Coconut Chocolate Chip Muffins

Last week my boss brought blueberry muffins to work.  This inspired me to cook up some tasty but PALEO muffins.  Now, blueberry muffins are my absolute favorite!!!!! Unfortunately, all I had on hand were some chocolate chips... (so unfortunate, I know!)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup coconut flour
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup pure maple syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips
• 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract (optional)

Process:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix all wet ingredients in large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl mix dry ingredients.  Slowly add dry ingredients to wet until well mixed.
4. Add in chocolate chips. (Add whatever mix-ins you'd like!)
5. Line muffin tin with paper liners.
6. Fill tin 2/3 of the way.
7. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

Coconut Flour Pancakes

Saturday was the first time in about a month I didn't have to wake up to an alarm. Unfortunately, I woke up at 7:30am anyway! So, I decided to do a little experimenting with some coconut flour I had.  Don't these pancakes look DELICIOUS! Best part is, they taste just like regular pancakes!!!!!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 3 eggs
• 3 tablespoons melted butter (preferably all natural butter or coconut oil)
• 1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons coconut milk
• 2 teaspoons pure maple syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup water

Process:

1. Whisk together all ingredients (Except water).  
2. Add water slowly until you reach a consistency you like. I used the whole 1/2 cup, you may like a thinner or thicker pancake!  
3. Cook pancakes on a buttered griddle/skillet (each side takes about 2-3 minutes). 
4. Enjoy with fresh fruit, honey, or pure maple syrup.

***Note: These are fragile, smaller ones are easier to flip and will make a prettier pancake!

Sausage Egg Muffins

Every weekend I spend some time preparing my meals for the week. Usually it's just putting together a big salad to take for lunch everyday.  Today I decided to make breakfast for the week as well.  It'll leave one less thing to do in the morning and I can sleep in a little later!  More importantly, I'll still get to enjoy a delicious, satisfying breakfast!!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 onion
• 1/2 zucchini
• 3/4 lb of Italian Sausage
• 8 eggs
• salt and pepper

Process:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add eggs to a large bowl and scramble.

2.  Chop the onion and zucchini, and add to egg mixture.

3.  Heat a small skillet over Medium-High heat.  Brown sausage.
4.  Allow sausage to cool and make sure it's crumbled into small pieces. Add sausage to egg mixture. Add salt and pepper.

5.  Use paper liners and fill muffin/cupcake tin 3/4 of the way full.
6.  Bake for 15-18 minutes.

Easy, on the go breakfast for the week!

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Fall is by far my favorite season! It's that time of year where apples and pumpkins are in abundance everywhere you go!   Carly and I headed to the Dane County Farmer's Market early Saturday morning before we both had to work, just to get the good pick of produce!  I brought home delicious Honey Crisp Apples for this recipe!  Be on the look out... Carly and I plan to go apple and pumpkin picking soon and there will be plenty more delicious recipes to come!

Ingredients:

• 2 and 1/4 cup almond meal
• 4 eggs
• 1 apple
• 1 banana
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 1/3 cup water
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp cinnamon

Process:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2.  Dice the apple and mash the banana. Put all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

3.  Add the eggs, coconut oil, banana, water and vanilla extract to the dry ingredients and mix.

 4. Fold in the diced apple.

5.  Use cupcake or muffin liners for easy clean up!
6.  Spoon the batter into the muffin or cupcake pan filling 3/4 of the way.

7. Bake for 15 minutes.

Enjoy warm with some pure maple syrup!

Banana Almond Butter Pancakes

I know I just posted a new recipe yesterday, but given the holiday I decided to get creative with breakfast this morning.  I've been paleo now for a little over a month and I haven't really craved pancakes, YET! That's not to say I won't when the weather starts getting colder!! So, I've been looking into paleo pancakes to see what I'm in for.  A lot of them call for coconut or almond flour.  This recipe is excludes flour all together and can be served a number of different ways.

Ingredients:

• 2 ripe bananas
• 1 egg
• 1 tbspn almond butter
• cinnamon/vanilla optional

Process:

Mash the bananas and put in a bowl.  Add one egg and whisk until thoroughly mixed.

Add the tbspn of almond butter to the mixture.  The more almond butter you add, the more "cake-like" your pancakes will be. Make sure you mix it up well and don't leave any chunks of almond butter behind.

Heat some butter/oil in a pan over medium heat.  Pour a small amount of batter into the pan.  These tend to be delicate, the smaller you make them, the easier they'll be to flip.  Also, they need a few minutes on each side.  If the pan gets too hot you'll have to turn the heat down or you'll burn your last few!

Look how yummy this stack of pancakes look! Serve warm with organic honey, pure maple syrup, or fresh fruit! They're even good room temperature and they taste very much like banana bread!!

Enjoy! :)