I found coconut flour and almond meal at a little Mom'n'Pop grocery near my house. It calls itself a "farmer's market," but the produce is largely unremarkable. What is remarkable is the wide variety of imports that are hard to find elsewhere, including all manner of coconut products and Asian and Latin American spices and seasonings.

They also had 25-lb Jack fruit! They were enormous and ugly, and another customer (Filipino, I think) assured me that they were "an acquired taste." Anyone ever had Jack fruit?

By the way, don't you think a handful of fresh cherries would be good with that coconut porridge instead of sweetener? Did I mention that I love cherries? And apricots. And peaches. And plums. And mangoes.

As long as there is so much beautiful fresh summer fruit available to me, I am taking a long walk everyday after lunch. When it gets too hot to walk outdoors, I'll stop eating the fruit. We'll see if the extra exercise offsets the extra sugar.

Here's a recipe for Avgolemno, the Greek egg and lemon soup. It's extremely simple to make and is fantastic when anyone is feeling sick and not in the mood to eat.

Ingredients:

Good chicken stock (preferably homemade)
fresh juice of 1-3 lemons
3 eggs
salt and pepper

rice or pastine (if making for others)

I always recommend buying a good, organic/free range/no antibiotics bird to either boil or roast. I prefer the bones of roasted birds to make stock with. Check your local coop or farmer's market for carcasses to make soup. You of course can use canned broth or boullion, but I just don't think it tastes the same.

I simmer my bones with a carrot, half an onion, 4 cloves, 1 bay leaf, and some whole peppercorns for 2-3 hours, although 45 minutes will suffice for whole legs alone, 1.5 hours for a whole chicken.

1. Drain stock into a clean pan and bring to a simmer. Add ground pepper and rice or pastine if using and cook until done.

2. in a seperate bowl, stir eggs well. Add juice of 1 lemon and stir until color has lightened and is a bit frothy.

3. Stirring quickly all the time to keep the eggs from curdling, slowly ladle or spoon the hot stock into the bowl. When the eggs are warm, stir the whole mixture back into the pot and remove from the heat.

4. Season to taste, adding more lemon juice if necessary, and serve immediately.

Your chicken stock should have a jelly like consistency when refridgerated overnight. This is also a great way to get rid of any excess fat, which is easily scooped from the top.

M

I'm not familiar with the books since my diet just consists of meat meat meat meat and limited dairy, but looking over some of the recipes it seems cream is allowed. If it isn't, just ignore this.

BF and I came up with a great way to get a morning breakfast in and to introduce raw eggs into our diet. Takes a total of 30 seconds to prepare. It is kind of like egg nog.

4 Large Raw Eggs
1/2 cup Heavy Cream
SF Vanilla Syrup (or you could just use vanilla but the syrup gets rid of the need to add powder splenda which adds carbs)
Cinnamon (to taste)
Nutmeg (to taste)

Blend in a blender till smooth. Pour over a large cup of ice and let cool. Enjoy.

He also has recently branched out

4 Large Raw Eggs
1/2 Cup Heavy Cream
SF Chocolate Divinci syrup or SF chocolate syrup of any kind

Blend, pour over ice, let cool. Enjoy.

I'm sure he'll try many more flavors. I may have to try strawberry some day soon. The base of this recipe, four eggs and half cup of cream, according to Fitday has

709 Calories
64g Fat
27g Protein
6g Carb

80 % Cal from Fat
17 % Cal from Protein
3 % Cal from Carb

Fits almost perfectly into the 70-80 percent from fat/20-30 percent from protein model with a max of 5 percent from carb.

There may be other carbs added in there from the syrup or if you decide to use flavor and splenda. But overall a good breakfast and fills you up.

I've got cinnamon, fresh nutmeg (awesome stuff) and butter in my Paleo porridge today. Oh yeah, and butter. :)

how to use up a whole bulb of fennel
 

FENNEL! how to use a whole bulb with no waste
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First, go gathering and find yourself the biggest bulb of fennel that you can. Make sure it has lots of nice stalks and fronds on it.

Bring it home, remove the fronds and reserve them. Cut the tough bottom off of the bulb. Then slice the bulb very thinly with whatever method you have available to you - knife, food processor, mandoline. Save the stalks.

Take your sliced fennel and toss it with some EVOO, a splash of vinegar, and a nice pinch of reserved fronds. Enjoy your fennel salad. If you want to get really fancy, add some orange segments or pomegranate seeds to it. I usually don't.

Take your leftover stalks and bottoms and put them into a pot with some chicken stock, a sliced leek, a splash of white wine vinegar, and some salt and pepper. Cook, covered, until the fennel and leeks are soft. Put into a blender and process until smooth. You can add more chicken stock if you need to. Pour into a bowl and top with some reserved fronds and some crumbled pancetta or bacon. Enjoy your delicious creamy springy green soup.

I finally tried the avocado mousse that Kallyn posted. I used the original as written in Garden of Eating and next time I'm going to use Kallyn's revised version.

It is really fantastic! I loathe avocados but don't taste them at all. It was just a beautiful chocolate pudding. I didn't get a whipped mousse texture, probably because I didn't use the dates.

For those who still use artificial sweeteners, I can report that replacing the dates with sweetzfree worked very well, although I'm still working out how much.

Yay for a rich fatty food source.

That's great news Bat! I know you had had trouble finding fatty stuff. :)

I have a potential concept...

Bacon wrapped dates

I went to a interesting restaurant that has little foods, like tapas only not spanish. One of the dishes was Bacon wrapped dates, they had cheese in the middle, definitely not paleo. But I was thinking one could put something else in the middle.

They were insanely good. :P

fake tortilla soup
 

TORTILLA-LESS SOUP serves 1
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First, for dinner the night before, throw a beef roast in the crock pot with a jar of salsa verde for 8 hours, shred, and serve however you like it. Save any leftover beef and some of the juices.

The next day, put the following in a pot and simmer for 5-7 min:
leftover beef/salsa (I think I used about 3/4 cup)
chicken stock (again, about 3/4 cup)
shredded carrot (1/2 a large carrot)
frozen okra (about 1 cup)
fresh cilantro (to taste)

While it is simmering, slice up an avocado and layer half of the slices on the bottom of a bowl. Pour the hot soup on top of the avocado, garnish with a little more fresh cilantro, and serve! Save the rest of the avocado for a little guac or salad garnish or a pudding base.

If there are non-paleos about, cut a corn tortilla into strips, gently saute in a little olive oil til crispy, salt, and serve on top of the soup.

Awww, avocados steal my soul! This sounds really good!

Nancy I want you to know, I haven't eaten a pig in over 12 years and I haven't been able to quit craving this since the day it was posted. Such an odd combo but it sounds fantastic. Perhaps you could use an almond or something to stuff the date with.

It was an amazing combination. :) I was thinking some sort of nut paste in the middle would be tasty.

I have bacon, I have nuts... just need to get the dates.

I adore bacon wrapped dates!
They're really fantastic stuffed with goat cheese. :(

I think a toasted almond would do well. Tahini might work. Cashew butter?

You guys are evil. :p

Hazelnut butter!