Living Insanity's Loving Food

I found a new product to eat in Alaska. I found Go Raw Mint Chocolate.  There are 6 candies wrapped individually in the box.  3 ingredients!  raw organic cacoa, raw organic agave nectar, and organic peppermint oil. They taste awesome.  Check them out! http://www.goraw.com/p/79/live-chocolate-mint

So I found this recipe and tweaked it to my tastes.  It turned out awesome and it made enough for leftovers which microwaved really well for lunches. Ingredients: Coconut oil Diced spicy chicken sausages I bought at Trader Joes.  I have a hard time finding sugar free sausages elsewhere. Diced carrots Diced onion Diced pepper, I chose a red pepper Diced zucchini Spinach Fresh basil leaves torn into small pieces 8 ounce can tomato sauce 6 cups water Half a small jar of salsa Salt and pepper A little chicken stock Directions: In a large soup pot add the coconut oil and diced sausage, onion, carrot, and pepper.  Saute until veggies start to soften (carrot takes the longest so dice it small) and season with salt and pepper. Next add 6 cups of water, scraping the bottom of the soup pot, and bring to a boil. Stir in tomato sauce, a little chicken stock, and some salsa (heat is to your preference level, mine was hot). Add in the zucchini, basil, and spin...

Mt favorite flavor of Lara Bar is Pecan Pie, but lately I've been having a hard time finding it.  I'm now digging the Coconut Cream Pie flavor.  It's really good!  I've tried a few new flavors lately like Banana Bread and Lime.  Coconut is where it's at!  I haven't updated in a long time because we sold our house and have been boxing and moving. I did make an amazing paleo minestrone soup recipe a few weeks ago that my husband and I loved. I'll post about that next!

What to do with leftover meatsauce after eating up all the zucchini pasta?  Make eggplant parm. It is not pretty looking, but it tasted good.

I did not find this recipe to be sweet or doughy enough.  I think with a few tweaks it could make maybe a good scone recipe.

Lots of macaroons seem to appear around Easter, so I made my husband macaroons for dessert on Easter.  These were very simple.  Just look at the short ingredient list!  The recipe came from Elena's Pantry 2 Egg whites 1/4 cup Honey 2 1/2 Coconut Flakes 1/4 teaspoon Salt Whisk egg whites and honey. Add salt and stir in coconut flakes. Chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Firmly pack a tablespoon with the macaroon mixture. Put the mounds on a silpat or parchment paper.  The honey will make these hard to remove otherwise. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes Cool and eat! I would make these again!

We finally have used our mandolin and created some zucchini pasta.  After the zucchini was grated into noodles they were cooked briefly in boiling, salted water for about 3 minutes.  The zucchini pasta was topped with a meat sauce (still using up the cow share meat) and some soy free dairy free Daiya Cheese shreds.  One the side are some of the rosemary biscuits I made topped with coconut butter and some Italian seasonings.  I think this is now one of my favorite paleo meals.

My husband signed up for a cow share with about 5 people total.  A farmer met them all and they took turns picking packages of beef.  It was a really great experience and buying a 1/5th of a cow and storing it in the average person's freezer is doable.  I've heard from people who buy 1/2 a cow that you need a lot of storage for all that meat.  This is our haul.  There are some beef bones, ground beef, two roasts, cubed beef, and a steak.  I have the steak thawed for dinner tonight.  Both of the roasted have already been cooked and several of the ground beef packages have been used too. 

I think I told everyone I know yesterday how great this biscuit recipe is.  I am used to my paleo baked goods not being very good.  This recipe rocks and I'm so happy I found it.  I can see people making these biscuits to go with Easter ham next weekend.  My husband wants to try to make them spicy and use them with cornbread.  I'm using the leftover rosemary biscuits and adding some coconut butter and Italian seasonings to go with some zucchini spaghetti later this week. You must rolls these out thick.  They do not rise and they do flatten out a bit.  I got about 9 biscuits out of the recipe.  I also used coconut flour on wax paper so the dough wouldn't stick while rolling.  I just like how fluffy coconut flour is and I happen to have more of it in my pantry than almond flour. Almond Rosemary Biscuits 2 1/2 cups blanched almond flour plus 1/2 cup for dusting (I used coconut flour for dusting) 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon baking sod...

I hated this recipe .  It was very bland and a lot like eating soupy mashed cauliflower.  I love cream of mushroom soup, but this paleo version did not work for me.  We tried a lot of different additions to make it edible but I could only eat one bowl and could not like this.

