Paleo-rific

I'm one of those that hears about a "new diet" and I want to take a plunge into it. This is not because I want to lose weight as much as it is my thought that I want to see what it is like. I mean, if it's food related, I love to learn about it and experience it. When I heard about the Paleo Diet, I was intrigued, to say the least. Sometimes I think we should all go back to a more cave-man-stlye life. Not the man-bashing-the-woman-on-the-head-with-a-club part, but the dirt-floors-no-shoes-living-outside-and-in-a-cave part. Ahhh... I could really go for that! Anyway. The Paleo Diet consists of living on wild meat and plants and eliminating all grains (corn, wheat, rice, etc.). For our seeking-to-be-more-vegetarian family, the meat part is sort of our for us. As for baking however, I am in!

I ran across this great site and I really felt inspired. I have to say, I have never followed a recipe. I always add a little part of my style to the recipe - probably the ever-improving-cook in me. I ran into a really great blogger at PaleOMG. I tried out her Simple Blueberry Muffins and added dried cherries and frozen blueberries. We were not so keen on the berries, however the base is SPECTACULAR! The coconut with the almonds makes a great starter for me to develop and build what I'm looking for. We plan to add chopped apples, cloves, nutmeg and more cinnamon to make an apple spice muffin. It is, you know, apple season here in Tennessee and we just got a bushel to work with.

So all that I've found with the Paleo baking has really been interesting. Cooking gluten-free for more than five years taught me so much. I'm going to be honest, though, I was less impressed with many of the gluten-free recipes I tried. All the grain combinations did not always turn out the way I wanted. Using nut flours is an entirely different story. So far, I am more impressed with coconut and almond flours than I ever have been with rice flours!

I made a grain-free bread, as well. It turned out pretty nice, however it did not really like our bread machine! Sorry, I don't want to make bread if it can't work in our bread machine (WE EVEN HAVE THE GLUTEN-FREE SETTING!!!). The bread was overcooked and the bottom was hard - definitely would have worked better being simply baked in a loaf pan in the oven, but, alas, I had to head to hook-up. Am I the only one that does NOT feel comfortable leaving bread in the oven when I run to pick up kids?!

So it may still be taboo to have dirt floors (I guess that means I have to start mopping again), I think we can go for some of this Stone Age eating. More to come!

Blessings on the Journey!