Tag Archives: Paleo

Other People’s Recipes: Blueberry Muffins

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I wanted a Paleo-friendly recipe for blueberry muffins. Something different for breakfast. What I didn’t want was some banana-y or eggy batter interspersed with blueberries. I was bound to be disappointed.

The recipe I ended up with called for:

  • 6 eggs
  • ½ cup melted butter
  • ¼ cup maple syrup
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
  • ½ cup coconut flour
  • ¼ cup tapioca flour
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp baking soda
  • 1 cup fresh blueberries

Like most muffins, mix wet with wet and dry with dry, then put the two together, mix till just incorporated, then fill your muffin tin. Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes.

Easy to make, despite the frantic search for parchment paper muffin tin liners. And the muffins were edible. Barely. They had a decidedly eggy taste. Cavepeople must’ve been very hungry to enjoy them. And, despite the special tin liners, they had to be scraped out.

After that experience, I went back to the Internet and looked at other blueberry muffin recipes that didn’t call for bananas. All of them had a high egg content—and I have to question where the cavepeople got all those eggs—but most started with 2 cups of almond flour.

Oh. Well yes. That would help.

I’m looking for a cinnamon-spice muffin next. I wonder if cavepeople ate raisins.

Other People’s Recipes: Zucchini Pancakes

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I recently sought an alternative healthcare solution for intractable high blood pressure that wasn’t responding to mainstream medical intervention. At least, it hadn’t yet. Since March.

And as I’d rather do just about anything than lie in an emergency room bed with an IV in my arm, why not give alternative a try?

I came away from my first visit to the ‘integrative medicine’ professional with an armload of supplements and a specific recommendation to follow a ‘plant-based Paleo’ eating plan.

Now I haven’t been asleep for the past 50 years, so yes, I’ve heard of Paleo and even plant-based Paleo. In fact, about four years ago, I gave a popular doctor’s version a go and ended up sicker than I’d ever felt before. I have some concerns about the Paleo eating plan logic, mostly having to do with what cave-people might really have been eating. Maybe not coconut oil. Or coconut flour. Or coconut sugar. All of which seem to be okay Paleo foods.

Anyway. I was given a specific book recommendation and obediently downloaded it to my Kindle.

Paleo breakfasts frustrate me. Bacon or sausage and eggs? Really? I mean, I know the ban on fat has been lifted. But that particular breakfast just seems a bit–well–fat saturated. As I flipped through the pages of the recommended book (no, I’m not saying which book) the first recipe that caught my eye was one for breakfast. Zucchini pancakes. Huh. I like pancakes.

It called for:

  • 2 cups zucchini, grated and water squeezed out in cheesecloth
  • 3 eggs lightly beaten
  • 1 TBSP coconut flour
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Basically, a latke (potato pancake) made with zucchini. The kicker was to fry it (yes, FRY) in an inch of coconut oil. But okay, I’m game.

OMG. So nasty. Greasy, oily, uncooked eggs, crunchy zucchini. Yes, of course, I didn’t cook them long enough, but any longer in the pan and the outside would’ve burned to a crisp. So hmm… What would I do differently?

Based on my latke cooking experience, which granted is minimal, I’d substitute 1 cup of zucchini for 1 cup of sweet potato–still Paleo approved–use only 1 egg and increase to 3 TBSP coconut flour. Although I wonder if einkorn flour is okay Paleo–I’ll have to do some research–and fry it in a small amount of olive oil and butter mixed together.

Or better yet, I’ll find some Paleo friendly toast.

Oh and yes, I’m just as sick on this plant-based Paleo as I was last time.

But not to worry–look in next Saturday for more adventures with other people’s recipes.