Fat Tuesday

In honor of Fat Tuesday we had pancakes for dinner last night.  I don't usually eat pancakes (I have an aversion to soggy bread), but I thought I would give these a try.  Scott found a recipe for Paleo Pancakes and they looked pretty good. 

Ingredients

• 4 eggs, room temperature (not room temperature)
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon coconut nectar (coconut sap) (I used Honey instead)
• 1/2 cup coconut flour (I ended up using a little more than this b/c the mixture was VERY thin)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (forgot to use)
• coconut oil for frying (didn't use)

Instructions

1. Preheat pan or griddle over medium-low heat. Beat eggs in a stand mixer until frothy. Mix in milk, vanilla, and coconut nectar.
2. In a small bowl combine coconut flour, baking soda, sea salt and cinnamon and whisk together.
3. Combine dry mixture with wet in the stand mixer and beat on medium speed for about 30 seconds. Scrape down sides of bowl then mix on medium to medium-high for another minute or two or until the coconut flour is completely mixed into the batter.
4. Grease pan with coconut oil. Pour batter to create pancakes that are about 3 inches in diameter. If the batter seems too thin you may need to add a small amount of coconut flour to achieve the desired consistency.
5. Cook for approximately 3 minutes, flip and cook an additional 2-3 minutes.
6. Serve hot with coconut oil, coconut nectar, agave nectar, honey, syrup or fruit.(We ate them w/ thinned maple syrup.  We poured about 1/2 cup of pure maple syrup and 1/2 of water together...microwaved it for 15 seconds and then mixed it up real good)

These turned out AWESOME!  I have never liked pancakes, but these were SOOOOO good.  I'm pretty sure my tastes buds are changing.  I also ate broccoli for the 1st time last week.

They were very ugly looking but they were delicious!!!

The season of Lent starts today.  I am still trying to decide if I am going to give up anything this year or not.  Maybe I should aim to continue eating healthy with less cheat meals a week.  I also want to try to make a point to read a Lent Reading Plan on my You Version Bible App on my iPhone.

Happy Wednesday!!!

Eating Habits

Growing up, I never really had to watch what I ate.  I loved cokes (Coke, Dr. Pepper, Mt. Dew) and I love chocolate (esp candy bars) even more.  I played sports in high school and I'm guessing I had a high metabolism b/c as much as I ate I was still pretty skinny, especially for my height  (5'11").  I still ate like crap in college and went to the gym or worked out semi-regularly during my 4 years.  I gained a little weight but not much.  I then got married and "learned" to cook, but we still had a lot of bad meals.  I also fell off the work out band wagon.  I still ran or walked occasionally, but it was NOT on a regular basis.  My weight seemed to stay around the same so I never really worried. 

Over the past year or so, I started to notice that my eating habits were beginning to effect me.  I was going to the gym regularly and running and doing a little weight lifting, but I wasn't seeing results.  Back around the start of October, Scott had been going to CrossFit for a couple of months and they did a 9 week challenge.  He decided to participate and so I thought I would attempt to do it with him for support and to hopefully eat better.  So for 9 weeks we ate a Zone Diet (let's face it I cheated sometimes during the week and every weekend).  I could tell that I felt better, but I was still hungry. 

Over Christmas break, we completely fell off the "eating right" bus.  We ate pizza more times than I'd like to admit.  We ate out at least one meal almost every day.  About 3 weeks ago, after one of our CrossFit trainers had a paleo potluck, we decided to give eating Paleo a try.  It has opened my world to foods I didn't even know I liked.  And I must say, Scott and I both feel better eating this way.  On Super Bowl Sunday we pigged out on terrible food and could feel the effects the next day.  

That being said, I still love to bake.  I REALLY like to bake cookies and brownies.  We recently bought a cookbook called Make it Paleo and in the words of one of my CrossFit trainers...."It's like food porn."  The pictures make ALL the food look delicious.  Since I am a huge sweet fan and always feel the need to have dessert, we found a recipe for Coconut Cake that we thought was a must try.  Let me tell you it is DELICIOUS!!  We have also tried grilled Turkey legs and Turkey Meatloaf.  So far, everything I have eaten out of this cookbook is AMAZING! 

If you like salad, you should try this amazing Warm Spinach and Sweet Potato Salad.  I could eat the entire thing in one sitting.

We have also found a Paleo Pizza recipe that is to die for.  It has become a Thursday night ritual at our house to have this pizza and the warm spinach salad.

I will say, I still crave a coke every once in a while, but I am trying to limit myself to once a week.  I still have my Sunday morning coffee as well (if you can call it coffee....its more like a splash of coffee, a lot of milk, and a lot of flavored syrup).  I still crave chocolate or something sweet occasionally, but most days this can be satisfied with a few cocoa roasted almonds or a couple of dates.

I have always been a picky eater and never in a million years imagined I would be able to change my tastes or eating habits, but the girl who grew up preferring cereal to any type of real breakfast food and who HATED eggs now eats 2 eggs for breakfast every morning.......

Happy Eating and Happy Thursday!  The weekend is almost here.