Weekly Cook-up & Banana Bread Muffins

 My weekly cook-up this week wasn't nearly as extensive as last week, but we had several servings of soup left over as well as the spicy pork.  So... on Sunday I cooked the two spaghetti squash that I had in the pantry from the farmers market.  I tossed it all in butter with some garlic powder, salt and pepper and then let it cool and put it in storage containers in the fridge.  I also made a batch of chunky marinara sauce using the recipe I found on Spark Recipes.  Sunday night I sauteed some shrimp and reheated the spaghetti squash by sauteing it in (more) butter with fresh garlic.  

This "shrimp scampi" wasn't as awesome as I thought it would be.  I think I need to do a better job cooking the shrimp next time.   






Monday night I reheated more of the squash using the saute method again and topped it with the chunky marinara.  This has quickly become a favorite dinner for me! 


                                                                                    
 

I also made these banana bread muffins.  I replaced the olive oil with coconut oil and left the walnuts out (because I didn't have enough of them).  I topped one with coconut butter (first time trying coconut butter ever!) and it was really good!  These were a hit!

I've decided to go to CrossFit on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights (and maybe Saturday mornings) for now, so tonight I will cook up the 3lbs of boneless chicken breasts that I have and saute any veggies that are in my fridge.  That should get us through Thursday or Friday.

Catching up...

There's been a lot going on in the last week and half and I haven't even had time to share it all!  

On November 18th I participated in a 3-1/2 hour CrossFit Fundamentals class.  I'm hooked!  I went back the very next day and did a WOD that was spending 30 minutes determining your one rep max deadlift. I had never done a deadlift before, so I had no idea what to expect.  I started with 95lbs (you are only lifting the bar from the floor to a straight standing position, mostly using your lower back muscles and hips to move the weight, allowing for much heavier lifts).  I then tried 115, 135, 145 and finally 155 pounds!  I was proud as a peacock to have lifted that much on my first night!  

My friend Billie & I after we totally
ROCKED the Turkey Day 5k

That was only the beginning of what was to become an incredible week of accomplishments for me!  I had been planning on running the Turkey Day 5k on Thanksgiving morning for the 2nd year in a row and while I had been pretty excited about it, in the weeks leading up to it I felt very unprepared and not ready.  There were over 800 runners!  What a rush!  I was convinced this was going to be one of my worst 5k races.  Last year I finished it in over 35 minutes.  That's about what I expected this year.  You can imagine my shock and astonishment when I finished in 30:06!  That's over 2-1/2 minutes faster than my record.  Also, it was the first time that I have ever ran the entire time.  NO walking!  My next 5k will be under 30 minutes and I will bring home a trophy before the heat of summer in 2013 stops me from running.  Mark my words.

After the race we had Thanksgiving lunch with some of Husband's family.  I had deviled eggs, veggies with homemade ranch, turkey, potatoes & gravy, sweet potatoes, fruit salad, cranberries and even a paleo cake that his Aunt made for us!  

I have since done 2 more WODs at my local box (CrossFit Jackson) and I felt a sense of accomplishment after each one like never before!  Husband has been CrossFitting since April and since he works 3rd shift, he attends the 7pm class (would be the equivalent of me going at 6am).  Since April, I have been making dinner while he's gone to the gym and when he would get home (after 8pm most times), I would either have already eaten dinner or we would eat together.  He really wants me to workout with him at 7pm, so I had to figure out how to make and eat dinner in that time frame.  Since this is the first week we are trying that schedule, I spent time this weekend cooking up a ton of food so that all of our meals would be ready to heat & eat.  Here's what I made:

Paleo Blueberry Muffins

Chicken Salad (with homemade mayo, grapes, salt & pepper)

Buffalo Chicken Salad

Steak & Chicken Fajitas

Spicy Pulled Pork (I skip the sauce) Served with green beans

Smoked Beef Brisket with steamed broccoli

Beef/Venison Cabbage Soup  

I also made 10 hard boiled eggs and baked a cookie sheet full of bacon.

We are nearly out of boiled eggs and the bacon is gone, so tonight I will fry up a pound of pastured pork sausage together with a dozen eggs and portion it out in the fridge for the rest of the week.  We like to heat it up and top it with Frog Ranch Salsa.

These Blueberry Muffins by PaleOMG were pretty good!  However, an entire cup of almond butter is a lot of money and when I think of it that way, they weren't good enough to warrant that kind of spending for a dozen muffins.  Also, if I were to make them again, I would put an entire cup of blueberries in them because you can never have too many blueberries in your blueberry muffins.

The recipe says it makes 8-10 muffins, but I easily filled all 12 muffin cups.  Also, it didn't say how far to fill the cups.  As you can see, I filled mine about 3/4 full.

Pizza Muffins

I have hesitated to try anything in the nature of "paleo pizza" because I am afraid it will make me want the real thing.  See, pizza is was one of my very favorite foods!  I love a Pizza Hut Pan Meatlover's!  But, I haven't had real pizza in several months.  And now that I know how gluten and dairy make me feel, I'll probably never eat real pizza again.  For the most part, I am ok with this, but there are times that I would really like to taste pizza again.  So... when I stumbled across this recipe for Pizza Muffins from Civilized Caveman Cooking, I was hesitant to try it.  

I did change up the original recipe a little by adding some pizza sausage toppings to the recipe.  Also, I feel like I didn't chop the sun-dried tomatoes enough and I need to cut them smaller next time.

