Easy BBQ bacon chicken

BBQ and bacon. How could you go wrong? I threw this together on a whim because it was easier than making bacon-wrapped chicken. You see, J said we should have bacon-wrapped BBQ chicken for dinner. Which is good but kind of a pain to make sure the bacon stays put. So I said "What if!! What if I cut up bacon and onions and put it on top of BBQ chicken?" Honestly I just expected it to be decent. But man oh man it came out surprisingly good. Like I don't really understand why it came out so good. But it did! I feel like the fact that the bacon is sauteed with onions really takes the bacon to another level. It's really a simple recipe, good to make for a quick meal.

Lemon pepper chicken

We've been working on this recipe for a little bit now, and last night it finally came together perfectly! It's got the perfect combination of tang and savory. So yummy! And it's got a little sauce to it, so it's great on top of zoodles, rice, cauli rice, or just by itself! I think we've had it all ways. I'm drooling thinking about it.

(That's gluten free bread you see!)

Last night we just had it by itself and had a potato on the side. Japanese sweet for me and russet for J.

It may not look like much, but I'm tellin ya. That chicken is packing some flaaaavor.

Serves 2

[INGREDIENTS]

• 2 chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1/4 sweet or yellow onion, sliced 
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• Chopped broccoli (amount is dependent on how much veggies you want)
• 8-10 marinated quartered artichoke hearts
• 1/2-1 tbsp olive oil
• Juice from 1/2 a lemon
• 3/4 tsp lemon pepper
• 1/4 tsp coriander 
• Salt and pepper to taste
• optional: cherry or grape tomatoes

[DIRECTIONS]

1. Add olive oil to a pan over medium heat. Add in onions and garlic. Stir. 
2. Once fragrant add in veggies of choice and chicken.Stir.
3. Add 1/4 tsp lemon pepper, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Stir well and then add another 1/4 tsp lemon pepper.
4. Once chicken is almost done cooking, add 1/4 tsp coriander and more salt/pepper if needed. Add in artichoke hearts. Stir. 
5. That's it! Enjoy.

The beauty of this recipe is that it's really simple, versatile, and absolutely delicious. 

Homemade Almond Milk + Paleo "Granola"

I have used store bought almond milk for a good few years now. As I have no problems with dairy, my reason for using almond milk is mostly because I liked the way it tasted in my cereal. And it was lower calorie than regular milk. But now that I have sworn off (almost) all grains...and looking for low calorie options for that matter...I use it for smoothies and almond milk ice cream...things like that. Anyways, I recently found out that most commercial almond milks contain very little almonds, costing a fraction of the price to produce, but still charging us close to $3 for a container. Not only do they contain few almonds but they add a bunch of crap that just doesn't need to be added. But, you know, almond milk companies are still a business and they need to make their $$. And they aren't going to do that if almond milk isn't a real viable replacement for cow's milk and all of the vitamins and minerals it has according to conventional wisdom. So what's an almond milk company to do? Pure almond milk certainly doesn't stand up to cow's milk. Add artificial vitamins! And for some reason almost every company out there that makes almond milk adds carrageenan to it. Ok, ok. I know why they add it. To make it creamier and because it acts as a stabilizer. Forget that it is known to mess with your digestive tract and cause inflammation...and has even been linked to cancer. Nope that doesn't matter as long as in the end you have a thicker beverage that doesn't separate. Amirite?

Ok I feel like I have been ranting a little bit here. When I found out some of the things up there I knew that making my own almond milk was an option, but to be honest I was kind of scared to do it. I thought for sure that it would be hard and time consuming and messy. Well it turns out it's actually super easy. Maybe a little messy. But if you ask J he'll tell you that I make a mess in the kitchen no matter what I'm doing. So maybe messy is up for debate. It's also way cheaper (how much cheaper will depend on how thick you want it). So, here we go:

1. Take 1/3 - 1/2 cup of raw almonds (use more if you want it thicker, less if you like it thinner) and soak for 4 hours. 
2. Drain. Rinse if needed.
3. Place almonds in a blender and add 4 cups of cold water.
4. Blend. Blend. Blend! 
5. The milk and the almond meal now needs to be separated. How you do this is up to you. You could use a cheese cloth. What I do is strain it through the re-usable coffee filter that comes with my coffee maker. I pop that into one of these pour over coffee things that way it's easy to get the milk into a mason jar. I personally find this method to be incredibly easy. 
6. done! That's it. Now you have your milk :) 
7. If you want pumpkin spice almond milk just add 1 tsp pumpkin spice before blending. Vanilla? Add some vanilla extract. The possibilities are endless. Sort of.
   
