The Paleo Mama

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The Paleo Survival Guide: Getting Started with Paleo

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In the two years that I have been blogging about eating Paleo, the MOST asked question is, “How do I start?” It can be very overwhelming for you…I know…I have been there. Throw transitioning a family into that mix and you are so overwhelmed that you don’t even start.

You can scour the internet for hours and hours on how to start eating Paleo and you will find a lot of information. However, you won’t find it all in one spot. You will have to search:

  • “How do I transition my family?”
  • “How do I eat Paleo when I’m out of the house?”
  • “What kinds of foods should I eat when I’m sick?”
  • “What do I eat when I’m at parties?” 
  • “What do I feel my Paleo kids?” 
  • …and on…and on…and on.

You quit before you even started! Let me encourage you by suggesting this extremely beneficial book that Sylvie McCracken from The Hollywood Homestead has put together a brand new digital book, “The Paleo Survival Guide: Getting Started with Paleo“. Sylvie has not only written a book for you, no, she has written you a survival manual! This book is going to help you make the transition to eating Paleo so much easier.

Sylvie is a walking testimony of how Paleo has changed someone’s life completely. She has lost 65 lbs since she started eating Paleo and weight loss was not even her main goal.

You see, being overweight or underweight is often not the problem. It is a symptom of a problem. When you’re body finds health, it will most likely self-adjust on the weight front quite a bit. – Sylvie McCracken

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10 Reasons Why I Love this Book?

  1. 50% of the book is information that will be extremely beneficial to your success with Paleo. Actually, 100% is beneficial, but 50% is a manual. The other 50% is recipes that will help you get started.
  2. It starts at the bottom and addresses what Paleo, truly, is.
  3. It talks about how Paleo is safe for kids.
  4. It talks about how to afford eating Paleo.
  5. It talks about reluctant spouses who don’t want to eat Paleo. I had one of those! He’s a firm believer now.
  6. It talks about Paleo in times of sickness
  7. It addresses how to eat Paleo On the Go and when traveling.
  8. It addresses sleep, exercise, and managing stress.
  9. It’s loaded with 45 recipes to get you going.
  10. But you know what my favorite reason why I love this book? Because she is a mom just like me. She has 3 kids and she is making Paleo work for her family. You can see that health and happiness is evident in her family’s life because of Paleo.

Oh, the delicious recipes…did I mention the recipes?

Baby Broccoli Salad

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Bacon Guacamole 

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Sneaky Green Popsicle (aren’t they adorable?) 

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Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

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Hollywood Homestead is offering my readers a special discount of 20% off if you order it today!!! Coupon Code: PALEOMAMA !

CLICK HERE TO ORDER! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Help The Paleo Mama Out!!!

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HELP

Hey everyone! I have a HUGE request and need your help. 2013 is quickly drawing to a close and I plan on creating plenty of great content for you in the coming year – including ebooks, an online class, and lots of great posts.

I’ve got lots to share about Paleo, natural living, raising Paleo kids, and health/wellness. But, I need your help. I want to make sure to create content that you want and need. So, I’m taking a really quick survey on Survey Monkey.com to see what my readers are more interested in.

Please fill out this quick survey to help me decide which classes and books to offer next year. Thank you SO MUCH!

>>>Click here to fill it out!  <<<

 

Thank you again! This is such a big help!

 

Jackie @ The Paleo Mama

Smoky Roasted Butternut Soup

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These cool autumn days in Western North Carolina have me wishing that I had a freezer stash of my homemade chicken stock. It seems that as soon as I make chicken stock, it is gone the next day! We love soup in our house and this particular soup, Smoky Roasted Butternut Soup, is one of our favorites. It’s a deeply nourishing soup to go with the chilly fall air. It’s loaded with nutrition (homemade stock, ginger, cumin) to help fight off colds and keep the immune system healthy.

There are many ways and methods to make stock, but I do mine a very simple way in my crockpot. I throw the bones and organs in my crockpot, along with a few carrots, a few sticks of celery, an onion, a few garlic cloves, and a inch-long piece of ginger. I fill it up with water and cook on low for, at least, 24 hours. For step-by-step directions you can check out this post I wrote, “Good Broth Resurrects the Dead.” 

With the autumn chill rolling in, you will find a beautiful assortment of squashes and pumpkins at your grocer or Farmer’s Market. This past week I picked up a delicious, organic butternut squash and made one of my favorite soups with it. We like to throw a protein on top of our soups since soup is the main dish of our meals. Some great protein sources to throw on soup is leftover chicken, boiled eggs, or ground meat. Chicken really compliments the smooth, sweet taste of the butternut, so that is my recommendation!

