Thursday, November 13, 2014

Paleo shortbread cookies with walnuts and cocoa

Paleo shortbread cookies with walnuts and cocoa

Hi everyone ...
Here we go again for a new goodies: biscuits ...
You know the version of the cocoa Grancereale ?! That's ... that's the whole Paleo version;-)

INGREDIENTS
  • 130gr of almond flour
  • 30g walnuts
  • 3 tablespoons of coconut oil
  • 1 tbsp of cocoa powder
  • 3 tablespoons wildflower honey (or to taste)
  • half a teaspoon of baking soda
  • cinnamon to taste
NB: for these quantities you'll get a handful of biscuits, not many. If you want to eat for a few days, because you keep well closed in a box, I recommend at least double the recipe.


PROCEDURE:
  1. First take the almond flour and sgranatela with the help of a fork in a large bowl or finely chopped blanched almonds if you bought those (as I usually do).
  2. Fate then boiling water and soak in the walnuts. Leave them to soak for a few minutes and with a boxcutter put away the peel bitterness. Let them dry on a bit 'of paper towels and then chop them and add them to the almonds. Add dried fruit, cocoa powder, a bit 'of cinnamon to your pleasure and baking soda (perhaps by passing the sieve to avoid lumps).
  3. By melt together the honey and coconut oil and add to dry ingredients. Mix well, make a ball and roll it in plastic wrap. Way to rest in the freezer for 30 minutes.
  4. Past the time, place the parchment paper on a baking sheet and turn the oven to 150 °.
  5. Take a small ball of the dough, knead with your hands (since they tend to crumble) and then formed with calm and care your cookies, freehand or with the help of stencils.
  6. Bake for about 15 minutes, this will also depend on your oven as always.
  7. Once cooked, let cool to room temperature so soft and warm will become brittle and crispy.
Et voila ...

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Paleo Chocolate Salami

Paleo Chocolate Salami

Who has never eaten a slice of the classic "chocolate salami" ?! Good right ?! I liked very much and I thought well recreate a version paleo. Want to know a thing ?! I like so much more and also my guests really enjoyed.

Let's see how to do this ...

INGREDIENTS
  • 300 grams of peeled almonds and hazelnuts
  • 200 grams of dark chocolate 85%
  • 150 grams of lard
  • 100 grams of honey
  • 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 2 eggs
  • seeds of a vanilla bean (optional)
PROCEDURE
  1. Toasted almonds and hazelnuts. Let them cool and chop coarsely.
  2. Meanwhile, melt over low heat your chocolate extra fondente.
  3. In a bowl with a spatula or a hand whisk lard (left for a while 'at room temperature), honey, egg and vanilla.
  4. United cream thus obtained the cocoa powder, melted dark chocolate and mix well. Only at the end, add your almonds and chopped hazelnuts.
  5. Put your bowl with the mixture in the refrigerator for about an hour, occasionally turn and mix well. This will make it easier then shape your chocolate salami because the mixture is too sparse beginning to be worked.
  6. After this time, roll out a sheet of parchment paper on a work surface and formed the classic salami. Well can close the baking paper and wrap the whole thing in aluminum foil. Put in refrigerator to let it solidify.
  7. I let it sit for 24 hours.
  8. Pull it out of the refrigerator at the very moment in which you want to serve it.
  9. Cut into slices and enjoy your meal ...
^ _ ^

VARIATIONS & TIPS
  • If you want the mixture congeals before you can add the ground almonds or coconut.
  • Dried fruit used you can choose it according to your preferences.
  • If you do not have lard pure homemade or from a butcher, you can use coconut oil.
  • You can spice up your chocolate salami adding a cup of coffee (bitter fluid) but in this case I would add another tablespoon of cocoa powder or would leave the mixture in the bowl in the refrigerator to rest for more time.

PALEO can be a vegan or a vegetarian

PALEO can be a vegan or a vegetarian?

Here's the short answer: Yes, I think you can be a vegetarian and Paleo at the same time, depending on what you call "vegetarian", however, you can not be vegan and be Paleo.
Let's start from the end.

If you're vegan, you probably eat a lot of soy, beans, grains, vegetables and fruits and hope. Probably a bit 'of nuts and seeds. People need protein, and all these things except for the fruits and vegetables provide a measurable amount of protein.

For comparison, I would like to point out that 100 grams of beef steak gives you about 29g of protein, and 100 grams of chickpeas they give you about 8 g.
Many experts have said that for optimal health and wellness, people need between 0,7-1g of protein per kilogram of body mass per day.

In this case, I personally would need to eat more than 2 pounds diceci every day to balance the recommended dose of protein. O 1kg. almonds, or 23 slices of whole wheat bread, or 450g.di tempeh (fermented soybeans).

So, if you take away the soy, grains, beans, and more to make your Paleo diet, were nuts and seeds as the main sources of protein, and I said that I should eat 1 pound of almonds a day to meet the my needs.

So you can be vegan and Paleo? Well, you would have resulted in an increase in weight, caused by the need to get a good amount of protein, so my answer is no.

Here is an account of a former vegan converted to Paleo, describing what you can do as a vegan to make your diet better without consuming animal products.

"As for vegetarians, we need to understand who is a vegetarian. I never understood why one is considered "vegetarian" and continue to eat fish, eggs or poultry at times. The last time I checked, salmon and chickens were not among the vegetables ... However, if you're that kind of "vegetarian", then you can live well with the paleo. You should try to eat more poultry, fish, and if you do not have problems of consumption of eggs, also eat more of those.

