Delicious Desserts: Paleo-friendly crepes

So the switch to Paleo eating hasn't been easy. Mostly I find recipes that help me eat like I used to, without the guilt. Enter, the paleo tortilla. Easy to make if you can find the ingredients, and delicious to boot. I made mine all sweet like with fruit and maple syrup, but you could fill these with eggs and ham for breakfast or turkey and cheese for lunch. I also tried a few different combos: almond butter with bananas, drizzled with honey instead of maple syrup; almond butter with strawberries and honey; blueberry yogurt and bananas with maple syrup. All incredibly tasty.

I should mention, we're doing some dairy on Paleo, so don't judge ;) The whipped cream is probably frowned upon. Poor whipped cream. Is it a crime to be so delicious?

You can find the recipe here. Or PinIt here.

Bravo for breakfast: paleo-friendly apple cider pancakes and baked apples

First of all, don't these look amazing? Second, they were easy. Which in my world is the only word I even bother with.

Here's all the info to make your own:

Apple Cider Paleo Pancakes

Ingredients:
1 cup almond meal
2 eggs
1/4 cup apple cider
2 tbs coconut oil
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbs honey {I opted out of this since my cider was fairly sweet}

Directions:
Mix all ingredients together and prepare on a skillet like you would any other pancakes.

Baked Apples

Ingredients:
6 apples, peeled and sliced {your choice, but I used Macouns}
2 tbs cinnamon
1-2 tbs ghee {or butter, softened}
1-2 tbs honey

Directions:
Mix all ingredients in an oven-safe casserole dish or glass baking dish. Bake at 350º for 1 hour or until apples are soft. Make sure you stir the mixture 1-2 times during baking.

That's it. These are both so simple to do and absolutely tasty. Mmm mm. Let's hear it for breakfast!

Delicious Dishes: Baked ziti and summer veggies

Well, I tried another recipe I found using Pinterest. You can find the recipe here. It was actually fantastic even though this picture isn't at all pretty. Honestly, the husband and I were so hungry that I had to stop him before he dug in. I needed my photo after all. Usually he's annoyed by me being a photog, but he's ok with anything that gets him more delicious meals.

It was easy to make, a little bit of prepping veggies, but the rest is mixing and baking. I liked it a lot since it was nice and airy, no red sauce, and packed with veggies since the husband has requested less rice and more living foods...

Delicious Desserts: Glazed donut muffins

Yup, you read that right. Glazed. Donut. Muffins. Fan-tastic. These were a mess to make, but the end result is so worth it. I wanted to try this recipe so bad, and bringing most of them for coworkers to consume seemed like a perfect compromise.

They are very good and very sweet, so like I always do, I cut down on the sugar. I usually half the sugar, and they come out just as delicious. I didn't skimp on the glaze sugar though, since that's about all it's made out of.

I thought I would document the messy process. Here's a stash of mini-muffins in the glazing process:

And here's what mine looked like about five minutes after it was ready to taste-test:

The mini-muffins were a big hit with little hands. The entire stash disappeared at work and there were lots of compliments flying around. I doubled the recipe to make sure I had enough to make the mini versions and ended up with a few dozen. If you decide to do the minis, only bake them for 12 minutes. The original glazed donut muffin recipe resides here. Enjoy!

Delicious Desserts: the oreo peanut butter double stuffed brownie

Do you want to try the most ridiculous brownie concoction known to man? I give you the oreo peanut butter double stuffed brownie. And yes, it is that ridiculous. My husband said it was too complex for his likes, but I have to tell you all it was delicious. Amazing. FATtening. Seriously, I don't know the calorie count on this, but I know it's high. Too high. So only make these if you have lots of people to help you eat them. Or you can pawn them off on friends. Because trust me, these bad boys will call your name.

To make them, you just need brownie mix, oreos and peanut butter. I would link to the recipe, but it was just floating around Facebook, so here it is in all its copy and pasted glory:

OREO PEANUT BUTTER DOUBLE STUFFED BROWNIE

Brownie mix (any favorite will do)
Oreo's 
Peanut Butter 
Muffin tin 
Paper cupcake liners

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
1). Prepare brownie mix according to directions on pkg.
2). Line muffin tin
3). Spread peanut butter on top of Oreo's
4). Add another Oreo on top & spread with peanut butter
5). Put in muffin tin
6). Pour brownie mixture on top
7). Bake for 10-15 minutes

I'm pretty sure it took about 20 minutes for mine to bake. This recipe is a serious sweet tooth killer. I give it two chubby thumbs up.

Delicious Dishes: Slow cooker split pea soup

I've decided that there is no way to prettify pea soup. It just looks like green mush no matter what you do to it. But trust me on this one, it tastes fantastic. This is my new go-to comfort soup for winter. It's not your mama's pea soup. This one uses chicken sausage. Strange you say? Well, if you have an anti-ham eating husband this is a perfect compromise. You can find the recipe here and, again, if you want info on all those Pinterest recipes I've been trying, you can find my board here.

Delicious Dishes: honey sesame chicken

Here's another wonderful simple crockpot dish. The recipe can be found here. I'm a big fan of smelling amazing food all day long. This only takes a few hours to cook, so it's also one of those meals you can wait to prep and toss in the crockpot while the bebe is napping. This is the second time I've made it, and this time I tweaked the recipe and used a little less honey and soy sauce so it was a little less 'strong'. We prefer it that way but try it according to the recipe first and be prepared for chicken that tastes like candy. Chicken candy. Mmm.

