Paleo Chocolate Coconut Cookies

I knew my sweet tooth was acting up. I had been craving a sweet treat and because of that this weeks experimental recipe is a dessert. I was looking at scone recipes and found several on line and tweaked them a bit to come up with this.

It turned out great and the texture and taste were both awesome. While these cookies are shaped like a scone I have to say that is the only resemblance they have to a scone. So if you are looking for that buttery crispness of a scone, this is not the recipe.

However, these make great cookies, which is exactly what I will shape them into next time. They reminded me of, a chocolate coconut chewy cookie. Think almond joy cookie.

They are delicious and I will be making them again because they are a great little sweet treat that’s not too hard on the waistline but the ingredients are a bit expensive, so I’m really glad it tasted good.

What is the Paleo diet? The paleo diet runs on the same foods our hunter-gather ancestors supposedly ate: fruits, vegetables, meats, seafood, and nuts. Anything that comes in a box, jar, or bag should be avoided on the paleo diet—as should anything that just wasn’t consumed back then. That means no grains, dairy, added salt, or legumes.

The Z Man and I do not follow the Paleo diet, but I would have to say that our style of eating does lean a bit in that direction.

I was looking for a sweet treat that was low in carbohydrates and sugar and I found it….

Paleo Chocolate Coconut Cookies

2 cups almond flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup enjoy life chocolate chips
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
1 egg
2 Tbsp pure maple syrup

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees
In a large bowl, combine almond flour, salt, baking soda, chocolate chips, and coconut
In a smaller bowl, mix the egg and pure maple syrup until well blended
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix well
Knead the mixture with your hands if necessary to ensure an even distribution of ingredients
Form mixture into a circle approximately 1/2 inch thick
Cut the circle like a pizza into 6 or 8 slices depending on the size you want or using a cookie scoop, form balls and flatten into round cookies
Transfer to a parchment lined baking sheet
Bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through

You can very easily change the flavors of these cookies by using your favorite flavors such as dried fruits or a different chocolate. The good life chocolate chips are paleo and a bit higher in price than regular chocolate chips, but again you could use regular chocolate easily if you don’t “need” to follow a paleo diet.

Try them, I think you’ll like them.

Till next time,

Lori

Weekend Frugal Homestead Happenings

I have declared this week an eat the freezer week. I’ve done this for two reasons.

I can not stuff another dang thing in my kitchen freezer and stuff is falling out on me when I open the door. The struggle is real people!
I have used almost all of my storage containers and I WILL NOT buy more. I mean really, how stupid would that be?

You think I’m kidding… look at this!

img_20170121_144414273

I have plenty of single servings of chili and soups for lunches and larger containers of full meal options, it really should NOT be a problem. I’ll consider it a little challenge for this week.

The Z Man continues to work his butt off stocking the wood supply. I do LOVE that Man!

img_20170121_160209154

img_20170121_160233382

That is two different huge stacks of wood he has labored over this week. I think our next major purchase needs to be a hydraulic powered log splitter, instead of the Z Man splitting all this with a maul and ax. The cost of the splitter would pay for itself within a year because of the savings of heating with wood instead of electricity or oil. Not to mention saving the Z Man’s back.

The weather was rainy this weekend so I wasn’t able to sand and resurface my island butcher block like I wanted to. I want to do it outside to keep the dust out of the house. This needs to be done, but it’s also an experiment for me to see if I can do good enough work to take on sanding and refinishing the kitchen cabinets. Yea, I know… so much for dust in the house on that task.

On Saturday I spent almost 2 hours on the phone with Direct TV because our discounts ran out last month and my bill doubled in cost. Oh, and heads up… the representative told me that as of yesterday 1/22/17 Direct TV is going to have an across the board price increase so be sure to check your bill if you do business with them.

Anyway, I’ve always considered Direct TV as a nice little perk for us because we don’t go out to dinners and we don’t go out to movies, we are pretty much, no, I take that back, we are absolutely home bodies. We love football and of course the Z Man likes to watch hunting shows and I like to watch the cooking show channels. I had gotten our bill down to $54 a month, and I figured ok, it’s our entertainment. We do have Amazon prime and can use that if we want to watch a movie. That was a mistake too, but we are stuck with it for another 11 months.

But, HELLO! I DO NOT want to pay $109 a month, and I won’t. After some discussion the nice representative offered me $75 a month. Nope, I still don’t want to pay that. I called back on Sunday and asked again what could be done to lower the cost. Ultimately we compromised and got rid of a few channels which lowered the bill to $56 a month. That is a $2 increase from what we were paying. Fine.

I did do some experimental Paleo baking with almond flour and happy life chocolate chips. I made coconut chocolate chip scones.

img_20170122_104659124

They turned out awesome! They are nothing like a scone and are more like a chewy coconut chocolate chip cookie (think almond joy). I got the base recipe from the Paleo Caveman website then tweaked it a bit. I’ll post the recipe later this week. It’s definitely a keeper for those times you need a sweet treat.

img_20170122_111543548

That’s about it for our weekend except for watching some football. Our Steelers lost, booh!

How about you, did you have a fun frugal weekend?

