Simply Norma

This Maple Pecan Sweet Potato Mash was really really good. I’d serve it any day and it would also be a nice side for Thanksgiving.

The original recipe is very sweet and even though I like sweet tasting food it was a tad too much for me. I was glad that I had decided to pour the syrup on slowly and taste it before pouring the whole thing over it. You can use your own judgment …

Here are the ingredients you’ll be using (I used walnuts instead of pecans).

Ready to try it?

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts (or nut of your choice), toasted
• 4 tablespoons pure maple syrup (original recipe calls for 6)
• 1/4 teaspoon orange zest
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 large sweet potatoes, baked (375° Fahrenheit for about 45-60 minutes or until soft in the middle all the way through – use a wooden stick to test)

Directions

1. Bake your sweet potatoes (see above) and set aside to cool.
2. Bring the oven heat down to 300° Fahrenheit.
3. Place the walnuts in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake for about 5 minutes (convection oven).  When toasted, set them aside in a small bowl.
4. In a small saucepan on the stovetop, combine the maple syrup, orange zest, cinnamon stick, and the ground cloves and gentle simmer for a couple of minutes.
5. Remove the syrup from the stovetop and set it aside.
6. After the potatoes have cooled, gently scoop out the insides, discard the peel, put the insides in a large bowl and mash them thoroughly.
7. Remove the cinnamon stick from the warmed syrup and discard it then pour the syrup over the mashed sweet potatoes.
8. Top the mashed potatoes with the toasted walnuts and serve warm.

Pretty simple recipe … yet delicious.

This recipe was very slightly adapted and the changes are already included above.

(Click here for a list of other paleo friendly recipes.)

While shopping at one of the local health food stores called Tailor Made, I saw a box of crackers that I thought would complement a soup I was going to make. I picked up the box and the picture of the crackers looked delicious. Then I looked at the price — ugh! $9 and change. Then it dawned on me — why not make crackers myself?

So, I searched the world wide web and found this recipe for Paleo Herb Crackers that has good reviews.

The ingredients are simple enough (I normally don’t include pictures of the oil, water, salt and pepper as I figure most people have those items in their cupboard already) To help facilitate this recipe you should use parchment paper, a rolling pin and a pizza cutter.

You’ll be combining all your ingredients to make a dough. I used my KitchenAid mixer for this.

Next, you’ll need 2 pieces of parchment paper (same size and cut large). Place one of the pieces on your counter or cutting board and plop your dough on it.

Then you’ll be putting another piece of parchment paper on top of the dough and then giving the dough one large palm squish.

Then you’ll use a rolling pin (or you could use a large drinking glass) to flatten out the dough.

Next, remove the top piece of parchment paper and transfer the dough (with the bottom piece of parchment paper) to a large cookie sheet.

Now, using your pizza cutter, slice the dough into small cracker pieces.

(With me so far? It’s actually a very fun recipe to make.)

Now you’ll be plopping this in the oven to bake. Make sure you pay attention (I didn’t) to how you flatten the dough. If possible, you want the dough to be the same thickness all the way through so it will cook evenly otherwise you’ll have your edges crispier than the rest of the dough.

Ready to try this easy recipe?

Ingredients

• 2 cups almond flour
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 tablespoon rosemary
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 egg white
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon coconut oil

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350° Fahrenheit.
2. Combine the almond flour, salt, and rosemary in a mixer and mix on low until everything is combined.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the water, egg white, olive oil, and melted coconut oil.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry one and mix until you get a fairly stiff dough.
5. When the dough is ready, put a large piece of parchment paper on the counter and plop the dough on it.
6. Then place another same sized piece of parchment paper on top of the dough and give it one good squish with your palm. (No need to get your hands dirty if you don’t have to.)
7. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough to about 1/8 of an inch making sure as far as possible that your dough is the same thickness throughout.
8. Remove the top piece of parchment paper then transfer the bottom piece of parchment paper with the dough on it to a cookie sheet (no need to grease the cookie sheet).
9. Using a pizza cutter, cut the dough into cracker sized pieces — round, square, triangle — whatever you desire.
10. Plop the cookie sheet in the oven and bake for about 10 minutes (at the 7 minute mark my edges were starting to get quite crispy but that’s because I didn’t make sure my dough was rolled evenly).
11. Turn the oven off and let the crackers sit inside the oven for another 10 minutes (but keep your eye on them to make sure they don’t turn too crispy).

Whala!  That’s it! They came out very good. I will use this recipe again. It did remind me of the time I use to make communion wafers at church.  Ready to see the final product?  Drum roll please!

Served with paleo Chicken Soup, these Paleo Herb Crackers were delicious.

Special thanks to Heather at Multiply Delicious.  Head on over to her website to see what else she’s got cooking.

(Click here for a list of other paleo friendly recipes.)

Surprisingly, this paleo Banana Bread came out quite delicious. How do I know? Because my husband likes it and he doesn’t much like the coconut flour that is used in paleo baking.

