Apple and cinnamon buns

I've tried a few times to make cinnamon buns but they usually end up too dry because I, for some reason, want to make them 'healthier' by not adding as much fat. Now I decided to make them the proper way; with lots of fat. :)

Ingredients

makes about 30-40 buns

100 g butter

500 ml milk

50 g fresh yeast

½ tsp salt

100 ml sugar

1 tsp cardamom 

1,3 l flour

Filling:

50 g butter

3 tbsp apple sauce

2 tsp cinnamon

2 tbsp sugar

1 egg, lightly whisked

granulated sugar

Melt the butter in a pot. Add the milk and let it get to body temperature, approximately 37 degrees. Crumble the yeast into a big bowl. Add a little bit of the milk and butter mixture and mix until the yeast is dissolved. Add the rest of the mixture and also the salt, sugar, cardamom and 2/3 of the flour. Mix until smooth and shiny. Then add the rest of the flour (save a bit for the rolling). The dough is finished when it does no longer stick to the sides of the bowl. Pour some flour over the dough and put a towel or the bowl. Let it rest and rise for about an hour; until it's doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. When risen enough, take it out of the bowl and onto a surface sprinkled with flour. Knead the douch with the rest of the flour until it does not stick to the surface anymore. Split the dough in hald and roll out one half with a rolling pin to a rectangle, about 20x40 cm. Spread a thing layer of half the amount of butter on top. Then add half the amount of apple sauce. Sprinkle half of the sugar and half of the cinnamon on top. Roll the dough up and make about 2 cm thick pieces. Put them in paper cups with the cut edge up. Do the same with the rest of the dough. Line them on a baking tray and brush them with the egg. Sprinkle some granulated sugar on top. Bake in the middle of the oven for about 8-10 minutes.

Berry omelette

I think most people have this idea that omelettes should be savoury but it doesn't have to be like that. This morning I made a sweet omelette for breakfast and it was really tasty. Try it! It's quick and easy to make. I used frozen berries but it would probably be even better with fresh ones.

Ingredients
(serves 1)
3 eggs
a splash of vanilla essence
1 small handful raspberries
1 small handful blackberries
1 small hanful blueberries

Whish the eggs together with a fork. Add the vanilla essence and mix it all together. Fry the eggs on low heat in a pan greased with some butter. Fry the omelette until it is almost set on the top. Then flip it and add the berries on one half of the omelette. Fry for a couple of more minutes then fold in half and serve.

Enchiladas

Ingredients

(serves 4)

500 g mince meat

1 onion

2 capsicums

3 garlic cloves, crushed

1 small can of corn

1 dl crushed tomatoes

taco seasoning

4 tortillas

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Cut the onion and capsicum finely. Fry them off together with the garlic in some butter. Once soft, add the mince meat and fry until it gets brown. Add the tomatoes and taco seasoning. Let it all simmer together for a few minutes. Put the mince meat mixture in the middle of each tortilla and fold. Put them in an oven proof dish with the opening down. Put some grated cheese on the top and cook in the oven for about 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted.

Parsnip chips

We had a parsnip over from last week and I wasn't really sure what to do with it. Since I got home from work earlier than normal today I decided to make some parsnip chips. I had a go at making sweet potato chips a couple of weeks ago but they didn't end up that good. This time it went slightly better but I still need to work on how to get them crunchy without burning them.

Ingredients
1 large parsnip
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
paprika powder
cayenne pepper
garlic powder

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Peel the parsnip and cut it into thin slices. Try to cut them as thin as possible. Mix together the olive oil and the spices in a bowl, add the parsnip and mix together so that the parsnips get an even coating. Put the parsnip pieces separately on an ungreased baking tray. Make sure they don't overlap. Bake in the oven for about 10-15 minutes.

Baba Ghanoush

Ingredients
2 eggplants
3 garlic cloves
1½ tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp cumin
½ tsp cayenne pepper
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Prick the skin of the eggplant with a fork and roast for about 35 minutes in the oven. Peel off the skin of the eggplants. Place the roasted eggplant, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, cumin and cayenne pepper in a blender and blend until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper to taste.

Thai roast chicken

Roast chicken is one of our favourite dishes; especially on a Sunday night. Today we are having a bit of a mulitcultural dish since we wanted to make use of the vegetables that we had in the fridge. We had Thai flavoured chicken together with some baba ghanoush and Thai flavoured vegetables.

Ingredients
1 whole chicken
1 tbsp red curry paste
1 tbsp coconut milk'
1 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper

Mix the ingredients. Score the chicken and rub it with the mixture. Roast in the oven for about 1 hour.

Vegetable fritters

Ok, I know I've gone a bit crazy with fritters lately but they are so simple and delicious. Today I made some that are quite high in vegetable content. I served mine with some leftover chicken from last night but you can also eat them as they are. However, they are not very full of protein so some kind of meat is recommended.

