The amazing athletes at Crossfit Thousand Oaks are doing a paleo challenge right now.  My husband found a brownie recipe from them.  I thought I would share the love (and chocolatey goodness) with my paleo readers!  I have cleaned up the directions to make them easier to follow.

Some notes…

I recommend medium to coarse grain sea salt.  Why?  Because these brownies are uber rich, and an occasional bite of salt is a really amazing contrast to the rich gooey sweetness.  (If you have ever eaten a salted caramel, you know exactly what I mean.)  I also recommend using coconut oil to grease the pan.  Why?  Because it’s delicious with the chocolate.  However, an unflavored oil or nut oil would work fine for greasing as well.

Enjoy!

Paleo Brownies

• 16 oz of walnuts
• 1 egg
• 1 cup honey
• 1/2 cup baking cocoa
• 1 tbs pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp coarse sea salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 oz unsweetened dark chocolate chopped

1 – 2 tbs coconut oil

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325.  Grease a 8 x 8 baking dish with coconut oil.
2. Pulse walnuts in food processor until smooth and creamy.
3. In a large bowl, beat an egg.  Add in the nut butter and vanilla and honey and stir to combine.
4. Add in cocoa powder, salt and baking soda.  Stir in chopped chocolate.
5. Pour batter into greased baking dish.
6. Bake at 325 for 30-35 minutes.  It will puff up in oven and settle when it cools.  To check doneness, insert a toothpick or knife in the center.  It should come out clean.
7. Cool for 15 minutes and then cut and eat.

Eating healthy: Don’t get carried away

Nothing’s wrong with eating healthy, right? Well, there are limits to everything. In recent years doctors have identified an eating disorder called orthorexia nervosa, referring to the compulsive nature of some health food junkies on a quest to improve their health or cure themselves of some perceived disease.  Some subscribe to extreme diets, such as the raw food diet, and end up with vitamin deficiencies. Others spend exorbitant prices for exotic or organic foods. A sign of an eating disorder is when one develops a maniacal obsession for healthy food to a point at which eating behavior dominates one’s life and falling off the diet results in guilt and depression. Not all doctors are convinced that orthorexia nervosa constitutes a true eating disorder along the lines of anorexia and bulimia. But the rate does appear to be on the rise in this age of heightened awareness of nutrition.

With holidays around the corner, I decided to update this non-paleo treat from my childhood to a sometimes paleo treat.  It contains honey, so this is definitely not an every day snacking thing, but it can be nice for a special occasion.

Ingredients:

1 lb or roughly 4 cups of pecan halves

1 egg white

1 tbs water

2/3 cup honey

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 250.

2.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

3.  In a large bowl, put in egg white and water.  Using a fork or whisk, beat together until it is frothy.

4.  Dump in pecans and stir until they are completely coated.

5.  In a measuring cup, combine honey, salt, and cinnamon and carefully stir to combine.

6.  Pour honey mixture over nuts and stir to combine completely.

7.  Dump contents of bowl onto cookie sheet and using a rubber spatula, press into a single layer.

8.  Bake for about an hour to an hour and a half, stirring every 15 minutes.

9.  Pull nuts out of oven, and put them onto a glass baking dish to cool (if they cool on the parchment, they will stick).

10.  Once cool, break up and store in zip top bags at room temperature.

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts, cubed

5 large green olives, diced

4 sundried tomatoes, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tbs capers

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

3 tbs olive oil

Directions:

1.  Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat and brown chicken pieces.

2.  Add in spices and veggies and cook for another 10 – 15 minutes.

As I prepare for my long flight to the mainland, I am wondering what kind of foods to bring on the plane.  I will probably bring some nuts and fruit leather.  Maybe I could look into making some homemade jerky.

What do you bring on a trip in order to stay paleo?

Sorry I haven’t updated this week.  I’ve been prepping for a trip to the mainland!  I should be able to update a couple of times before I leave next week, and then hopefully, will be back on schedule.  Thank you for your support!

Food for Thought from Nick.

The realm of human knowledge will probably always be incomplete, but we learn new things about the world every day.  Concerning the degeneration of health, the mantras of “it just happens” or “it’s genetic” seem to rule our consciousness.  Never, it seems, is there a bona fide reason for grandma’s Alzheimer’s, your arthritis, or my crappy vision.  It is that last one that bothers me the most, because doctors have never been able to tell me why I’m myopic (nearsighted).  They are quick to be able to fix it, though, with glasses, contacts, and surgery.  As is so common, we are great at treating disease, but not so great at stopping the onset.

Why, then, does myopia happen?  I never got a clear answer, but as with so many things, “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution,” though some would disagree.  Not being able to see your prey or something trying to kill you isn’t a positive trait. According to research on modern hunter-gatherers, between 0 and 3 percent of them are myopic.  Contrast that with the US and the rest of the industrialized world.

