Raw Chocolate Ganache Pie

 

Someone shared a link to the recipe of Kelly Brozyna's Chocolate Pie + Graham Cracker Crust from NomNomPaleo's website on a friend's facebook page right before Valentine's Day and I knew I had to try it out.  We made it that weekend and fell in love! My husband has been requesting it again ever since we had it the first time.  I've only made it the original way and then tweaked it a little for our liking and tried the raspberry variation.  This is a recipe we'll be using over and over again and it's easy to change it up a little to add new flavors.  I think our next attempt will be at a "peanut butter chocolate" version using cashew butter.  I'll let you know how it turns out. 
The pie has a ganache type consistency and is super rich, dark, and creamy.  It is made with 100% compliant Whole30 ingredients, but it is NOT Whole30 approved- it is most definitely a dessert!  Still, I feel good about indulging every now and then with a dessert I know isn't loaded with crap. 
I hope you enjoy!

 

Raw Chocolate Ganache Pie
adapted from Kelly Brozyna's Chocolate Pie + Raw Graham Cracker Crust on Nomnonpaleo.com
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Crust
1 cup pecans
1/4 cup (about 4) pitted Medjool dates
1 Tbsp coconut oil, melted
1 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch of sea salt

Filling
1 cup coconut cream (the solid cream part from a can of full fat coconut milk)1/2 cup (about 8) pitted Medjool dates
3 oz 100% cacao chocolate bar, melted
1/4 cup melted coconut oil
2 tsp vanilla extract

In a food processor, grind the crust ingredients until very fine and mixture sticks together.
Press into a pie dish or springform pan (I have made it in both) and set aside.

Heat coconut cream slightly by warming in microwave for 30 seconds.  Add filling ingredients into rinsed food processor or blender (I use my Blendtec twister jar for the filling) and puree for 1 minute or until mixture is smooth. With my twister jar I put it on a soup cycle.

Pour filling over crust and chill in fridge until set (about 1 hour).

Top with berries, whipped coconut cream, or ground nuts.

Enjoy!

Variations:

Raspberry Chocolate: Leave out cinnamon in crust.  Replace one of the teaspoons of vanilla extract with raspberry extract in the filling.  Top with fresh raspberries and whipped coconut cream.

Mint Chocolate: Leave out cinnamon in crust.  Add 3 drops peppermint essential oil to the filling.  Top with peppermint whipped coconut cream and chocolate shavings.

 

Spicy Cocktail Sauce

 

I was in the mood for some shrimp with cocktail sauce. I love the spicy cocktail sauce at The Melting Pot and their recipe is in their cookbook (which I definitely have).  I cleaned it up Whole30 style and I think it turned out pretty awesome.
I used Alanna's recipe for the ketchup (Planks, Love, and Guacamole), but added quite a bit more water to get the right consistency.  Use more or less horseradish to get the spiciness to your liking.  I like it spicy. :)
Hope you like it too!

Spicy Cocktail Sauce

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1 cup ketchup

1 tsp Coconut Aminos

2+ Tbsp horseradish

Juice of 1 lemon

Hot red pepper sauce to taste

Add everything in a bowl and whisk until combined.  Cover and chill until ready to use.

Creamy Paleo Dill Ranch

I may be the only one in the Paleo/Whole30 kingdom that gets a little weirded out at the thought of eating raw egg mayonnaise.  I know it shouldn't be a big deal, and I think that real homemade mayo tastes great, but it still weirds me out a little. 
When we came across this recipe in The Recipe Hacker, I was a bit skeptical that this would taste like ranch.  But man oh man, it is our new favorite sauce.  My husband loves it and requests it with just about everything.  It turned out a bit thicker than a mayo ranch, which kinda gives it a "green goddess dressing from the Melting Pot" kinda taste.  You can add more of the coconut liquid that you drain from the cream to get the desired consistency.  It's super creamy and I hope you love it as much as we do!

Creamy Paleo Dill Ranch

adapted from Diana Keuilian's recipe in The Recipe Hacker

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2 cans coconut milk, full fat

1 Tbsp dried dill

2 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic salt

pinch of sea salt

pinch of black pepper

1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar.

Chill the canned coconut milk in the fridge overnight or for at least 8 hours. Opening from the bottom, drain the liquid, reserving up to a half cup. Remove the cream and place into a food processor with the rest of the ingredients. Pulse until ingredients combine. The ranch will be thick and creamy, much like a dip. Add reserved liquid to desired consistency. Let chill for at least 15 minutes before enjoying.

January Whole30

Hello again! We started another round of Whole30 this January are are currently on Day 9.  It's been good so far except for our SWYPOs the past few days.  I may have made some coconut milk berry ice cream, pumpkin pancakes, "candied" pecans, and berry hot chocolate the past few days.  But man, they were freaking awesome.  For me, Whole30 is about learning to make better choices, cleaner choices instead of the junk.  All foods were made with completely compliant ingredients, but they weren't exactly strict Whole30 protocol.  The way I see it, I'm planning on doing Whole30 until we get pregnant (which could be a looong time), and then as best as I can through the pregnancy.  Which means we're in this for the long haul.  So I don't really feel bad making and eating SWYPOs.  They are much better choices than the crap we previously ate.

