this dish was much better than it looks, and easy to make. I used a recipe that I found online http:// http://elizabethbryant.blogspot.com/2010/05/korean-beef.html, and modified it to make it paleo.

Ingredients:
I lb ground beef (I bet bison would also be tasty)
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup coconut aminos
1 TBS sesame oil
3 gloves of garlic minced*
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Heat a skillet over medium high heat. Add the ground beef and cook until it’s brown. Drain any excess fat. Mix the remaining ingredients in a bowl and add them to the skillet. Simmer for a few minutes and serve. I served it over cauliflower rice.

*Confession….I know that fresh is always better, but I buy the already minced garlic that they sell in jars at the grocery store. 1/2 tsp is the equivilent to one clove of fresh garlic. I use this cheat in every single recipe I make. Nobody has ever noticed a difference and I save myself a few minutes of time.

Butternut Squash Soup

I have a confession to make. Prior to making this soup, I have never eaten butternut squash soup before. I had certainly never cooked with it before. While I have to admit that I found peeling it to be a gigantic pain, this soup was so good. I used the recipe from Primal Palate’s book, the Food Lover’s Kitchen. What I didn’t realize when I started the recipe, however, was that I didn’t have any nutmeg, which the recipe calls for. So, instead of using cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger seperately, I swapped in an equal amount of pumpkin pie spice. This substitution worked out really well.

Against All Grain Slow Cooker Sesame Orange Chicken.

One of the things that I like the most about Danielle Walker of Against All Grain’s recipes is that she lives in the real world. She has a husband and a young child, so when she writes her recipes, they don’t usually involved any crazy techniques and hours of preparation. This recipe, from her book Against All Grain is super simple to make. It doesn’t involve a ton of ingredients and it cooks in the crock pot. I paired it with a side of steamed veggies here, but I bet it would be delicious over some cauliflower rice.

The toddler eating trials

Anyone who has ever been near a toddler at feeding time knows that getting them to eat what is put in from them is not an easy task. It’s no exception in our house. We have always had luck getting her to eat fruits and vegetables (although the ones she loved yesterday might be highly offensive today), and since I couldn’t cook when we lived with the in laws, we did a lot of snacking. I’d keep the mini fridge full of fruit and veggie trays (not the most cost effective, by any means, but easy), so that when she was hungry, she had food options. I’d also usually keep some full fat cheese and some Applegate lunch meats. Clearly, not as awesome as sitting down to eat actual meals, (and we did always have something more substantial for dinner), but under the circumstances, it was the best I could do.

When we moved into our own place, I knew that getting her to eat meals (and the meals that I prepared) was going to be an adjustment. I didn’t, however, get the memo that it was going to be such an issue. In the beginning, we tried to force her to eat at least one bite of whatever I made. You would think that just one bite would be do-able, but I have never in my entire life met anyone as stubborn as this child. After a few days of this, we realized that that was not the approach that was going to get us results. If we continued down that patch, meal time was going to turn into a battle every single time, and meal time wasn’t going to be the pleasant family time that I was hoping for.

So, we changed our approach. She does need to sit at the table until everyone is done eating. That’s not negotiable, but we stopped pressuring her to eat. My husband and I do make a big deal about how good the food is while we are eating, and usually this will encourage her to eat it. If it doesn’t though, we just let it go. Maybe she’s not hungry, maybe she is just being picky, I don’t know. However, I won’t make her something different. Dinner is what I make, and that is that. We have had way more success with this method.

Do you have any tips or tricks for getting toddlers to eat? I’d love to hear what works for your family in the comments below!

Carne Asada Burrito Bowls

Fact: I used to HATE mexican food. With a passion. I’m not just talking about taco bell either. Then, we moved to Southern California, where I continued to hate Mexican food. Then we found Chipotle, which was like a gateway drug for me. My husband and I liked Chipotle so much that we would go every Sunday night. Now, as far as fast food type chain restaurants go, Chipotle is probably the best option. They use local, organic, and naturally raised ingredients as much as possibleI respect that, and as someone who has become very aware of what I am putting into my body, I appreciate that. However, our wallets dictate more eating in and less eating out. Luckily, there are ways to make similar food at home.