Smoky Roasted Butternut Soup

Ingredients: 

  • 9 cups of chicken stock (this is how I make mine), divided use
  • 1 butternut squash
  • 6 TB of butter/ghee/bacon fat/coconut oil
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
  • 1 TB of sea salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon of pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon of ginger
  • 2 TB cumin
  • Protein of choice: boiled eggs or leftover chicken
  • Top with sour cream (optional)

Items Needed:

Instructions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut the butternut squash in half. Scrape out the seeds. Put the butternut squash with the cut side up on a baking tray. Put a tablespoon of butter or ghee in each cavity. Place in the oven, uncovered, and bake until fork-tender; about an hour.

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2. Remove the squash from the oven and allow it to cool until you can handle it. Use a spoon and scrape the squash out.

3. Put the squash and 1 cup of chicken stock in a blender and puree till smooth. Set aside.

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4. In a heavy stock pot or dutch oven, heat 4 TB of your fat of choice (I use butter) over medium-high heat.

5. Add the onions and the garlic and sauté until soft and translucent; about 5 minutes.

6. Add the squash puree, stock, cumin, ginger, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes to allow the spices to blend.

7. Top with your protein of choice and serve with a dollop of sour cream (optional).

Enjoy!

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Raspberry Chocolates

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I’m excited to post this delicious recipe that Stephanie from Good Girl Gone Green has offered to share with my readers! Make sure you check out Stephanie’s Facebook page to stay up-to-date on all the delicious recipes she is posting! I know you are going to love this recipe for Raspberry Chocolates! Please welcome my friend Stephanie! 

Homemade chocolate tastes better than any store bought on the market and you have control over all the ingredients. No soy lecithin or milk or unrecognizable ingredients that sometimes sneak up you without warning.

They are a pinch to make- it is just waiting for the chocolate to set that can be cumbersome. But totally worth it. Add some creamy raspberry filling to your chocolate experience and you have a wining combination and healthy treat for you and your family.

Do you make your own chocolates?

RASPBERRY CHOCOLATES

Yield: 12 chocolate raspberry cups depending on the size of your molds

Ingredients

Chocolate

Raspberry Filling

  • 2 cups of raspberries
  • 5-6 medjool dates
  • 1/2 cup of cashews, soaked for 4 hours

What you need

Method

Chocolate

  1. Gently melt the cacao butter in a pot or double boiler.
  2. Once melted, add the cacao powder, vanilla powder to the pot and stir to combined.
  3. Next, add your liquid sweetener of choice. Stir.
  4. Set aside

Raspberry Filling

  1. Add the raspberries to a high powered blend and blend until completely smooth.
  2. Add the dates. Blend together until the dates are broken up
  3. Now add the cashews and blend up until a creamy texture.

Assembling the chocolates

  1. Take your silicone cupcakes liners and place them in muffin tins.
  2. Spoon the chocolate mixture into each muffin liner. Place in the freezer until solid, which should take about 10 minutes.
  3. Spoon the raspberry mixture over the solid chocolate. Place back in the freezer. This will take several hours to become solid.
  4. Spoon the remaining chocolate over the raspberry mixture and place in the freezer until hard. Another 10 minutes.

Tips and Notes

  • You can sub macadamia nuts for cashews, but it will lend a slightly different taste.
  • You can use coconut oil instead of cacao butter, but the chocolate will be more brittle and hard. The chocolate containing coconut oil will will melt faster once taken out of the freezer. The cacao butter chocolate has a more chewy texture.
  • Experiment with any berry! I have used blueberries and they are tasty. They just don’t make as nice a picture with the contrast.
  • You can substitute carob for the cacao, but the taste will most definitely be different.
  • You will most probably have some extra raspberry filling left and potentially some chocolate. I just pilled it all in a small dish and froze the left overs.

Raspberry Chocolates

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Stephanie is a tree hugger and plant-based real foodie trying her best to make a difference on this planet. To say she is passionate about “all things green” and simply calling her passion environmentalism is an understatement! You can find her collecting trash on the streets or along the water, creating raw treats in the kitchen or simply making a difference over on her blog, Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter and Pinterest.

 

Well Fed 2 Releases TODAY! My Favorite Paleo Cookbook!

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Melissa Joulwan, Paleo blogger from The Clothes Make the Girl has CRUSHED it again with another incredible cookbook, Well Fed 2, More Paleo Recipes for People Who Love to Eat. I’m not kidding when I say her first WellFed cookbook was and is and always will be my favorite cookbook. I have sent hundreds of people to her website because I just LOVE her. I love her cooking style. I love her international recipes. I love all the spices she uses. She is incredible and we (the Paleo community) are so lucky that she is creating all these delicious Paleo recipes.

