Toasty Paleo beverages for some not so toasty weather

So winter happened this week! I LOVE SNOW!!! Except on my car, I don't like it there. Or in my parking space, which is on the street, because if I go to the trouble of shoveling it out, someone else will certainly steal it before I get home >:| But I do love snow, especially for skiing or snowman building. Did anyone else ever make forts using bricks made of the ice layer that formed on top of fluffy snow? You know, the kind where it's a foot of fluff underneath but super cruncy on top, so when you walk you make giant crators of broken ice, and your foot sinks all the way down so you have to lift your feet super high and it takes forever to get to school? No? Well then. At any rate, I've been waiting for some cold weather to try out some toasty hot paleo beverages.

Paleo hot chocolate is super easy and super scrumptious! In the picture is a carton of coconut milk beverage, but I much preferred it with almond milk (unsweetened). Paired with a bowl of fresh raspberries it was a perfect dessert. I also just recently (as in, this minute) discovered chai tea latte with almond milk. I have a chai spice mix, but the internet is abound with recipes to make your own, or I suspect you could just plop a chai tea bag or two in your heated milk.

Paleo Hot Cocoa

1. Heat almond milk in a saucepan on the stove. I'm not sure if it will boil over all of a sudden like cow milk does, but as I'm not willing to find out, I stirred regularly. The internet says you can heat it in the microwave on low in 30 second intervals, stirring in between. I haven't got a microwave so you'll have to take the internet's word for it.
2a. Whisk in some cocoa until chocolatey enough, and stir in a spoonful of honey until it's de-bittered enough. I got my honey (raw unpasturized) from the Hamilton Market.
OR
2b. Stir in a square or two of dark chocolate until melted.
OR
2c. Try a chai latte recipe or any other hot beverage and tell me how it goes :) I just had a thought: toasted coconut in a teaball to add the flavour to the hot cocoa without making it lumpy. Must try.

3. Here's a recipe for coconut milk whipped cream to put on top. There's also a recipe for homemade paleo marshmallows from the Urban Poser but I haven't mustered up the ambition to try either yet. Let me know how it goes if you do!


PS to anyone from my elementary school, remember when we used to be allowed to slip and slide on the icerink that always formed in the drain ditch, before old-grouchy-man-whose-name-I-don't-remember came along and threw salt on it? What a party pooper.

What the heck do you eat for breakfast?

Breakfast was the hardest meal for me when I started eating Paleo. As I mentioned in my very first post, I've had a bagel with peanut butter (or sometimes cream cheese) every morning of my entire life. Occasionally I'd branch out and have toast.

My new workday routine breakfast consists of 2 eggs (fried or scrambled in coconut oil), and a bowl of "cereal" (I think I got the idea from coach Jen). And some fish oil. If you need more vegetables in your life (who doesn't?), I've also started having a handful of spinach which I saute for a minute after the eggs are done. Sometimes I have salsa with scrambled eggs, and sometimes I add paprika or ground pepper. This whole routine takes no longer to prepare than my old breakfast, and I pack my lunch while my eggs are frying.

Pardon the cat.

On the weekend, I often make paleo pancakes or waffles. Both of these (receipes posted below) are big hits with non-paleo folk as well. I think the pancakes are better than the "regular kind" because I don't feel like I have to douse them in butter and syrup to enjoy them. The waffles are surprisingly spongey and every bit as delicious as the non-paleo kind. Bonus: they've got protein powder and 3 eggs apiece so they have 5 blocks of potein and will actually keep you full until lunch!

Paleo Protein Waffles

From "Giving Up Grains". This makes 2 waffles. I made the whole batch, ate 3/4 of one waffle, and heated up the rest in the toaster oven to supplement my breakfast for the rest of the week!

Ingredients
1/4 cup coconut flour
2 scoops of vanilla protein powder
6 eggs
2 tbs honey
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbs natural organic apple sauce (do not leave this out or they will be very dry!)
4 tbs ghee, melted (I use coconut oil)

Heat up your waffle iron. If you don't have one, it's totally worth buying! Whisk everything together. I melted the coconut oil first, but make sure you wait for it to cool because the first time I did not and it started to cook my eggs when I poured it in! The batter is a bit lumpy and strange in consistency, but I promise this does not affect deliciousness. My iron has an automatic shut off when it's done, but it's about 5 minutes. As topping I heat up some frozen berries in a saucepan with a bit of honey.


Paleo "Cereal"

You can put all sorts of things in this but here's a list of what I often add.

A spoonfull of berries, frozen (and then thawed) in the winter, fresh in the summer
Sliced banana
1/2 scoop of protein powder
A handful of coconut (toasted in the toaster oven!)
Walnuts (also toasted)
chia seeds
flax seeds

Then I mix the whole thing up with either almond milk (unsweetened!) or coconut milk beverage. Both are much cheaper at costco than at any grocery store I've seen.


Paleo Pancakes

I'm not sure where I found this recipe originally, perhaps Mark's Daily Apple blog.

Ingredients (per person)
1 ripe (or frozen) banana
BIG scoop of almond butter
1 egg
Cinnamon to taste
(you can add almond flour to thicken the batter, and I've also added a bit of protein powder).

Thaw the banana, if it's frozen, and smash it up. Whisk everything together. Fry in ghee or coconut oil. I find they take much longer than ordinary pancakes, so don't put them on too high or the outside will burn before the inside is cooked enough. Serve with berries (or syrup, if you like that sort of thing), and some blueberry breakfast sausage (way better than they sound) from Beach Road Meats on Locke St.


Egg Muffins

If you need something quick for hurried mornings, I sometimes make up some egg muffins ahead of time on the weekend. There are a million versions on the interweb (like here), but in short, you wisk up your eggs, add whatever you want in terms of finely chopped veggies (peppers, onions, spinach, etc) and meat (precooked: ham, sausage, etc), and bake in muffin tins on about 350 for 20-30 minutes. They tend to deflate a little like a souffle, but they're tasty (think mini quiche!) and can be kept in the freezer, then heated up in the toaster oven or microwave once you get to work!