Last two weeks I was busy with workshops and traveling, so I did not have time to do any proper baking. But I had to do at least something! I made very easy energy balls to have healthy airport-travel-friendly snack. But that was nearly not enough.
Luckily the rare occasion happened – both I and my husband woke up at around the same time during the weekend, so I decided to prepare tasty breakfast for both of us.
My standard breakfast consists of eggs and bit of veggies 99.99% of time (also since I live in fear that someone will prove that tahini is not healthy since I found out how great tahini tastes on sunny side ups).
But this time I decided to give the eggs a bit of twist. In Tomas’ case that would be bacon, and for me smoked salmon. And shiitake mushrooms – they not only taste great, but also give you healthy dose of B vitamins.
This dish is easy to make, but very rewarding in taste and style. It also goes great with paleo or low carb diet and definitely delivers you the energy needed for busy weekend day. So if you are looking for protein rich way to start your Sunday in style, you should definitely try these.
Paleo egg muffins
Ingredients
- 2 large shiitake mushrooms
- 4 eggs
- 4 thin slices of bacon
- 4 thin slices of smoked salmon
- Thyme
- Black pepper, freshly ground
- Salt
- Coconut oil
Instructions
- Prepare 2 small nests of bacon (cross 2 slices for each nest) and 2 nests from smoked salmon (again 2 slices each) in muffin tin (or large cupcake cases). Put to oven for 5 minutes on 175 degrees Celsia.
- Cut shiitake to small cubes and quickly fry them on heated coconut oil. Add thyme, salt and pepper. Lightly beat all the eggs in a cup and pour over the mushrooms.
- Stir quickly for 1-2 minutes, the eggs need to be still liquid.
- Pour egg mixture onto your bacon and bake around 10 minutes or until the egg is done.
- Serve with veggies and wholegrain mustard is also highly recommended
When life gives you berries, take as much as you can and bake some muffins!
Yes I know, life does not give any berries. It’s the people who grow them, transport them to your market or grocery store and sell them to you, and your earned money. So in honor of all that work, you should make something nice, right?
Blueberries and strawberries are not only tasty, but they’re also healthy. Blueberries are good source of vitamin C and K, fiber and manganese, and according to some of the new studies they have positive impact on both your heart and brain. Strawberries contain potassium and magnesium and good load of vitamin C, on top of that they are supposed to have anti-inflammatory effect and anti-ageing properties. So they’re tasty, healthy and make you look young - who would not love that?
When I see they’re on sale, I just can’t resist. Yes, taste of the store bought berries is far from those that I used to pick with my family in the woods around our cottage, but I decided to live 10,000 km far from those woods and my family so I have to settle for the substitute.
I could not find paleo muffin recipe that I’d like, so I decided to just bake simple muffins from scratch. It worked so well that I’m happy with the recipe after second trial, it’s just how I imagined it to be – light and fruity-moist.
I divided the batter to 2 halves as I did not want to mix the berries. You can play with it - use only one kind, or mix them.
Paleo blueberry and strawberry muffins
Ingredients
- 2 cups superfine almond meal
- 2 tablespoons arrowroot flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 eggs, separated
- 1 medium banana, mashed
- 3 sticks stevia and 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
- ½ cup coconut cream (mixed with a bit water if it's thick)
- 100g blueberries
- 90g strawberries chopped to small cubes
Instructions
- Mix dry ingredients and sift them.
- Separate eggs and beat egg whites with stevia until they’re fluffy. Add egg yolks and continue beating. Add honey, mashed banana, vanilla essence and coconut cream with water.
- Gradually add in the dry ingredients, continue beating. The batter will be quite liquid.
- Pour half of the batter to a different bowl.
- Gently mix in blueberries to one half, and strawberries to the other.
- Spoon to muffin tin. I only have mini-muffin tin, so for these I used the small cupcake cups, gaining 18 muffins. Try to avoid having berries on the bottom of the cup, muffins will be easier to eat. When you finish spooning first batter, turn the oven on to 175 degrees C.
- When the oven is preheated, bake for 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clear.
If you prefer it to be sweeter, add more honey or stevia, or just serve with a few drops of honey. Of course, the best way to serve is with fresh berries!
Pasta and pizza are definitely one of those things that people switching to grainfree or paleo diet tend to miss. There are some noodles that do not contain grains and beans (starchy noodles like tapioca or potato), but let’s be honest – they’re also not really healthy and they don’t taste so good.
If you don’t want to go for a fix of buckwheat noodles (they are glutenfree, but not grainfree), zucchini is a great and healthy choice. You can eat this “pasta” slightly pan-fried with a bit of garlic which will leave it nice and soft, or just raw, which – as I found out only recently – will leave them crispy, healthy and super tasty.
In this simple recipe I chose vegan option with pumpkin, olives and shiitake, but you can top it up with other veggies you like, tomato sauce, meat, or anything you would use for a regular pasta.
Or I should say “anything except of poppy seeds”. You've never heard about pasta with poppy seeds? Never mind, I’ll explain one day, with the replacement recipe for countries like Singapore where poppy seeds are not legal.
Raw zucchini “tagliatelle” with non-raw veggies
Ingredients for one person:
- 1 medium sized fresh zucchini
- ½ small onion
- 1/3 cup of small pumpkin cubes
- 7-10 green olives
- 1-2 shiitake mushrooms
- Oregano
- Thyme
- Salt
- Freshly ground pepper
- Coconut oil
Instructions:
- Peel off the zucchini skin.
- Make zucchini “tagliatelle” by sliding peeler along the long side of zucchini. Don’t peel the middle soft part with seeds; we will still use it later.
- Put peels into the strainer, sprinkle with salt and stir, covering the peels evenly with salt, and leave it over bowl or sink to release as much water as possible (20 minutes minimum). Don’t overdo it with salt though, as you will eat zucchini straight like this.
- In the meantime, cut onion to small pieces, heat up bit of coconut oil on the pan, add onion and wait until it starts turning transparent.
- Cut the remaining soft part of zucchini and pumpkin into small cubes and add them to the pan, along with olives cut in half and about 2-3 spoons of water from the olives. Add a bit of salt, freshly ground pepper, thyme and oregano. Cover with lid and cook for around 5 minutes and then uncovered for another 3 minutes.
- Cut mushrooms to thin slices, move veggies to one side of the pan and distribute mushroom slices over the pan bottom, lightly sprinkle with salt and bake them 2 minutes on each side. You can consider adding a dash of red wine here – I just love how shiitake taste with red wine.
- Gently squeeze remaining water out of your “pasta” and form a nest on the serving plate for the rest of the veggies.
- Top pasta with veggies and mushrooms.
I’m sure this recipe would be even nicer if I used tomatoes or tomato sauce with couple of leaves of fresh basil. Unfortunately I can’t try that due to my allergy (I’m a living proof that tomato is a fruit – I only have fruit allergies and tomato is the worst). Anyway – you go ahead and try it and please let me know how was the result.
