21dsd Granola

I started the 21 day sugar detox on Monday because I'm tired of sugar controlling my life!! I've also been trying to add more fat to my diet. When served with cream, this is the perfect recipe to address both of those goals.

Ingredients:

1 cup almonds

1/2 cup pepitas

1/3 cup coconut flakes

1/4 cup coconut oil (melted)

1/2 tbs pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 275. Lightly chop the almonds in a food processor or nut chopper. Combine the almonds, pepitas and coconut flakes in a bowl. Pour the melted coconut oil over the mix and sprinkle on the spices. Stir until well combined. Spread the mix out onto a cookie sheet. You can use parchment paper for less clean up. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and stir. Return to oven for 10-20 minutes until it's a golden brown. Let sit to cool before placing it into a container. It will dry as it cools. This goes great with heavy cream or coconut milk. It's good alone as well!

EZ Eats: Sweet Potato Hash

My favorite way to give E a good helping of carbs is with a sweet potato or squash of some kind. Usually I'm lazy and throw it in the oven to bake. I decided to be less boring and make my own hash recipe to spice things up. This is an easy recipe that doesn't take a lot of standing in the kitchen cooking time.

Ingredients:

1 large sweet potato (baked in the oven for 45 min or until soft)

1lb stew meat (grassfed beef is best, you could use another inexpensive cut like bottom round)

1tbs dried rosemary

Salt to taste

2 tbs minced garlic (I love garlic so feel free to tone it back)

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

2 cups fresh spinach

I suggest precooking the sweet potato before you start this recipe. This will save you loads of time. 

If you're last minute like me....while the sweet potato is baking cook the beef in a skillet on the stove. Start with 1tbs of butter and the garlic. Once the garlic is golden add the beef and season with cayenne pepper. Stew meat is precut into chunks, so if using a different cut of meat you will need to cut it into 1 inch cubes. Cook the meat on medium to cook it slowly. Cheaper cuts of meat cook better on low heat for longer cooking times. Add the spinach to the pan once the beef is cooked through. When the potato is finished cooking remove and let it cool. You can remove the peel once is it cooled or leave it on. There are conflicting studies on the health benefits of potato peels. One side says that it's rich in minerals from our soul (our soil is deplete of those minerals lately) the other side of the fence says that the peel houses antinutrients and isn't beneficial so the choice is yours! Coming back from that tangent...cut the potato in 1 inch cubes. Add the potato to the pan and season with the rosemary. Let cook about 10 more minutes, remove from heat, and serve!

Blueberry Paleo Pancakes

These are inspired by Sarah Fragoso from Everyday Paleo. Her recipe is awesome, so try it too!

Ingredients

3/4 cup raw almonds ground in the food processor to a fine meal (I'm going to experiment with soaked almonds for my next recipe)

2-3 eggs (I use 3 but I think you could get by with 2)

1/2 tsp baking soda

Pinch of salt

1/2 tbs pumpkin pie spice 

1 cup frozen blueberries defrosted and rinsed (you can put these in a strainer and run them under water to thaw and rinse.)

2 bananas 

After you process the almonds to a fine meal add the baking soda and other dry ingredients. In a separate bowl mix the bananas and eggs. Add in the dry ingredients and beat until smooth. Finally add the blueberries and stir gently. Grease a skillet with bacon fat (coconut oil, butter or ghee all work great but I love the bacony taste the bacon grease adds). Scoop 1/4 cup of the batter onto the hot skillet. Cook 3-4 minutes on each side. Serve plain or with maple syrup! We enjoy these after a tough crossfit workout or as a Sunday treat!

EZ Eats: Fish Pockets

My family loves to chop up veggies and toss them in a foil pouch to bake in the oven especially the vegetarian side of my family. I decided to toss fish filets into the mix and boy were they yummy! This is a super easy recipe, so don't hesitate to try it.

Ingredients:
4 fish filets
1 small sweet potato
1 small head of broccoli
1 bunch of asparagus
8 small mushrooms
1/2 a lemon
4 cloves of garlic
rosemary
salt
butter
foil

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F. Tear off 4 pieces of foil about 8-10 inches long (I make them as wide as they are tall). Chop you veggies and distribute evenly among the foil pouches, place 1 whole clove of garlic in each pouch and 1 fish filet. Cut the lemon into fourths and squeeze 1/4 into each pouch. Add 1 pat of butter to each pouch and sprinkle with rosemary and salt. Fold the pouches up so that they completely cover the veggies and fish. Bake for 45 minutes until potatoes are done. 1 pouch is one serving. If you are watching your carb intake use the sweet potatoes sparingly.

October is my Favorite

I've decided to make October my fitness challenge month. I'm trying to do my version of a Whole30 combined with a 21 Day Sugar Detox.  I tend to rebel when I have too strict of guidelines with my food, so I'm using their rules and tweaking them slightly. October is also a big month for us because it's 5 days from my 1 year anniversary, and I cannot believe it has been a year!! I of course asked for cookbooks (its paper right) and workout gear as my gift. Until my cookbooks arrive, I've been trying out some online recipes.

Here's what I made this weekend:

I tried Balanced Bites Apple Streusel Egg Muffins but I didn't have many eggs so I used 6 eggs instead of her 9. I also spread mine out among 18 muffins so they'd last a little longer. These are sweetened by the apples, no honey or anything added!

I also tried her Carrot Pumpkin Spice muffins and they turned out amazing!! There is no sweetener of any kind in these other than the banana and carrots. She says to shred the carrots, but next time I'd make sure to pulse them in the food processor to make them finer.

and finally my own recipe for gummy snacks

Ingredients:

1 cup unsweetened fruit juice

2 tbs gelatin (I use the great lakes grass-fed version, the orange bottle is the solidifying kind. I wouldn't recommend any other brand if you're looking to improve your health.)

