I spent a lot of time in the kitchen this weekend. I actually made six new recipes. All are lower carb, paleo-ish. One was a complete bombtastic fail, one was a tasty treat and the other four I haven’t actually tried yet, but I still have lots to say about them.
The fail (and I don’t want to post a pic of the recipe I got it from) was a Paleo brownie recipe. I did stray a bit from the recipe, so the fail may be my own fault. It called for Almond flour, but I used Bob’s Red Mill Gluten free flour. I don’t think this is where it went completely wrong, however. The recipe also called for unsweetened baking chocolate to be chopped and added to the batter. I think it was the unsweetened chocolate that was the problem. There were bits of the brownie that were not tainted by the chocolate and they didn’t taste horrible. Not good enough, however, to try a second batch without the unsweetened chocolate. So, you heard it hear folks. If you stumble upon the recipe that calls for chopped unsweetened chocolate in your Paleo brownies, move on.
I also made Paleo Plaintain Chips. These came out pretty good and were fairly easy to make. Next time I make them, I need to google how to peel a green plaintain. I haven’t had a chance to try them with guacamole yet, but I’m thinking they would be a good pairing, as suggested.
Now the fun stuff. I made FOUR paleo frozen meals! This was my first foray into freezer meals and I had a blast. My daughter helped and enjoyed it as well. It was mostly assembling and a little bit of prep. I spent about an hour total getting the ingredients together, including the trip to the store and then literally it was clean up time at just about the end of the 2nd hour mark.
For these four meals, I spent about $50 (not including the stuff I bought for the Paleo brownies). I got the recipes from here:
I didn’t make all seven recipes because some of them just didn’t suit me, but I chose the Pork Chops with Apple and Sauerkraut (yes, I’m making my kids try this), the Italian sausage with peppers and onion, the Dijon Chicken and the Stuffed Peppers. And did I mention that these are all crock pot meals? So in the morning I can just grab a bag from the freezer, dump it in the crock pot and know that when I get home we’ll have some hot and healthy waiting for us. I cannot wait to try these, so I will probably be trying one a night for the next few nights. I’ll update this post as I try them! ***Update!! I tried the Italian Sausage and Peppers and would give it a 5 out of 10. I also tried the Dijon Chicken and that was a hit. Strong 7 out of 10.