Simply Norma

This Sweet Carrot Paleo Salad is great as a side dish and/or can be used during Thanksgiving or another holiday because it has a nice sweetness to it.

Just a few ingredients are needed and the directions are simply easy.

Ingredients

• 1 pound carrots, grated
• 1 cup crushed pineapple (or use pineapple tidbits and cut them up or leave them as is)
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 2 tablespoons paleo mayonnaise
• Dash lemon juice

Directions

1. In a large bowl, mix together the carrots, pineapple and raisins.
2. Stir in the honey, mayonnaise and lemon juice until everything is evenly coated.
3. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving to let the flavors blend together.

That’s it!  Very easy to make and most people have the ingredients in their cupboards.

Oh — one quick comment. This recipe doesn’t do very well after the second day in the refrigerator. It’s “okay” but doesn’t taste as great so I’d recommend you eat it fresh.

This recipe was revamped just a tad, i.e. I didn’t add the blueberries or vanilla bean. For the blueberries, I substituted dried figs. It came out tasting just great! Feel free to substitute your own nuts and/or dried fruit. Using the “base” is what makes this recipe tastes delicious. I’ve eaten it for breakfast and also for snacking.

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons coconut oil
• 2 cups sliced almonds
• 1/2 cup raw pecans, chopped
• 1/4 cup raw walnuts
• 1/4 cup raw pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
• 3/4 cup natural coconut, shredded
• 1/4 cup natural coconut, finely shredded (optional)
• 1/4 cup raw honey
• pinch sea salt
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 1 cup dried blueberries (I substituted dried figs)
• 1 vanilla bean, seeded (I substituted one teaspoon of vanilla for this)
• 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Directions

1. Melt the coconut oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
2. Add the almonds, pecans, walnuts, pepitas, and coconut to the skillet.
3. Drizzle this with the raw honey.
4. Cook over medium heat until the honey and oil cling to the nuts and begins to “boil”.
5. Add the remaining spices and fruit(s) to the skillet.
6. Stir to coat everything together.
7. Pour everything onto a large piece of parchment paper and allow the granola to  air dry and cool for up to an hour.
8. Transfer the granola to an airtight container.

And the final product …. delicious!

Special thanks to Cheeky Kitchen for this recipe.

If you’re not a lover of pomegranate, don’t let the name of this recipe deter you from trying it — Pomegranate Chicken. The chicken was quite tasteful and didn’t really have much of a pomegranate-y type taste. Don’t get me wrong — it did have some pomegranate flavor.

Normally unsweetened pomegranate juice tastes quite bitter, no? But you’ll be pleasantly surprised with this recipe.

There aren’t too many ingredients for this recipe BUT the POM juice is a tad expensive.

The chicken will be grilled on a skillet on your stovetop. At the last minute, I added some raisins to the sauce since I thought it might come out too bitter (I had no need to worry though).

Ready to try another easy and tasty recipe? Here ya go!

Ingredients

• chicken breasts (I used four of them)
• pomegranate juice (POM Wonderful is what I used)
• garlic, minced
• olive oil
• Raisins (optional)

Directions

1. Heat a bit of olive oil in the pan on medium low and add the chicken breasts.
2. Sprinkle the garlic on the chicken and then pour the pomegranate juice over it until it reaches about halfway up the chicken.
3. Bring the pomegranate juice to a boil then turn down to a simmer.
4. Turn the chicken over every few minutes until it’s cooked through.
5. Continue to simmer the mixture until the pomegranate juice reduces to a thick sauce and the chicken is cooked through.
6. The juice should become a fruity glaze.

Here’s the final product. I served mine with a Shirazi Salad which was a good pairing for it.

Enjoy!

On the paleo diet, we don’t use sugar and most recipes that call for candied nuts have sugar in them.

However, I’ve found a workaround by replacing sugar with 2 tablespoons of maple syrup. It works just as well.

You simply add the syrup to a skillet, add your nuts and stir until the syrup is incorporated into the nuts.

Then, remove the nuts from the skillet, place them onto a large piece of parchment paper and allow them to cool.

Once cool, you can break the nuts up into smaller pieces.

Pretty cool, eh? A healthier option but they are addicting so I try not to have them too often although I love candied nuts in salads.

Here’s another simple and tasty recipe to make for dinner – Paleo Mustard Glazed Chicken. The mustard was not overwhelming at all even though it uses two tablespoons of it. I chose to use spicy brown mustard and I’m sure any mustard will do.