The combination of the egg and the almond flour in this recipe gives a moist crispiness that is reminiscent of the pan pizza crust from Pizza Hut.  This recipe makes 7 muffins.  I had 3 polished off in a matter of minutes. Husband acted like he didn't like them, but then ate the 4 remaining muffins.  This recipe takes barely any time at all to make and uses mostly ingredients that I normally have on hand.

Ingredients

• 3 Large Eggs

• 2 Tsp Coconut Oil

• 1 Tbsp Ghee (I used butter)

• 2 Tbsp Coconut Milk

• 1/4 Tsp Salt

• 1/4 Tsp Vanilla Extract

• 1/4 Tsp Baking Powder

• 1/3 Cup Almond Flour

• 1/4 Cup Pepperoni (I cut mine up into quarters)

• (optional) handful of sausage pizza toppings (found with the refrigerated meats/cold cuts)

• 1/4 Cup Sun-Dried Tomatoes (I chopped mine up, but not small enough)

• 2 Tbsp yellow onion, diced

• 1/8 Tsp Garlic Powder

• 1/8 Tsp Oregano

• 1/8 Tsp Basil

Process

1. Preheat your oven to 400 Degrees F

2. Mix together your eggs, oil, ghee, milk, salt, and vanilla

3. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, spices, and baking powder

4. Add your flour mixture to your egg mixture and mix until there are no lumps left

5. Fold in your vegetables and pepperoni

6. Pour into 7 lined cupcake pan and bake for 15 minutes

7. Enjoy

Pumpkin Treats!

I bought a large can of pure pumpkin puree last week and then got busy using it up this weekend!  First, I made these pumpkin bars from Elena's Pantry:

Pumpkin Bars

½ cup pumpkin puree

½ cup agave nectar (I used honey)

2 eggs

1 cup blanched almond flour (I made my own and it wasn't blanched)

¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

¼ teaspoon cloves (I didn't have any cloves, so I used some pumpkin pie spice)

1. In a food processor, combine pumpkin, agave (or honey) and eggs.  Pulse for 2 minutes.

2. Pulse dry ingredients into wet for a full minute, until well combined.

3. Pour batter into a greased 8x8 pyrex baking dish (I just rubbed a little coconut oil all over the inside of mine)

4. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes

5. Serve naked or with whipped cream (see what I did below)

I made a coconut whipped cream by refrigerating about 3/4 of a can of coconut milk (this Golden Star that I found at wal-mart is REALLY thick and works perfect for this!).  I put a splash of vanilla in a metal bowl with the chilled coconut milk and use my beaters to whip it into a whipped cream.  After the cake was cooled, I topped it with this whipped cream.  I wish I had taken picture, they were really good!  I was afraid with all that honey in it, that it would be too sweet, but the "frosting" wasn't very sweet, so the combination was PERFECTO!

Then I made these delicious pumpkin muffins from Balanced Bites.  These were a HUGE hit and I ended up making a second batch after the football game on Sunday.  We shared with some of our paleo friends!  

Ingredients

1/2 C butter or coconut oil, melted (I used coconut oil)

6 eggs, beaten

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 C pumpkin puree

1/4 C honey or maple syrup (I followed the author's advice and used 2 Tbsp each to equal a 1/4 C of sweetener)

1/2 C coconut flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1-1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cloves

1/4 tsp allspice/nutmeg (again, I used pumpkin pie spice in place of this and the cloves, 1/2 tsp)

pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven to 400.

2. Grease muffin tray or use paper liners (my first batch stuck to the paper, so I switched to the foil liners for the second batch and that worked MUCH better!)

3. Combine wet ingredients in a large mixing bowl together until well beaten (I used a whisk).

4. Measure dry ingredients into a sifter and slowly sift into the wet ingredients  whisking as you do so that you don't have lumps in the batter. (The batter got really thick as I added the last of the dry ingredients).

5. Divide batter evenly into the muffin tins and bake for apprx. 15-18 minutes or until slightly golden brown on top and a toothpick comes out clean.

I also made this pumpkin mug cake from The Preppy Paleo, but it was pretty bland :(

Banana Bread!!!!!!

I made THREE different Paleo Banana Bread recipes on Sunday!  I should start by telling you that I am one of THOSE bakers.  I don't read all the directions before I get started.  I know, I know.  So, the the first recipe from Three New Leaves was a bit of fail.  I didn't even know where my electric mixer was (I almost always use a whisk) and I wasn't prepared to make TWO loaves of bread (I only have one bread pan, and it's glass, not aluminum).  So, I made one loaf in the bread pan and another in an aluminum cake pan.  It sort of fell apart, but tasted "just ok".  (note: it tasted a little better the next day).  This recipe was the most difficult/complicated of the three and probably won't be repeated in my kitchen.

The second recipe which comes from Running to the Kitchen had more promise because it had both almond flour AND coconut flour.  It turned out "salty" tasting,, but had the texture and look closest to traditional banana bread.  If I make this one again, I will cut the salt down to 1/2 teaspoon.  I did use two bananas instead of one because one just didn't seem like enough.  Also, I  might experiment with using honey in place of the maple syrup.  This one is good with a little butter and honey on a slice!

You can see the bottom of the loaf stayed in the pan, a little
grease might have helped...

I'm REALLY glad that I didn't give up after the first two recipes because the third turned out AMAZING!  I will definitely use this Paleo Banana Muffin Recipe from With Style & Grace again!  I made about half of the recipe with walnuts and half without.  These were by far the best!

I had fun experimenting in the kitchen this weekend and have more recipes to share with y'all later this week!