So — this is a “must try” for you.

I did change the recipe a tad — but only a tad.

First — the ingredients …

But, of course, we can’t forget the main ingredient which are the bananas. What’s interesting about this recipe is that you don’t have to use ripe bananas.

I did remember that I had frozen bananas in the freezer so what I did was swap out the yellow bananas for the frozen thawed ones. (I just put them in the microwave for 30 seconds or so to thaw them.)

The recipe calls for four eggs. I have a little compulsion about bringing the eggs to room temperature before using them in recipes. I believe they make a big difference in the flavor of the recipe. So, what I do is put hot water in a pot and put the eggs in them for a couple of minutes.

I also decided to use 1/3 cup of walnuts. Just because (smile).

Here’s what the batter will look like before it goes into the oven …

So … ready to check out the recipe?

Ingredients

• 4 ripe bananas (or yellow ones if you wish)
• 4 eggs, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup almond butter
• 4 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon (or more if you’re a cinnamon lover)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/3 cup of walnut pieces
• pinch of salt
• Olive oil spray

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350° Fahrenheit.
2. Combine the bananas, eggs, almond butter and regular butter in a food processor then mix at medium speed until everything is combined.
3. Add the coconut flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, vanilla, and salt to the banana mixture and mix well.
4. Grease a loaf pan with olive oil spray then pour the batter into the pan.
5. Bake for 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the loaf comes out clean. (Note: I used my convection oven and it still took 55 minutes.)
6. Take the loaf out of the oven when completely baked and allow it to cool for 30 minutes then remove the loaf from the pan and place onto a platter.

And here is how my banana bread turned out …

Hope you enjoy this as much as we did.

Special thanks to Civilized Caveman Cooking for this recipe.

(For a list of recipes by categories, click here.)

Everything that could go wrong in trying to make this Balsamic Green Bean Salad recipe — went wrong. It wasn’t the recipe’s fault — truly.

Let me start in the beginning (okay, okay, not that far back — laughing).

I had prepared everything to start making the recipe assuming that life was not going to give me any twists and turns. I took my picture of the ingredients for ya’ll and it came out quite good, no? So few ingredients = my kind of recipe. (Salt and pepper not shown)

Things were going along well. I was going to serve this with some Fine Chicken and a baked yam so I was juggling the different recipes — nothing unusual so far.

So, now I’m ready to start the pot of water that the beans will blanch in. I added the cold water from the sink into the pot and put it on the stovetop to boil. Well, it boiled quite nicely to a very brown rusty color with sediment on the bottom. So, I put my ingredients aside and continued working on the rest of the meal. I came back to this recipe a week later as we had “water” issues.

I put the green beans in the freezer as I didn’t think they would hold up for a week until we figured out the water problem. When I finally made the recipe I was using the frozen green beans and it didn’t work too well. It tasted okay but it should have come out great.

I had allowed the green beans to thaw, blanched them in the boiling water, drained them then added them to ice water (yes, ice water to stop the cooking process).

So — the problem arose when I drained the beans from the ice water. (Yes, I know, I know, that is a LOT of ice — laughing.)

The green beans came out limp-y.  Boohoo!  That’s how I felt. I went ahead and put the rest of the salad together and, like I said, it came out good but it should have been great. So — let’s look at this recipe, shall we?

Ingredients

• 1 pound green beans, trimmed and cut in half
• 1/2 red onion, finely chopped
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar (original recipe calls for 2 tablespoons)
• 1/3 cup chopped walnuts
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Bring a medium sized pot of salted water to a boil.
2. Add the green beans and blanch for 2-3 minutes.
3. Prepare a large bowl of ice water while the beans are cooking.
4. Drain the beans in a colander then promptly add them into a bowl of ice water for a minute or so.
5. Drain the beans again.
6. Add the green beans and the red onion in a bowl.
7. Toss the olive oil in and toss to coat everything together.
8. Add the balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper to the bowl with the green beans then toss to coat everything again.
9. Toss the bean mixture with the chopped walnuts.

And here is the final product (in spite of them coming out a bit limp-y.)

I served mine with baked drumsticks and a baked yam.  Delicious!

Special thanks to Paleo Grubs — check out their website!

(By the way, I found out that water wells should be purged once a year or so to avoid the problem of sediment build-up. The alternative is to attach a hose to your pressure tank, open a window and drain the pressure tank for 4 hours. Uh, not likely to happen since the temperatures have been quite cold and opening a window for 4 hours and running the water outside (we’d have a skating rink) is just not feasible.  For now, we keep draining the faucets and that seems to have worked.)

Life …

For a list of my categorized recipes, click here.

It’s hard to think of eating something cold in February when one lives in Minnesota — we’re colder than Alaska this year for some reason. But, I wanted something refreshing to eat and thought this Cucumber Salad would fit the bill.  Twas easy to make and much easier to eat.

