Crispy Chicken Tenders with Dijon Dipping Sauce

I strive for alliteration in my titles, can you tell?

I have been neglecting my posting. Life is full! But that's no excuse because people need to eat, and they need paleo recipes to do so! Good thing I'm not the only paleo blogger in town or we'd all be starving  :D I do have a long list of posts in mind, and I shall endeavor to get cracking with the actual writing of them down. So, without further ado, here's one that I've made at least 5 times since taking the picture of the first try and vowing that they were delicious enough to warrant a post. Chicken Nuggets! With Dipping Sauce!! Chicken is just so boring on it's own. It needs help. Help your chicken out.

  

Crispy Chicken Tenders with Dijon Dipping Sauce

I make mine coated in almond and coconut flour. I think they would be fine with just one or the other. A word of caution about the mustard. I made it once with a mustard that had some serious nasal clearing properties, and it was a bit much. Possibly horseradish? Anyway, pre-test your mustard is all I have to say.

 

Ingredients

Tenders

• 2 boneless chicken breasts
• ~ two handfuls of almond and/or coconut flour (I use roughly one each)
• seasonings, to taste (I use sea salt, pepper, and a bit of garlic powder)
• 1 egg

Dipping Sauce

• Two parts mustard (I use French's Original Dijon with Chardonay, pictured on the right...it's lovely, and I think it's paleo but for the Chardonay. You purists will just have to make your own mustard)
• One part honey
• 1/2 part olive oil
• ground ginger, to taste
• sea salt, to taste

1. Heat some olive oil in a pan. I use a bit more than normal so that my tenders are nice and crispy!
2. Get your batter ready. Mix flour and seasonings in a bowl, and beat an egg in a second bowl.
3. Slice your chicken in nugget sized pieces.
4. Coat each nugget in egg and then the flour mixture and toss in the pan (hmm..I just wondered for the first time if it wouldn't be sensible to mix the egg into the flour to make a batter, and then toss the chicken in it to coat.....gonna try that next time....)
5. Cook until crispy on both sides. Mine are done by the time I make the dipping sauce and tend to my side dish. I always crack open the thickest nugget just to be sure.
6. For the sauce, just stir everything together, taste it, and add whatever you think it needs to be worthy of your nuggets.
7. Dip and consume!

I would have loved these as a kid...SO much better than McD's.

Stuff I've baked that tastes good

Last weekend, my sister made me THE BEST paleo birthday cake OF ALL TIME. This is not an exaggeration. In light of this confectionary wonder, I've decided to share some recipes for paleo baked goods that I've tried and that have actually turned out (wonder of wonders!) Actually, I suspect that paleo baking is actually easier than regular baking; it seems to be less of a science, and more "stir stuff together and stick it in the oven". The toughest part is finding some of the strange paleo ingredients that I'd never heard of before (I still don't know what coconut palm shortening is).

Anyway, here is the German Chocolate Cake Jess made me (from Elana's Pantry), after we ate some of it. It has coconut pecan frosting. You heard me. coconut. pecan. Frigging amazing.

Jess said she had a lot of trouble with the consistency of the frosting (too drippy) and so the weight of the top layer squished out the filling. The corrective process involved mom holding the top layer up while Jess stuffed the filling back in and pasted the whole thing with a layer of chocolate icing. Ashley says this surgical process can be avoided by first building a "dam" of icing around the edge of your bottom layer before putting the filling and the top layer on. I don't care how it happened, I just know it was delicious. The chocolate cake is as fluffy and moist as it looks. And then I proceeded to eat one of mom's very not paleo made from scratch biscuits. It was totally worth it. I have no regrets.

Coconut Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
I've also made these really yummy Coconut Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins from Multiply Delicious. They're a super tasty snack and actually taste like real muffins. Although when I said this to Ashley, she suggested that we don't really know what real muffins taste like anymore. Valid point, but I've decided that it doesn't matter, so long as in my mind this is how muffins taste now. And that taste is delicious.

Ingredients
6 eggs
1/3 cup coconut milk
1 tablespoons maple syrup (optional)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
3/4 cup coconut flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 3 bananas)
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips, plus additional for sprinkling on tops of muffin

Preheat oven to 400. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.

In a large bowl, combine eggs, coconut milk, maple syrup, sea salt, and vanilla extract. Whisk to combine and set aside.

Sift coconut flour (I never actually sift, because I'm lazy, and I don't have a sifter), baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon into the wet ingredients. Whisk vigorously until no lumps remain. Stir in melted coconut oil until well combined. Fold in banana and chocolate chips until incorporated (exactly how many words are there for "stir"?).

