Protein-Packed Fruit Jello

Back when I used to do calorie-counting, I would eat sugar free Jello all the time, with some sugar free whipped cream on top. Definitely not healthy, and in no way was it good for my body with all those chemicals!

Enter unflavored gelatin. This product is great! I had read some of the amazing benefits of it (hello joint care!) plus it's almost pure protein, so it makes these delicious treats into a nice protein booster!

You could absolutely make these with any kind of fruit/juice you want. We happened to have peaches in the freezer, so that's what I tried. Definitely want to make a million varieties now!

You can choose to let these harden in cute little molds like I did (I love portion control!) or you can pour it into a cooking pan and just cut pieces out like that.

We are definitely starting to eat a few of these cubes a day, and we know we are giving ourselves a good, healthful and beneficial treat!

Ingredients

1) 1/2 cup of pureed fruit or fruit juice (measured after you puree)

2) 1/2 cup of citrus juice (lemon, lime, orange...)

3) 3 Tablespoons of unflavored gelatin (use the red bottle of Great Lakes brand---bought it on Amazon). See the picture below.

Instructions

1) Warm up your fruit and juice in a small pot, over medium-low heat.

Fruit & Juice puree, heating up

2) Once warmed through (about 5 minutes), add in your gelatin. Whisk vigorously to incorporate all of your gelatin or you will get little white specks in it.

Awesome, healthy gelatin---good for your body!

Adding the gelatin in

3) Keep on the heat for 1-2 minutes while you whisk and the gelatin incorporates.

4) Pour into your molds or your pan, and place in the refrigerator to set, approximately 3-4 hours.

5) Eat these jewels and help out your joints!

Ready for the fridge!

All done! 

Banana Coconut Cookies

Confession time: my boyfriend and I have giant sweet tooths, and we are nighttime munchers. We are trying to break the habit as much as possible, but these cookies are something we can have and not feel totally terrible about them!

I guess technically I should call these Banana Apple Coconut cookies, but that just seems excessive. How about Banana Apple Coconut Almond cookies? That's 4 out of the 5 ingredients in the title. Nobody would click on that link, I'm pretty sure. But somehow, here you are. So I am clearly doing something right! :)

These cookies are insanely easy, and you could absolutely add other ingredients to them if you want, like chocolate chips or other nuts or dried fruit. These are really just a delicious, easy, healthy base for whatever you can imagine. So get cooking!

Ingredients

1) 1 apple, cored and diced (I used fuji because that's all we buy)

2) 1 banana, semi to fully ripe (the riper, the sweeter the cookie)

3) 1 cup of nuts (I used unsalted almonds, you could literally use ANY. Salted ones will give a slightly different flavor in this cookie but still delicious)

4) 1 cup of unsweetened shredded coconut

5) 2 eggs

Instructions

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

All your ingredients

2) In a food processor or high-tech blender, add the eggs, banana and apple and blend until mostly smooth.

3) Add in your nuts and coconut and puree until all the lumps are out and you have a uniform consistency.

***Note: I decided to just add everything to the food processor at once. And then it wouldn't blend, so I had to take half of it out and blend it and then add it back in. Don't be like me!***

Ready to blend

All mixed up

4) Scoop your dough onto a greased cookie sheet or a silicone mat. Press down the cookies to make them more flat. They won't really rise so you can put them close together.

Baking time!

5) Cook for 18-30 minutes until they are hard to the touch and slightly brown (this took me about 25 minutes, just keep checking on them).

All done cooking 

Delicious!

Sugar-Free Paleo Beef Jerky

I'm going to admit something right now. I love Paleo....but I absolutely HATE hard boiled eggs. Gross! Something about that separated yolk just doesn't do it for me. So I have had to come up with other ways to get some quick, transport-friendly food to bring along. I made a big bunch of this jerky before we left for our summer vacation to Florida and it was awesome for the car rides!

I have yet to find a good jerky source that doesn't have gross chemical and preservatives in it, or isn't $152/pound.

Enter the best idea ever: MAKE YOUR OWN!

