Pal-e-NO!

I love to be inspired by positive people and things!  I don’t think I realized how transforming this could be until I was in my thirties.  So much of my childhood and young adult life felt like my motivation came from guilt or duty (don’t get me wrong, guilt and duty still work double time for me).  But when I realized what it felt like to be motivated by inspirational acts or words of people (especially people I love and respect) – it was just a very cool thing!  I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone but me, but that’s all I got.

That said, not long ago, I read a Facebook post from my niece Tara that she had just completed the first phase of Whole 30 and I was not only impressed by her dedication to the program, but greatly inspired.  Granted, this did not cause me to instantly jump on the Whole 30 bandwagon (it seems quite strict), but it inspired me to at least explore the possibilities of feeling better, more energized, and healthier.

Prior to hearing about my niece’s accomplishment I had considered going Paleo.  I thought it could work, as I could have my own Paleo Guru – my boss Matt . . . Say hi to Matt:

Paleo does not refer, as I at one time pontificated – to eating all things pale.  According to Wikipedia, it is formally called the Paleolithic diet and is known as the paleo or caveman diet.  It advocates eating only food that humans’ ancient ancestors might likely have eaten, such as meat, nuts and berries, and excludes food to which they had not yet become familiar, like dairy.  While this premise is flawed, in my opinion (not a fan of evolution), what I have come to understand of the fundamentals of the diet make sense to me.  PaleoLeap is a great site to learn the basic principles such as:

• Avoid Certain Foods:  Grains, Legumes, vegetable seed oils, added sugar, and dairy
• Eat Nutrient Rich Foods:  Organ meats, leafy greens, meat from grass fed ruminants, seafood, and eggs
• Change Your Lifestyle:  Get frequent exposure to the sun, reduce and manage stress, get enough sleep, exercise frequently

As with anything, there are all sorts of variations on the Paleo diet (some stricter than others).  But all in all, it sounds pretty sensible!  It is hard to argue with cutting out processed foods and just eating whole foods.

So, before I go whole hog (OK to eat) into this kind of mammoth (OK to eat if not extinct) dietary change, I figured I would horse around (OK to eat if you’re in France) with some Paleo recipes and see if I liked what I found.  I’m not gonna sugar coat (not OK to eat) this, some of the recipes are pretty strange.  OK, enough with milking (not OK to eat) the puns and on to a recipe.

My aforementioned Paleo Guru recommended some awesome recipe sites.

• nomnompaleo:  Really cool blog with lots of great recipes (the spicy tuna cakes were pretty good and some really unique ingredients) with pictures and steps and everything.  She also has an app that you can download that works awesome.
• paleoomg:  I haven’t explored this one too much yet, but looks like there are some cool recipes
• theclothesmakethegirl:  She has a recipe called The Best Chicken You Will Ever Eat. Ever.  I made it at the behest of abovesaid guru and it was REALLY good.  It is a little extra work because you brine the chicken first but totally worth it.  My husband raved about it (I have trained him to do this, but I think he really meant it this time)!

The recipe I will now chronicle is off the nomnompaleo app.  It is called Better Off Bread.  I love it for the title alone (Gee, I’m really sorry your mom blew up Ricky.)

First I prepared my pan – had to get the steel wool out to get the rust off the cast iron.  Steel wool really does the trick – it also works on the formica countertop if you inadvertently leave a rusty wet pan on it (shh…don’t tell Jimmy, it’s just formica).  It finally looked presentable:

Then I lined up my ingredients (truly I never prepare this much when I just cook/bake regular stuff):

Set up my iPad with recipe on screen (love it when I cook).  And threw it together.  I didn’t have fine sea salt so I took the course stuff I had and used my mortar and pestle to grind it up a bit (Who says I’m not resourceful?  No really, who says it, cuz it’s just not true J ).  It turned out perfect.

Here is the finished product.

It doesn’t look quite like the recipe pictures it (it looks a little like the one-inch high wheat bread my dad used to make us eat when we were little – GACK), but it could be that I didn’t do a couple things totally right.  I have a family full of awesome bakers, so you would think I would know better.  The butter wasn’t quite frozen, I had raw almond flower instead of blanched, and I ended up using too much butter.

I guess the real question is – how does it taste?  Cheyenne (the dog) loved licking out the bowl, but then she eats poop so her palate isn’t overly refined.  I added a little organic strawberry jam, with no sugar added, and had myself a taste.

Not so bad for a first try.  Since the mere thought of no gluten makes me sad, (I mean seriously, just eggs for breakfast and no toast – who does that?) this could suffice, at least for a bit.  But don’t despair . . . . I’m sure there are plenty of more pal-e-faux bread recipes to try.

I think all this inspiration has changed me from Pal-e-NO to a definite maybe.