Ingredients
(makes 12 small ones)
1 carrot, grated
1 red onion, chopped finely
½ eggplant, chopped finely
1 spring onion, chopped finely
½ red capsicum, chopped finely
60 ml flour
2 eggs
salt and pepper

Mix all the vegetables together and add the flour and eggs. Heat some butter in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add 1 heaped tablespoon vegetable mixture. Using a spatula, flatten slightly. Cook for 2 minutes each side or until golden and cooked through.

Balsamic marinated chicken with roasted tomatoes

Today I looked in the Paleo Recipe book for a recipe. I marinated my chicken for the entire day and it got really nice and flavourful. However, since I cut my chicken fillets in half, I ended up cooking the chicken for a little bit too long.

Ingredients
(serves 2-3)
60 ml balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp homemade or Dijon mustard
4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 large chicken breasts
450 g cherry tomatoes
salt and pepper

Combine the balsamic vinegar, mustard, garlic and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a bowl and season to taste with salt and pepper. Place the chicken breasts in the marinade and refrigerate to marinate for at least 4 hours.
Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Combine the remaining 3 tbsp olive oil with the cherry tomatoes, season to taste with salt and pepper and place in a roasting pan. Place the chicken with its marinade in a second roasting pan. Roast the chicken in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes, then add the tomatoes and roast for another 10 minutes.

Pumpkin lasagna

Once again I've found this recipe on 321paleo and once again I'm reallý happy with the result. This dish turned out really good. I was a little bit sceptic at first but the result was really tasty.

Ingredients
(serves 4)
1 small butternut pumpkin (approximately 1 kilo)
2 medium onions
1 capsicum
3 garlic cloves
500 g mince meat
400 g chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
½ beef stock cube
½ tsp dried basil
½ tsp dried oregano
1 pinch of chili powder
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Chop the onion, garlic and capsicum finely. Add this to a hot frying pan greased with some butter and olive oil. Fry until soft. Add the mince meat and fry until brown. Then add the chopped tomatoes together with the balsamic vinegar, stock cube, herbs and spices. Let it simmer for about 10 minutes. While the meat sauce is simmering, peel and take the seeds out of the pumpkin. Cut into thin slices. In an oven proof dish, put a thin layer of sauce on the bottom, followed by the pumpkin slices and then continue with meat sauce. Repeat until all the ingredients are used, finishing with a layer of meat sauce. Cook in the middle of the oven for about 45 minutes or until the pumpkin is soft.

Date and cinnamon slices

Today has been one of those slightly boring days when you don't know what to do. On these days I usually end up cooking or baking so that's what I did today. I did a double batch of the English muffin/scones and also made this recipe below. They turned out really nice. Found the recipe on the 321paleo blog once again but modified it slighlty.

Ingredients
(makes 10)
1 banana
1 tbsp apple puree
4 eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla
24 dates (seeds taken out)
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
90 ml coconut flour
180 ml almond flour
60 ml honey
100 ml chopped walnuts
3 handfuls shredded coconut


Preheat the oven to 175 degrees. Chop the walnuts finely and chop the dates. Combine bananas, apple puree, eggs, vanilla, dates and honey and mix together. Stir in the cinnamon, baking soda, almond flour and coconut flour and mix until well combined. Add in the walnuts and shredded coconut. Pour batter in to a greased oven proof dish and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes. They should come out slightly soft and moist but not sloppy.

Best paleo pancakes yet

I've made quite a few batches of pancakes lately because I think it's a really nice weekend breakfast. These ones are defintiely the best ones so far and they are also paleo. I found the recipe on 321paleo blog.

Ingredients
(makes about 10, with about 8 cm diameter)
3 eggs
1/3 cup coconut milk
1 banana
½ tbsp vanilla
½ tsp baking soda
½ cup coconut flour
coconut oil for frying

Mix all the wet ingredients first. Then sift in the coconut flour since it usually lumps really easily and also the baking soda. Mix it all together and fry on low heat in a frying pan greased with coconut oil or butter. Serve with fresh berries or whatever else you prefer.

Zucchini, bacon and corn fritters

Fritters is one of my personal favourites. They don't take that long and you can vary it with putting in whatever you like. I was planning on doing the original recipe with flour but I realized when I got home that we didn't not have any flour. So instead I made these flourless fritters which are actually just as good.

Ingredients
(serves 2-3 people)
1 zucchini, grated (about 2 cups when grated)
1 onion, finely chopped
100 g bacon, chopped into cube size
200 gram canned corn, drained
3 eggs
1 tbsp coconut flour
salt and pepper

Fry off the onion and bacon for a few minutes. Beat the eggs and sift in the coconut flour. Add the zucchini, bacon, onion and corn to the eggs. Season with salt and pepper. Heat a frying pan and add some butter and fry about 10 cm big fritters. Serve with a nice salad.

