Everyday Cookie

I just received my copy of Eat Like a Dinosaur: Recipe & Guidebook for Gluten-free Kids (ELaD) by the Paleo Parents. It is a wonderful treasure trove of kid friendly Paleo recipes that I intend to fully review very soon. But this afternoon I was instructed by the boy to make some chocolate chip cookies while he was at baseball practice. While I have several good paleo chocolate chip cookie recipes and the ones in Eat Like a Dinosaur also look very promising I was inspired by the "Anytime Cookie" recipe in the book. The idea of an Anytime cookie, which is a cookie that contains only healthy food that is good to eat anytime, is an awesome idea. I've gone in that same direction before when making muffins for the kids that were packed full of veggies, fruits and nuts. If I can make a "Treat" that the kids love to eat, but contains protein, vitamins and such without added sugar, then I wouldn't mind if they had a couple for breakfast, or had one in their school lunch bag or had one for an after school snack.

The ELaD Anytime Cookie recipe looked good, but I was running low on Almond flour and had some carrots that were begging to be put into a cookie. So I went in another direction. The result is a cakey cookie that is moist and sweet without added sugar; all sweetness comes from fruit and chocolate chips. The Boy loved them as did the girl...and the Hubby; so I imagine I'll be making these Everyday Cookies a lot...although hopefully not Everyday.



Everyday Cookie
4 Carrots
1 ripe banana
5-6 prunes
1/2 C almond butter
1/2 C walnuts
2 Eggs
2 t cinnamon
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
1 T Vanilla
1/2 C coconut flour
1/2 C dark chocolate chips

In a food processor, puree carrots, banana, prunes, and walnuts. Add all other ingredients except chocolate chips and process until well incorporated. Mix chips in by hand then drop dough by large spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet with a silpat or parchment paper lining. Bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees. Cool completely before handling. Makes about 2 dozen.

Olives are Awesome!

I discovered something this morning, that I have been missing all of my Paleo lifetime...maybe my whole lifetime! For breakfast, I made my usual three fried eggs with baby kale sautéed in coconut oil, then looked over at the bottle of olives we purchased at Costco yesterday. Hmmm, would olives taste good with eggs and greens? I wasn't sure. But I'm pretty culinarily adventurous; so I thought I'd give it a try. Oh my! It was exactly the thing breakfast has been missing all along! The salty/sour of the olives fit with the fattiness of the eggs and the sautéed kale perfectly! This will become my go-to breakfast from here on out! Give it a try.

Pork Shoulder and Cauliflower Rice with Peppers and Onions

Tonight's dinner was one of our regulars. We love pork shoulder! The juice in the pan after cooking pork shoulder is too good to be wasted, so we throw in some cauliflower rice to soak up all of that yumminess. Add a few diced peppers and onions and you've got the perfect meal!

Pork Shoulder
1-2 lbs boneless or bone-in pork shoulder (do  not remove the fat!)
1 tbs coconut oil
salt and pepper to taste

In a cast iron or stainless steel pan, melt coconut oil, add seasonings then brown pork shoulder 5 minutes per side (don't cheat here as this full 5 minutes gives the meat that yummy brown crust). When brown, cover meat and continue cooking over low heat for about 15 minutes or until meat is about 160F. Use a meat thermometer to tell temperature. Let rest for a minute or 2 before cutting.

Cauliflower Rice with Peppers and Onions
1 head of cauliflower
1 pepper
1 onion
Pan dripping from pork shoulder or other fatty meat

After meat has been removed from your pan, add peppers and onions to the drippings. Rice cauliflower by grating it with a box grater. Saute until slightly tender then add riced cauliflower. Cover and cook for about 5 minutes.

What's going on in the garden right now?

It snowed this morning...and now it's melted. But still! It snowed this morning! I'm so done with snow. I'm ready for it to be spring. I'm ready to plant things and have them grow. But in the mean time I'm doing the best I can.

Plants at bottom of the picture are broccoli and spinach starts from last fall and chard I rescued from the garden.