Combine ingredients in a saucepan on the stove and heat until well combined. Pour into a jello mold or a Pyrex dish and chill in the fridge. When solid, remove and cute into squares. Store in the fridge. Sometimes I dilute mine with 1/4 cup of aloe juice to make it less sweet and lower in sugar. E complained that it wasn't sweet enough, so the choice is up to you! I used a super fruit juice called MonaVie, but any unsweetened juice would do! I also like pomegranate juice. These make a great post workout snack. 

Paleo Fudge

It's officially been over a month since I posted last! Where has the time gone?! So much has happened in this month. E said goodbye to his truck and is searching for a new car, he also signed up for Ironman Texas in May. I will be spending the next 7-8 months trying to feed his amped up metabolism.

We went down to Baton Rouge for alumni weekend and a gluten fest...I'm still paying for that one. 

I made a trip to Houston for the BFFs bachelorette party and wedding shower and this weekend we're off to her wedding!

We also officially joined the Crossfit gym in town and have been working our tails off. 

I promise to be better in all ways this month. I'm committing to a Whole30 and a 21day sugar detox to try to get my sugar cravings under control while participating in a local fitness challenge.

Anyway no one reads this for my life updates so here's a sweet treat recipe for paleo fudge. Fudge is one of E's favorite sweets and he gave this a thumbs up. 

Ingredients:

1/2 cup raw cashews

1 tbs cacao powder

2-3 tbs coconut oil

1tbs honey or maple syrup (you can substitute a few drops of liquid stevia for a low carb/sugar free version)

Blend all the ingredients in a food processor and press into a dish lined with parchment paper. Chill for about an hour. Store in an airtight container in the fridge. 

Note my Ninja in the picture...we are extremely disappointed by his abilities and will be attempting to return him this weekend. 

My legs hurt.....

This weekend we tried out a new crossfit gym box whatever it's called in town. If I haven't mentioned, I live in a tiny metropolis of 40,000 people with the closest "city" being 2 hrs away. So a crossfit gym is a big deal. We're behind the times. Anyways we did a killer workout that destroyed my quads. Still can't walk today. Being the crazy person I am I decided to do this workout to try to actively recover. Stupid idea. Here's the workout I did:

You rotate through doing 21 of each exercise then 15 then 9. I didn't use weight because I was so sore, but feel free to add it. For abs I did full sit ups and v-ups on the last round. Enjoy! 

EZ Eats: Pesto Pasta

I've been dying to try making pesto for spaghetti squash or zoodles for quite some time. I finally got around to buying some (not so) fresh basil from Walmart. It was a sad excuse for basil, but luckily a later trip to the farmers market landed me with free fresh cut basil! I also landed a free giant sized zucchini. How awesome is that?...

I'm not going to pretend like I measured these ingredients for the pesto, but here are the rough estimates:

1-2 cups fresh spinach

1/4 cup(not packed) of basil

3-6 tbs olive oil (start with 3 and add more as you go to get the desired consistency, more oil is better when making it for pasta sauce)

1tbs garlic...did I mention I love garlic

1/2-1 tbs of salt, be generous for flavor but stingy for health

1/2 cup raw walnuts

Process all ingredients in a food processor, blender or nut chopper until smooth! Chill in the fridge to set and serve of the pasta of your choice. This also goes great with chicken! It makes about 2 cups of pesto. 

We used spaghetti squash as our pasta and I stir-fried some ground beef with mushrooms, butter and black olives. 

Sweet Treat Saturday: Paleo Pecan Pie Bars

For some reason figs remind me of the consistency of pecan pie. We had a plethora of figs in the freezer, so I came up with the recipe for pecan pie bars!

Printable Recipe

Filling:
1 egg
2 c figs
2 tbs coconut flour
2 tbs butter
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbs maple syrup
1/4 c roasted pecan halves

Preheat oven to 350F.
Combine ingredients except pecans in a sauce pan and stir until smooth. Remove from heat and stir in the pecans, save 10 or so to press into the top of the bars.

Crust:
1/3 c coconut oil
15 dates
1/2 c almonds

Process the dates in a blender. Remove and set aside. Process the almonds until finely chopped then add in the coconut oil and dates. Process until it starts to clump together. Remove and spread in the bottom of a parchment lined 9x9 baking dish.

Add the filling on top of the crust, press in extra pecans, and bake for 40 min. Remove from oven and let cool. Slice into bars. Store in an airtight container in the fridge. This can be served warm or cold and goes great with ice cream!

Back to School

Let the countdown begin! Only 1 week left of my summer...sad face...I spent a solid week in my classroom getting it put back together, so I thought I'd share some of my ideas, or Pinterest's ideas rather.

The desks are ready to go! With a name tag, book mark, pencil, red pen and a snack for the first day. The snack is goldfish (I feel extremely guilty feeding these to students, I guess I'll need to switch to an apple next year)...the tag says "You are O "fish" ally in 3rd grade!"

My students are seated in tables of 8. I attended a Kagan Learning program at the beginning of the summer and loved it! That's where the twister template comes into play.

This is a new addition to the room this year! I saw it on Pinterest, and decided I needed a little "white board" to write notes on to help me remind students before they walk out the door!

My sis over at Rosita Designs made this chart for me. It is perfect for surveys or quizzes.

This Octopus is by far the best part of my classroom. A good friend free-handed him! Who does that??  I use the Octopus to show which traits cause someone to be the helper of the week. I started last year with various different helpers and decided that 1 helper was much easier to keep track of!!

Telling time is huge in 3rd grade, so I have these clocks posted to help my students learn time! It also helps limit the number of "what time is...." questions I get asked throughout the day. That's not true, I still get asked.