Paleo Pumpkin Pecan Porridge

With honey, vanilla, cinnamon and raisins. 

Originally, this was going to be a recipe from Practical Paleo, but then I realized that I was missing some very key ingredients like tahini and coconut, and I had an extra ingredient: pecans. 

I used that recipe as the inspiration for this one and it was lovely. 

• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 tsp vanilla
• Cinnamon to taste
• 1/4 cup pecans, pulverized
• 1/4 cup water 
• 1/4 cup raisins 
• Honey to taste

Are you ready for the hard part? Put it all in a pot, mix it up, then heat to your desired temperature. Easy as that!

Here, I garnished it with a whole pecan, a cluster of raisins, and a swirl of honey. 

Independence, not indulgence day ;)

I got my big floppy hat and I’m ready for a day in the sun! We’re heading to Grandma’s house for a barbeque where I will have to battle the urge to eat massive quantities of brownies, cake, cookies, and creamy salads. After that, were off to a cruise along the river, and fireworks around 10.

I had a good breakfast, and even a small protein based snack so that I’m not ravenous when we get to lunch.

I know that complete denial of all sweets will backfire on me, so I’m going for the “small tastes” strategy. ^_^

Happy independence day!

Pumpkin Pancakes

My in-laws are in town for Easter. They drive all the way down from Winnipeg, and I like to think it’s just for my pumpkin pancakes.

I’m allowing myself to call them “mine” because I make a couple tweaks to the original recipe. It’s actually a recipe from Diane Sanfilippo, from the book entitled Practical Paleo.

Since everyone was still sleeping, I had the entire first floor to myself. Step one: turn on some tunes.

Now that you’re bopping around to some good tunes, you should realize that you’re starving.  Eat a can of pears while getting your ingredients together!

As you’re getting your ingredients together, question the freshness of your eggs since you can’t remember when you bought them.  The Float Test works really well!  If you’re questioning your eggs, give it a try.

Ruh roh… One of them is bad. Two are alright, and one is fresh.  Toss the baddie and swap in another fresh egg!

All set? You should have 4 eggs, 1/2 cup pumpkin puree, 2* TBLS vanilla extract, 2 TBLS maple syrup, 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp baking soda, and 2 TBLS coconut floor*.

*quantities or ingredients vary from original recipe.

All set?? K, let’s mix the wet ingredients first.

Whip that up–I use an electric beater, but a whisk would work too.  Next, get together the dry ingredients. Make sure to get your cook book all messy… This is required. 😛

K, mix the dry ingredients together so that we can sift them into the wet ingredients next.

Mix these together, then set it aside for a moment. Now is going to be a great time to clean up your dishes and get the skillet or griddle pre-heated.

That’s one of the things that I learned from my grandma.  If you clean as you go, the end clean up won’t be so bad.

Now, if you’re using a nonstick skillet, you shouldn’t need the coconut oil that’s called for in the original recipe. I normally prefer to leave it out, but I used a little this time just to stick a little closer to the original recipe.

These cook up a little differently than normal pancakes. Depending on how hot your griddle is, these might cook up in a couple minutes, but it could take longer.  Our griddle is starting to lose heat in some areas, so I had a couple false starts.  You can watch for the bubbles to burst, but it could be a little while before you see that.

Flip! These are a bit wet, even with the added coconut flour, so I like to press them after they’re flipped to get them to cook through. I also flip them again to make sure both sides of the batter that ooozes out (yummy!) is cooked.

Slice up some fruit to have with your meal, and you’re all set. These pancakes are so flavorful that you won’t need butter or syrup to go with them.  By all means, feel free to dress them up!

Enjoy!

Monday tacos

The way I see it, if Mother Nature can see fit to drop a bunch of snow on our heads, wreck the Monday commute, and interfere with what was becoming a very nice spring… Then I can make tacos on a Monday morning.

We had a great weekend as we started to choose baby gear and consider lifestyle options:

– Yes, we should have a pro redo the newel post.
– No we don’t need a pro to install the banister.
– Yes we should get the structural issues in the basement repaired.
– No we shouldn’t take out a new loan to pay for the repairs.
– Yes, technically the car seat fits in the Audi, but no, it’s not practical to keep the car.