A couple of weekends ago I got some seeds started in the greenhouse. I took a look again yesterday and I have some sprouts in my cold weather veggie pots. Kale, Cabbage and Turnip are just starting to sprout and the spinach and broccoli that I started last fall is now getting a bit bigger. I also planted seeds for Zucchini, cucumber, pumpkin, cauliflower, onion, beet, and carrots. I usually try to put them in the ground sometime after Mother's Day. We usually don't have any freezing temps after that and it's safe to put plants into the ground.

I also cleaned up the garden a bit and prepared it for the chicken-dozers. I covered my strawberries, asparagus and rhubarb so the chickens couldn't dig up the plants and kill them. It won't hurt the strawberries if the chickens eat the leaves, but I don't want them digging up the whole plant. Before I let the chickens into the garden I also rescued a few chard plants that I planted last fall. They had started to come up late last fall, but weren't really big enough to harvest. I didn't know if they would survive the winter, but apparently they did. So now they are living in pots in my greenhouse waiting to go back into the garden when the chickens are finished cleaning it up.

So far, the chickens have cleaned up the weeds in a few rows and are now moving on to other places in the garden. If I'm lucky they'll eat all the weeds, cultivate the soil and still leave the mounds for therows. But most likely we'll have to go back in and redefine the rows when the chickens are done. But all in all, if that's all that I have to do to rid my garden patch of weeds, that's not bad at all!

Slow Cooker Short Ribs

One of the many benefits of buying a 1/2 cow is that you get cuts that you wouldn't normally buy. Although they sound really yummy, I probably wouldn't have bought short ribs from the store. But since they were in my freezer, Hubby decided to cook them up the other day in the slow cooker. We searched through several online recipe sites to find a nice combo of spices to use then threw them in the crock pot to cook slowly all day. The result was very much like a fatty pot roast that falls off of the bones. Yum!

Slow Cooker Short Ribs
About 4 lbs of grass fed beef sort ribs
1 C beef stock
1 Tbs minced garlic
1 Tbs paprika
1 Tbs Chinese Five Spice
1 t chili powder
1 onion
4 carrots
salt and pepper to taste

Brown the short ribs under the broiler in the oven for 5 minutes per side. Coarsely chop the onion and carrots and put in the bottom of the slow cooker. Place browned ribs in slow cooker on top of the vegetables then add spices and stock. Cook on high for 5-6 hours or low for 8-10.

Honey Carrot Muffins

In the fall I often have extra veggies from my garden that we can't eat right away. We eat as many apples, pumpkins and carrots as we can, but after a while you just can't fit anymore into your menus. When that happens I make applesauce and pureed pumpkin and carrots to freeze. The purees freeze really well in old 32 oz yogurt containers for use throughout the winter. The other day I pulled out a pureed carrot tub to thaw. I wasn't sure what I would make with it, but today I put it to good use. I made Honey Carrot Muffins! (But the kids think they are pumpkin pie muffins because I used pumpkin pie spice in them. I don't plan to clear up that confusion as they both ate them and said they loved them.) You could use just about any fruit or veggie puree like pumpkin, apple, carrot, sweet potato, butternut squash in these and achieve the same results.  

Honey Carrot Muffins
1 C Carrot puree (or other fruit or veggie puree) - room temp
1/3 C Coconut flour
1/3 C honey
3 Eggs - room temp
1/3 C coconut oil - melted
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (could mix cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice to make your own)
1/4 C almond flour

Bring all ingredients to room temperature and preheat oven to 350F. Mix all ingredients and spoon into lined or greased muffin tins. (I made 18 mini muffins and 2 large ones.) Bake for about 20-30 minutes or until muffins are firm to the touch.

What Kids Say

I asked my kids these questions 3 years ago and again yesterday. Some of the answers were the same and some were really different, but it's interesting to see what the kids think about me. I guess my favorite parts are that the kids both see my favorite thing to do is play with them and feel that I show that I love them every day. If they remember that forever, I will have done my job.