For this, I used the Cilantro Lime Cauliflower Rice from Popular Paleo. It’s easy to make and tastes good! Then I added the carne asada from Against All Grain. I added some peppers and onions to the meat as I cooked it, and I topped the bowls with guacamole and pico de gallo (I’d like to taell you that I made these myself, but I bought them pre-made from the store to save some time)., and some sour cream. Yum!

Sweet and Sour Chicken

So, in case you missed the memo like I did, Brittany Angell is a culinary genius. I have no idea how in the world I was so clueless for so long, but I’m glad that I’m the loop now. I first found one of her recipes on pinterest, (you can follow me here, if you’d like), but when I started browsing her website I was amazed! We’re taking cinnamon rolls, bread, pies, fudge rounds, twinkies! All modified for people with food allergies or special diets. Some of the recipes are part of her Club Angell, which is a paid membership, but some are free. I’d like to say that I’ve tried some of the recipes in Club Angell, and while I absolutely think that the $15 membership is a steal for what you get, $15 can buy a lot of diapers at the moment, so I’m not a member yet. I hope to be eventually, though. She does also have a book coming out soon, which looks awesome. I’ve been following her on instagram, and she keeps posting pictures from the book. IT LOOKS FANTASTIC. You can check it out here. So, this recipe is one of the free ones (yippie!).

I just paired this Sweet and Sour Chicken with a side of steamed mixed veggies. I have to say that it tastes just like take out, and required way less work than a non Paleo version that I used to make.

Updates, updates

So, it’s been far too long. Although, in all fairness, I warned you all that it was going to be a bit before I got back to you. I didn’t want or expect it to be this long though. For that, I certainly do apologize.

In the few months that I have been MIA, there have been some big changes. The first one being that I gave birth to our second baby. I gave birth to her with no drugs. Not so much by choice, but because I missed the boat on the epidural. Buy the time they got me settled into my room, it was too late. I will be honest, it hurt, I let out a lot of curse words, but it wasn’t unbearable pain. Now that I know I can do it, I will probably just opt out of the drugs if I have any more children. So far things are going well. Going from one child to two kids under two has been an adjustment to say the least. I’ve been drinking far more coffee than I should be, but I’m hanging in there. I also must confess, in the beginning, I was also eating a fair amount of junk food, for the quick energy that the sugar was providing. Luckily, I was able to get a handle on that pretty quickly.

         The other big news is that we moved. I had hoped that we would be able to move before the baby came, but that didn’t happen. Luckily, my in laws were nice, and tried to convince me that having a newborn in their house wasn’t an inconvenience. I could tell by their tired eyes, though, that it was, and as soon as we were able to, we made the move into our own place.

         The first thing to get unpacked was the kitchen, and once we were able to stock up on real food ingredients, there was no looking back. We’ve all been eating better, and I was able to kick that junk food habit pretty quickly. One of the first things I did was to make a giant batch of salad to keep us fueled during the moving and unpacking process. This one just has a ton of veggies, some Applegate turkey, a bit of feta cheese, and Balsamic Vinaigrette that I made using this recipe from Primal Palate.

       Anyway, thank you for bearing with me while I was away. I look forward to reconnecting with you all again. Please let me know in the comments section if you have any questions or if there is anything you’d like me to talk about. Thanks

Easy Beef Shish Kabobs

This is a little too easy to even call a recipe, and you can adapt it to whatever your mood is. When my hubby made it this particular night he chopped up some onion, zucchini, tomatoes, potatoes, and green peppers along with the beef. He added them all to the wooden skewers (you want to let them soak for about 30 minutes before you use them so that they don’t burn) and then added some steak seasoning. He tossed them on the grill to our preferred done-ness and we ate up. I’ve also made them with marinated meat as well. The Beef Jerky recipe from Primal Palate makes a fantastic shish kabob marinade, actually. I just let the steak soak in the marinade over night before putting the kabobs together.

It makes for a quick, easy meal that you can cook without heating up your entire house during the summer months. 🙂