More baking!

So, I know, paleo sweets are only supposed to be eaten in moderation. But...they're so good. And baking makes me happy when I'm angry. And the on-base supermarket on payday is hell on earth.
So I came home after four hours of dodging children darting in front of my cart and trying not to slam my cart into the backs of peoples legs and I saw two pears that really needed to get eaten.
So I answered the call of my oven and I baked.
Pear bread:
So, I couldn't find any paleo recipes and I had to modify, but things turned out wonderfully.

You'll need:
2 (very) rip pears, peeled and chopped.
1/3 cup maple syrup
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/3 cup coconut oil
2 eggs
2/3 cup almond flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Toss the pears with the maple syrup, ginger and cloves in a bowl to let the flavor sink in a little.

In another bowl, combine the dry ingredients.

Add everything else to the bowl with the pears, and then add the dry ingredients. I used a food processor to blend everything nice and smooth, but if you use a fork to break up the pears you should be able to whisk everything else together.

Pour everything into a pan and put it in the oven for about 50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when you prick the center.

I sliced up a banana and put it on the top (and it didn't sink!) Mr Idiot didn't like the texture of the banana on top which was totally fine with me, because I got all of it.

This was so good, and I ate it for breakfast, and as a snack and it was great with apple butter on it or butter and toasted.
Yum.
Make it, your friends will love it. (Or, if you're lucky, they'll all hate it and you'll get it all.)

Paleo baking SUCCESS

I cannot tell you guys how pleased I am. I've been messing with paleo bread and paleo pancakes and they just have not been working out, but I have finally had success with paleo baking. 

Paleo banana bread. I made it this morning, I ate it for breakfast, I'll be eating it tomorrow, it's delicious and it WORKED! It didn't turn into a gooey mess or taste like bland flour. Huzzah!

So, here's the recipe. This lovely, lovely bread goes great with tea (That's what I had for breakfast, nom) or coffee or as a snack mid-afternoon. So lovely, so easy. 

Paleo banana bread

6 eggs 

1/3 cup coconut milk (I used almond hazelnut cashew milk I found on sale)

1/3 cup honey

1/2 tbsp apple butter

2 tsp vanilla extract 

1/4 cup coconut oil

3/4 cup coconut flour

1/2 cup almond flour

2 1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3 ripe bananas mashed

Add everything into a mixing bowl and combine. 

Whisk if you don't have a hand mixer, and hand mix if you do. (Thanks, again mum. My life is so easy now)

Pour into a non-stick pan (Pro-tip, spray pan with oil to ease removal) and put into a 350 degree oven for an hour. 

Check that your bread is done by sticking a toothpick into the center. If the pick comes back clean, you're good. If it's gooey, put it back in.

Once it's baked, go ahead and eat!

Candy bacon baby

This was all Mr. Idiots idea. I take no credit, only the responsibility of writing this up.
Mr Idiot is a big fan of Epic Meal Time, as am I, though one too many videos and I get a bit of a funny tummy.
Like Harley says in the video, you've seen it in your fucking dreams, here is how to do candy bacon.

It's beautiful, isn't it...

Take two parts brown sugar and one part cinnamon and mix then together in a bowl.

.

Get your bacon (Mr. Idiot and I used a whole pack, so follow your heart. Ignore what your arteries say) and lay it in a tin-foil-covered baking tray. 

Heat your oven up to 385 fahrenheit and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mix over the bacon. Make sure there's about an inch between each strip, or your cinnamon sugar will bubble into a giant slab. I mean, if that's what your after, please share the results. Otherwise, for ease of snacking purposes, leave a little room. 

Put the bacon in the oven for about ten minutes. 

Once your ten minutes is up, take the bacon out, drain the grease, flip over the bacon and re-sprinkle

Here you see Mr. Idiot demonstrating the correct technique. 

Mr. Idiot's beloved EMT guys say to put the bacon back in for another ten, but our first batch burned when we did that, so put it in for five and see how it's looking. Add time as you need it. 

Once the other side is cooked, put the bacon on a plate (cover the plate in tin foil so the bacony goodness doesn't stick) and put it in the fridge for a few minutes.

Mr Idiot and I used this cooling time to spike a bottle of eggnog. Use your time wisely. 

Take out of the fridge, and enjoy. 

Toffee apples

Today we're going to talk about toffee apples. For those of you looking for an update on how the meal plan is coming along, that's coming up, with a few modifications. But for now, toffee apples.

I've never made toffee apples before (or caramel or candy apples), but I love them. They're one of my favorite season-specific foods, though I don't know why they aren't widely available all year round. They should be. 

Anyway, Mr. Idiot and I attempted our very own toffee apples over the weekend, and they came out visually subpar, but very, very tasty.

I wanted to make our own toffee, but the Mister said that would be too much work, so we used toffee bits instead, which did end up being pretty easy. 

Thankfully we were gifted a little double boiler so we didn't have to rig one up out of our stuff, but if you aren't lucky enough to have generous in-laws, this is a handy article about how to make one of your very own at home, courtesy of the Unsophisticook. 

Anyway. 

We realized after we'd started the process we didn't really know what we were doing, and after some rapid Googling brought up no one specific way to do toffee apples, we just followed our hearts. 

Melt the toffee bits in the double boiler. This takes longer than you think—unless you actually know what you're doing—if you're like me and have never actually used a double boiler before (and maybe thought those metal bowls were for salad or something when you unpacked). My recommendation is get the water boiling, add the toffee bits and then go make yourself some tea. You'll have around fifteen minutes to kill. 

Somewhere in that fifteen minutes, pull the stems off your apples and stick skewers through the core. Make sure they don't come out the other end. We used bamboo kebab skewers, but we had to use four per apple because they were pretty flimsy. 

I don't know if it was the toffee bits we used, or if it's just our impatience, but we couldn't get the toffee to completely melt. There were bits of toffee bit floating around after twenty minutes of melting, so we just went ahead and started dunking. 

It melted a bit more than this, but you get the idea. Lumpy. 

Our double boiler is pretty shallow so we had to get a spoon and pour the melted toffee over the apples to get them completely covered, but to get a nice smooth coating on the apple rotate it in the toffee. While the toffee is still hot, you can dunk the apple in any toppings you want. We did two plain, two with chocolate sprinkles, two with walnuts and two with pecans.

The plain ones came out just fine, a tad lumpy because of the stubbornly unmelted toffee, but looking okay. 

Through a bit of trial and error we discovered that if you'd like your extra toppings to stay on the apple and not slide off into a puddle of melted goo, you have to put the apples directly into the fridge so the toffee hardens. 

Case in point.

We'll definitely be doing these again. They were really easy to make, really inexpensive, and really fun. It was nice to be in the kitchen together, since I do most of the cooking. Unless it's Sunday brunchtime, and then Mr. Idiot has the floor. The nice thing about these is that they'll last up for a long time in the fridge. We made these about a week ago, and the apples are still nice and crisp. And if these two idiots can do it, it's guaranteed that you and your idiot, or your kids can do these together and eat them all week (if they last that long!)

Happy cooking.