1. What is something mom always says to you?
Lily (6 years old): Maybe
Lily (9 years old): Do your homework

Ian (3.5 years old): Yes
Ian (6.5 years old): Eat your dinner

2. What makes mom happy?
Lily (6 years old): Doing what she says
Lily (9 years old): Not fighting with Ian

Ian (3.5 years old): Doing what she says (Ian was just copying Lily at this point)
Ian (6.5 years old): when she gets to play with me

3. What makes mom sad?
Lily (6 years old): When we don't hug her
Lily (9 years old): When I fight with Ian

Ian (3.5 years old): when we don't hug her
Ian (6.5 years old): when we don't have time for bedtime stories

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
Lily (6 years old): When she sneaks up on me
Lily (9 years old): When she says something silly

Ian (3.5 years old): When she makes funny faces
Ian (6.5 years old): when she tickles me

5. What was your mom like as a child?
Lily (6 years old): She was a sugar duck in a play
Lily (9 years old): She picked up frogs

Ian (3.5 years old): She played puzzles
Ian (6.5 years old): she liked to play

6. How old is your mom?
Lily (6 years old): 35
Lily (9 years old): 36

Ian (3.5 years old): 20
Ian (6.5 years old): 36

7. How tall is your mom?
Lily (6 years old): 42 inches
Lily (9 years old): around 5 feet

Ian (3.5 years old): a little bit
Ian (6.5 years old): 90 inches

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
Lily (6 years old): play with us
Lily (9 years old):play with me and Ian

Ian (3.5 years old): play with us
Ian (6.5 years old): play with us

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
Lily (6 years old): work on the computer
Lily (9 years old): sometimes walk with her friends, run errands and work on the computer

Ian (3.5 years old): play by herself
Ian (6.5 years old): talk with daddy

10. If your mom becomes famous,what will it be for?
Lily (6 years old): a rockstar
Lily (9 years old): Best mom

Ian (3.5 years old): she would be pretty
Ian (6.5 years old): being a rockstar

11. What is your mom really good at?
Lily (6 years old): giving hugs and kisses
Lily (9 years old):Cuddling

Ian (3.5 years old): telling us what to do
Ian (6.5 years old): typing on the computer

12. What is your mom not very good at?
Lily (6 years old): letting us have ice cream every day
Lily (9 years old): making a mess

Ian (3.5 years old): being up high on her toes
Ian (6.5 years old): doing the splits

13. What does your mom do for her job?
Lily (6 years old): work around the house
Lily (9 years old): don't know

Ian (3.5 years old): work on her computer
Ian (6.5 years old): you don't have a job...or do you?

14. What is your mom's favorite food?
Lily (6 years old): lentils
Lily (9 years old):Chicken legs

Ian (3.5 years old): Soup
Ian (6.5 years old): soup

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
Lily (6 years old): that she loves us even when she's angry
Lily (9 years old): she helps me with my homework

Ian (3.5 years old): she plays with me
Ian (6.5 years old): when you play outside with me

16. If your mom were a cartoon character,who would she be?
Lily (6 years old): Bugs Bunny
Lily (9 years old):Elastagirl

Ian (3.5 years old): Boo from Monsters Inc
Ian (6.5 years old): Porky Pig

17. What do you and your mom do together?
Lily (6 years old): play after school
Lily (9 years old):play games

Ian (3.5 years old): play
Ian (6.5 years old): bake cookies

18. How are you and your mom the same?
Lily (6 years old): we have the same nose
Lily (9 years old): we both have short hair

Ian (3.5 years old): we like to do the same things
Ian (6.5 years old): we have the same color eyes

19. How are you and your mom different?
Lily (6 years old): she has grown up teeth and I don't
Lily (9 years old): we have different color eyes

Ian (3.5 years old): she's a girl and I'm a boy
Ian (6.5 years old): i'm a boy and you're a girl

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
Lily (6 years old): she hugs me
Lily (9 years old): because she says it every day

Ian (3.5 years old): we play
Ian (6.5 years old): you kiss me a lot

21. Where is your Mom's favorite place to go?
Lily (6 years old): Park on sunny days
Lily (9 years old): Sky high sports

Ian (3.5 years old): the park
Ian (6.5 years old): stay home