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!

For when there's nothing in your cupboard but a can of tuna...

That's what happened to me today. I got home from work to discover that I'd forgotten to take a meat out of the freezer, I had used up all of my eggs for breakfast, and I was feeling too impatient to wait for something to thaw. But there were two cans of tuna in my cupboard! Below is the dinner provided by the internet, along with a couple other google discoveries.

Zingy Tuna Salad

Recipe here from PALEOdISH. It was pretty darn tasty for lacking mayonaise! Someone in the comments suggests adding smooshed avocado for creamy texture, but mine wasn't ripe enough to try. I served it on a couple slices of toasted Paleo bread and it was almost like I was eating a tuna melt. I'm really not certain I can give up cheese for life....


Turnip Fritters

I found this recipe (from Paleo Foodie) when I decided it was time to use up the turnips sitting at the bottom of my veggie drawer, like they always do when I get them in my veggie box, because turnips are gross (acceptable ways to eat turnip include disguising them in a stew where they don't really taste like turnips. NON acceptable ways include mashing them up and putting them next to the bowl of mashed potatoes so that 12 year old Jen takes a heaping scoop of mashed turnip and is then forced to eat it so as not to be wasteful).

Aaaanyway, the ginger and raisins cover up the turnip grossness quite nicely. They have a hashbrown texture (but bonus: vegetable!), and I even heated some up in the toaster oven for breakfast the next day. If you're fancy, you can even grate your turnips with a mondolin, like I did, because my manfriend decided I was hopeless at choping things and bought me a mandolin. I'm not normally one for gatgets, but this one is pretty great.


Paleo Pecan Brittle

This last recipe I found when I had a craving for peanut brittle. It's not at all like peanut brittle, but satisfies the sugary roasted nut desires. They're super fast to make (plus half hour baking time), and I just made a batch to take to a family Christmas dinner this weekend. Bonus: my house now smells like cinnamon toast crunch.

I have also hired Ashley to make me her awesome paleo brownies so that I have a variety of desserts with which to avoid cheating. Speaking of not cheating, I realized last week that I can make stuffing with Elana's paleo bread!!! AMAZING! Well, I hope it will be. I'm going home Friday night so mom can show me how to make her worlds best stuffing. Stay tuned.


That awesome pumpkin spice bread that Jocelyn made for the Halloween potluck

It's awesome. 'Nuff said. I've linked the recipe from Primal Palate so as not to have to search in the CrossFit Altitude archives every time.


Protein balls etc

Speaking of Ashley, this is the original protein ball recipe (and posted below for convenience). The ones at the front of the gym are modified by paleo pastry chef extrodanaire (Ashley B) and, frankly, are much better than the ones I haphazardly mush together for myself. Mmmmm mocha tasty balls.

1/2 cup of nut butter (cashew, almond)
2 tablespoon of raw honey
2 tablespoon of cocoa nibs
2 tablespoon of shredded coconut
3/4 cup of protein powder ( natural, not sweetened)
1 teaspoon organic, alcohol free vanilla
2 tablespoon crushed nuts (raw almonds)

Mix nut butter, protein powder, honey and vanilla until smooth. Then add remainder of ingredients. Rill into 1 inch balls and place in an airtight container in the fridge for storage.

For when you get a little tired of that particular protein snack, which I did after my 5th batch, I tried these goji protein bars. They're quite tasty (less sweet, more nutty and seedy), but they're a bit crumbly. Perhaps an extra egg? I also soaked my goji berries in boiling water for a few minutes to soften them.