Paleo Chocolate Banana Walnut Muffins

Muffin time!
It's Friday night and I felt like baking again. Since I ran out of almond flour but still had a huge supply of coconut flour, the base for my muffins was easily chosen.
Add some banana, cocoa and walnuts and an ideal Friday night snack is born. Yum!


I combined it with watching a new TV-show called Terra Nova, and a glass of water for hydration purposes. I definitely needed some rest tonight!
My weekend will be filled with good food: a BBQ on Saturday, out to dinner at my favourite Indonesian restaurant on Sunday. Life is good!
Oh and I'm going to run a 5km race on Sunday too, I'm already looking forward to that! And I'm kinda getting nervous too..
Anyhow; enjoy the recipe!

Chocolate banana walnut muffins
- 3/4 cup coconut flour
- 1/4 cup cocoa
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 bananas
- 6 eggs
- 1/4 cup coconut oil
- 1 cup walnuts, chopped


1. Heat oven to 175 degrees Celsius and line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.
2. In a bowl, combine the coconut flour, cocoa and baking powder. Stir to combine.
3. In a blender or food processor, process the bananas, eggs and coconut oil until smooth.
4. Stir the banana mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until a fairly thick batter forms.
5. Stir the walnuts into the batter and divide the batter over the prepared muffin tins.
6. Bake for approx. 25 minutes until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.
7. Allow to cool for at least 30 minutes and enjoy!

Horse Stew

Finally, I defrosted the 1,5kg of horse meat I had in my freezer and turned it into a stew. Yes, many people think horses are cute and therefore don't eat them. But let's stop kidding ourselves; we're omnivores, we're supposed to eat meat, and our ancestors most certainly weren't picky as to what animal their meat supply would come from.
Plus, little piggies, lambs and baby chickens look cute too and we eat those anyway. Variation is important! That's what hunting and gathering, and the Paleo lifestyle is all about.


Besides that, I love experimenting with new foods and was very curious as to what horse meat would taste like.
Turns out: it's yummy!! I made a stew out of it, and I like it even better than a beef stew to be honest. The meat becomes much less dry than beef and there's a more 'meaty' taste to it. Oh and it's cheap too!!
If you can't find yourself any horse meat, feel free to replace it with beef though. (I won't tell, I promise)


Horse Stew (serves 5)
- 2 onions, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 3 medium winter carrots, sliced
- 1,5kg lean horse meat, diced
- 3 handfuls fresh spinach
- 150g dried apricots, chopped
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
- 1 tbsp ground coriander
- 1 tbsp ground cumin
- 1 tbsp ground ginger
- 2 tsp coconut oil


1. Heat coconut oil in a Dutch oven and fry the onions, garlic and carrots for a few minutes.
2. Add the horse meat, spinach, apricots and spices and mix well.
3. Add 3/4 cup of water and bring to a boil.
4. Reduce heat to low, cover the pan with a lid and simmer for at least 1 1/2 hours until the meat has become nice and tender.
5. Serve hot and enjoy!

Paleo Comfort Foods - Morning Glory Muffins

There's a new Paleo cookbook around, I've been reading about it on facebook and several other blogs and decided to check what all the fuss was about..
The book is called Paleo Comfort Foods, by Julie and Charles Mayfield, and it's chock full of paleo recipes.
Luckily for me, they posted some of the book's recipes online, one of which being Morning Glory Muffins. My mom and dad are coming over tomorrow; the perfect excuse to do some baking. While looking for a recipe I stumbled upon these muffins and saw you could even make them without any sweeteners like honey, agave, maple syrup, etc. Sounded perfect to me!
Even better was that I had all ingredients at home, ready to use.


My conclusion: these muffins are perfect!!
The recipe made me 12 muffins + 1 mini cake (I always love using leftover batter/dough!) and I'm going to stash most of them in my freezer. Hopefully I'll forget about them for a while though.. Otherwise I'm not sure if I'm able to resist eating all of them at once.

And just that, judging from 1 single recipe, made me want to have this book. No, wait, I need this book! Want = need = buy. (I'm a woman after all..)
So.. What I did, I went to amazon.com and ordered the book, it's as easy as that. Can't wait for it to arrive!

Apple Pistachio Turkey Burgers

Here's another recipe for burgers! I made these yesterday and they turned out really well, nice and sweet, for everyone who isn't a big fan of lots of spices. Feel free to add some more spices if you do like that though!