Using a large ice cream scoop (or a spoon??), add one level scoop to each muffin cup. Sprinkle each muffin with a few additional chocolate chips. Bake muffins for 15 to 18 minutes or until muffins are golden and spring back when pressed gently. Once baked, cool for 10 minutes.

Paleo Gingerbread Cookies
I made these at Christmas for our paleo cookie exchange and they were a big hit. Or at least, everyone said so, and I don't think they were lying. Zoey the dog tried to swallow a Christmas tree cookie whole, if that's any evidence. On a side note, when I went to buy molassas, I had no idea what the difference was between the regular kind and "fancy" molasses. Apparently fancy is better. I did not buy the fancy, but it still worked. This recipe is pasted from Modern Paleo Warfare but came from the book Make it Paleo.

Ingredients

1/2 a cup of molasses or maple syrup
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
3 tbsp palm shortening
1tbsp coconut milk
3 cups blanched almond flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon (I added more)
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda

Preheat the oven to 350F.
Heat the molasses in a sauce pan then add the maple syrup, palm shortening and coconut milk to the sauce pan. Stir, then remove from heat (My second batch of cookies burned in less time than the first took to bake, and I think it may be that I heated my molasses too long here?). Mix the dry stuff together then into the wet stuff until it looks like fully blended batter. Stick the dough into the fridge for about 20 mins (I left it a bit longer) then roll it out to about a quarter inch thickness. The dough cut with cookie cutters surprisingly well and didn't fall apart during transfer. Bake on parchment paper or cookie sheet.

Paleo Buttercream Icing
I found this recipe here at "The Label Says Paleo". It went well on the cookies, although I added way more coconut sugar than suggested. It piped well though (with my dollar store icing bag!), but needed to go into the fridge to harden.

Whisk in a bowl:

1/2 c. coconut butter
1/4 c. coconut milk
1/8 c. palm sugar
sprinkle of arrowroot powder

Feel free to play around with these measurements to your liking. Whisk for awhile–at least 5 solid minutes–but even if the icing is lumpy, it’ll taste good. I added red or green food colouring to be festive, and it worked nicely.

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!

Sometimes, you just need a piece of toast

When I started crossfit I didn't jump on the paleo bandwagon straight away. I started gradually reducing my wheat consumption in lunches and dinners, but I was still very much addicted to my morning bagel with peanut butter. I had been eating either toast or a bagel for breakfast every day of my life, it was hard to imagine anything different.

Last Christmas I did something drastic and decided to only have a bagel every other day. Breakfast has always seemed to me like the hardest meal to change; it's much easier to get moving in the morning if you just carry on with your regular routine on autopilot, so it takes some directed effort and perhaps planning to do something different.

Anyway, in order to give up morning toast EVERY DAY for the current 10 week paleo challenge I'm attempting now, I decided it was time to find an alternative. I tried making this bread first, because it was the only paleo bread recipe I could find that actually looked fluffy. Most of them look more like banana bread in density, which just won't do for toast. It one didn't work for me, in short. It didn't rise at all and so was hardly wide enough to spread nut butter on.

My next attempt was much more successful. The recipe is from Elana's Pantry, which has a slew of gluten free goodies that appear to be mostly paleo friendly. I didn't have the tiny pan she recommended (I got mine from Fortinos), so my slices are more the shape of malba toast. Mine also has brown flecks because Fortinos has only flax meal instead of golden flax meal.

I love this bread. It's light and fluffly like proper bread, and even tastes like it's buttered already! It's good with nut butter, or all by itself. It also doesn't take very long to make at all. I mixed the ingredients while my spaghetti squash was roasting, and baked it while I ate the spaghetti squash (with ground beef, simmered for a while in diced tomato with garlic, salt and pepper, tamari, and lots of paprika and chili powder...delicious!). I have also successfully eaten this bread toasted with an egg, tomato, and bacon, and it did not fall apart, although it's a bit incorrectly shaped...unless you have a rectangular egg pan...

EDIT: It looks much better with golden flax meal, as prescribed, and I think it tastes even better too.

Paleo Bread
Ingredients
1 ½ cups blanched almond flour
2 tablespoons coconut flour
¼ cup golden flaxseed meal
¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
5 eggs
¼ cup coconut oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1. Place almond flour, coconut flour, flax, salt and baking soda in a food processor (or a bowl)
2. Pulse ingredients together (or stir with a fork)
3. Pulse in eggs, oil, honey and vinegar
4. Pour batter into a greased 7.5" x 3.5" Magic Line Loaf Pan
5. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes
6. Cool and serve