I think sometimes people fear adhering to a clean eating plan like Paleo means no more delicious food. Hopefully the recipes I’ve presented you so far (just look in the archives to find them) have already proven that notion wrong, but if not, allow me to further endorse the Paleo way of eating with this recipe. Everyone loves a chocolate Frosty, don’t they? Well, now you can have one without feeling guilty! This recipe is also gluten-free and vegan!

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Instructions

1. Place all ingredients in a blender.
2. Starting on low speed, blend everything together, slowly turning the speed up to medium. Blend until smooth and creamy.
3. Makes 2, 8-9 ounce servings.

If you use a Nutri-Bullet, you should be able to pulse it until the ingredients are well combined, or just turn it on and let it go. Just don’t allow the mixture to blend for too long in something like a Nutri-Bullet, or it might result in something more akin to chocolate milk!

You can use either almond or coconut milk with this frosty. The almond milk is more mild. The coconut milk leaves a stronger coconut taste but makes the frosty creamier. More or less honey can be used depending on how ripe your banana is. The riper the banana, the sweeter it is. If you don’t have raw cacao powder, regular cocoa powder will do just fine. So the next time I have an urge to get a Wendy’s Frosty I will be making this instead!

Have you made a vanilla version of this recipe? I didn’t see one online, but I might have missed it.

NOTE: This recipe is Paleo-compliant and vegetarian.

My husband is always looking for new ways to eat smoked salmon. He’s got genetic high cholesterol, so he eats a pretty healthy diet. Because of my fibromyalgia, I eat Paleo whenever I can, and new recipes are always welcome. So when my husband came upstairs the other night with what looked like pretty fancy appetizers. I raised an eyebrow. I needed to know why these delightful-looking bites had appeared, seemingly at my husband’s hand.

He explained. Apparently he had smoked salmon he needed to use. We always have eggs and avocados, so he stacked them on top of healthy crackers (he’s not Paleo so he can eat whatever crackers he wants) and boom!, a new bite of deliciousness was created.

When I looked up this recipe, I noticed there were several iterations out there. Intrigued, I looked closer. They all looked delicious. So I decided to feature all ten of the recipes, rather than just the one my husband had made.

Yummly is a great website for recipes, reviews, and much more. They are the website that featured these 10 yummy recipes all together, which made me even more enamored of them. Here’s the link: http://www.yummly.com/recipes/salmon-avocado-eggs. How about some pictures? What can be better to whet the appetite and cause you to drive to the nearest supermarket at breakneck speeds to acquire these ingredients than pictures?

Don’t they look great? They’re even better when someone else makes them for you!

If you’ve got a favorite recipe for this, leave the link in the comments.

NOTE: The original recipe comes from Gregory Gourdet, formerly of Top Chef Boston and now Executive Chef at Departure, a trendsetting Asian fusion restaurant in Portland, Oregon, and I originally saw it on NomNomPaleo.

Be aware you will want to eat these things like candy. Make a double or triple batch. Trust me on this.

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

• 3 large eggs at room temperature
• 4 medium carrots, grated and squeezed of juice (final volume: 1½ cups shredded carrots)
• 1½ cups almond flour, spooned and leveled
• 1½ teaspoons five spice powder (if you must, you can substitute pumpkin spice blend)
• 1 teaspoons baking soda
• ½ teaspoon cream of tartar
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ⅛ teaspoon fine sea salt
• ¾ cup canned pumpkin purée
• ½ cup local honey
• 2 tablespoons almond butter
• 1 teaspoon melted coconut oil, and a bit extra for greasing the muffin tin if not using paper liners
• 1 tablespoon sliced almonds
• 1 tablespoon toasted pumpkin seeds

Equipment

• Muffin tin
• Paper muffin liners (optional)
• Silicone liners (optional)
• Grater or food processor
• Cheesecloth or dish towel (I sacrificed an old dish towel, one of the thinner types, and it worked perfectly.)
• Mixing bowls
• Measuring cups
• Measuring spoons
• Whisk

Steps:

Heat oven to 350°F with the rack in the middle position, and take your eggs out of the fridge. It’s important that your eggs are at room temperature when you start blending the liquid ingredients, or things’ll get chunky.

Line a muffin tin with paper liners. Next, grate your peeled carrots by hand or in a food processor and place the shredded carrots in a doubled piece of cheese cloth or clean dish towel. (Trust me: paper towels will tear.)