I've been browsing through 'The Primal Blueprint - Quick and Easy Meals' (by Mark Sisson) last weekend and there's a recipe for a pistachio sauce (with burgers) in there which I tried and.. wow! It was good.. really good. The other meals in the book looked great too, and it gave me a whole lot of inspiration! Since I don't have much planned for the upcoming weekend, chances are I'm going to be doing lots of cooking, and hopefully will come up with some new recipes as well.
For now, enjoy these burgers!


Apple Pistachio Turkey Burgers (serves 2)
- 1/2 cup shelled pistachios
- 350g turkey fillet, diced
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1 small apple
- 1 tbsp coconut oil


1. Coarsely grind the pistachios in a food processor.
2. Add the turkey, egg and spices and process until well-combined.
3. Peel and core the apple, and chop it very finely. If you want you can also grate it.
4. Pulse the apple pieces into the turkey mixture.
5. Divide the mixture into 6 equal balls and flatten to turn them into burgers, put them on a plate and set aside.
6. Heat the coconut oil in a frying pan and fry the burgers for approx. 3-4 minutes on each side until golden brown and well done. Enjoy!

Mini-meatloaf

Found another use for my hot sauce today! I made two of these mini-meatloafs, and spread them with the sauce right before baking. They turned out nice and moist and I'm glad I made two so I can have the other one for breakfast tomorrow!
I wasn't really sure what to call these, as they could be huge burgers, but since I baked them in the oven I figured 'meatloaf' would be more appropriate. And who cares about the name anyway..? They taste good.


If you don't like them spicy, feel free to spread some tomato puree on top instead of the hot sauce. They'll still be nice and moist, without the heat.


Mini-meatloaf (serves 2)
- 300g ground beef
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup almond flour
- 1 onion, minced
- 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 2 tbsp of your favourite hot sauce


1. Heat oven to 175 degrees Celsius.
2. Put all ingredients except for the hot sauce together in a bowl and mix with your hands until well-combined.
3. Divide the mixture over 2 mini springform pans (4 1/2 inch in diameter) and press down with the back of a spoon.
4. Spread the hot sauce over your meatloafs and bake for approx. 40 minutes, or until no longer red in the middle.
5. Let cool for a few minutes, remove from pans and serve with veggies of your choice. Enjoy!

Spicy Roast Chicken

Chicken time!
A friend of mine recommended this Paleo sambal (hot sauce) to me a few days ago. So I headed to the local Asian supermarket, got myself a jar and started thinking of ways to use it. The obvious thing to do with it is spreading it over a piece of cooked meat, which is good. I figured I might as well use it food cooking and spread it on top of a chicken right before roasting it.
It turned out great!
The flavor actually went into the chicken and the veggies and gave a nice amount of heat to it as well. Yum :)

Spicy Roast Chicken
- 1 chicken (approx. 1,5kg), cleaned
- 1 medium butternut squash, peeled, seeded and chopped
- 2 onions, chopped
- 2 tomatoes, chopped
- 2 handfuls of kohlrabi greens
- 2 heaping tbsp of your favourite hot sauce/sambal
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
- 1 tbsp coconut oil


1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and heat the coconut oil in a Dutch oven.
2. Brown the chicken on all sides, approx. 2 minutes per side, and transfer to a plate.
3. Fry the butternut chunks and onions in the remaining oil for about a minute to cover them with fat, then create a hole in the middle of the vegetables and put the chicken back in.
4. Divide the tomatoes and kohlrabi greens along the side, and spread the hot sauce on top of the chicken.
5. Top everything with the parsley and cover the pan with a lid.
6. Transfer the pan to the oven and bake for approx. 90 minutes or until the juices run clear.
7. Let the chicken sit for another 10-15 minutes to allow the juices to absorb, then carve and serve with the vegetables. Enjoy!

My new favourite breakfast

New favourite breakfast? Yes! Someone introduced me to smoked horse meat a few weeks ago, then made me breakfast with it, and I've been eating this a lot ever since. I don't think I've had breakfast without it for the last couple of days.. (and I've been tempted to make it for lunch and dinner as well!)

It's the perfect alternative to bacon, I personally like it even better than bacon, since I can't have pork in the first place.