According to the British newspaper the Guardian,

Rates [of myopia] are lower [in Britain] – between 30 and 50% – but ophthalmologists agree that myopia is on the rise. “We can’t be sure of the numbers,” says Winfried Amoaku, consultant ophthalmologist at Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham, “but the increase in myopia, especially in eastern countries, really is quite rampant.”

Loren Cordain, author of The Paleo Diet seems to have a reason, that nicely correlates with the increasing encroachment of junk food.  Myopia is a result of–you guessed it–consumption of neolithic foods.  The onset of myopia may likely be a consequence of chronically high insulin levels.  Having bad vision isn’t something that would naturally happen evolutionarily.   Chronically high insulin, leads to insulin resistance, which tends to lead to a host of bad effects, like heart disease, acne, and obesity.  One other consequence of hyperinsulinemia is an increase in insulin-like growth factor, which may result in increased growth of the eyes, which leads to myopia.  Check out professor Cordain’s flow chart on page 12 of this link for more information, or check out his paperon the subject.

Like most events, bad vision is multi-causal, so reading and computers most likely have some effect.  It is an interesting hypothesis and I’ll be thinking about it when I have kids of my own.  I’d rather they not be visually impaired, like me!

If there are any ophthalmologists or doctors out there that would like to comment, feel free.

–Nick

Ingredients:

1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined

juice of 1 large orange

1 green onion diced (green and white parts)

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 tsp honey

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

2 tbs olive oil

Directions:

1.  Mix all ingredients except the olive oil and the shrimp in a bowl.

2.  Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat.

3.  Add shrimp and quickly sautee on both sides for about a minute or two.

4.  Add sauce and allow to cook down for about 2 minutes.

My friend Alan was talking about making Sloppy Joes the other day.  He had an abundance of ground turkey and gave me some of it.  I’m not the biggest ground turkey fan, but I thought it would do well in a paleo version of this comfort classic.

These aren’t so sloppy without buns, but Neat Joes just doesn’t have the same ring to it.  If you are feeling nostalgic for the mess, you can always make this a finger food like my toddler does.  Feel free to sing Lunch Lady Land while making these.

Ingredients:

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 small sweet onion, diced

1 large carrot, peeled and diced

2 tbs olive oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 lb ground beef or turkey

1 tbs tapioca starch

1 15 oz can tomato sauce

1 6 oz can tomato paste

2 tbs honey

2 tbs lemon juice

1 tbs mustard

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/8 tsp ground cloves

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 tsp salt

Directions:

1.  In a bowl, combine tomato sauce, tomato paste, lemon juice, honey, and spices.

2.  In  a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium high heat.  Cook onion, carrot, and pepper until soft.  Add garlic and cook another minute.  Remove from pan and set aside.

3.  Brown the ground turkey or beef.  Sprinkle with tapioca starch.

3.  Add veggies back into the pan and then coat with the sauce from the bowl.

4.  Stir and reduce heat to low.  Simmer 10 minutes until thick.

Last week, while my husband was at the regional games in California, he went to visit his buddy at Crossfit Thousand Oaks. He found out that the TO crew are fans of Paleo Mama and put one of the coaches, Dan on the phone with me.  Dan said that they are starting up a paleo breakfast club.  A jock, a brain, a basket case, a princess…oh wait.  Wrong club.  Anyway, to help them start off right, I thought I’d give some egg tips and a recipe!

Tips for scrambled eggs.  Use LOW heat.  (Brown scrambled eggs aren’t right.  Honestly.)  Don’t add anything to the eggs.  No water or anything else for fluffiness.  Use a non-stick pan.  Use a little fat in the pan for flavor.  Use a soft rubber spatula to fluff eggs as you cook them.

Ingredients:

You can use any veggie combo you like.  This is what I happened to have in my fridge today.  This is breakfast for two.

4 asparagus spears

1/2 sweet onion

3 sun-dried tomatoes

3 tbs olive oil

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

4 large eggs

Directions:

1. Hold asparagus so that spear is in one hand and woody stem is in the other.  Gently bend upward until it snaps.  The woody stem bit will have broken off.  Throw it out.  You are left with tender goodness.  Chop this into 1/4 inch pieces.

2.  Dice up half a sweet onion.

3.  Dice up 3 sun-dried tomatoes.

4. Put 2 tbs olive oil in a nonstick pan over medium heat.  Cook veggies until they are soft.  Remove veggies from pan and LOWER heat to medium low.

5.  Add 1 tbs oil to pan.

6.  Using a fork or small whisk beat eggs up to a fluff in a bowl.  Add salt and pepper.

7.  Put eggs in pan.

8.  Using soft rubber spatula, constantly work eggs by pulling spatula along bottom and edges of pan and up.

9.  When eggs are only slightly wet, add veggies back in and cook for another minute or two, fluffing them together.

10.  Serve with breakfast meat of choice! (This is fantastic with steak)