Paleo Friendly Waffles

By: Victoria Kulig

I am following a Paleo lifestyle in my on-going process to become more healthy and take better care of my body. In this dietary change, it has eliminated a lot of processed foods from my diet - as well as dairy, legumes, wheat, gluten, pastas... and a wealth of other foods.

While it is an overall healthy diet - full of meats, vegetables and fruits, sometimes I miss things.

One of those things is the convenience of frozen waffles.

I found a recipe for making Paleo friendly pancakes, then tweaked it a bit to make waffles out of it.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups almond flour
• 6 eggs
• 3/4 cup of water
• 3 tbsp honey
• 3 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 tsp cinnamon
• Coconut oil (or butter, or ghee... I use it to keep them from sticking to the iron)
• cup of dark chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients into a large bowl and whisk it all together.
2. Get out your waffle iron, grease it, and heat it up.
3. Pour mixture into waffle iron. Cook waffles.
4. Enjoy heavenly aroma of honey, vanilla, and chocolate.
5. Take out cooked waffles, put into a gallon sized Ziploc bag, and put into freezer immediately.

Now that you have cooked and frozen your waffles, you can have them whenever you need them. Just pop them into the toaster and they will smell as good as they did when you first made them, and they'll be crispy - much like an Eggo waffle would be.

This recipe would make about 12 waffles - so if you eat two at a time, you're looking at 6 servings. If you make smaller waffles, you could stretch it out a bit more. They taste fine plain, but I love to drizzle a little honey on them when I eat them.

I used dark chocolate chips because I am a sucker for chocolate. Feel free to swap that out with fresh berries or even nuts to try different combinations!

Busy Breakfast Burritos

By: Vicky Kulig

I am sure that many of you are very busy, like me. I have to keep a calendar for all of my various activities - between dog training, helping to run my dog club, exercise, and maintaining some semblance of a social life.

That leaves very little time for me to do that other fairly domestic duty we all love so much: cooking.

I eat out way too much because I am too busy to cook. I've seen all the pins lately about making meals in advance to freeze so you can grab them and cook them as you need them... so I decided I'd give it a try with breakfast.

So I made breakfast burritos!

This is probably one of the easiest meals ever and will either be enough for two work weeks of breakfast, or one week for two people - as is my case.

Ingredients:

• One dozen eggs
• A splash of milk (I don't measure...)
• 2 rolls of breakfast sausage (I like Jimmy Dean)
• 10 tortillas (I use the 10 inch)
• Shredded cheese
• Tin foil

Directions:

1. Cook the sausage. Once it's done, set it to the side. I place mine on a paper towel to help absorb some of the grease.
2. Scramble eggs with a bit of milk in them to make them fluffy. Salt and pepper to taste.
3. Lay out 10 squares of tin foil, with a tortilla in each one.
4. Dish out sausage, eggs, and cheese into each one.
5. Roll into a burrito, wrap in the tin foil, and pop in the freezer.
6. When you are ready to eat one, just take it out of the tin foil and wrap in a paper towel. Cook it for about 2.5 - 3 minutes, and it's good to go!

It's a super cheap, super easy breakfast packed full of protein. My estimates set this meal at about 600 calories, though, so I wouldn't eat more than one!

Extra Crispy, No Mess Bacon

By: Kari Lott

I love eating bacon, but the mess of cooking it on the stove top stops me from making it as frequently as I would like.  I discovered a few years ago this way of cooking bacon.  You cook it in the oven, which prevents a mess all over the kitchen when you want bacon.  Also, when you cook it this way, the bacon doesn't sit in the fat while it cooks which stops it from getting soggy.  

You will need:

• a baking sheet
• aluminum foil
• a wire cooling rack slightly smaller than your pan

Preheat your oven to 400.  The first thing you'll do is cover a baking sheet in aluminum foil.  If you don't want to wash the baking sheet after, I suggest doubling up on foil.  Once the foil is completely covering the pan, place the wire rack on the pan resting snugly so it won't slide.  If you need to, adjust the foil on the side of the pan to keep the rack in place.

Place bacon strips on the rack bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes.  I like my bacon really crispy, so I usually cook mine for 20 or more minutes.  While the bacon cooks, the grease will drip down onto the foil.  If you want to save it, you can easily funnel the grease into a container with the foil.  If you usually throw the grease away, you can leave the pan out to cool, then once the grease has hardened enough, you can just roll the foil up and trash it.

And there you have it! Tasty, crispy, mess-free bacon.  Just throw them on a plate (no paper-towel required) and enjoy!

Ginger Sour Cream Bundt Cake

By Kari Baker-Lott

This is a delicious cake that is quick to prepare. I love it because it is as simple as making a plain bundt cake, but the sour cream creates a density and moistness that most bundt cakes lack. It took me about twenty minutes to prep the pan and make the batter and the baking took about an hour.

Ingredients:

• Softened butter for buttering pan (I softened 2 tablespoons but I could have just used 1)
• ½ cup raw sugar
• 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
• 4 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup softened butter (2 sticks)
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup sour cream
• ½ cup crystallized or candied ginger (chopped)

 

I pulled all my ingredients out first to make sure I had everything. (There is nothing worse than starting to cook something and realizing you need one more egg than you have.) I prepared the pan after I made sure I had all the ingredients.

 

 

To prepare the pan, first you need to rub the small amount of softened butter in the pan with a paper towel. Then you sprinkle the raw sugar into the bundt pan and turn the pan to cover all areas (if you don’t spread the butter over the entire pan the sugar won’t stay properly). I didn’t measure exactly ½ cup of sugar. For this I eyeballed it because you just need enough to coat the pan.

 

 

Next, mix the flour, ginger, baking powder and salt together in a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the butter with an electric mixer. Add the sugar to the butter and beat. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition. Separate the egg yolk from egg number 5 and add that to the mixture with the vanilla.

 

Add the flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with sour cream in 2 additions. Mix well after each addition to create a smooth, thick batter. Chop the ginger and mix into the batter.

 

Spread the batter into the pan carefully as to not dislodge the sugar coating. The cake will rise as it bakes, so don’t be concerned if the batter only comes halfway up the pan. Bake 55 minutes to 1 hour until top is golden brown and a knife comes out with few, small crumbs.

Let cool in pan on cooling rack for 15 minutes. Tap the pan on the counter to loosen cake, and then place cooling rack face down on top of the cake. Flip cake on cooling rack and let cool completely.