chocolate banana paleo pancakes

Whether I eat it first thing in the morning, at lunchtime or at dinnertime, breakfast is one of my most favorite meals. My breakfast meals are typically easy, and always include elements of savory and sweet.

Many of you at Crossfit Addiction have asked for a Paleo Pancake recipe, so here's a strictly paleo version. Sometimes I blend in cottage cheese and shredded coconut, and skip the banana. But this recipe below is tried and true. Enjoy and have fun experimenting with variations!

Chocolate Banana Paleo Pancakes for Two

Ingredients

• 3 eggs
• 1 ripe banana
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1.5 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup almond meal

1. Preheat griddle to 250 degrees and add eggs to blender.

2. Peel ripe or over-ripe banana, and add to blender.

3. Add in vanilla and cocoa powder.

4. Then add almond meal.

5. Blend mixture until smooth.

6. Pour on griddle. Makes 6 pancakes every time for me. If you don't have a griddle, just heat up a saute pan on your stove top.

7. Flip once bubbles rise through pancakes. Be gentle with them--I use an oversized flipper to avoid the pancakes splitting. But even if this happens, they taste just as great.

After a minute or two, they're done! Use maple syrup, raw honey, agave nectar, apple butter or fruit as a topping.

If you want to prepare these to take on the go, consider adding a little agave nectar to the blender. This give them a hint of sweetness and you don't have to worry about transporting anything syrupy and sticky with you.

watch out weight watchers

A few of my co-workers just joined Weight Watchers. From what I hear, it's a fairly successful program. I was astounded, and proud, of the weight they dropped their first week. So to celebrate their success, I offered to give them a break by cooking them a Weight Watchers breakfast (ranging from 4 to 6 points, of course).

When I started thinking about what to make, a tasty dish with eggs and bacon immediately came to mind. But when I looked up these items on the Weight Watchers scale, I realized that two plainly scrambled eggs and one piece of bacon maxed out my limit of 6 points.

So, back to the drawing board. What can I make that keeps these weight watchers on track, but steers clear of my personal shirking of gluten and white sugar?

Then it came to me! Chocolate Almond Stack with Cream Cheese Fruit Filling! It sounds like a mouthful--and it tastes like one, too.

Chocolate Almond Stack with Cream Cheese Fruit Filling
Makes 8 servings at 5 WW points each.

Ingredients

• 4 oz. almond flour
• 2 eggs
• 3 egg whites
• 2/3 cup coconut milk
• 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 8 oz. cream cheese
• 4 tbsp raw honey
• 1 cup sliced strawberries
• 1 cup blueberries

1. Set out cream cheese so that it reaches room temperature and preheat griddle to 250 degrees. If you don't have a griddle, you can use a stovetop pan.

2. In mixer, blend almond flour, eggs, egg whites, coconut milk, shredded coconut, cocoa powder and vanilla.

3. Pour small circles on hot griddle.

4. Cook until you see bubbles rising, then flip and let cook 1 more minute.

5. Meanwhile, blend cream cheese and honey in small bowl.

6. Lay crepe in ramekin. Spread dollop of cream cheese mixture, then top with strawberries.

7. Repeat for second layer.

8. Lay third crepe and spread cream cheese mixture, then top with blueberries.

And just to make sure I use every last point, I cooked bacon to go along with their meal. I mean, who doesn't love bacon?! If you're counting, add 1 more WW point for a slice of bacon.

move over creme brulee...a new dish is in the house

I love cooking and trying new recipes. Making personal-sized Chicken Delight this weekend got me to thinking about other dishes I could make in small sizes.

While perusing TJMax during lunch, I discovered two sets of four ramekins, which together totaled $9. Hard to say no to such a good deal. So I managed to leave the store buying only those sets (no small feat), while daydreaming about of all the possibilities.

During the last few years, I've grown to love creme brulee, the traditional ramekin dish, but decided that the chocolate cake from the weekend was enough of a sugar high to last me a month. (Don't hold me to it though). Instead, I opted for a mexican recipe of sorts. I found a recipe for taco ramekins online, and adapted it to fit my needs. I bought a box of gluten-free Bisquick last week at the store, so this was my chance to try it out.


Gluten-Free Mexican Ramekins
I used eight small ramekins, plus a James-sized one for this recipe. Be sure to preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb lean ground beef
• 1/2 large onion
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
• 1.5 cups gluten-free Bisquick mix
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 medium tomatoes
• 1/2 cup salsa
• 1 cup shredded cheese
• avocado

1. First, dice your onion and sauté with ground beef. Adding in some bell pepper would be good, too. We just didn't have one on hand.