Paleo English muffins/scones

Perfect treats for breakfast or the afternoon tea.

Ingredients
(makes 6)
2 cups almond flour
3 tbsp cold water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp honey
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Mix almond flour, water, salt and baking soda together in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg and honey. Pour the egg mixture in to the bowl with the almond flour mixture slowly and mix until you get a wet dough. Put on a baking tray making six equal cakes. Put in the middle of the oven for about 10 minutes.

                 

Serve with egg and bacon...

...or cream cheese and raspberries.

Carrot cake with coconut cream cheese icing

I decided to make another carrot cake but since I wasn't very happy with the icing last time I tried to make a different one this time. The recipe for the carrot cake you can find here and the recipe for the icing is below. This time I only made a cake with one layer though.

Ingredients
100 g cream cheese
50 ml coconut milk
200 ml icing sugar
50 ml shredded coconut

Mix it all together and put on the cooled carrot cake.

Individual apple crumble

Something easy to just throw together and it really doesn't take much effort or time.

Ingredients
(serves 2)
1 big apple
1 tsp honey
100 ml almond flour
100 ml chopped nuts
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp butter (+ a bit extra to grease the dishes)

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Mix together almond flour, chopped nuts, cinnamon and lemon juice. Peel and chop the apple in thin slices. Coat the apples with the honey and put in two individual oven proof dishes. Put the almond flour mixture on top and put in the oven for 10 minutes. Take them out of the oven and put thin slices of the butter on top, then put in the oven for another 10 minutes.

Gratin with root vegetables

We found some turkey fillets in the supermarket that we tried last year and were really nice. They are prepared already with marinade and sauce so you just need to put them in the oven. I was trying to figure out what to have with it and I thought of potato gratin which we haven't had in a long time. I made my own version of it though and put some other root vegetables in it as well.

Ingredients
(serves 2-3)
2 large potatoes
3 small parsnips
2 carrots
1 onion
3 garlic cloves
150-200 ml cream
2 tbsp butter
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Melt the butter. Peel and slice all the vegetables into thin slices. Put them all in an oven proof dish. Take the skin off the garlic and crush it over the other vegetables. Add some salt and pepper and mix it all together. Mix the butter and the cream and add some more salt and pepper. Pour it over the vegetables and put in the oven for about 45 minutes or until the vegetables are cooked. Serve together with a delicious steak or like us with some oven cooked turkey fillets.

Chocolate balls

I was a bit bored tonight. My dinner was not anything special so nothing to put here on the blog. However, in my boredom I found a recipe for a nice and 'healthy' snack that one of my Facebook friends posted on her blog: chocolate balls without added sugar. I only made half this recipe since I wasn't sure how much it was going to be but I ended up with 10 pretty decent sized balls. :)

Ingredients
(makes 20)x
200 g almond flour
4 tbsp coconut oil
4 tbsp cocoa powder
4 tbsp shredded coconut (+ a little extra to roll the balls in)
10 dates (make sure to take the pits out)

Mix the almond flour and coconut oil in a food processor or by hand. Add the cocoa powder and shredded coconut and mix again. Add the dates and mix once again. Make little balls and roll them in some shredded coconut. It's as easy as that to have delicious little treats on a Tuesday night!

Beef stir-fry with black pepper and garlic

So the 'challenge' is officially over now. I will try to still do as much Paleo food as I feel like but there will be other recipes as well. It's a very nice season coming up now; spring. When the sun starts coming out you get more of an urge to be outside and not stand in the kitchen cooking. Today's recipe is not really Paleo and it was really nice.

Ingredients
(serves 4)
500 g beef, cut into thin strips
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rice wine
2 tbsp oil
½ tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp black pepper
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 onion, sliced
2 capsicums, sliced
4 tbsp oyster sauce

Mix the beef, soy sauce, rice wine and pepper together in a bowl. Heat the oils in a wok pan, add the onion and garlic. Fry for about 3 minutes. Add the beef and fry for another 5 minutes. Add the capsicums and the oyster sauce. Sitr-fry everything for about 2 more minutes. Serve the stir-fry with cauliflower rice.

Chocolate cookies

Weather is bad again and the sun comes and goes quite often. It comes out and you get happy for about two minutes until it goes away again. Sometimes this city is really dull, especially without sunshine. Because of this I decided to bake something. That usually makes me feel better. I got the recipe from 3.2.1. Paleo

Ingredients

(makes approximately 8 cookies)
300 ml almond butter
80 ml cocoa powder
2 eggs
2 tbsp coconut flour
1 tsp vanilla
handful of quality chopped dark chocolate
1tbsp honey

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
Mix all ingredients in a medium bowl with a wooden spoon. Make into cookie sized balls with your hands and put on baking sheet. Press with your hand to make a cookie shape. Bake in the oven for 10-15 mins.
Note: These cookies do not rise, spread or melt like “regular” cookies, so get them the shape you want before baking.