Chocolate Chip Bacon Pancakes ~ no gluten, nuts, dairy, soy or refined sugars!

I've been feeling rather uninspired for dinners lately until tonight when I remembered that I had a package of bacon in the fridge. Woo hoo!! Pancakes and bacon sounded good and then it hit me: chocolate chip bacon pancakes!

They turned out amazing!! I love them!  They are not very sweet, I am not a fan of super sweet things. Part of the not sweetness of them is due to the unsweetened chocolate that I use in the batter, if you use sweetened chocolate chips (like Enjoy Life brand) then they will be very sweet.

Hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

Ingredients:
1 organic egg
1 cup Organic Coconut Milk Beverage Unsweetened
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon Organic Coconut Sugar
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
3/4 cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour
1/4 cup Organic Coconut Flour
1/2 ounce Baker's Unsweetened Chocolate
4 ounces of bacon (I use Hemplers that is cured with organic honey instead of sugar)

Chop up the bacon into small cubes and fry in a frying pan. Drain bacon from oil and let set on a plate covered in a paper towel. Chop the chocolate cubes into tiny chunks.

Using a fork, whip the egg in a medium mixing bowl for about 30 seconds. Stir in the remaining ingredients and stir just until mixed and not lumpy. Do not over mix. Gently fold in the bacon and chocolate chunks.

Pour 1/4 cup of batter at a time onto a griddle heated to 375F. Grill pancakes for a minute or two on each side until they are a beautiful golden brown.

Yields 10 pancakes

 We enjoyed these with our organic Earth Balance spread and a little maple syrup drizzled over the top.

For more amazing recipes, be sure and check out Allergy Free Alaska and their Gluten Free and DIY Tuesdays page! Talk about some amazing recipes!!

Enchilada Casserole ~ Gluten, Rice and Dairy Free

My four year old is currently obsessed with casserole. She asks for it for dinner every night. Here is a twist on enchiladas that are served casserole style.

I made the recipe two different ways. One with rice and real cheese, and one with quinoa and Daiya (dairy and soy free cheese). I can't have rice but the rest of my family can, and since quinoa has gotten ridiculously expensive lately, I opted for one with rice. Plus my hubby is NOT a fan of Daiya so he would have refused to eat it if I hadn't made him one with real cheese. Here is the recipe for it made with quinoa and Daiya. I will post the version with rice a little later.

So, here you go. The recipe for Enchilada Casserole that is dairy and gluten-free.


Spanish Quinoa
*This is to be used in place of Spanish Rice
1 3/4 cups water
3 ounces organic tomato paste
1 clove of minced garlic
1/4 cup diced organic tomato
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 cup diced onion
3/4 cup dry organic quinoa

Combine all ingredients in a medium sized sauce pan. Bring to a boil, stir and then cover. Simmer on low for 15 minutes then remove from heat. All liquid will not be absorbed by the quinoa.

Enchilada Sauce
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 can organic tomato paste
3/4 cup of warm/hot water
1/2 teaspoon gluten, dairy and sugar free taco seasoning
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Stir together until completely smooth.

Meat
1 pound organic grass-fed ground beef
1 Tablespoon gluten, dairy and sugar free taco seasoning

In a frying pan, completely cook the meat and then sprinkle with taco seasoning.

Casserole

Other ingredients needed:
1 cup of organic corn (canned, fresh or frozen)
Sliced olives (optional)
1/2 cup Daiya cheese (I used cheddar)
12 organic corn tortillas
1 cup of cooked beans of your choice. I recommend black, red or pinto beans

To assemble casserole:
Lightly grease a 9x9 inch square baking dish with Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Line the bottom of the pan with 4 of the corn tortillas. It is okay if they overlap. Spoon on 1/2 the Spanish Quinoa and spread around evenly with a spoon.   Spoon on the cup of cooked beans and spread them evenly over the quinoa. Next pour on the corn and spread it around. Cover with 4 more of the tortillas.

Spoon on the remaining Spanish Quinoa and spread it around with a spoon. Pour the cooked meat over the quinoa and spread around evenly. Cover with the remaining four corn tortillas. Pour the sauce over the tortillas and spread it around evenly. Sprinkle the Daiya cheese over the top of the sauce. If you are adding olives, sprinkle them on top now as well.

Bake at 425F for about 30 minutes or until heated through. Everything is already cooked so you are just needing to heat it all thoroughly.


Serve warm and enjoy!

As another option, once assembled you can cover with aluminum foil and place in your freezer. Then you can pull it out and bake it at a later time.