 2. Place Bisquick in small mixing bowl and begin to add water (little by little) until mixture becomes doughy. You may not need the full 1/4 cup of water. The texture will be a bit crumbly. That's because the wheat flour is substituted with rice and potato flour.
3. Then, add large spoonfuls of dough into greased ramekins and press down into bottom and sides with your fingers .

4. Then spoon in meat and onion mixture.

5. Next, spread salsa on top, followed by cheese and diced tomato.

6. Place directly on oven rack and bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
7. Garnish with avocado and enjoy.

Paleo peeps can omit the Bisquick and cheese, and add more veggies.

good morning sunshine

In addition to running a CrossFit gym, my husband runs a bootcamp for women three mornings a week at 6 a.m. On these mornings, he wakes up at 4:45 a.m. to get ready (read: prepare breakfast) before he leaves the house at 5:30 a.m. I get up before he leaves, and am often hit in the face awakened with a breakfast aroma of freshly sautéed onions and bell pepper, not exactly something that makes me want to jump out of bed.

Some mornings, I wake to find him eating the previous night's leftovers at 5 a.m. He's the only man I know that welcomes homemade deer chili, pot roast and slow-cooked collards as a first meal.

But his latest personal challenge involves perfecting hashbrowns. For the last couple months, he's cooked various versions of hashbrowns three to four times a week. He's made them using sweet potatoes, white potatoes, onions, jicama, daikon, rutabaga and celery root. Often, he combines a few of these ingredients to create the perfect breakfast--though, most of the time, he makes hashbrowns for his second breakfast, when he gets home from the gym around 8 a.m.

James claims that celery root is one of the best hashbrown ingredients, but it's usually expensive and not always easy to find in stores. Actually, it's usually in the produce section with all the other weird produce, but rarely has a label.

This weekend, his hashbrown recipe included sweet potatoes, white potatoes and onion. He offered me some, but I declined, opting instead for the standard bacon and scrambled eggs menu item.

How To for Homemade Hashbrowns
1. Shred chosen ingredients. He uses our food processor to make things easy, especially since he makes a hashbrown the size of a pizza.

2. Add a little olive oil to large pan, then add heap of shredded veggies.
3. Sauté on both sides until brown. The tricky part is flipping the hashbrown. Luckily, we have an oversized flipper that works quite nicely.
4. Garnish with ketchup and/or cheese. James often scrambles or fries a few eggs and places them on top of his hashbrown. This produces the largest breakfast you've ever seen in your life.

When I declined the hashbrowns, he ate his share and gave the extra to our friend Bair, who only managed to eat half.

summer sunday

I really wanted to go on a hike, so we met some of our gym-goers (plus kids) at Sope Creek trail for an early afternoon hike. It never rained, as was forecast, but you couldn't tell that by the way we looked. The humidity was as close as it could be to 100% without producing rain, and as a result, all our shirts were soaked from our two-hour adventure.

I asked James to take a picture of us from behind walking the trail. Then he told us to hold still for the shot. That's why we all look a little awkward in this photo below.

We carried a light snack, water and a few 'just in case' ponchos as we wound our way down the trail, which spit us out at Cochran Shoals park, paralleling the Chattahoochee.

As any true CrossFitter would do, we stopped for a photo op at a pullup bar near the end of the trail. James donned a backpack and his infamous $3 aviator sunglasses, which he sported 12 hours straight on Saturday, despite the fact that he was inside 10 out of the 12 hours.

Besides being able to do pullups, Canadian Annie also managed to produce the four beautiful children seen in these pictures--all by the age I am now!

Don't let Amanda's age fool you. At 20 years old, she's more mature than most of my friends.

Somehow I managed to pull up without knocking my hat, which probably means that I could be much more efficient in my movement, or that I was too concerned with the camera. But obviously the latter isn't the reason, or else I would have avoided making that face.

Gret stood by to cheer us all on, and to save her hands energy for inevitable ripping fun at next weekend's competition.

All in all, a great hike, which was followed up with a snack (almonds, cheese slices, plums, watermelon and the sneaking of handfuls of pringles from Annie's kids) and a quick dip in the hooch by James and the kids.

More than Just Meat Burgers
After the hike, I came home and prepped burgers for a grill out with our friends Lauren and Adam. We typically call our get-togethers meat fests, because of the large varied quantity of meat.

