We made one of my husband’s picks “Rockin Moroccan chicken” last week. It was a combination of broccoli, carrots, olives, raisins, chicken, spices. It was the most interesting, colorful beautiful blend of flavors. We all tried it and enjoyed it. I honestly never would have thought to mix and combine the ingredients but it really was good.
We also tried one of my daughter’s choices for Shrimp tacos. She loves shrimp and we decided for these first attempts at the recipes we would try them as written. We are all trying to venture out and try new veggies. This one had onion, bell pepper, garlic, shrimp, salsa verde and chili powder. You serve the cooked mixture in lettuce leaves with radish and lime juice. Needless to say I had to really convince our daughter to try her choice, if we left out all the things we wouldn’t normally eat we would have had garlic chili shrimp tacos, which would be rather plain. Once I got her to try it without looking to see what she was biting into at the time she liked it. The whole family enjoyed this blend of flavors and finished off the whole meal since we weren’t sure how it would re-warm for left overs.
Another pick of our daughters was Apple muffins. This was our first paleo baking attempt. I was pretty excited about it since I had soaked and dried a lot of almonds earlier in the week, I was excited to try making my own almond meal. She and I worked to grind up almonds and she sifted them through a sifter until we had enough almond flour to make apple muffins.
http://everydaypaleo.com/2010/07/07/server-problem-solved-and-paleo-apple-muffins/ She had to go to bed about the time these went into the oven, but her daddy and I tried them hot out of the oven and were pretty pleased. She had one for breakfast the next morning and loved them too.
I think I might make them with the apple grated next time. I’m not sure about the apple chunks but the flavor of the muffin is really good. I also thought this would be a good basis for a carrot cake type muffin, banana nut muffin, zucchini bread type muffin. Seems like the possibilities are endless here and I look forward to trying others in the future. We are still making our way through the 18 muffins this mixture made. They are definitely great grab and go, packable snacks. These will probably be our friends come school time.
Another exciting creation for me was the almond that was left over after making almond flour, it was a little course and wasn’t able to be sifted so I took all that was left and put in back in the food processor. I turned it on high and watched as it went around and around. I worried my poor little walmart food processor was going to burn up before the almond meal was made, now I was really worried about it, but figured might as well give it a shot. To my surprise it actually started to look like Almond butter. I had some olive oil so I added a little bit of that and some sea salt to the mixture and blended it more until it was a nice smooth consistency.
I have been in the habit of saving our old jars to re-use and I just happened to have one from a previous almond butter purchase. I was so excited about my creation that I relabeled it to Dawn’s Home made Raw Almond Butter. My husband tried it and likes it. My daughter tried it and loves it. She has decided that I should make it and then she and her daddy can sell it. She is sure we would be rich from my home-made almond butter.
I just feel like a wonder woman when I get to make these things myself, making the almond flour and making the almond butter. I mean what can be better than giving your family whole natural foods that YOU made? I have no doubt about what is in them, no weird ingredients I cannot pronounce. No need to go google search a word to find out if its some form of MSG and going to make me sick. I know without a doubt what I’m putting in my mouth and the mouth of my family. I feel like the best mom ever when I can hand my daughter a snack and know that it is truly healthy for her.
I am so excited by these changes. I know that it takes more time, it takes more planning. I know that there are times I just want to grab some quick and easy no brainer, junk. But when we make these amazing creations, I am just so proud of what our family is doing together to better our lives!
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