I also used butter instead of coconut oil as my husband doesn’t like the taste of coconut oil in everything we eat and it’s a staple on our paleo diet.

The chicken will only bake for 45 minutes or less and then you’ll get a juicy and skin crusty taste.

It does use 1/4 cup of melted butter — perhaps that’s why it’s so yummy! Ready for the recipe? Here it is …

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup coconut oil or butter, melted (I used butter)
• 2 Tablespoons of stone ground mustard  or mustard of your choosing(gluten free)
• 1/2 tsp. dried sage
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt
• black pepper
• 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs ( used four as there were only two of us eating but I kept the rest of the measurements the same)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
2. In a small mixing bowl, combine melted butter, mustard, black pepper, salt, and sage.
3. Place chicken thighs in an oven-safe dish and brush the mustard mixture evenly over each one.
4. Bake for 45 minutes or until temperature of the chicken is 165 degrees. (insert an oven thermometer into the center of  the chicken thigh)

That’s it! I served this with another recipe we’ve tried before called Maple Roasted Carrots, Apples and Onions. A great pairing!

Enjoy!

Oh, yum! These Chocolate Maple Crunch Banana Muffins were delicious! However, there was one wee user problem — I didn’t allow them to cook long enough. Yup. I was so afraid they might burn that I took them out about 5 minutes too early even though I checked the “tops” for doneness.

The “tops” felt a little soft but I assumed that the muffins would continue baking a tad more while resting. I was wrong.

So — learn from my mistake so you can enjoy these to the fullest! Here’s a pic of the filling ingredients minus the salt and the coconut oil.

The original recipe uses Grade B maple syrup. I used Grade A Dark Amber as that’s what I had in the house.

The filling appeared to come out a tad liquid-y but that is the correct texture. However, I used an ice cream scoop like the recipe called for as it said to “plop” the filling into the paper muffin liners. Uh, well, no, that didn’t quite work for me at all. Perhaps because my ice cream scoop is only “half rounded.” It took me 2-3 scoops and the batter did not plop for me but instead “poured.”

Now at this point I asked myself if perhaps I should have added more coconut flour to make the filling thicker so it could “plop” but since this was the first time making the recipe I decided to be true to it and play with it another time.

The topping came out just as I expected — a little sticky but perfect.

Here they are before going into the oven with no topping …

And this is what they look like unbaked with the topping.

I could hardly wait for them to bake! And here they are. Notice the indentation in some of them? That’s where they were a little “soft” and I assumed a little baking would continue after they cooled for a little while. (Wrong assumption!)

I tucked them away in a container for snacking or to have as a “side” instead of bread with a meal.

I believe next time I’ll try a little more coconut flour and, of course, let them bake 5 minutes more so I can reach perfection with them!

And here’s the recipe …

Ingredients (for the filling)

• 4 bananas (very ripe)
• 6 pitted dates
• 4 eggs (at room temperature)
• ¼ cup melted Coconut Oil
• 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
• 5 heaping tablespoons coconut flour (perhaps mine weren’t heaped enough?)
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• Sprinkle of cinnamon
• Pinch of salt

Ingredients (for the topping)

• 1 cup mixed nuts, chopped
• 2 heaping tablespoons almond flour (meal)
• 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
• sprinkle of cinnamon
• Pinch of salt

Directions

1. In a food processor, puree the bananas and dried dates until you get a paste. Make sure the dates break up completely.
2. Add the eggs, coconut oil, and maple syrup then puree.
3. Add the coconut flour and mix.
4. Then add the cocoa powder and mix again.
5. Add the baking soda, powder, cinnamon and salt and mix everything together in the food processor.
6. In a separate bowl, add the ingredients for the topping and mix it all together.
7. Line your muffin tin with paper muffin liners and use an ice cream scoop to plop batter into each muffin liner. It should make 12 muffins so try not to pile it too high because the topping will take up a lot of room.
8. Now add a heaping tablespoon of topping on each muffin and spread it out around the top of the muffin.
9. Place in an oven and cook for 35-40 minutes. (I took them out at 35 minutes but should have kept them in longer. The original recipe cautions that they do take a long time to bake because they are dense and wet and to check them at 35 minutes and every couple of minutes after that. Good advice!)
10. Press on the top the muffin to check for doneness. It should not give at all (at least in my oven that’s what I found out).
11. Once they are cooked, let them cool for at least 20 minutes then remove from the muffin tin.

Special thanks to PaleoOMG for this recipe. She has other recipes that are good to try so head on over there and check out that website.