Till next time,

Lori

Friday’s Frugal Five

Today is a big day for a lot of people, some are happy about it and some are not and that’s ok. But the certainty is that we are all together in this big ole thing we call life and we can choose to try and make the best of it, relying on no one but ourselves to better our lives, be happy and genuinely just try to be kind to one another. That’s all, just be kind to each other. Just my 2¢

I made a big pot of (knock off Panera) broccoli cheddar soup. It was delicious and the cost came in well under the Panera cost for a cup of soup. I coupled that with Katy’s bread recipe which still kept cost around $1 per serving. I put the rest of the soup we didn’t eat in the freezer. I love easy pull from the freezer meals.
I was gifted some pure maple syrup. I “put it up” with what I already had on hand in smaller batches to prevent it spoiling. I’ve read mixed information about the shelf life of pure maple syrup, so I just decided not to chance it and sealed it up in pint jars.

img_20170112_202248455

Because of said soup in #1 I needed to go light the rest of the week with my diet. It’s been 10 months since I quit the Prilosec (after a more than 20 year use of it) but too much of some things disrupt my digestive system. So, veggies the rest of the week for me. I stopped by two different stores and picked up a few veggies using 3 coupons that I had. Here is what I bought and spent. The mushrooms rang up wrong, $1.09 too high and I did take the time to ask the clerk to adjust the price which he did. I’m going to do some experimental baking with almond flour and the enjoy life chocolate chips this weekend and all I can say it it better be damn good for the price I paid for both of them! YIKES!

The fisher nuts were marked down so I stocked up on 2 large bags as I do use them in meals and snack on them quite a bit. I love walnuts!

Kroger – $22.00

Walmart – $67.04 (fully paid with gift card)

Natures Outlet – $ 41. ($20 paid with a gift certificate)

Monthly grocery budget is $300 and I’ve spent $118.00

I used a gift certificate at Natures Outlet, the health food store and bought only what was on my list which was aloe juice and slippery elm, both are used for medicinal purposes to continue to repair my digestive system.
The Z Man has been working his butt off the last two weeks or so stockpiling wood for next year. He is putting that new chain saw to good use. We burn about 10 – 12 loads of wood every winter. Like I mentioned before, wood is 100% our source for heat. That’s a lot of wood… sometimes I feel like the Z Man is a slave to the wood stove. But, neither one of us could imagine a $400 – $500 electric bill and don’t want to. NOPE, DON’T WANT TO!

Your turn, what frugal fun have you had this week?

Till next time,

Lori

Cheddar Broccoli Soup

I was in the mood to make soup, but honestly that isn’t unusual for this time of year. I had been wanting Panera broccoli cheddar soup since a friend mentioned it in her meal plan on Z Life What’s Cooking Faceboo k page.

But it wasn’t until I walked down to the garden that I realized it was my fate To Make Soup!

Ok, I honestly was just going to the garden to get some leftover greens for the chickens, and then I saw this.

img_20170114_121332762

Well hello there Mr. Broccoli, lets put you in a pot! (Yes, I actually still had broccoli in my garden in January, I know crazy right!)

This is perfect for my “new” weekly recipe, following along with The Frugal Girl’s plan to try a new recipe each week. I’ve never made cheddar broccoli soup so I googled recipes and found several that I could tweak as my own for the ingredients I had on hand.

This is what I did…

Cheddar Broccoli Soup

1 stick of butter
3 Tbsp of olive oil (or bacon grease 😉 )
1 large onion chopped
3 celery stalks chopped
3 carrots peeled and chopped
3 garlic cloves minced

img_20170114_131058471

Saute veggies in butter and oil until soft then add:

1 cup of flour to make a roux

Cook roux for 5 – 10 minutes then whisk in:

4 cups of (warmed) milk
3 quarts of chicken stock
1 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp red chili flakes
S&P to taste ( 1 tsp. of each)

img_20170114_134601811

Cook and stir mixture about 5 minutes and then add:

8 cups of small (even a little bit chopped) broccoli florets

img_20170114_141450153

Cook and stir about 10 – 15 minutes until broccoli is softened, then add:

img_20170114_133713381

8 cups of shredded cheddar cheese

Stir until cheese is melted.

img_20170114_144106280

This makes a big pot of soup. My 8 quart stock pot is almost full, shy of about 2 quarts.

But, I’m thinking this soup will freeze nicely and if I’m cooking I’m always making more than one meal.

The recipe could easily be cut in half if needed.

This soup is beyond delicious! So Good!

Now I wont have to buy Panera soup when the craving hits, I’ll just go to the freezer.

img_20170115_092200090

The last time I bought Panera was around $10 for a small cup of soup and a small salad. This pot of soup (6 quarts) would cost about $23 (in my area of grocery costs).

That comes to about $1 per serving for a Panera size serving of this soup. Have you ever got a bowl of soup at Panera (or anywhere besides home) for a $1 or less?

But, if you have broccoli in the garden or freezer and homemade chicken stock on the shelf or freezer, then the (immediate) cost of this soup would be minimal at best.

To go with it I made a fresh loaf of Katy’s, the author of The Non Consumer Advocate’s homemade bread AKA The Tightwad Gazette’s homemade bread recipe.

Just YUM!!! No, really that’s all I could say, YUM!

Since I’ve never made this soup before, I’m counting this as my new recipe for the week, following along with The Frugal Girl’s plan to try a new recipe every week in 2017.

Go ahead, make some soup and bread… You’ll love it!

Till next time,

Lori