It's Pizza Time!

One of my favorite things when I was a kid was when my mom would buy Bagel Bites.  These were my favorite snacks and my go to for dinner when my mom was working two jobs. My other favorite go to was ramen noodles.  Anyway, so earlier this week I got the new cookbook by Brittany Angell, Every Last Crumb and while I was flipping through the pages I noticed a recipe for pizza bagels.  Boy did I get on that and made some for dinner.  Oh and this cookbook is phenomenal!!!  I seriously had drool coming out from the side of my mouth and my eyeballs were popping out of my head checking out the food photos in this book.  I kind of felt naughty, it was as though I was looking at porn but I was just checking out massive deliciousness!!  I will be baking a lot from this cookbook. Back to talking bagels, Pizza Bagel Bites from Every Last Crumb vs Bagel Bites from the frozen food isle of the grocery store.  I cannot pronounce the ingredients for the bagel bites from the store nor do I know what the heck these ingredients are.  Also, there is high fructose corn syrup and no where does it state what kind of cheese it is.  I'm pretty sure the cheese is one of the ingredients I can't pronounce.  I want to know exactly what the heck is in my food and what is going into my body.  As for the pizza bagel bites I made from Every Last Crumb, I can prounounce the ingredients that were listed to make the bagels, yay!!  And it's heathy, double yay!!  And I found all the ingredients at Whole Foods, triple yay because I only had to go to one store.  For the toppings of these amazing pizza bagel bites I used a marinara sauce that was organic and had no added sugar.  I topped it off with grass fed Monterey cheeeeese and Applegate Naturals uncured pork pepperoni.  I was able to enjoy a childhood favorite without feeling guilty. 

Buns, Buns, Buns!!

As Lady Gaga once said, "once you kill a cow, you gotta make a burger."  I absolutely enjoy a great, tasty, juicy and slightly bloody burger.  The one thing I've missed when having a burger is a nice hot hamburger bun.  I've had enjoyable replacements such as using portobello mushrooms and lettuce as buns but I've missed having a bun with my meat.  I've finally found a delicious recipe for paleo hamburger buns from Cassidy's Craveable Creations.  These buns are way better than store bought buns.  This is one recipe that I will be using time and time again when making my juicy burgers.  I love adding Steve's PaleoGoods paleo ketchup and grass fed cheddar cheese (not strict paleo).  Oh joy oh joy, I am raising the roof for these hot buns!! 

Hot Mexican!

Hot Mexican right here!  I mean, Mexican Hot Chocolate.  Hot chocolate reminds  of when I was young.  On a cold December day in El Paso, Texas my mama would whip up some mexican hot chocolate.  The taste was creamy with a hint of spice and a "puñito" of salt and it was oh so chocolatey topped off with mini colored marshmallows.  I just had to have the mini colored marshmallows in my hot chocolate!  Really quick, the story behind the word puñito: when my moms cooking she uses the word puñito, a lot.  Since I'm a coconut type of Mexican (brown on the outside, white on the inside) I would say to her, "what does puñito even mean?!"  She would cup up her hand and say, "aye aye aye Mija" and would point to the middle of her cuped hand and say, "you know, a little".  I would then to proceed to ask, "is that half a teaspoon, 1/4 teaspoon, a tablespoon?"  My mom (bless her heart because I was and still am a pain in her derriere) would say, "aye mijita, you know, a puñito!"  I now assume puñito is about 1/8 teaspoon.  Anyway, when I was looking for a Paleo friendly hot chocolate recipe, I was looking for something that was going to remind me of that warm feeling of comfort being at my mom's house in El Paso.  Low and behold I found a deliciously sweet n' creamy Mexican hot chocolate recipe on The Sprouting Seed.  I topped it off with the marshmallows I had made from the recipe I found on Urban Poser. I defiantly will be using this recipe a lot this winter and will be making this hot chocolate for my mom using a puñito of salt. 

A Marshmallow World

I absolutely love love looooove marshmalloooows!!  So fluffy and full of sugary sweetness.  I used to stuff my beautiful face with marshmallows until my stomach hurt so bad I would passout from a sugar overdose.  Sorta the same feeling when you passout in the middle of the afternoon from day drinking except you don't wake up with a hangover. So since I've been paleo I haven't been able to master the making of... dun dun dun... paleo marshmallows.  I've had several failed attempts and tears from being such a loser.  Because in my world I'm a perfectionist and want to get things done right the first time buuuut not in the real world. The real world helps me appreciate my flaws.  So my hand mixer wouldn't work well at all.  Left the gelatin half soupy and half jello like. I had a friend attempt to make me a whisk attachment so I could use his drill. Fabulous idea but still didn't make the fluff.  So a few weeks ago I saw that Target commercial with the little girl dancing around with marshmallows and the song, "A Marshmallow World" was playing in the background, well that song and commercial did it for me. I started to crave marshmallows every time I saw the commercial and heard the song. So I decided I was going to try again and give it one last go.  This time I decided to get a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer so I could make the perfect marshmallows. Thanks to Craigslist I found a gently used one for an amazing price and thanks to my mom she bought the mixer for me as an early Christmas gift.  If you're reading this mom, thank you and I love love looooove my mixer!!  You're the bestest Santa ever!!  The fun part was picking up the mixer way out in Surpise, AZ where all the Snowbirds live and trying not to run over the old fogies driving extremely slow in their golf carts.  So anyway, I attempted to make the marshmallows and they came out suburb!  I coated mine lightly with coconut sugar and cinnamon. I ate so much I gave myself a tummy ache and went into a raw honey coma. I found the recipe at The Urban Poser, http://urbanposer.blogspot.com/2012/11/rustic-homemade-marshmallows-whoney.html?m=1. These marshmallows are so worth overeating. They also taste scrumptious in coffee with baileys (not strict Paleo) and of course hot cocoa.  Which tomorrow I will be making Mexican Hot Cocoa (Paleo style of course) just for the soul purpose of using these wonderful squares of fluff.  Cheers!