Paleo Crepes

Did you know that crepes are quick and easy to make? In fact, you can make them for an afternoon snack. Sure, having received the Analon Crepe Pan from last year's International Food Bloggers Conference made it easier and having an easy paleo crepe recipe kept it healthy, too!

Making crepes, even non-paleo crepes is pretty quick and doesn't require a lot of ingredients. Basically, crepe batter is a very thin batter which quickly cooks on a wide flat pan. You don't even have to have a crepe pan, a large skillet will work too!

Mise en place, a technique of preparing everything a head of time, helps make quick work of crepes. For Elana's crepes, it's simply eggs, coconut flour, coconut oil and water. That's great for a savory filling, maybe adding some coconut sugar would be nice for sweeter crepes.

Crepes cook quickly, maybe in 3 or 4 minutes and are delicate. I don't like to flip them because I lose so many to tearing, so I keep my batter on the thinner side.

 If I were making these as a treat or not worried about clean eating, this is where I'd dust them with powdered sugar!

My personal favorite filling is spinach, ham and mushrooms - I lean towards the savory over the sweet. I made crepes for breakfast this morning (yep, they're an all day snack) and realized that mushrooms need to be a staple item in my house!

What is your favorite filling?

Disclaimer: I received the pan at the IFBC conference and this post is one of three that I had to write as a blogger attending IFBC.

Trying to make a lamb lover out of me yet

At last year's International Food Blogger's Conference, I attended a breakout session sponsored by the American Lamb Board, Curriculamb 101. Historically, I've not really liked lamb - it's had a gamey taste, it's been tough. But surprise of surprises, I have 56 lamb recipes clipped in my Evernote Recipes notebook. My lovely wife likes lamb and I'll give it the old college try and make it for her on special occasions. So, I attended this breakout to learn more about lamb and see if it could get me across the threshold to be a fan of lamb.

Roast lamb with mashed carrots

I learned quite a bit about lamb, particularly that quite a deal of lamb is produced here in the Pacific Northwest and that the gaminess comes from the age of lamb. Domestic lamb is usually younger than imported Australian lamb - because we don't have a huge demand for wool in the US. In Australia, they'll keep their lamb a little longer to be able to shear their wool a few times.

One leg of lamb

And as an added bonus for attending the breakout, the American Lamb Board gave me a boneless leg of lamb to roast for my family! One more try to make me a lamb lover and an opportunity for me to make Heather a nice meal.

Herbs and spices ready to make a crust!

I decided to make the Serious Eat's Slow Roasted Boneless Leg of Lamb with Garlic, Rosemary and Lemon with Carrot, Leek and Parsley Mash from Chowhound. The lamb recipe called to me because of the crust of herbs that get rubbed on the leg before roasting it. This meal had a bit of fanciness to it, but kept it clean, not quite paleo, but primal.

Neither recipe was difficult, but it was one of those meals that took several hours as the leg of lamb needs to be in the oven for almost 4 hours and then rest. At least this way, you're only really cooking one thing at a time.

After several hours of roasting (and a fair bit of hoping on my part that it was fully cooked), I had some wonderful lamb ready for dinner.

Leg of lamb, all roasty!

It was good and it definitely opened me up to more lamb. I don't actively avoid lamb nowadays, but it still hasn't made itself a commonplace meal on my table yet!

Thanks to the American Lamb Board @fanoflamb for the meat and if you're a food blogger, think of heading to IFBC 2016 in Sacramento July 29 -31, 2016. This is one of my posts in return for a discounted blogger conference rate.

Pizza or Lox for Breakfast?

This morning, I came downstairs and found my daughter eating a slice of last night's pizza - the breakfast of champions. Pizza wasn't the breakfast for me; I was thinking about how to prepare my eggs.

With more time on this weekend morning, I offered to make soft boiled eggs for her, knowing that soft boiled is one of her preferred ways to eat eggs. She said, "No" that she had already eaten pizza.  I remembered some gluten free bread that we had and decided to fry an egg on toast. She still wasn't interested.

As I was getting the eggs from the fridge, I saw a package of lox. This changed it all for me - I was going to poach an egg on toast with lox.  Evidently, it changed it all for my daughter too, "Can you make one for me too?"

Poached egg with lox on toast #breakfast

A photo posted by Beau (@beauraines) on Jan 30, 2016 at 8:22am PST