Golden Milk

The one last thing to top of every meal is a nice warm extremely healthy drink. for my last food item I decided to make a drink that encompassed all of that! Introducing golden milk!! First I put a can of coconut milk, a 3 inch stick of cinnamon, turmeric powder, ground black pepper, and honey in a small saucepan. I had to be really careful with the turmeric powder because it will stain everything it touches! Next I added 2 cups of water to the saucepan. I let the contents of the pot boil then simmer for 10 minutes. it tried to boil over a few times but everything turned out fine.

After 10 minutes with some help I poured the milk through a strainer to remove extra pepper and the cinnamon stick.

I added a little more honey to add a little more sweetness. I filled a mug and but some ground cinnamon on the top. My little bros liked it and my dad liked it because turmeric helps with inflammation in the body.

This drink is supper healthy but is a bit more savory then sweet. What should I add next time that would make it sweeter but still keep it healthy?

Pina Colada Tapioca Pudding

I have successfully made something for every time of the day but what do you eat afterwards. Introducing dessert!!! I found this delightful pudding that just looked so scrumptious that I had to try it. First, I had to rinse the tapioca for around 20 seconds in a strainer.

I set that tapioca aside and began to boil the coconut water in a small saucepan.

I then poured the tapioca in the coconut water and cooked that for around 11 minutes. I had to make sure that the pearls did not stick to the pan. I cooked them until the liquid thickened and the pearls were almost translucent.Next I cut half of the a vanilla bean lengthwise and scraped out all the seeds. I added half of the seeds and the scraped out pod. I also added the coconut milk, honey, and just a pinch of salt.

  I stirred it until all the seed clumps were gone and stirred for 5 to 7 minutes. I then took the pot of the heat and let it cool to room temperature. Then I put it into a container and put it in the fridge to cool overnight.

While that was cooling I started on the pineapple garnish to put on top. I put a can of pineapple into a small sauce pan with all of its natural juices.

Then I put the other half of the vanilla bean pod and the extra seeds in with the pineapple.

I turned on the heat and waited for it to boil. Once it started to bubble I let it simmer for 15 minutes until it had boiled down to half.

Then I removed the vanilla bean pod. I added a little bit of honey and added a pinch of salt. I took the pot of the heat and used a hand blender to puree it until it was like apple sauce.

I then put the pineapple mixture in a container and put it in the freezer overnight.

The next day I put the pudding into some bowls and scarped some puree on top.

My little siblings loved it and it was absolutely delicious.

I cant wait to do this again. What fruit should I use next time instead of pineapple for a new twist?

Simple Egg Drop Soup

This was a recipe I was so excited to make! Simple egg drop soup is a food that as the tittle suggests is...simple. I already had all of the ingredients which made it even simpler. So first I brought some homemade chicken broth to a boil and put some fish sauce in it to give it a little more flavor.

While I waited for that to boil I cracked an egg into a bowl and put some fish sauce in their as well. I LOVE SLATY THINGS!

I mixed that together and by that time the chicken broth was boiling and I slowly poured the egg mixture into the pot. VERY SLOWLY! The second the egg hit the broth it cooked. I made sure that it was soft a fluffy not hard or over cooked.

I poured it into bowls and put some scallions on the top.

My sister was not a huge fan but the rest of my siblings loved it. I would recommend it for a quick and easy dinner.

What meal do you think this should be cooked for and what would you put on top?

Shrimp Scarmbled Eggs

If you want a delicious meal that combines the luxury of seafood with the simplicity of breakfast? Well I made a recipe that did just that. I combined delicious shrimp with simplistic eggs and boom a wonderful meal.  The meal was easy to make and absolutely delicious.

After gathering all of the ingredients, I mixed the eggs and all of the spices together. I even got to use a special white pepper as seen in picture 4.

Then I threw in the scallions. The scallions add a little green to the dish and also make the dish a wee bit healthier.

To make this meal a little less fatty I melted ghee into a hot pan. Ghee is made by making butter but skimming all the excess liquid fat off of the top. After the Ghee was shimmering, I put the shrimp which I had just husked, into the ghee and cooked the shrimp.

After the shrimp were all cooked I just poured in the egg mixture.  I had to watch out for the ghee cause it was poppin all over the place. The eggs had to be "soft scrambled" and not hard or dense. 

When it was done I put the eggs on a few plates and topped them with a couple for scallions.

My siblings were big fans!!

Overall this meal was terrific and very easy to make. I can not wait to make it again. What kind of seafood would you mix in with your favorite meal?

Chia Muesli Parfait

Do you often wake up in the morning a miss breakfast because you have to get to school on time? Well fear to more because you can make a healthy,tasty, and quick breakfast ahead of time. Chia Muesli Parfaits are very easy to make and are dairy,wheat, and gluten free.

To make this recipe you will need Chia seeds, orange juice, almonds, almond milk ,cinnamon,and a fruit of you choice.
I choose pineapple. Very first thing i learned was READ THE DIRECTIONS  COMPLETELY!! I mixed some of the ingredients before i was supposed to. OOOPS. I had to put the chia seeds in the fridge over night but it was so worth it.

The next day I put the chia seed into cups and put pineapple in between the layers.

Over all this was a tasty, super simple and super healthy. I had enough breakfast for the rest of the week. I would have other pictures but my laptop is having issues with putting the rest of them. What fruit would you add to this delectable treat?