Because of my new love for this horse meat, I've bought 1,4kg of horse meat (raw, not smoked or sliced) at the market a few days ago, which I'm going to turn into a stew. Let's hope it'll be good!

Anyway, it's been a while since my last recipe, and I was planning to put up a new chicken recipe last Monday, but I did something stupid; I cut my thumb pretty badly while chopping a pumpkin (I slightly panicked from the cut, and I'm not the kind of person who panics easily). They told me I needed stitches when I let someone check it out at the hospital the day after, but it was already too late for that. Not that I'm worried about a scar on my thumb, I'd rather not have someone pull my skin back together with a needle and thread. It'll heal anyway.

This does have a few downsides though: I can't compete in Sunday's survivalrun I signed up for :-(

And cooking has become more of a challenge, since I -apparently- need both thumbs a lot.

I'm still going to give my chicken recipe a try tonight though!

Before I head over to the recipe; I did Murph yesterday! Awesome workout! (apparently, you don't really need your thumbs for pull ups!)

1,6km run, 100 pull ups, 200 push ups, 300 squats, 1,6km run.

I finished in 46'48". Next time, I'm going to try being even faster! Maybe when I improve on kipping pull ups..

Smoked horse meat omelette (serves 1)

- 8 slices of smoked horse meat

- 3 eggs, whisked

- 2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped

- black pepper

- 1 tsp coconut oil

1. Heat coconut oil in a frying pan over medium heat, and divide the horse meat over the pan.

2. Let the slices crisp up a little, this takes approx. 1 minute. In the mean time, whisk your eggs with the black pepper in a bowl.

3. Pour the eggs over the meat, sprinkle with fresh cilantro and fry until set. This omelette will be quite thin so there's no need to flip it. If you decide to use more eggs or use a smaller pan, make sure to flip your omelette as soon as the top starts to set. (approx. 2-3 minutes)

4. Serve hot, and enjoy!

Oven roasted sprouts

Not many people I know actually like Brussels sprouts, but they're mostly used to having their sprouts boiled to death (just like grandma always did..). There are, in fact, so many ways to make sprouts taste good!
You can stir-fry them, add them to curries, fritattas, and, like I did today; roast them in your oven. It's quick, easy and very tasty!
Plus, they're really cheap when in season, so it would be a shame not to take advantage of that.
I only added some black pepper as seasoning, but feel free to add other spices to your liking. Sprouts are really good with some curry powder for example. Or garnish them with some walnuts, and some dried cranberries perhaps. Have fun!


Oven roasted sprouts (serves 2)
- 500g Brussels sprouts
- 2 tbsp extra vierge olive oil
- freshly ground black pepper


1. Heat oven to 200 degrees Celsius and line a baking tray with parchment paper.
2. Rinse the sprouts, remove the bottoms and cut them in half.
3. Toss the sprouts with the olive oil and fresh black pepper on the baking tray and divide them equally, so that they don't overlap.
4. Roast in the middle of the oven for 20-25 minutes until slightly browned.
5. Serve immediately and enjoy!

Chocolate chip banana cake

Hi everyone! I'm back from the USA, and finally have a new recipe to share with you all.
I got home from a great weekend this afternoon (someone made me steak for breakfast, nothing beats that!) and felt like getting creative in the kitchen.


The question 'What to do with leftover chocolate chips??' had been on my mind for a little while. I didn't want to make a huge amount of cakes/cookies/etc. because I know myself (and my appetite..), and therefore I also knew those wouldn't be safe around me. Something smaller was definitely key here.


I ended up mashing a banana together with an egg, some coconut oil, almond flour and the chocolate chips I had left. I poured the mixture into one of my mini springform pans, which are perfect for making smaller portions, baked it for 40 minutes and a moist, airy, chocolate chip banana cake was born!
That's all I'm going to say for now. Just try it and enjoy!


Chocolate chip banana cake
- 1 banana, mashed
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp coconut oil, melted over very low heat
- 1/2 cup almond flour
- 3 tbsp dark chocolate chips


1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius, and line the base of a mini springform pan (4 1/2 inch) with parchment paper.
2. Whisk the egg and coconut oil into the mashed banana until smooth.
3. Stir in the almond flour until a thick batter forms.
4. Stir in the chocolate chips and pour the batter into the prepared springform pan.
5. Bake for approx. 40 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool for at least an hour before serving. Enjoy!