When I had previously attempted to eat paleo, it was not successful. This time, it is. I think there are two reasons for that. The first is that when I set out to try it this time, my mindset was different from in the past. I was not looking at it as 'all the things I couldn't eat'. From the start, I framed my focus to be all the things I COULD eat. Having multiple Paleo cookbooks out there is definitely helping. Seeing the gorgeous meals in blazing color has really helped with motivation to continue to cook, experiment and try new things.
Secondly, I intentionally set out to expand my horizons. By this, I mean that when I eliminate grains, legumes and sugar from my diet, I don't just drop them and keep eating what I was eating before. I know quite a few 'healthy' eaters who tried to go paleo by just dropping the necessary foods. That left them eating low fat, and nothing but lean meats and some boring veggies. Who can live like that long term? I knew that when I dropped a big portion of my daily calories, I would need to replace those things with calories from acceptable sources (and maybe I am better about this now that I'm training to be an endurance athlete - something I was not doing in the past). No, I don't need to eat grains or legumes. But I do need to eat fat and tons of veggies and I'm learning to like things I would NEVER have eaten before. Things like bacon and whole raw milk and unsweetened homemade yogurt and iced tea without sweetener. I'm learning to use a little oil on my salads and in my cooking - something I shied away from before. And I'm learning that when I keep myself satisfied this way, I'm not craving crap, bread or sugar. I'm giving my body what it needs, so it doesn't need to 'beg' me for the things it shouldn't have.
I also didn't want to go paleo by trying to force my old recipes into a paleo alternative of their former selves. That goes against the idea of embracing a whole new way of looking at food. That said, I was peeling sweet potatoes for roasting last night when I remembered a recipe I used to make from the Victory Garden Cookbook (from the 70's). There were these sweet potato squares (a snack cake) that we both really liked that were chock full of healthy items. I remembered the recipe scared me a little at the time, because it was very fat heavy. I pulled it out and lo and behold, it's easily adaptable to paleo! I even laughed at my notes from the last time I'd made it - I'd cut out the fat by removing the oil and the nuts and I'd subbed Splenda for some of the sugar (and reduced the whole quantity of it). Time for a different type of makeover...
To make it paleo - I used pastured butter for the oil (though coconut oil would work fine, too), I replaced the 1 cup of flour with 1/4 cup of hazelnut meal, 1/4 cup of coconut flour and 1/2 cup of almond meal. Then in place of the 1 cup of sugar, I went with 1/3 cup of raw local honey.
The cake turned out great, but I think that the next time, I might try cutting the honey down to 1/4 cup and adding a bit of coconut oil for the lost moisture. The bars were perfectly moist, but they were a bit crumbly and a tad too sweet for me now (did I just type that??).
So, without further ado, here is the altered recipe that is pictured above (original from the Victory Garden Cookbook by Marian Morash):
Sweet Potato Squares
1/4 cup of coconut flour
1/2 cup of almond flour/meal
1/4 cup of hazelnut flour/meal
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
4 Tbs pastured butter (or coconut oil)
1/3 cup raw local honey
1 egg
2 medium apples (peeled and shredded)
1/2 lb sweet potato (peeled and shredded)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped nuts
Preheat oven to 350F. Mix flours, salt, soda and spices in a small bowl and set aside. Cream together butter and honey; beat in egg. Stir apples, sweet potatoes and vanilla into the butter mixture. Add dry ingredients to the mixture and mix well. Stir in nuts. Spread into a greased 11x7 baking dish. Bake for 40 - 45 minutes. Cool before cutting into squares.
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