The ingredients are few … (not pictured: oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper). I changed the recipe a tad by substituting the white wine with red wine vinegar, the parsley & chives with dill and the sugar with coconut sugar (it’s not as sweet).

It came out quite good and since the recipe is so simple, I’m sure I’ll make it again. Side note: if you want your dressing a little sweeter, I’d substitute the coconut sugar with a teaspoon of maple syrup.

Ready to try it?

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon coconut sugar
• 1/2 cup sliced red bell pepper
• 1/2 cup sliced green bell pepper
• 2 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
• 1 English cucumber, sliced

Directions

1. Combine the first 6 ingredients in a medium bowl and stir it all with a whisk.
2. Add the peppers along with the remaining ingredients to the liquid mixture then toss gently to coat.

See? I told you it was easy.

A keeper for sure!

For a list of my categorized recipes, click here.

Wow! Wow! and Wow! What a pleasant surprise to have this recipe, along with the cauliflower “rice,” come out so good. Juli from PaleOMG really outdid herself with this recipe. I did change it up just a tad because I don’t like overly spicy foods but feel free to add the sriracha which I didn’t add.

Let’s look at the ingredients that are used. There’s actually two different groups of ingredients (oil, salt and pepper not shown).

I like to have everything already measured and ready to go, don’t you?

First you’ll be getting your cauliflower “rice” ready. I don’t normally like this kind of “rice” but with this recipe, it tasted scrumptious. I was able to find a small cauliflower that was just enough to feed two people (strange, isn’t it, as normally cauliflowers are so large).

First you’ll prepare the cauliflower by washing it then removing the green leaves. You should have smaller pieces now.

Next you’ll be grating the cauliflower. It will look like this (I didn’t worry too much about making sure all the pieces were the same size).

Next you’ll be putting all of the cauliflower ingredients (cauliflower, chicken broth, garlic powder, salt) in a medium sized pot.

Next you’ll be turning the heat to medium and cooking the cauliflower “rice” for about 10 minutes, covered. Then you’ll be putting that aside.

While the “rice” is cooking, get a large dutch oven or pot and put it on medium heat. You’ll be adding coconut oil and then 1 inch pieces of chicken thighs.

You’ll be cooking the chicken pieces until they become white on one side then turning them over and cooking them until they are white on the other side making sure they are cooked all the way through. Then, remove the chicken pieces from the pot and set them aside. Put the heat to your pot on low now.

Next you’ll be adding the chopped onions and the garlic to the pot. Cook until the onions are clear.

After adding the rest of the ingredients, your sauce will look like this — it should be somewhat thick but pourable.

After the sauce is ready, add the chicken pieces back to the pot with the sauce in it.

Yeah, I know — it doesn’t look too scrumptious but I guarantee you, this was absolutely delicious.

Here’s what the final dish will look like …

Ready to try it?

Ingredients (for the cauliflower “rice”)

•  1 small head of cauliflower, grating the florets into small pieces
• 1/3 cup chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Ingredients (for the chicken and sauce)

• 4 tablespoons coconut oil
• 2 pounds chicken thighs cut into 1 inch cubes
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 small yellow onion, chopped finely
• 1 (14 ounce) can of full fat coconut milk
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 cup coconut aminos
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• Salt, to taste
• 1/4 cup tapioca flour

Directions

1. Grate the cauliflower florets into small pieces.
2. In a medium saucepan over medium low heat, add the cauliflower, chicken broth, garlic powder and salt to the pan, stir then cover to let it steam for about 10 minutes.
3. In a large dutch oven or pot, add 2 tablespoons of coconut oil. When oil is hot, add the chicken pieces to the pan.
4. Once the chicken begins to turn white on one side, flip the pieces over to cook the other side. Make sure the chicken is cooked through then remove the chicken pieces and put them on a plate while you make the sauce.
5. Lower the heat to the pot (medium low) then add 2 more tablespoons of oil to it.
6. Add the onion and garlic.
7. When the onion becomes clear, add the coconut milk, honey, coconut aminos, red pepper flakes and salt. Whisk it all together and let it come to a low boil then reduce the heat to low.
8. (Don’t forget to check on your “rice” … remove it from the heat and set it aside keeping it covered.)
9. Next, take a whisk and, a little at a time, start adding the tapioca flour into the pot while stirring vigorously so you it doesn’t get clumpy. (Note, I did not have to use the full 1/4 cup of tapioca so keep an eye on yours.)
10. Once the mixture thickens, add the chicken to the pan with the sauce and stir it all together to coat the chicken.
11. Let this cook through for a couple minutes to make sure your chicken is warm again.
12. Now serve the chicken over your cauliflower “rice.”

I served the Coconut Honey Chicken with the cauliflower “rice” and Paleo Crispy Brussel Sprouts.

Yum! This will go on my “favorites” list.

For a list of recipes by category, click here.