To prep the burgers, I diced up half a large onion, then used our 'as seen on TV' chopper to make the onion super tiny. At this point, I could barely keep my eyes open from the burning, which lasted the next 30 minutes.

Then, I poured the juicy onion mush into a container, and added ground pepper and garlic powder. Normally, I'd dice up fresh garlic, but we were out.

Next, I added a little thick worchestire sauce, close to 2 lbs of ground round (85/15) and kneaded everything together.

They turned out great. I think the onions helped them keep their moisture. We ate them sans bun, along with sautéed mushrooms, baked zucchini and pickles.

swelling with pride...chicken delight

Ever since she was little, I can remember my sister Ellen being patriotic. She always loved the Armed Forces service at our church every July, and little tears welled up in her hazel eyes when they asked all veterans in attendance to come down front to be recognized.

Back in the day, (before CDs or MP3s) her first cassette tape was Lee Greenwood's Greatest Hits, and the song she played over and over again was "God Bless the USA" or "Proud to be an American," as we liked to call it. She sang that song at a PTO program with 100 fellow second graders, and it stuck.

Ellen has never been a "reader," as my brother and I like to call ourselves. Growing up, she'd rather be playing outside. So one year at the beach for family vacation, she surprised us all by bringing along a book--the first book we've ever seen her reading that wasn't required in school. What kind of book was it? A first-person war story.

Of course, I was never as caught up in patriotism as she, or so I thought. But earlier this week, she forwarded me a video called Military Reunion, and boy, did it tug at my heart strings.

Chicken Delight
Yesterday, I ran across an easy, mouth-watering recipe for Chicken Delight on one of my favorite blogs, flythroughourwindow.com. Luckily, the ingredients are staples in my house, so I was able to whip everything together at the last minute.

Basically, I just trimmed chicken breasts, placed them on sheets of tinfoil and covered with sliced zucchini. I didn't have squash, so I decided to use carrots instead.

 Then I covered with marinara, shredded cheese and parmesan.

Then I baked at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, and voila.

I my haste, or excitement to make this recipe, I forgot to season my chicken, as the recipe indicated. But to me, it didn't need anymore seasoning. When I make it again, the only thing I'll do differently is make the tinfoil sheets a little longer.

James had two helpings, as always.

introductions...and triple chocolate cake

I've wanted to blog for years, but lacked the necessary discipline and wow factor. I thought, what could I possibly blog about week after week, year after year? But now (in my 'mature' 20s), I've realized it's not about entertaining people; blogging is about self expression, connectivity and the exchange of inspiration.

Who Am I?
In a nutshell, I'm a thoroughbred Georgian trying to hang onto my twenties while attempting to balance work, wifery and my independence. I love baking, 6-month softball seasons, fresh starts, traveling, competition, new ideas, CrossFit, Southern-style casseroles, the lake, mountain cabins on the river, dinner parties, Sunday afternoons, summer cookouts, game nights, Athens, the great outdoors, holidays at home, girls' nights, pool parties, reading before bed, sports, red wine, old people and dreaming big.

Triple Chocolate Threat
One of my biggest downfalls is sweets. Growing up, my parents rarely kept sodas or sweets in the house. Dessert was reserved for special events, but fruit was a nightly ritual. As luck has it, I turned out to love (read 'crave') the sugary stuff. Potato chips or french fries? I'll pass. But chocolate, oh my. For me, it's imaginably similar to cocaine.

So, having a rare "off" day from CrossFitting, I decided to devote my time to being productive by baking a Triple Chocolate Cake and creating a blog. The cake, a go-to recipe thanks to Southern Living, will be used as a stimulant for my co-workers in a brainstorm I'm holding tomorrow, as well as a crowd-pleaser at a pool party this weekend.

I've made this cake several times, and never has it turned out any way other than delicious...and gone in record time. So without further ado, behold the full-fat, flavorful, gluten-filled recipe (paleo peeps: close your eyes).

Triple Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

• 1 (18.25-ounce) package white cake mix with pudding
• 1 (3.9-ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup water
• 4 large eggs
• 1 (8-ounce) carton sour cream
• 1 cup (6 ounces) semi-sweet chocolate mini morsels

Preparation:
Combine first 3 ingredients in a large mixing bowl, stirring with a whisk to remove large lumps. Add oil and next 3 ingredients, stirring until smooth. Stir in chocolate morsels. Pour batter into a greased and floured 12-cup Bundt pan.

Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a long wooden pick or knife inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool cake in pan on a wire rack 10 minutes; remove from pan, and let cool completely on wire rack. Drizzle with Chocolate Glaze.