Cheesy Baked Chicken

I have tried this baked chicken two ways, with mayo and with greek yogurt.  And I will say, I didn't notice a difference.  My husband says the mayo is better, but he probably says that because it sounds less healthy.  This is a quick and easy recipe to make.  My kids both thought it looked too saucy but cleaned their plates.  It is a little saucy but nothing really too much.

As I look at the picture of the chicken, I have to say that I need to start buying organic from the butcher.  Look at how huge those breasts are.  I realize the package says they aren't full of hormones, but those are too big to be natural.

Cheesy Baked Chicken

1 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese

1 cup Greek yogurt

1 tsp garlic powder

1 1/2 tsp seasoning salt 

1/2 tsp pepper

spread mix over chicken breasts

bake at 375 for 45 mins

Enjoy!

Paleo Chocolate Covered Coconut Cups

I love Paleo Junk Food!  It's important to remember to have these sometimes, to help with a sweet tooth, but I absolutely love to try new recipes for desserts that don't use processed sugar.  This recipe calls for honey and here in Oregon we have some fabulous local honey.  Our favorite honey is Hanna's Honey, and our favorite flavor is Meadow Foam, it tastes like marshmallows and it's to die for!

I found this recipe for here at Art and the Kitchen.  Since it didn't talk about the chocolate much, I went ahead and made a paleo chocolate to cover the top.  My coconut cups are lacking in chocolate, so if you like a lot of chocolate you need to double the chocolate part of the recipe.  These were creamy, chewy and just sweet enough to fill me up after just one.

Chocolate Coconut Cups

Coconut Layer

1 cup coconut oil

2 cups unsweetened shredded coconut

1/4 cup honey

 Chocolate Layer

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/8 cup honey

1/4 tsp vanilla

For coconut layer, melt coconut oil and mix in coconut and honey.  

Place in a 8x8 pan with parchment paper or use a silicon baking tray. 

 Put in freezer for 5 minutes until it becomes solid.

While coconut layer is in the freezer melt coconut oil for chocolate layer.

Add cocoa powder, hone and vanilla and mix in a blender.

Remove coconut layer from the freezer and top with chocolate.

Place back in the freezer until solid.  

Store in freezer or refrigerator.

Enjoy.

Cleaning Le Creuset Pans Safely

I love my Le Creuset pans.  Love love love them.  They are my most favorite things to cook with, but I continue to stain the inside of them.

My children request crepes every day for breakfast.  They get there way at least 4 times a week, so this pan gets used a lot.  I don't always have the time in the morning to clean it before we are out the door.  That is my excuse why it looks this bad.

Going online tells you all kinds of chemicals you can buy to clean your pots, but that really bothers me.  Why would I clean my pots with something harmful that is possibly going to be ingested by my children.  So I researched safe ways.  Someone suggested bleach.  UGH!

Luckily I read that baking soda paste can work.  

So, I just dumped some baking soda into my pan, added enough water to make a paste and then scrubbed with one of the many toothbrushes we have saved from the dentist office (we use electric).

It does take a little elbow grease but in less than 10 minutes, my pan went from a mess to beautiful.  And I'm totally fine with my children ingesting baking soda.

Beet What Ails You Juice

I found this recipe on a number of sites and so I was excited to try it.  It sounds like it's something that will help boost up your immune system.  With all the flu going around, I am more than happy to make sure I have all necessary vitamins on board.  I also liked this recipe because you can use red apples and it seems like every recipe wants you to use green apples.

Beet What Ails You Juice

2 beets

4 carrots

2 apples

6 celery stalks

2 limes

2 in. ginger

Enjoy!

Beets are the prettiest veggie to juice!  I love how beautiful the color is when it comes out of the juicer.  This time I added to stems.  Not all recipes say to add the stems, but I did some research and they do hold a lot of nutrients, but you can't drink the juice of the stem on it's own.  Not a problem for me, beets make look super pretty but they kind of taste like dirt to me.

This recipe tastes pretty good.  Not very sweet but it's "filling" and makes a ton of juice.  I have found that since I'm a chugger, having extra juice is better than just one glass.

Carrot Pineapple Pick Me Up

I have just started juicing and have been working my way through a number of juicing books, blogs and online reviews.

This is one of my favorites so far.  It's a great little pick me up during the day.  With the perfect amount of sweetness and it comes out to be such a pretty color of orange.

Carrot Pineapple Pick Me Up

3 large carrots

1/4 of a pineapple

1/2 lemon

1 small piece of ginger

This picture shows more ginger than you need.  This time it had much more of a bite to it from the ginger.  I don't mind it, but usually it's better with just a hint of ginger to go with the rest of the flavors.

Enjoy!

My Favorite Paleo Junk Food ~ Peanut Butter Cups

I am not true Paleo, but I love the idea and try hard to follow some of the ideas of the movement.  Since I gave up processed sugar a year and a half ago I have really not craved sweets much.  But sometimes I do...and sometimes I need a little fix.  This is the first recipe I ever found that counts as Paleo Junk Food to me, but I love it!  I found this recipe from Practical Paleo.   She calls it fudge but I call it my peanut butter cups.  It's such a great flavor.

Almond Butter Cups

1/2 cup Coconut Oil

1/2 cup Penzeys High Fat Cocoa Powder 

1/2 cup Almond Butter

1/4 cup Maple Syrup (or you can use honey)

1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

Melt the coconut oil and then blend all the ingredients in a blender.  

Fill a silicon tray or paper lined mini muffin cups.  

Put in the freezer for at least 30 minutes.

Remove from tray.  

Store in the freezer. 

I found that using a high quality blender works better than a food processor.  The chocolate comes out much smoother.

I also love using my different silicon trays, I have a number of Demarle trays and I find that the shallow, and small ones give you the option to eat 2 or 3 pieces of chocolate without overdoing it.

Keeping them in the freezer until right before you are going to eat them is so important.  You don't want it to melt and lose any of the paleo goodness.

What Made Me Want to Juice

We watched the movie Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead and we both decided that maybe juicing is worth taking a look at.  Not really for weight loss, but for the obvious health benefits you can get from just ingesting all your vitamins in one shot.

Looking at different juices at the store, it was obvious that you could spend a small fortune buying bottles of pre-made juice or just spend the money to buy your own juicer.  So we went with a juicer.  We also bought a new heavy duty blender, but more on that at another time.

I searched and searched for the recipe of what the guys were drinking on the movie and I finally found it here at myjuicecleanse.com.  This was the first juice I made and I have to say, it doesn't taste too bad.  I have always substituted kale leaves with cups of kale mix, mainly because I have a hard time finding kale leaves.

Mean Green Juice

3 cups mixed kale greens

1 cucumber

4 stalks of celery

2 green apples

1/2 lemon

1 piece of ginger

Enjoy!