   

Now. What to do with the almond meal? You could use it for our meatballs. Or I like to make hemp protein balls. Or you can make this pumpkin spicy granola...it's quite delicious I tell you!

[INGREDIENTS]

• 3/4 cup almond meal
• 1/3 cup raw cashews, broken into pieces (or bought as such if you think ahead)
• 1/3 cup pecans, broken into pieces (or bought as such)
• 1/4 cup sunflower seeds
• 1 tsp. pumpkin spice
• 1/2 tbsp. honey
• 1 tbsp butter, melted (preferably grass-fed!)

**Note: you can honestly use any combination of nuts you want. This is just what I had on hand.

[DIRECTIONS]

1. Pre-heat oven to 300.
2. In a bowl mix together nuts, pumpkin spice, butter, and honey. Lay out on a cookie sheet.

   

   Like so.

3. Cook in oven for 15 minutes. Take out, move everything around, and put back in the oven. This will take 10-15 minutes. I didn't want to burn it so I kept checking every 5 minutes, but it ended up taking about 15 minutes more. It should have a nice golden color and be crunchy now.
   
4. Eat! and Enjoy! 

   

   Mmmm look at that goodness.

DIY fish tail tank

So. I really love making my own workout tanks. Like loooove it. Like 90% of my workout shirts are DIY'd in some way. I was first inspired by this tutorial by the lovely Casey of Blogilates.  I already have a good amount of workout tanks that somehow stemmed from this, but a few weekends ago I decided to make a new one. I thought to myself: "wouldn't it be cool if I could make a tank with a fish tail braid going down the back?" And I replied to myself: "yes Chelsea, that would be cool. Fuck it, let's try it!". And I have to say I'm very happy with the way it came out.

Before and after - front

Meatballin'

Who doesn't like meatballs? If you don't like 'em then I say you haven't had properly prepared meatballs. My mom makes these meatballs that are melt-in-your-mouth, can't-stop-eating, meatballs. They're the type of meatballs that you eat when you're not even hungry. They're the type of meatballs that my step dad, who was raised in an Italian family, says are better than any meatballs he had growing up. And he's had a lot of good Italian food, so he knows. Man.  I miss those meatballs.

Anyhow. I don't quite remember what's in those meatballs, but I'm fairly positive they aren't Paleo-friendly meatballs. However! I have come up with a paleo-friendly meatball recipe. They aren't my moms meatballs, but they are damn good.

These babies are moist and flavorful and just delicious - with a slightly nutty taste to them. I am really happy with how they came out. I think you will like them too ;) Enough blabbing, onto the recipe!

(serves 2)

[INGREDIENTS]

• ~ 1/2 lb grass-fed ground beef (I think I used slightly more than half a pound, it just depends how many balls you want)
• 1/4 cup almond meal (I used what I have left over after making almond milk, but any will do)
• 1 egg white (or half a beaten egg)
• 1/2 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1/2 tbsp olive oil
• 3 cloves fresh garlic, chopped
• 1 large shallot, chopped
• 5 fresh sage leaves, whole
• 1/4 tsp dried basil
• 1/4 tsp granulated garlic
• Salt and pepper to taste

[DIRECTIONS]

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 F. 
2. Warm olive oil in a small pan.
3. Once oil is warm, add the sage leaves, garlic, and shallot. Saute until fragrant and sage leaves look crispy. Take off pan and set to the side.
4. In a medium bowl combine: beef, almond meal, egg, tomato paste, yeast, granulated garlic, and dried basil. Mix well. Hands are usually best suited for this.
5. The sage should be dry by this time and you should be able to crumble it up. Get crumblin' (again, hands are best suited). 
6. Add your garlic-shallot-sage mixture to beef mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste and mix well. 
7. Line a cookie sheet with foil (trust me it makes the clean up wayyyyy easier). 
8. I made my balls using heaping tablespoons of the beef mixture. Probably more like 2 tbsps. Get heaping tablespoon of your meat and shape into balls with hands. Wetting your hands a bit before hand makes it easier and less sticky. Without fail, I have come out with 10 large balls and 2 small balls. 
9. Pop into oven and cook for 20-22 minutes. I usually go for 20, but I like my beef medium-rare. 

Don't they look yummy!

[TIPS]

I usually serve these with zoodles (and sometimes gluten free garlic toast if you're feeling fiesty!), but you could do anything with them. Regular pasta, paleo pasta, meatball sandwiches, by themselves. Whateva! For my zoodles I cook them in oil and throw in some fresh parmesan since dairy doesn't bother me. If dairy is a no-go for you, you could throw in some nutritional yeast instead.