Seriously, this really is not very difficult at all, I promise! Plus you can season it however you want, and you can buy your meat in bulk so it's cheaper! We buy Flank steak from Sam's/Costco for about $4/pound. Have you ever bought beef jerky for that cheap? No way!

Ingredients

1) 2-4 pounds of lean flank steak or london broil

2) 1/4 cup of coconut aminos (to simulate the soy sauce taste)

3) 1 teaspoon of (all natural) liquid smoke

4) 1 tablespoon chili powder

5) 1 tablespoon onion powder

(You could add more spices if you want to, like garlic powder or cayenne but then it won't be 5 ingredients. It's delicious regardless!)

Instructions

1) Half-way freeze your steak. Trust me, this will make it a lot easier to slice.

Flank Steak, slightly frozen

2) Cut your flank steak AGAINST the grain into even thickness pieces.

3) Trim off any excess fat that you find, as it can make your jerky spoil quicker.

Sliced up

4) Throw your sliced meat into a ziplock bag or a container.

5) Mix together your coconut aminos, liquid smoke, and spices in a bowl. Add the spices to the bag of meat, close it, and then use your hands to incorporate the mixture evenly inside the bag.

The Spices

6) Let the meat marinate in the fridge for at least an hour. I usually leave it overnight or even up to 2 days when I forgot about it. Whoops!

....and marinate!

7) Take out your food dehydrator. Place your meat strips onto the trays, making sure they don't touch.

Post-cooking

8) Cook in the dehyrator on the meat setting (160 degrees) for 3-6 hours, until the jerky is the texture you like. I like my cooked ALL THE WAY, so I always do it about 5 hours. Just taste it after a few hours, and get it to where YOU want it to be.

9) Remove from dehydrator, and package however you want. I put most in the freezer, and grab a small individual serving out and it usually defrosts by the time I want to eat it later that day. Should store in the fridge for at least a week without spoiling.

And enjoy :)

Paleo Peach BBQ Ribs

I love ribs. I even more love slow-cooker ribs that require less than 1 minute of work to make!

Have you tried any of the Paleo Chef sauces from Steve's PaleoGoods? Well you should, because that is what we used for this recipe! Paleo Chef Sauces are not only very tasty and convenient, but they donate a portion of the profits to a great cause! Check them out! We bought the sampler, and some ketchup, and TRUST ME----we use the ketchup a ton!

You can essentially use any sauce you want on top of the ribs for this recipe. It just needs a little liquid in there to not only flavor the ribs, but also help them cook.

This may be the easiest rib recipe you ever make. Truth!

Ingredients

1) 2-3 pounds of ribs (we used beef short ribs)

2) 1/2 to 1 cup of sauce, depending on how many pounds you use (This is where we used the Peach BBQ Paleo Chef Sauce-----awesome!)

And that's it. SERIOUSLY.

Instructions

1) Place your ribs in the slow cooker.

Beef short ribs

2) Cover your ribs with the sauce.

Sauced up!

3) Cook on low for 8 hours.

All done cooking

4) Once cooked, stir up the ribs in the sauce, and you will notice they are falling apart! We gave the bones to the dog and she was happy!

5) Serve it up, and eat. We put some of the extra sauce from the slow cooker on top of some broccoli as a side dish and it was a perfect meal!

Mixed up with the sauce

.....and eat!

Slow Cooked Roast & Carrots

Who doesn't love a good roast? Especially on a nice, relaxing weekend. 

Well I do love a roast. But even more so-----I SERIOUSLY LOVE CARROTS. That's 95% of the reason why I make this dish. So I put a ton of them in there....and they were insane. Yum!

This recipe is very simple, and a crowd pleasure. Do yourself a favor and just buy a big bag of baby carrots so you don't even have to cut them for this dish. That will save you time for sure!

Ingredients

1) 3-4 pound roast (this was a 3 pound beef roast)

2) 1-2 pounds of carrots, cut into bite sized pieces (or baby carrots)

3) 1-2 onions, cut into chunks

4) 2 Tablespoons spices of your choice + 1 cup water (I used Italian season). This is where you can play up and change this recipe to your family's liking. Next time I'm going to try to do a chili flavored version.

