Make Your Own Coconut Butter!

Coconut Butter - It's SO Good

Coconut butter, also called coconut creme concentrate, is one of those amazing foods I only discovered after beginning to eat a paleo style diet...and I LOVE it!!!  I mean, really - it is so good, SO good. 

I've tried a couple different brands, both are good and neither is cheap:

• Artisana Coconut Butter - It's organic, it's delicious and it has been my preferred brand, at about $10 per 16 oz jar at Whole Foods
• Tropical Traditions Coconut Cream Concentrate - also organic and delicous, but only available by mail (not good for instant cravings) and a bit pricier at $18 per 16 oz jar. Although Tropical Traditions is the master of the two for one sale and discounts in general, they always seem to be having some type of 'get it now!' sale.
• Let's Do Organic Creamed Coconut - available at Whole Foods, this coconut cream comes in smaller plastic packages.  It is tasty, but I don't like the texture as much as the Artisana version.  It would be convenient for travel though and it is less expensive.

How to Make Your Own

This is ridiculously easy, why I didn't try this sooner - I have no idea.  Simply throw some organic coconut flakes, I used Tropical Traditions coconut flakes, into your food processesor and let it go.  I let the processesor run for 3 minutes at a time, stopped, scrapped down (and let it cool down) and ran it for about 4 of those intervals.  You will definitely notice the point it goes from really fine shreds to a more buttery liquid type of consistency.  The result was amazingly similar to the commerically produced items and will definitely work for my favorite guilt free blueberry and coconut dessert!

Paleo Restaurant Review: Adobo Grill

Adobo Grill, I never knew...

We discovered another paleo friendly restaurant in our neighborhood!  The funny thing is, we had been here several times before but just recently learned they have a gluten-free menu option.  It makes me sad to think of all the guacamole I missed out on thinking the only vehicle option was tortilla chips.  But on the GF menu they offer jicama chips with their guac - so good!

As with any gluten-free menu, you still need to be aware that there are many dishes paired with beans and corn.  A side of beans are an easy one to request be omitted from a dish, but sometimes corn is too much of the dish - no duck tamales for me.

We did enjoy the guacamole with jicama chips, a trio of ceviches (served with plantain chips), flank steak and the achiote roast pork - all delicious.  I caved and also enjoyed an Adobo Margarita, the most un-paleo part of the meal - but also the least sugar infused of any of their margaritas!

Overall this was really an excellent and nearly guilt-free paleo meal out.  Definitely recommended!

Paleo Camping

I don't camp often, but every time I do I can't seem to shut up about how much I love camping, and how I'm going to do it so much more often.  Well, our camping trip up to Mirror Lake Wisconsin last weekend was no different.  A few highlights:

• We lucked out and found a window of perfect weather in between a lot of Summer rain.
• We officially went for our first hike in our Vibram FiveFingers.
• We wore our Vibram FiveFingers too much over a 2 day span and had to tie them up in a trash bag coming home because they reeked! (I even wore socks in them all weekend, but the repeated dry to damp to dry to damp without taking them off was enough to stink 'em up)
• We can grill meats to perfection even without a spotless new grill (our fire pit grill grate was pretty run down).
• Last but most certainly not least, mosquitoes love paleo blood and we were feasted on!

The two of us left Mirror Lake with no less than 100 little mosquito bites, mostly around our ankles.  Despite the annoying bugs, I loved camping, I had so much fun, I will go camping more often.  For real this time.

Still lake during early morning hike

mosquito bite massacre