Paleo Nutella *update!

 Yet another update: click here to find out why this recipe is good for you while still being tasty!

I was 11 years old when I was introduced to the magic of nutella. But it wasn't in the states back then. My step dad used to travel to Europe multiple times a month. He would bring home all sorts of European delicacies and my favorite was nutella. No one does food as well as the Europeans.

Ever since I started eating clean and avoiding processed sugars, I naturally haven't had these treats in years.

HOWEVER, God is good and led me to a PALEO recipe for nutella. :) Holy Hannah, I must be doing something right!! I did tweak it a bit, or a lot, so I'm pretending it's my recipe. ;)

So, here it goes!!

Homemade Paleo Nutella

Ingredients

• 1 cup blanched hazelnuts
• 1/2 cup vanilla almond milk
• 1/2 cup evaporated cane sugar (you could try the subbing maple syrup, but evaporated cane sugar isn't refined so it's technically Paleo. :) since it's from it's original source)
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil or ghee
• pinch of celtic sea salt

1. pre-heat your oven to 375. Spread your hazelnuts in a thin layer and bake for 10-15 minutes until the brown skins are dark brown and flaky. 
2. Put hazelnuts in a bowl and let cool. 
3. Once cool, trap hazelnuts between two bowls and shake vigorously. Brown skins should flake right off. (Don't stress about them coming all way off. You just want a majority of them off. :)) 
4. Put the nuts in a food processor (or in my case, a magic bullet) and process until the natural oils start to emerge and the texture is smooth. (This may take a while, and you may have to scrape the sides of your food processor often)
5. Add remaining ingredients and blend until smooth. 
6. Store extra's in the fridge (if you have any) in a sealed container for up to two weeks. :)

We enjoyed some of our nutty nutella with strawberries and banana's!! 

I will make a disclaimer, I haven't had regular nutella in ages, so I am not sure if they compare EXACTLY, but from what I can remember, it was close. AND, it was mega tasty either way! 

This is why your hazelnut butter should look like before you add all the other ingredients. CREAMY. :) 

Luscious! 

ON a delicious strawberry!

Chocolate covered banana! (this was each our favorite thing we dipped)

Get your food processors cranking pals, it's worth the mess. :) 

Happy, healthy, healing!!

<3 KBS

*update 1. Um, I kinda woke up wanting this for breakfast...so I gave in. Don't judge. 

Update 2: the flavors set SO much better being in the fridge over night. I recommend greatly refrigerating it before eating it! Or eat half and half like we did! Ha. It's just that good! 

Tasty Detoxing

"Leeks" and "rutabagas" almost stopped me from making this recipe. I knew what a leek was...but the name was kind of a turn off for some reason (wonder why?) and a rutabaga was a foreign word to me. I decided that I would go to the store and if I could find all the ingredients, I would get it.

I decided to make a detox soup because it's been a while since I tried my tea detox...if you follow me on Facebook, you know all about how well the tea detox went...or didn't. I was mean and starving the whole entire time. A soup sounded a little bit safer to my marriage, happiness and overall health. I still regret the things i said and did to my husband out of "hanger" (hunger-anger) on that blasted tea diet. So, after I dismally found what is known as a rutabaga, I decided to make the detox. 

If you know me personally, or have read this blog, you know I am not an unhealthy eater. But when I made my gluten free, sugar free, health cake this week, I indulged a little much. :) As NOT bad as that cake was, I still needed this detox. Recipe here.

Now, I am here to report that leeks, despite the turn off of a name, are my new love affair and rutabaga's are my male mistress. YUM!! This was so much better, and filling, then the tea detox. :) EVERYONE needs to try it! And the best part is, is that this recipe is good for so many different dietary restrictions: Paleo (almost), gluten free, vegetarian, raw, vegan, etc. And it doesn't even taste bad. :) 

I will say, even though pinto beans are healthy, I used black beans. All of my research has simply deemed them to be the healthier of the two. Black beans contain flavonoids that help fight colon cancer...and let me tell you, as a crohnsen kid who is at high risk for colon cancer, I am willing to put anything in my body that will fight that SOB off. :)

I hope you're as excited about this detox as I was. This awesome lady even listed why everything in it was so good for you!! If I can get the husband to agree, this may be a weekly staple around here. :) You know me and my unadulterated love for anything with good health benefits! :)

Happy detoxing! 

Laughter....the best medicine

I won't lie...attitude is everything. And if you're gonna be a bitter cotton headed ninny muggins about having crohns. You're gonna feel it a lot more. So, I've found some humorous pictures on a crohns social network that I simply loved. Here they are. :)

Keep calm...

I haven't felt very calm lately. I'm out of remission and frustrated as ever. But I need to keep being positive. This too shall pass. It always does. I just need to figure out what the upset is about. I'm the meantime, I'm so blessed. I was doing a liquid/tea cleanse today. I was hungry but super scared to eat with how sick I've been getting eating ANYTHING! At 10:00 tonight my husband got home and I was being a brat. I get super mean when I'm hungry. Anorexia and I never would have clicked. But I was just sitting there pouting and crying and he was trying to "fix" whatever he had done. (Hahaha...about that. Does he ever do anything seriously wrong? No.) and I was just being mean and angry and not knowing why. I told him I'd had MAYBE 400 calories tops all day cause I was scared to eat. 3 minutes later, we were in his car headed to the store. He bought me all the things I'm generally too cheap to buy myself. I'm so...here come the tears...so grateful I have a loving supportive husband who is ALWAYS forgiving of my rampant health experiments. Cause really, today wasn't a good idea, and now he's conversing like normal...if I were as mean to me as I was as mean to him...I would still be mad. But he's patient and understanding and even though he doesn't always express his love like I want it expressed...he does one hell of a job expressing it with everything he has. :) I sometimes think my disease goes out of remission just to remind ME just HOW MUCH he does love me. (As if a brand new car wasn't enough;) )
Again, I'm so blessed.

Blogging over load!! But, but ya gotta love blackberries!!

For those of you who frequent sprouts market (previously sunflower market) their blackberries are on sale this week for 88 cents per carton. YUM! I was so excited I bought four containers yesterday and only have two left! Fatty. Oh well. Life's problems. -shrug- ANYWHO!
After eating a carton and a half, I thought...what's so great about these? I know nothing was BAD about them...it's a berry for crying out loud. But what makes them good??
Crohn's disease causes inflammation in the intestinal tract. I learned that a cup of berries has enough anti inflammatories to tame an inflamed digestive tract! Holla!! That was the fact that stood out the most to me because its the one that pertained to me.
But listen ladies! Blackberries contain phytoestrogens, which I learned are plant estrogens, that help to fight breast and cervical cancer. Um...no pink ribbons for me! YES PLEASE NO BREAST CANCER!
There were quite a few other health promoting properties in blackberries...vitamin k--bone health, vitamin c---immune system, fiber, magnese, helps esophagus cancer , etc.
but only 62 calories a cup...indulge a little. :)

Happy health!!