Instructions

1) Place your carrots and onions into the slow cooker.

Carrots and Onions

2) Add your roast on top.

Carrots, Onions, and the Roast plus spices --- ready to cook!

3) Mix up your 1 cup of water and spices, then add on top of the roast and carrots.

4) Cook on low for 8 hours.

All done!!

The beef will just fall apart and the carrots and onions will be super tender and tasty.

Chicken & Kale Slow-Cooker Stew

Kale is underused in my book. I never really tried it before I switched over to Paleo, and up until lately my only kale adventures were making kale chips in the oven. Then I saw a few slow cooker recipes using kale and decided to give it a try. It adds a ton of nutritional value, beautiful color, and it's delicious!

Whenever I slow cook with sweet potatoes they always seem to explode and turn the meal into a thick stew----which is just fine in my book! So when this recipe is done, you will not really have any resemblance of sweet potato cubes. But you will have a tasty, hearty stew instead!

Ingredients

1) 2 pounds chicken breast or thigh (no need to chop these, just throw them in. They'll shred later)

2) 2 large sweet potatoes, cut into chunks

3) 1 large onion, cut into chunks

4) 1 Tablespoon tomato paste + 1 cup of water

5) 2-4 cups of baby kale (or regular kale, which you should chop into smaller pieces)

Instructions

1) Throw your chicken into your slow cooker.

2) Chop up your sweet potatoes and onion, and toss that in too.

3) Add your tomato paste/water, and then stir to incorporate everything.

4) Cook on low for 6-8 hours.

5) In the last hour of cooking, open your slow cooker and stir to mix everything up. This will shred your chicken. Add in your kale, and stir until it's incorporated.

6) Cook for 30-60 minutes longer until the kale is tender.

7) Eat up!

Chicken, Sweet Potatoes, Onion and Tomato Paste

Mix it up!

Cooked and mixed---ready for kale

Kale added, and cooked another 60 minutes. Ready to eat!

Coconut Cream Apple "Pie"

Ok, ok, there's not any actual pie. This doesn't even have a crust. But I think it's pretty spot on for what the inside of an awesome apple pie should be!

Coming from Washington State, I super DOOOOOPER love apples. Yes I do! And I also love apple pie. I mean, really, who doesn't? But it is a lot of work, for one, and it's unfortunately very difficult to pull off a good gluten-free/Paleo crust for it. But let's be honest, isn't the inside the best part anyway??!!

So I will tell you that after I made this for my boyfriend a few times when we started dating, he encouraged me/us to buy a case of Coconut Cream Concentrate from Tropical Traditions, because it is THAT good! We still have tons of it, so I am able to make this dish a lot and keep little portions of it in our fridge, and we can have it as a side for a meal or a delicious dessert. Couldn't be easier, or tastier!

Ingredients

1) Apples (I used Fuji apples, and I used 4 apples to make 4 servings of this. Use as many or as few as you want at the time)

2) Cinnamon

3) Coconut Cream Concentrate (aka Coconut Butter---you can find this at Tropical Traditions, or many other places (Let's Do Organic makes a good version too) or you can make your own. It's just like almond butter, except instead of almonds you use shredded coconut and puree until smooth) --- You will use 1 TBSP per apple

The best product ever. Love love LOVE coconut cream!

Instructions

1) Cut up your apples however you want. I chop them into small wedges. Whatever works for you!

Sauteing the apples

2) Saute on medium heat for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they are soft. The longer you saute them, the softer they will be. I like mine super soft, but it's up to you!

3) Sprinkle some cinnamon on top, or apple pie spice, or pumpkin pie spice. Any dessert spices will work!

Adding the cinnamon

4) Stir up your apples. Now it's time to add the coconut cream. You will add 1 tablespoon per apple. If this doesn't look like enough, add some more. It's YOUR meal to enjoy!

Ready for coconut!

Add in your coconut cream----almost done!

5) Stir to incorporate, and your apple "pie" is done!

Done!

Yummmmmm!

I make 4-5 apples at a time, and then break it up into 4-5 servings and stick those in tupperware in the fridge so we always have some apples when the dessert demon starts calling!