I swear we need a weekend to recover from our weekend.

The next best thing I could do was to inject a little flavor into our Monday.  I browned ground beef, sauteed some yellow onion, added some orange peppers for color, seasoned with the home made taco seasoning blend (courtesy of Practical Paleo).  I served it all up on soft tortillas, topped with fresh avocado and salsa.

I guess if I have to say one good thing about the snow, it’s that it makes great filtered lighting for taking pictures of food with my phone 😉

Happy Monday, everyone!

Breakfast: liquid and non chewy

I’ve already had two doctor appointments this morning… One for a giant filling (thanks, candy addiction…) and another for a chiropractic adjustment.  Understandably, there’s no actual breakfast today. And no coffee either 😦 with my mouth being numbed up, I don’t want to risk burns.

Then I learned…

1. That even though it looks nice, 36°F isn’t quite balmy enough to finish breakfast outside

2. That the line of sight across from your lovely seating area should be as pretty as your seating area.

3. That raisins are better in cereal than yogurt covered raisins.

4. That magazines aimed at “women of style and substance” aren’t necessarily for twenty-somethings.

Oh well, I’m going to read it anyway, then perhaps gift it to other fabulous, stylish, women of substance that I know. (aka, my mom.)

Then I learned…

1. That even though it looks nice, 36°F isn’t quite balmy enough to finish breakfast outside

2. That the life of sight across from your lovely seating area should be as pretty as your seating area.

3. That raisins are better in cereal than yogurt covered raisins.

4. That magazines aimed at women of style and substance aren’t necessarily for twenty-somethings.

Oh well, I’m going to read it anyway, then perhaps gift it to other fabulous, stylish, women of substance that I know. (aka, my mom.)

And, I’m back…

Is it just me, or is WordPress being weird? I usually include photos in my posts and this one *STARTED* fine, but then I went back to edit the draft of this post and the photo exploded.  The preview looks fine, but, I dunno…I’m typing right now and all I can see is the orange and it’s super zoomed in and… let’s just say it doesn’t look like an orange at the moment @_@;

Ahem.

I’ve been away a lot lately because, well, life happens–I needed to be there for family and so I was.  This involved going back to Canada for a funeral service just a week and a half after we had come home from Canada, but it was well worth the journey, just to gain some closure, healing, and time with family.

 

I’m at a point, where I want to get back to what I originally intended with this blog–cooking, working out, getting healthy.

Today, I’m spring cleaning around the apartment and I’ll be cooking up a few things for this week’s dinners.  I’ve got my grocery list planned out and the meal plans, too.  Now it’s just a matter of executing on the plan:

Monday: Chorizo Chicken Jambalaya

Tuesday: Taco Chicken Bowls

Wednesday: Wild Rice Soup – made from a mix, I’ll be adding fresh mushrooms and serving with a salad and a crusty bread.

Thursday: Spaghetti – nothing fancy, just browned beef, pasta, and sauce

Friday: Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup

Saturday: Skillet Gnocchi w/ Chard and White Beans – we’ve tried this one before, and it was terrible.  Mostly, Jeff says, because “melted spatula” wasn’t supposed to be part of the recipe.

Breakfast: first day of tracking

In addition to my cup of coffee, I picked up two ham and egg breakfast sandwiches. One isn’t enough and two is too much, so I compromised by throwing out the bun on each one.  That should help 🙂

I re joined MyFitnessPal, so if you’re on there, add me 🙂 my user name over there is Aminarra.

Breakfast: Quaker Oats Medley’s with Strawberries

This is actually a pretty hearty cereal.  It generally keeps me sated until lunch time.

I know I haven’t posted fitness in a bit… I didn’t take pictures, but I wanted to share one of my fitness exploits from the weekend: minute to win it One minute intervals.  I set a 1-minute timer (really 1:05 so that I could get back to position) and then just did whatever I wanted for a full minute.  Then I reset the time and did another minute.  And another.  Soon I had a 20 minute work out in, where otherwise I wasn’t doing any.  I did high knees, bosu cross-overs, push ups, crunches, squats, punches–etc.  It was a great way to blast just a handful of calories and wake up before going back to work.

Tonight, I have a fitness assessment and personal training session at the gym.  Once my loan is paid off, I’m investing in personal training.