paleo cooking

Richard and I have started to the Paleo diet this week and are aiming to try and go for 30 days. This diet consists primarily on veggies, meat, nuts and fruit. It's definitely challenging and I have already found my body craving carbs and candy! Luckily red wine is paleo so I can have a glass as a treat in the evenings!

A few things the I have made this week for us were so far delicious. I borrowed a Hawaiian Chicken dish recipe from my friend Kathy (thanks Kathy!) and we baked it last night for dinner. It was delicious! And super easy and not very time consuming, which is always great when you are hungry and want a low maintenance prep time for dinner.

Ingredients:
chicken
papaya mango salsa from Trader Joe's
shredded unsweetened coconut

Preparation: Marinate the chicken in the salsa for a few hours if you can, the longer the more flavorful it will be. Roll the chicken in the shredded coconut then top with remaining salsa from the marinade. Cook for about 20-30 minutes at 350 degrees.

We paired it with a paleo friendly spinach salad consisting of cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, raisens and peacans with a olive oil/balalmic vinegarette dressing. Dinner is served! (Richard definitely made fun of me for taking pictures of our food last night)

This afternoon I made Nut Butter Bars and they are a great substitute when you are craving something sweet, but are very filling from all the nuts. I got the recipe from the Primal Blueprint Cookbook. Richard and I love this book and usually make about 3 meals a week from it. http://www.google.com/products/catalog?client=safari&rls=en&oe=UTF-8&q=primal+blueprint+cookbook&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=17154042472905256269&sa=X&ei=hoaSTcecEo2osAP61sjRBQ&ved=0CDcQ8gIwAg#

Ingredients: 

1 cup slivered almonds

1 cup hazelnuts (we didn't have hazelnuts so I used walnuts, and still tasted good)

1 1/2 cup peacans

2/3 cup flax meal

 2/3 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

1/4 cup unsalted almond butter (or another nut butter)

1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)

1 12/ teaspoon blackstrap molasses

1/4 cup melted coconut oil

Optional additons: 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (which I used, delicious) or dried fruit

Instructions: Place everything but the coconut oil in a food processor. Depending on the size of your food processor you may have to put in half the ingredients and then add the rest. Process until everything is fairly smooth, then slowly drizzle in coconut oil. Stir in choclatre or dried fruit. Scrape batter into an 8x8 pan and press down evenly to fill pan. Chill in fridge for at lease 1 hour, preferably more, until bars harden.

Easy and fast recipe and makes a great treat! Almost tastes like peanut butter brownies but without the flour and cane sugar!