If you are interested in more gluten-free recipes and some great DIY projects, check out Allergy Free Alaska and The Baking Beauties at their Gluten Free & DIY Tuesdays !

Paleo Carrot-Orange Muffins

I do a lot of juicing. I love the way fresh juiced fruits and vegetables taste, its just so refreshing!!

I also hate to throw away any of the pulp, it just seems like such a waste. A while back I started making a gluten-free "Pulp Bread" (get the recipe here). But now that I am grain-free I needed to get a batch that was grain and sugar free. Here is what I came up with. I have to say that I surprised myself with how good these taste!

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups Cashew Flour or Almond Flour
1/4 cup Organic Coconut Flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 Tablespoon Organic Molasses Unsulphured
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
3/4 cups apple sauce (I used homemade peach sauce)
4 organic eggs
1/4 cup melted organic coconut oil
2 Tablespoons Orange Juice
2 cups pulp from juicing (I used pulp from a carrot-orange-ginger juice) or you can sub 2 cups grated carrot
10 dates, pitted and finely diced

Add all the ingredients into a large bowl in the order listed. One they are all in the bowl, use an electric hand mixer to blend everything together. Don't over mix it, just blend until everything is mixed.

Spoon the batter (it will be thick and dense) into paper lined muffin tins. (My batch made 18 muffins)
Bake at 350F for about 20-22 minutes until they are lightly browned on top and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from muffin tin and let cool on wire cooling rack.
*Note: These are more dense and have more moisture in the center of them than normal muffins do.

I hope that you enjoy these as much as my family does. They have such a sweet flavor to them that if I hadn't made them I would have sworn they had sugar in them. 

Paleo Chicken Pot-Pie

I have been craving a hearty meal for awhile now. So tonight I decided to try making some pot-pie. I really wanted ham but was unable to find any in our area that did not have sugar of some sort added to it. So my hubby picked up some Applegate Farms Organic Chicken sausages (sweet Italian variety) from Whole Foods on his way home.

Here is the recipe that I came up with for my paleo pot-pie.


Filling
1 pound of meat of your choice, cooked
1 cup diced carrots
1 cup peas
1 cup corn
1 cup chopped spinach
1/3 cup diced red onion
      *I used organic varieties of all  the vegetables. That is not necessary, it is your choice.

Broth/Gravy Sauce
1 cup chicken broth (I used my homemade and you can get the recipe here)
3/4 cup Unsweetened Almond Milk
1/4 + 1/8 cup almond meal
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon Sea Salt
1 teaspoon Italian seasing
    *note: My homemade chicken broth does not have any salt in it. If you are using broth that has salt in it then you do not need to add as much salt.

Crust
2 cups Almond Flour
2 organic eggs
2 Tablespoons Organic Coconut Oil


Directions:
Wash, chop, and dice the vegetables. Stir them together in a bowl and set aside.

In a medium sized sauce pan heat 1 cup of broth and 1/4 cup of the almond milk on medium high heat. In a separate cup pour the remaining 1/2 cup of almond milk. Blend in the almond flour, pepper, salt and seasoning. Once the broth and milk start to boil, stir in the flour mixture. Stir constantly and cook for 5 minutes on medium high heat. Mixture will not thicken like a typical roux does.

Remove the sauce from heat and get a medium size bowl. Blend the 2 cups of almond flour, eggs and coconut oil together until mixed completely. I used a fork to mix them.

Place the crust between two sheets of Parchment Paper . Use a rolling pin to flatten the dough until it is large enough to cover the top of the container you are cooking in. (I cooked this pot pie in a 1 1/2 quart baking dish.) If you are using multiple smaller dishes, form the dough to fit the tops of them. I had a little extra so I placed it in the bottom of my baking dish.

Once the dough is done, pour the hot sauce mix over your vegetables. Toss them making sure that all of the vegetables get covered in the sauce. Stir in the meat of your choice. As I mentioned earlier I wanted to have ham. But we ended up using organic chicken sausage (precooked). Chicken goes great in this as well! Spoon the sauce into your baking pan.

Pick up the dough on the parchment paper that you rolled it out on. Flip it (carefully) over the top of the vegetables. Gently press the dough to the edges of the baking dish. Using a knife, make a few slits in the top of the dough so that the air can vent from inside while it bakes. I like to make heart shapes, and every time I do then Gabriella says, "aw, how cute!"

Bake at 425 F for about 30 minutes. The crust should be slightly browned and the sauce bubbling up from the slits you made before cooking.

Serve warm and enjoy!