Enjoy!

Paleo avocado sauce

So I've seen the people of Instagram make a creamy avocado sauce that I thought sounded amazing, but you need yogurt to make it. So I thought well maybe I could make it paleo-friendly. I've been toying with the recipe recently and I love it, it's so tasty and creamy and delicious. I've used it for zoodles, but you can use it however you like! Another beautiful thing about it is that it's really versatile, so you can make it work for whatever flavors you're working with. Except sweet, I'm having a hard time picturing how you could turn this particular recipe sweet. Anyways, I hope you enjoy! I know I have been recently.  

INGREDIENTS 

1/2 of a good sized avocado 

1-2 tbsp chicken stock

1/4 tsp seasoning of choice (I usedTrader Joe's 21 seasoning salute) 

Salt and pepper to taste 

DIRECTIONS  

1. Start off with all your ingredients. Like so. That way you're not running around your kitchen like a mad man trying to make this damn avocado sauce before you're late for work. No, I've never been in a similar situation. Don't be silly... 

2. Scoop your avocado into a bowl break up into large chunks. 

3. Add chicken stock. Start off with 1 tbsp for now. I'd rather it be too thick than too thin. Also add your seasoning, salt, and pepper. Start mashing everything together.  

4. Switch to a fork because who are we kidding, a spoon just doesn't have what it takes to mash up an avocado. 

5. Add more chicken stock in small increments until you get the consistency you want. I added about another tbsp in this step. 

6. Once consistency is perfect add to zoodles.  

7. Voila! Eat your heart out! Or pack it up for lunch and eat your heart out later. 

DIY photo lamp

Ok. So J and I spontaneously bought this ugly lamp

for literally a couple bucks at a Good Will one day. Like 2 years ago. (FYI I have seen similar lamps for cheap at various stores) We thought it would be cool to make one of those lamps out of photo negatives( like this one)  and we figured that we could dedicate it to our pups. Well we were both busy with school and it just kind of sat in a room untouched for a few years. When we moved J wanted to throw it away because we never did anything with it. But I really really wanted to make our lamp. So I said that if we didn't do anything with it by the end of the month we could throw it away. Obviously I waited like 28 days and then got to researching.

So it turns out that it's almost impossible for a regular person to make photo negatives from digital photos. I thought there would be some service online or something. Nope. Not so. And since we don't even own a camera with film this option seemed out of the question. On to plan B. We thought maybe we could print out pictures on transparent paper and that could work. Transparent paper that you can use on a laser printer is harder to come by then you think. We could buy a huge pack of it online but I didn't really want a huge pack of it when we only needed 4 sheets. Off to Michael's we went. Sure enough, we couldn't find any true transparent paper. BUT. We did find this silver-ish paper that was sort of transparent. Since this was the closest thing to transparent paper we thought we'd give it a try. Well, it actually worked. It printed out perfectly, you can see the pictures clearly, and light does shine through. So here's how we did it.

First things first, I measured each side of the lamp to find out how big the pictures needed to be. Then I found pictures of our pups and put together 4 collages using the dimensions. I used MS Powerpoint because I fail at photoshop (that is J's arena), but you can use whatever your comfortable with! My collages looked like this:

Only 3 are shown here, but there are 4 total

Next, take apart the lamp.

I'm not sure if all these types of lamps will be like this, but we just had to take the bottom and top pieces of wood out and the rest of the lamp just came apart.

This was my least favorite part. We had to cut through the existing paper on the lamp, which was surprisingly thick and sort of like felt, so even after cutting it off the edges looked frayed. Oh and we just used a box cutter. Like this:

You can't really tell but the edges are all frayed and would be sticking out if I just glued on the new collages over it. Not cute. So I used tweezers and sand paper to make it look cleaner:

On the very last side J decided to change the blade on the box cutter. We should have done this first. It made all the difference and we didn't even have to do anything to the last one, it was just ready to glue over after we cut off the felt paper.

Anyways, now we're ready to go:

You can't really see this again. I should really double check my pictures before I put my phone away. I used clear craft glue and just made a thick line down each edge. Then I just took my collages (which I trimmed to the right dimensions) and laid one on top of the glue. I had to go through and push down the picture along each edge to make sure that it was making contact with the glue. Using my nail was the easiest way to do this. And then let it dry! I also had to come back while they were drying and press down edges that were popping up again. 

Once dried we put the lamp back together:

And here's the final lamp all lit up. 

                                     

Overall I'm really happy about how this came out and we love it with the pics of our pups! 

Well, that's all for now!