I love this recipe!  I have made this casserole twice now and the leftovers are perfect to reheat in the microwave.  I made some additions to the recipe , add diced mushrooms and diced parsnips to the filling and season with some minced garlic.  Shepherd's Pie with Garlic Mashed "Potato" Topping filling: 2 tbs. olive oil 1 large onion, diced 1 lb. turkey or pork bacon, cut into 2 inch slices 2 cups diced carrots 2 cups diced parsnips 2 cups diced celery 1 lb. ground meat of choice 1 package of mushrooms, diced ½ tsp. salt 1 tsp. black pepper ½ tsp. smoked paprika 1 tsp. minced garlic 1 cup low-sodium, organic chicken broth Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and cook for 10-15 minutes, until soft. Add chopped bacon and cook until just getting crisp. Add carrots, parsnips, mushrooms and celery, allowing to cook in bacon fat for 10 more minutes. Add ground meat and garlic to skillet and break up with a wooden spoon. Cook until me...

I just love these!  I've made them for breakfast twice now.  I used this recipe .  I threw half a rutabaga and half an onion into my food processor.  I added seasonings, just salt and pepper, and fried it all in some coconut oil.  Ingredients (2 servings) 2 tablespoons of coconut oil 1/2 cup diced onion.  I used a sweet yellow onion 2 cups shredded rutabaga.  I just shredded half a large rutabaga  1/4 -1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper Instructions Heat a frying pan (I used nonstick) on medium-high heat and add the coconut oil. Add everything into the pan and cook for a few minutes to soften the onion. Continue cooking on medium heat tossing gently a few times for about 10 minutes. Cook for another 5 minutes pressing down with a spatula to brown them a bit more being careful not to burn the rutabaga. Use a spatula to remove from the pan and eat!  So simple and very good.  

I found this recipe after Thanksgiving was past but it tastes like stuffing.  I've made it a few times now for breakfast and for a dinner side dish.  We added Italian seasonings and instead of trying to force the mixture into patties we just cook it all in a non stick skillet.  We also used the whole egg Ingredients 2 medium zucchini, grated 1 medium sweet potato, grated 4 green onions, minced 1 -2 lemons, zested 2 handfuls mint (we skipped this and added dry Italian seasonings) 1 egg white, or egg substitute(we used 1 whole egg) 2 ...

I bought Hail Merry chocolate and vanilla macaroons at Whole Foods.  I've only tried the chocolate so far and they are SOOOO amazing!  I think they are dangerous.  I should not buy them except for a special occasion.  I am glad I tried them. 

I found a great bratwurst at Whole Foods made by Open Nature . It says no antibiotics, no added hormones, vegetarian fed. Also there is no sugar in the ingredient list:  pork, eggs, water, salt, honey, onion powder, marjoram, nutmeg, black pepper, celery powder, lemon extract, and lemon rind. In a pan with some olive oil I sauteed a diced red delicious apple, a bit of diced sweet onion, spinach leaves with the bratwurst. Yum yum yum.  I'm eating good on Super Bowl Sunday. 

I've just recently cracked open Brad's Raw Leafy Kale .  I bought these at Whole Foods.  They are kale chips that are vegan, not baked and not fried (Dehydrated) and I bought the Nasty Hot! flavor.  They are actually really good.  They are made with a spicy version of cashew cheese on them.  We need to keep working on our cashew cheese recipe to get it right.  They are a great crunchy snack.  I know a lot of people make their own kale chips by baking them in the oven.  We own a dehydrator so I hope we can try making these.  You lose less nutrients when you dehydrate. 

This is the second paleo chocolate chip cookie recipe I tried and it is the one we like the best. It's amazing that is doesn't have a lot of dry ingredients and it makes a cookie. I found the recipe here Almond Butter Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies Ingredients: 1 cup almond butter 1/3 cup honey (or 1/2 cup if you like it a bit sweeter) 1 egg 1 Tbsp. vanilla extract 1/2 tsp. baking soda 1/4 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. salt 1/2 cup chocolate chips (I have dairy and soy free ones from Whole Foods) 2/3 cup unsweetened coconut Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 2. Oil baking sheets or line with parchment paper. 3. Stir together first 8 ingredients. Mix well. Make sure honey is fully incorporated. 4. Add chips and coconut. 5. Scoop with a cookie scoop onto cookie sheets. Bake 10-13 minutes or until lightly browned. Yield: about 20 cookies with a level 2 Tbsp. cookie scoop

Now that we have been back for a week I'm getting back on track with cooking at home. This week we had a lot of bean free chili.  I used lean hormone free ground meat and then I used antibiotic free range ground turkey too.  We also had an Asian flavored flank steak stir fry.  We tried kelp noodles for the first time and they are awesome.  We use coconut aminos instead of soy sauce and we used the juice of an orange. The last bowl of roasted red pepper pumpkin soup was consumed!  It was from the pumpkin we roasted over Veterans Day.  We had pureed the pumpkin and froze a lot of it.  It made two huge batches of soup.  We use almond milk to make our soup creamy. Yesterday I slow cooked some pork tenderloin in a green enchilada sauce my husband made out of our garden peppers.  It was really awesome and we have an even bigger can of the sauce waiting in the pantry!   We made tostadas.  I bought some blue corn tortillas (I know n...