I'm loving the growing instagram community of Whole30 and will try to post more recipes as I find some that I love.  Like the Creamy Paleo Ranch dip that is coming right up. 

 

Coconut Shrimp with Pina Colada Sauce

 

 I have seen so many recipes for coconut shrimp floating around amongst instagram and pinterest and have been wanting to try them FOREVER.  Coconut shrimp is my favorite thing from Red Lobster and I am so happy that I can make them at HOME now and they are pretty dang good.  Plus, no temptation to eat a million of their cheddar garlic biscuits because who can resist those?!
If you don't like shrimp, you could use chicken, just be sure to cook longer! Coconut chicken nuggets with pina colada sauce sounds great too!
I combined a few recipes I found from the Allie Eats Whole instagram account, Paleomama.wordpress, and Popular Paleo.  Hope you love them as much as I do!

 Coconut Shrimp with Pina Colada Sauce

Combined recipes from Allie Eats Whole instagram account, Paleomama.wordpress, and Popular Paleo

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1 lb peeled & deveined raw shrimp, rinsed and dried

¼  cup coconut flour

¼ cup arrowroot

½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut

2 eggs, beaten

Salt, paprika, and garlic powder, ground ginger to taste (I just did a shake of each)

Coconut oil, to fry

¼ cup coconut cream

½ cup crushed pineapple

For the sauce:

Mix together coconut cream and pineapple until you get a smooth sauce.  Refrigerate for one hour (or while cooking the shrimp).

For the Shrimp:

Place coconut flour on a small plate.

Beat eggs in a small bowl and add seasonings.  

Combine arrowroot and shredded coconut in a bowl.

 

Set up a dredging station with your coconut flour, eggs, and shredded coconut/arrowroot mix.

Start by lightly coating the shrimp in the coconut flour, then in the egg, then in the shredded coconut.  Shake off excess coating.  Set on a plate until you’ve finished all of them.  Once they’re all coated, heat up a couple tablespoons of coconut oil in a frying pan.  Add shrimp a few at a time and flip when the tails turn pink—they should be golden brown.  Cook for another minute or so and serve with the sauce.

Enjoy!

To reheat, preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Place coconut shrimp on a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil.  Bake for 10 minutes or until hot.

Round 2 wrap up

I have been TERRIBLE posting about Round 2.  Apologies for that. 
Round 2 ended up not going as originally planned.  About half way through I applied for and accepted a job offer in a whirlwind of a few days.  It totally threw off my meal planning, meal prepping, and meal making for the rest of the 30 days.  So really it was more of a Whole14.  Since then we have been doing our best just to make sure we are even cooking at home.  Work ruins everything, my carefree mornings of The Price is Right, Just Dance, and Whole30.  But I am grateful that I got this job and am liking it so far (despite my strong feelings against going back to work). 
So sorry. 
We will be back on a HARD CORE Whole30 bandwagon starting in January. 
We'd start sooner, especially considering that it's basically doctor's orders for my newly discovered Hashimoto's and hypoglycemia, but it would be just too hard during the next month between Thanksgiving, Christmas dinner parties EVERY week, and then Christmas.  So January it is. 
I know that Whole30 is super important and I need to develop a lifelong habit of clean eating.  I'm not perfect, but I'm trying. 
In the mean time I'll try to post some of the recipes we've really enjoyed that are all Whole30 compliant.

Stay tuned!

Sweet Potato Hashbrowns

Sweet potato hashbrowns topped with a fried egg is my go-to and favorite Whole30 breakfast.  And they are as easy as 1, 2, 3!
If you could only buy one new tool for your kitchen during your Whole30, I would recommend buying a Salad Shooter.  They are not too pricy and it slices and grates, giving the perfect shreds for hashbrowns.  
Here are the guidelines to making crispy delicious sweet potato hashbrowns.

Sweet Potato Hashbrowns

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1. Peel  sweet potatoes, removing all outside skin.  
   
2. Grate or shred sweet potatoes.
   
3. Cook sweet potatoes in a heated skillet with coconut oil for about 20 minutes, turning halfway through, until crispy*.  Salt and pepper to taste.
   

*Giving your sweet potatoes plenty of room to cook will allow them to get crispy.  If your pan is too crowded, they will not crisp up. 

Depending on your skillet size and sweet potato amount, it will take about 20 minutes.  I’ll cover the sweet potatoes with a lid for the first 10 minutes and then leave them uncovered after flipping them halfway through.  If you're having a hard time getting them crispy, try adding more oil to your batch or less potatoes.  We usually shred enough for the week and store in a glass jar in the fridge until we're ready for more. 

Enjoy!