If you are a vegetarian and the only source of animal food that you eat are dairy products, so try to buy them at zero distance or from a local producer and always full. Sarai Paleo if you do so? No, and I do not encourage people to eat dairy products.

If you eat dairy and follow all other Paleo principles, you will be "Primal".
Primal is close enough to the Paleo, but with the addition of a high-fat, high-quality, preferably fermented milk if you can digest it.

One cup of whole milk still only provides about 8 grams of protein, but it is certainly better than nothing, if you do not eat soy, beans, and other grains as a protein source.
in which case you may not be Paleo.

In addition to this, if you want to become vegetarian or vegan diet, you do these things. Avoid vegetable oils such as soybean, corn, cotton, and other oli treated high in omega 6. Do not drink your calories in the form of sugary drinks or juices. Avoid refined sugar, including high fructose corn syrup, white cane sugar, and many others. Do not consume food, obviously false, as aspartame, other fake sugars, food coloring. Do not rely on caffeine to keep you awake during the day. Also, I recommend a good multivitamin so you do not become deficient in substances that are found only in the flesh. "

Paleo Bread Integral

Paleo Bread Integral

Today's recipe is a Paleo Bread "Integral" with flax seeds. I wanted to get a kind of "dark bread paleo" rich in fiber, so I mixed the almond flour with ground flax seed bread turning out very similar to appearance and flavor to the full. I have worked on this bread for some time, removing and adding ingredients and this recipe is one that satisfies me the most. A few weeks ago I took a loaf of this bread home from friends who were surprised by the quality, softness and flavor because they did not believe it did not contain cereal flours.

This bread is naturally gluten-free, because it lacks any cereal, is suitable to accompany meats, meat and eggs, I really like it toasted.

Ingredients
  • 100 grams of flour blanched almonds
  • 30 grams of flax seed
  • 4 eggs
  • ½ teaspoon salt integral Atlantic
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon of organic honey acacia
  • For the cover
  • 10 grams of sesame seeds
Proceedings
  1. Put flax seed in an electric coffee grinder and grind to flour is not too fine.
  2. Mix the ground almonds with flour flax seed, salt and baking soda.
  3. Beat eggs with honey.
  4. Combine the wet ingredients to the dry ones and mix well.
  5. Cover with wax paper, a loaf pan (size 21 x 7 x 5 cm in height) and pour the mixture.
  6. Cover the surface of the bread with sesame seeds and bake at 170 degrees for 40 minutes or until golden brown, regolandovi with your oven and doing the toothpick test cooked.
  7. Let cool and slice.
Tips: This bread is preserved for a few days wrapped in waxed paper inside a bag for foods. Adapts to be toasted and you can freeze sliced.

Paleo Maki Sushi

Paleo Maki Sushi

Sushi is the food most famous Japanese cuisine, born in ancient times to preserve fish. In fact, originally put the fish in the cooked rice that brewing allowed to keep the fish for several months, marinating lasted years then passed to the cleanup phase throwing the fermented rice, a long process that eventually was made ​​faster thanks to 'vinegar. He began to sell the first tidbits in the stalls, and since then the sushi has become a food takeaways.

If you've been in a Japanese restaurant, you will have seen that the sushi is raw fish, rice, seaweed and vegetables. The maki is a version of which is used in rolled sushi nori to wrap and compress the contents of the form rolls.

To adapt the maki sushi food Paleo (which does not include cereals, dairy products and legumes) I enjoyed replace rice with cauliflower, combining ingredients known by other less known and I must admit that this Paleo Maki Sushi is delicious, a version surely unknown to the Japanese J redone trying other alternatives, convenient to carry to work, suitable for the 'aperitif or a savory snack.

Makes about 20 Paleo Maki Sushi
  • 5 sheets of nori seaweed for sushi (measures 20 x 12 cm)
  • 400 grams of broccoli cauliflower
  • 80 grams of smoked wild salmon
  • ½ avocado
  • A small carrot
  • sea ​​salt with algae
  • 1 teaspoon of organic apple cider vinegar unpasteurized
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • Bamboo mat for sushi
Proceedings
  1. Wash the cauliflower and steam until soft; cool and put in a food processor and operate the blades for a few seconds until a "rice" of cauliflower.
  2. Remove the cauliflower from the robot and season with salt, sesame oil and vinegar.
  3. Cut the smoked salmon into strips.
  4. Peel and cut the avocado into thin strips.
  5. Peel and cut the carrots into thin strips.
  6. Place a sheet of nori on the bamboo mat, with the shiny side facing down.
  7. Spread a thin layer of cauliflower sull'alga, freeing a portion of about 2 cm at the top in front of you; leveling the cauliflower with the back of a spoon.
  8. Arrange horizontally on the first half, strips of smoked salmon, avocado and carrots.
  9. Carefully roll maki sushi, with the help of the mat, by joining the ingredients until well seal the roll.
  10. Repeat the procedure with the other sheets of seaweed until all ingredients are used.
  11. With a sharp knife cut the roll into slices with a thickness of about 2.5 cm.
  12. Serve.
Tips: The "rice" of cauliflower has a neutral flavor, it can reduce the thickness of the layer according to your preference. Any balances remaining avocado and carrots can be served separately. The drink usually served with sushi is green tea with a delicate aroma like green tea Bancha.

Info: The seaweed nori are prepared from red algae, shredded, dried and pressed, sold in thin sheets suitable to prepare rolls. They have a high content of vitamins, minerals and Omega-3.