Paleo Jaffa Cake

When I was young(er) I had a sleepover with a bunch of friends. The sleep part of 'sleepover' is only implied, as we didn't sleep a wink. We sat up all night and laughed, talked shit and ate crap. Oh, and we also rolled jaffas across the wooden floorboards to each other, creating a horrid noise in the echoy silence of early morning. This noise then filtered upwards to my parents bedroom, resulting in my mother, to directly quote one of my friends, going ape shit crazy.

Ahh to be young again. And jaffas - not just good for eating at the movies. Also an impressive torture device. Who would have thunk it.

Jaffa Cake

2 over ripe bananas
2 eggs
1/4 cup almond butter
2 tbs coconut oil
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup raw cacaco
1 mandarin zest, plus juice (you can use an orange instead. I only had mandarins)
pinch of baking soda
pinch of baking powder
vanilla

Preheat oven to 220 degrees celsius. Line a small loaf tin with baking paper. Place all ingredients in food processor and blend until combined. Alternately, combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Whisk wet ingredients in a second bowl. Combine wet to dry.  Bake for aprox 45 minutes, or until  brown on top and baked through the middle.

 

Almond choc chip cookies and the beginning of the quest for the perfect paleo cookie.

I have read so many damn blogs claiming to have the ultimate paleo cookie recipe recently. I'm not saying their recipes are wrong. I'm actually thankful for their posts. Cause it means I have a multitude of 'excuses' to try all of them. Once I accrue them all, I'm going to embark of some sort of spiritual-cookie pilgrimage to my umm,.. kitchen? It's gonna be messy. In the meantime, here is my contribution to the cookie pilgrimage.

Almond choc chip cookies

1/4 cup almond meal
1/4 cup + 1Tbs coconut flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
1 Tbs melted coconut oil
1 Tbs raw organic honey
1 Tbs coconut sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 200 degres celsius and line tray with baking paper. Combine all wet ingredients in a bowl and whisk. Grate your coconut sugar and mix into the wet ingredients so the sugar starts to dissolve.

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl (excluding choc chips). Add the wet ingredients and mix to combine, then stir in choc chips. Take heaped tablespoons of mixture and roll into a ball. Place of tray and flatten. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown on the edges.

Makes 10 cookies, approx 106 cal per cookie

Meal Plan - April 4th

Fun fact about me for this week: I really, really, really dislike Canberra. But I love road trips.

Happy Easter, ya’ll! I am not ashamed to admit that I bombed a small grocery store isle worth of holiday treats this weekend. Not all at once, though. Cause that obvs makes it better, right?! NO REGRETS (except for the stabbing pain in my tum tum 20 minutes later). Back on the paleo bandwagon this week; frittatas and salads and big hunks of meat are in my sight. 

Meal plan. 

Thursday	Paleo english muffin	Salmon salad	Slow cooked pumpkin soup
Friday	Banana pancakes	Left over soup	Eating Out
Saturday	Bacon and Eggs	Eating out	BBQ
Sunday	Paleo English muffin	WORKING L fruit salad	Eating Out – dinner with friends
Monday	Banana pancakes	Salmon salad	Roasted chicken and veggies
Tuesday	Paleo English muffin	Left over chicken and salad	Lamb and sweet potato fries
Wednesday	Paleo granola	Leftover lamb salad	Bunless burgers

Health updates.

In my last update, I had just started my new HS treatment. Well, to put it delicately, that went to shit reeeeal quick. One of the side effects they mention to patients when prescribing Isotretinoin is depression. HOWEVER they follow this up by stating that the two have never been medically linked, but that the current condition of the patient is what causes the depression instead, NOT the drug. This I believe to be complete and utter horse shit. What I failed to tell my doctor when he prescribed me Oratane was that I had actually been diagnosed with depression 12 months earlier. I no longer see a therapist and I’ve recently come off medication, so stupid me thought it wouldn’t be an issue. That I could handle it. So yes, I do have a predisposition to the disease however, I did notice a HUGE change in my mood straight after taking the drug every morning. Literally within an hour of taking it, I would be in tears. I couldn’t function, I couldn’t sleep, my eating was all out of whack, I had no energy. And this was all within the first two weeks of treatment. Thankfully, I recognised what was happening from last time and my boyfriend was smart enough to see it too and pulled me out before it got too bad.

 If you’re discussing oratane/isotretinoin with your doctor, PLEASE seriously consider all the options and side effects first. This is an incredibly powerful drug and I would only now consider it as a very last resort. Yes, I suffer from depression so it’s easy to pass this incident off. But I know my body, and I have been doing really well juggling both my HS and depression at the same time. It seems strange that as soon as I start oratane, my depression flares up for no apparent reason.

I'll be visiting my doctor once the dust settles to figure out a new plan of action, but until then it's back to antibiotics. Stay tuned.