Archive for November 2013

Pistachio Macaron

With all the sugar it requires, this really isn't paleo. But it is gluten-free and it is delicious! I don't think you can ever make macaron without sugar because it is the sugar that gives it its texture. So good. I love it. My boyfriend and I finished it over the weekend :( I crave for it every week but I can't make it every week or we will become so fat!

Ingredients:

Pistachio Mixture

2/3 cup pistachio nuts

1 cup icing sugar

1 egg white

small pinch of salt

Meringue

1 egg white

1 cup icing sugar

25g water

green food colouring (optional. I didn't use any)

Bake pistachios in a preheated oven at 150C for 3 minutes.
Grind warm pistachios with icing sugar in food processor
Mix pistachio mix with 1 egg white and salt. Set aside.
Beat egg white until medium peaks.
Cook sugar and water until it starts bubbling or 118C, pour it into egg whites with beaters running on low speed.
Beat meringue until stiff and glossy on high speed
Stir 1/3 of meringue into pistachio mix.
Pour pistachio mix into meringue and fold until batter is able to fall without trace after a count to 10.
Place batter into a piping bag. Pipe dollops of batter onto a lined baking tray.
Bake at 150C for 14 minutes or until golden.
Remove from tray with paper and let it rest on a rack to cool down.
Peel macarons off and pair them with similar sizes. Keep air tight until time to fill.
Pipe a blob of filling onto one macaron and top with another piece.
Serve immediately or keep chilled.

Note: I mixed cream cheese, butter and icing sugar for the filling.

Pizza

It is pretty expensive to get pizzas with gluten-free bases at the restaurants. It never seemed an exorbitant amount when we paid for these pizzas until I decided to surprise my boyfriend and make our own gluten-free base... our paleo base pizza.

I think compared to normal base, it is much easier and quicker to make the base since you don't have to let the dough sit at all and I love that we make our own pizza now because we can put whatever we want on it. DELICIOUS! The best part about this is that it costs next to nothing! The base ingredients cost about $6 and I can make 3 bases out of it and we get a meal out of each pizza! Depending on what you put on the pizzas, it costs about $5 for a pizza between two people! Is this a good deal or what??

On our pizza, we put an egg, bacon, mushrooms, mussels, sausages and lots and lots and lots of cheese.

Ingredients:

2/3 cup linseed meal

1 cup warm water

2 tbsp. butter

7 tbsp cornflour

2 tsp baking soda

3 cups almond meal

pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 180C.
In a bowl, mix the linseed meal, warm water and butter until the butter is melted and the mixture thickens.
In a big bowl, combine the remaining dry ingredients, then stir in the linseed mix until everything well combined.
Split the dough into thirds and roll them out between two sheets of baking paper. You might want to either get someone else to stretch out the baking paper while you roll it out or keep flipping it to make sure that the baking paper does not get caught in the crease of the dough on the underside.
Once rolled out to desire thickness, carefully peel the top baking paper and place the base in the oven for 22-24 minutes or until the edges are golden.
Once cooked, remove the crust from the oven and place your desired ingredients and bake a further 15 minutes at 200C!

Organic Garden - Avocado

I love avocados. Unfortunately they can be quite pricey when they are not in season. I don't want to pay $2 for one when I can pay $2 for 4! Then I found out that you can grow avocado trees. I thought why not since I'm growing everything else anyway. I just took the pit from my avocado and put 4 toothpicks to prop it up on the glass and fill the glass with water. Note that the round end sits in the water and the pointy end faces up.

It took weeks and weeks for it to grow to this stage. It probably took about 2-3 months. I have 2 pits growing and this one grew faster because the root was already there when I pitted my avocado. My other pit was still... well a full pit. Both were sitting in water around the same time and my other one only just have a root growing out. So you do have to be patient if you are growing it out of a pit. It takes weeks for the root to come out. Nothing happens for a long time and then the pit cracks! That's when it gets more exciting! If you are interested, you should try it. Avocados are delicious and healthy!

primal cavewife

Pistachio Macaron

Pizza

Organic Garden - Avocado