Gather up the sides of the cloth and wring out the excess carrot juice. Yes, this process will turn your cheesecloth or dishtowel orange, but like I said, I used one of my older dish towels and ending up with orange on it even after going through the wash was okay with me. After all, since I planned to make these muffins every chance I get again, I might as well have something I can use over and over. Once the carrots are as wrung out as they’re going to get, set them aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the almond flour, five spice powder, baking soda, cream of tartar, ground cinnamon, and sea salt. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs well. Mix in the pumpkin, honey, almond butter, and melted coconut oil. (I’m not a can of coconut oil, so I used avocado oil and the muffins tasted just fine. If you want a little sweeter taste, you could substitute cashew butter for the almond butter, but it’s definitely not necessary.)

Again, make sure these ingredients are at room temperature, or the coconut oil will harden and clump up (if that’s what you choose to use). Not the worst thing in the world, but definitely annoying when your goal is a smooth batter. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and stir until combined.

Fold in the grated carrots, and then fill your muffin tins about 3/4 full. Sprinkle sliced almonds and toasted pumpkin seeds on top before placing the muffins in the oven. (I didn’t bother to do this, and the muffins were fine. Adding almonds and pumpkin seeds would increase the nutritional content a bit, but not by much.)

Bake for about 30 minutes, rotating the muffin tin 180° halfway through the cooking process. The muffins are done when a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean and the tops feel springy to the touch. Cool the tray on a rack for about five minutes, and then pop the muffins out and completely cool them directly on the rack.

Store any uneaten muffins in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to four days. They freeze beautifully, too! I try to let chilled muffins come up to room temperature before taking a bite, but to be honest, I sometimes usually can’t wait that long. Thankfully, they also taste great right out of the fridge.

Now, you may be wondering why I’m giving you a recipe that seemingly should be made during the fall, in the peak of pumpkin season. There are many reasons, amongst them, if you have a Paleo skeptic, make these, have the skeptic shove them in their pie holes and make loud yummy noises, then disclose that the delicious muffins are Paleo compliant.

Also, you can get great pumpkin puree all year round. You could also try sweet potato puree, you just might have to adjust the seasonings to get the taste right. Oh man, now you have to make test batches? Tell the family they didn’t come out and then eat them all yourself! Oh wait, you’re more selfless than that? You’re a better person than I am.

The third reason is because these muffins are really easy to make from scratch, and my seven-year-old loves to squeeze out the orange juice. I have to finish, but she feels like a big girl. This is an awesome dish to make with your kids! And they’re healthy! And the kids will see not all delicious things have to be loaded with sugar!

Have you made these? Did you stray from the batter above? Let me know in the comments!
* All photos courtesy of Creative Commons.

I adopted the Paleo diet last year after my diagnosis. Paleo is based on no refined foods or sugars, no white carbs, and a few other healthy eating tenants. There are tons of Paleo recipes online, including on my Pinterest boards at http://www.pinterest.com/BooksByCassCarr. I divided the recipes there into categories, including main dishes, sides, desserts, and more.

These are a few of my favorite Paleo main dishes:

http://acalculatedwhisk.com/slow-cooker-carnitas-lettuce-wraps/ – the pork in these wraps is fork-tender, and full of flavor. It adds a pineapple and avocado salsa, and since the recipe uses lettuce, there’s no carbs to make the recipe non-Paleo friendly.

http://everydaypaleo.com/chicken-bacon-salad-sweet-potato-boats/ – sweet potatoes are an awesome part of the Paleo diet. White potatoes should be eaten sparingly or not at all, but sweet potatoes are not only delicious, but versatile. They can be used in main dishes, sides, soups, and desserts. In this recipe, the sweet potato is the vehicle for the rest of the delicious things, like chicken and bacon. Bacon is one of the best parts of the Paleo diet, though you should try to find sugarless bacon free from nitrates. That most likely means it’s going to be organic.

http://www.generationyfoodie.com/2013/06/paleo-almond-chicken-fingers.html – thinking you can’t eat chicken fingers on the Paleo diet? Well, you can! Instead of bread crumbs, use nuts! This particular recipe calls for almonds, but we often add a mix, since we always have nuts around. They are a staple snack on the Paleo diet, after all.

If you’re looking for a list of five surprising foods you are supposed to avoid on the Paleo diet, you can get one here. For a more extensive list, check out Paleo Grubs, a great resource for all things Paleo. Find it here.