And just like that, 4 days in, it’s happened. The good-vibes-it’s-exciting-to-try-this-la-la-la phase has officially ended, and the first few things I find annoying are rising to the surface. The first one, by far, is the shopping. I feel like I’m constantly going to the store, or thinking about ingredients I need to get. One or two trips every day, mostly to ensure I’ve got enough protein in the house. It’s not like I’m eating a completely new way, but somehow there’s this added pressure to get that protein, at every meal. Or else.
Keeping a good supply of fresh vegetables and fruit is completely different, somehow. I don’t get annoyed at picking up fresh produce every day or two, since that’s what I’m used to doing anyway. So perhaps it’s just a settling in thing, this buying seafood and meat every few days.
Number two on the annoying list is figuring out what to do about breakfast. Eggs are okay, and sometimes I really enjoy them, but I don’t want to have them every day, or even more than maybe twice a week. A bowl of fruit isn’t always that satisfying for me, especially if the weather is cool out. I guess I could start to make extra meat or fish at night and just reheat that but geez, that seems a little too much of a leap from where I’m at right now.
It’s not too hard to figure out that, underneath it all, I’m still craving a warm bread-y, toast-y kind of start to my day.
What on earth can I do to bring some bread-like goodness into this Paleo challenge? I spent a good couple hours over the past few days scouring the internet for Paleo bread recipes. Not an easy fix apparently, if the posted pictures are any indication. To me they all look um, well, pretty, awful for the most part.
Not to be completely defeated, I turned to finding a good recipe for a quick bread, like banana breads or carrot muffins. Here there seemed to be a glimmer of hope. This recipe for carrot-apple-raisin muffins caught my eye, and now I’m determined to make these so I can get my bread-like fix.
Oh good, that means another trip to the store to get some almond flour. This better be worth it.
From Paleo Comfort Foods by Julie and Charles Mayfield. These turned out to be extremely tasty. I made mine in mini muffin tins (of course!). If you go with the mini size, they’ll take about 15 minutes to bake.
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups almond flour
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups carrots, peeled and grated
- 1 large apple, peeled, cored and grated
- 1 cup shredded coconut
- 1 cup raisins
- 3 large eggs
- 2 tablespoons honey (optional)
- 1/2 cup coconut or olive oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F and grease a standard-sized muffin pan (or use muffin liners).
- Combine almond flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Add carrot, apple, coconut and raisins and combine well.
- In a separate bowl, whisk eggs, honey, oil and vanilla extract together.
- Pour the wet mixture over the dry ingredients and mix very well. The batter will be very thick.
- Spoon the batter out into muffin pan and place on upper or middle rack of your oven for 40-50 minutes. When a toothpick inserted into the top of a muffin comes out clean, the muffins are done.
- Cool muffins in the pan for 8-10 minutes and then remove to a rack to finish cooling.
Notes
For some variety, substitute currants or chopped dates for the raisins. You can also add a little orange zest to give the muffins some citrus flavor.
More on the Paleo diet challenge:
Why I’m doing it in the first place
Image courtesy of HealthAliciousNess via Flickr.
[…] a couple recipes to work some bread-like food into the challenge, but success has eluded me. The muffins and banana bread both passed through my taste and texture hoops, but the plainer bread I tried, in […]