Well Fed 2 is just as good, probably even better, than the first. Wanna know what I love about it: 

  • If a book can have Feng Shui – this one has it. It’s so easy to read and it flows.
  • Each recipe has variations that she calls, “You Know How You Could Do That?” She tells you how to “Spice it Up” or how to use a different meat or vegetable in the recipe. This, in my opinion, is awesome. She takes one recipe and makes it 3, or 4, or 5!
  • On each recipe is a “Tastes Great With” and she recommends a few other recipes from the book that it might taste good with.
  • The Table of Contents is all on 2 pages! No flipping, no searching…it’s all right there in front of you. As a cook, I love this!
  • This cookbook is great if you are doing the Whole 30. Melissa doesn’t “Paleo-fy” desserts because she is more interested in helping you eat well every day. There’s a few fruit recipes that are great for a dessert, but no muffins, cookies, and cakes. My kind of gal!
  • She talks about what Paleo is, and emtional hunger vs. true hunger.

Wanna know what I love about the recipes?

  • Each recipe tells me the serving size, prep time, and cooking time. I can easily find a recipe that will fit into my schedule.
  • They have intense flavor. Melissa has a very internationally developed palate, which I, absolutely, love. You won’t find boring salt and pepper recipes in this book. You will find a diverse cuisine that will open up your taste buds and have you questioning why anyone would think Paleo is boring!
  • I love the Burgers, Balls and Bangers section. It is inspired by different sausage, meatballs, and burger cuisines from around the world. There’s like 18 recipes in this section that you can whip up in less than an hour and they are a healthy and quick protein to grab when you are hungry.
  • Did I mention that I love that she keeps it simple? She does not Paleo-fy recipes!!! This is great for someone like me who doesn’t really make much Paleo desserts or baked goods. I think that keeping it simple is the best way to eat.

Recipes that I Love:

We made the Pina Colada Chicken which was amazing. This recipe uses her homemade JERK seasoning (pg. 82), chicken, onion, peppers and coconut milk. It makes a delicious sauce that you just want to drink!

I, also, LOVE the Better Butter recipe (pg. 60)! In this recipe you are infusing butter with all kinds of spices and making Ghee out of it! Ghee is clarified butter that has all the milk proteins removed. It is, also, Whole 30 approved and many who can’t have dairy, can, safely eat Ghee. Melissa let me share this recipe with you!

If you would like to order this amazing cookbook that JUST released today, you can get it on Amazon for 33% off today!!! 

>>>Click here to grab Well Fed 2 now! <<<

Better Butter (pg. 60) 

Photo Credit: David Humphreys
Photo Credit: David Humphreys

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 pound organic, pastured butter
  • 1/4 small onion, coarsely chopped
  • 6 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
  • 3-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and smashed 2 whole cloves
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 1 or 2 small dried chiles
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom pinch ground nutmeg

Directions:

  1. Place the butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to a bubble. When the surface of the butter is foamy, add all the other ingredients. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered on very low heat until the surface is transparent and the solids are on the bottom, about 45-60 minutes.
  2. Place 4 layers of cheese cloth over the mouth of a jar and carefully strain the butter through the cloth. Discard the spices and milk solids. You can store your Better Butter at room temperature for 2-3 months (but I betcha it won’t last that long).

NOTE: Plain clarified butter, known as ghee, is another must-have kitchen staple. To make plain ghee, just melt the butter as directed above, simmer for 10-15 minutes, then strain to remove milk solids. OMGhee!

How I made it: I took the butter and put it in my silicone pan (can order one here) to make little individual servings of Ghee. This way I can just grab one to sauté my eggs in or to throw on my sweet potato or steak.

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If you would like to order this amazing cookbook that JUST released today, you can get it on Amazon for 33% off today!!! 

>>>Click here to grab Well Fed 2 now! <<<

 

Want to read more Book Love posts? Click here for all my favorite books I’ve been reading!

Help Me Pick My Next Giveaway!

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Hey everyone! I’ve had so much fun with my last 2 giveaways! We have had 2 grateful winners! The first winner won a Vitamix and this past week, a new mommy won a $400 Le Creuset cookware set!

Well, guess what?! It’s time for another!!!!!! But I want to hear what YOU WANT TO WIN!

So leave me a comment on THIS blog post and tell me which of these 4 things you want to win!

$350 Pre-paid amazon gift card (click here to check it out)
• KitchenAid Mixer (click here to check it out)
• Canon Rebel (click here to check it out)
• Vitamix (click here to check it out)
• iPad Mini (click here to check it out)

Check out each of these items and leave me a comment below and tell me what you want!!!

Thanks everyone!

Jackie @ The Paleo Mama