Sear!!

Sweet and Crunchy Green Beans

Vegetables were the worst nightmare of many of us when we were younger. Now a lot of us have learned to like/love certain ones. One vegetable I never learned to like, until I made this new dish, was green beans. My dish today is 'Sweet and Crunchy Green Beans'. What I love about this dish, and adds for a lot more flavor, is bacon.

               This specific recipe by Juli Bauer, author of Paleo Cookbook, calls for thick cut bacon (Bauer 198), but seeing as I did not have thick cut, I used regular cut and it turned out delicious. This was overall a very fun dish to cook because I loved sautéing the onions and making the bacon in order to mix it with the green beans. The key ingredient in this recipe was to “leave 3 tablespoons of bacon fat in the pan” (Bauer 198) because it allowed for that bacon flavor to soak into the green beans. It may sound like too much bacon, but the fat combined with the onion, does not make give the green beans an overpowering bacon flavor.

               Once the green bean mixture of green beans, onions, and bacon was completely done and cooked, the recipe calls for Almond slices (Bauer 198) to be sprinkled on top. As you can see in the picture to the left, I did not do that, but if you ever make this dish you certainly can. I would definitely recommend this dish to anybody who is looking for a slightly sweet and savory vegetable dish. I made this to be on the side of a steak dish, but it would be good for most any meal.

What are your favorite vegetables? What types of dishes do you pair them with?

Bauer, Juli, Bill Staley, and Hayley Mason. Juli Bauer's Paleo Cookbook: Over 100 Gluten-free Recipes to Help You Shine from within. Las Vegas: Victory Belt, 2015. Print.

Garlic and Steak

Garlic. Garlic is my absolute favorite spice/herb/vegetable. I try to use it in most of my foods if it is appropriate to include it. I love the smell of it, the look of it, the smell of it, pretty much every aspect of it. So for my dish today, I really wanted to do a more everyday Paleo food, that obviously included Garlic. I made 'Steak Frites with Herb Garlic Roasted Butter'.

               The nice thing about this dish is that it is naturally Paleo, so you don’t have to go specialty shopping for different flours or any other non-common ingredients. Most of us have probably previously eaten some form of steak so it’s not a super weird or unusual food.

               Steak is steak, but the key aspect to make this a delicious dish, is the Herb Garlic Roasted Butter. To successfully make this garlic butter, I needed to roast some garlic. Juli Bauer, author of Paleo Cookbook, gave a tip on how to roast the garlic butter: she said, “Cut ¼ inch off the end of the bulb to expose the cloves inside” (114). I, while making this recipe, accidentally overlooked that step, and did not do it. However after I roasted the garlic for 30 minutes in a 400 degree oven (Bauer 114), it came out just fine and perfectly roasted. Some of you might think, ‘Why not use powered garlic?’, well that’s because you get a more authentic and rich garlic flavor if you roast it.

               After my steak was coated with a simple dry rub made of several spices, it went on the grill. Since I’m far from able to cook a steak well, I had a bit of help from my step-dad, my house’s grill master. The picture to the right shows the final product of the steak, along with a dollop of the garlic butter on top.

What is your favorite spice to either eat or cook with? Do you like steak? Did you know you were eating something naturally Paleo?

Bauer, Juli, Bill Staley, and Hayley Mason. Juli Bauer's Paleo Cookbook: Over 100 Gluten-free Recipes to Help You Shine from within. Las Vegas: Victory Belt, 2015. Print.

"Peanut Butter" and Jelly Cups

               I love Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. I get it from my father, we both Loveeeeee them. When I was looking through Juli Bauer’s “Paleo Cookbook” I happen to run across a “Peanut Butter” and Jelly Chocolate Cups. This excited me. I knew I had to make it. The jelly part of it seem odd to me but I was willing to test it.

The Paleo aspect of this dish, is that it doesn’t use real peanut butter. Instead, Juli Bauer has us combine sunflower seed butter and honey (Bauer 218) in order to make our own peanutless peanut butter. Since I did not have Sunflower Seed Butter on hand when I was making this, I used Almond Butter instead.

It was pretty easy making these, and fun too. I think the hardest part of this recipe was to attempt to get it decent looking. I know it should be all about the flavor, but sometimes things gotta look pretty too. But I totally failed in that category. The third recipe of the recipe says “Place less than 1 tablespoon of melted chocolate in each muffin line, spreading the chocolate over the bottom of the line and up the sides” (Bauer 218). When I was doing this step, instead of making a nice chocolate outside, it looked like a 5-year-old had come in and tried to do this. Chocolate on the outsides of the muffin liners, chocolate dripping on the counter, and uneven sides. Let’s just say spreading chocolate isn’t my forte.

All in all, everything turned out good. It may not have looked nice, but it sure did taste good. I have to say that “peanut butter” and jelly tastes pretty dang good with chocolate. But next time, I think I’m going to stick with a dish that doesn’t require spreading chocolate. 

                                                 [Picture of Final Product]

Would you consider eating this dish? What do you think about Peanutless Peanut Butter?

Bauer, Juli, Bill Staley, and Hayley Mason. Juli Bauer's Paleo Cookbook: Over 100 Gluten-free Recipes to Help You Shine from within. Las Vegas: Victory Belt, 2015. Print.