Delicious Dishes: Baked vegetable penne

There's a recipe I had printed from Pinterest, but alas, it was way too involved for me, and included a massive list of ingredients. I decided to rework it, and it's so different from the original, that I will claim this as my own. I also made half a bag of penne, but it ended up being plenty for my husband and I with leftovers for lunch. In other words, this recipe will serve four, so double it if you're hosting a dinner party or you birthed a small army.

Baked Veggie Penne

Ingredients:
1 eggplant
1 yellow squash
1 zucchini
1 container sliced mushrooms
2 cups of penne {whole wheat is our pasta of choice}
5-6 slices of colby jack {can do shredded mozzarella if you prefer}
3/4 can of Newman's Own Sockarooni {this is very important for flavor and is by far the best spaghetti sauce we've tried}
1/4 cup parmesan
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions:
Preheat oven to 450º. Boil the water and cook your pasta as you normally would. Chop your vegetables into bite size pieces and place in a bowl. Toss with olive oil and a little salt and pepper. Cook the vegetables in a fry pan for about 5-8 minutes. Mix the cooked drained pasta and cooked vegetables in a casserole pan. Cover with the sauce and the slices of cheese. Top with the parmesan. Bake for 20 minutes.

Here's what it looked like going into the oven:

Here's what it looked like coming out:

It's not necessarily pretty or gourmet, but it is delicious!

Delicious Sides: parmesan baked tomatoes

I usually spend Mondays meal-planning and grocery shopping. Well, not the entire day, ain't nobody got time for that. But this particular Monday I couldn't make it to the store, probably some bebe-related excuse but I digress. Tuesday I finally made it but I still didn't have anything extravagant planned for the first 'meal-planned' night. Just a simple baked maple/brown sugar salmon. I wanted to keep consistent with my 'fancy' new cookery {?} so I pulled out the recipe book and decided on a couple of new side dishes. One simple and delicious one is this Parmesan Baked Tomato recipe. I actually forgot to do the last olive oil step, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

It was easy and delicious and looked pretty awesome on the plate. The second was these Roasted Sweet Potatoes, which honestly smelled {and tasted} more like dessert. They were amazing. I think I'll keep them in mind for Easter dinner.

The husband came home and was all like 'Mmmm, lookin' fancy!'. Okay maybe not those exact words but he seemed pretty happy and he's been more than eager to try all these new recipes along with me. So far so good, and we've only had a couple of recipes {out of the last few weeks} that we felt were 'meh'.

Delicious Desserts: Raspberry Oat Bars

One night a week needs to be 'leftovers night', so I don't end up throwing out lots of yummy food. I've learned that the hard way. Tossing old pizza isn't bad, but when you're throwing away meals that you spent time and effort making, it hurts a little more. On those nights I've decided to try a new dessert recipe off Pinterest to keep consistent.

This one came from allrecipes.com and it's pretty good. I like fruit desserts, the only thing I think I did wrong on this one was not crumble the butter into the mixture enough. The top came out of the oven a little dry and 'dusty'. I fixed that by just taking a fork and mixing up the raspberry with the topping while it was still hot. I think next time I'll try to add in some mashed fresh raspberries instead of only using the preserves.

All in all, they were tasty.

Delicious Desserts: Loaded Chocolate Chip Cookies

Meet the best cookies ever. EVER. You want to make some. Now. I think this recipe is originally from allrecipes.com but I can't be sure since I have a printed version that I taped to a recipe card years ago {I'm not the type to claim a recipe is 'mine'}...Well this time I decided to try a more 'packed' version by adding a couple of new ingredients, and I have to say, they're amazing.

Loaded Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups rolled oats {Use 1c if you like more moist cookies, 2 cups makes it a little more dry}
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/3 cups packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1-2 cups chocolate chips
1/2 cup coconut flakes
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:
Preheat oven to 300º F. Grease cookie sheets. Stir together the flour, baking soda, salt and oats. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Mix in the dry ingredients until well blended before stirring in the chocolate chips, coconut and walnuts. Drop in spoonfuls onto the cookie sheets and flatten to 1/2 inch thick.

Bake for 21 minutes, until lightly browned. Let cool, if you can be patient enough after smelling baking cookies for 21 minutes...

These are perfect on this snow-filled morning. Yes, I'm eating cookies for breakfast. Don't judge me.

Delicious dishes: creamy tomato soup

Perhaps this actually IS how you make tomato bisque, or maybe it's not {more likely}, but it tastes just as good and it's SUPER easy. I'm no cook, I have much more talented friends for things like recipes from scratch, but this is a really quick and simple fall-back recipe. As in, you forgot to plan something for one night, so fall back on this. Add whatever version of a grilled cheese you like, and voi la.

All you need is a 32 oz box of tomato soup {I like creamy organic Trader Joes tomato soup, mmm mm}, a 14 oz. can of roasted {or non} chopped tomatoes and about a cup of heavy cream, more if you prefer...

You can combine all the ingredients in the crockpot or on the stove. I find if you use the crockpot, you need to cook it on high for 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Stovetop, obviously until it's hot.

Delicious dishes: chick pea and tomato salad

So the husband and I have decided it's time to get organized, do a budget and spend less. In an effort to keep our monthly grocery bill under control, I decided to spend Sunday/Mondays working on a weekly dinner plan and grocery list. Pinterest of course is an amazing tool when it comes to recipes, as long as you can find the ones that are correctly linked...

This last week I tried several different main dishes and sides, but one of my favorites was this Chick Pea Tomato Salad. Seriously. It was delicious.

Try it for yourselves and let me know what you think. And keep in mind, I'm not really a cold vinegar salad kind of girl. Now if you have any interest in the other recipes I tried, I keep them all on this Pindid board with my own comments in the descriptions...