Paleo Chocolate Zucchini bread

It has been a long time since I posted a recipe and it does not mean that I don’t cook 🙂 I do cook every day, as this is what we have to do being in pale wagon if we want to survive, but I haven’t been doing something new or exciting. However, I saw a recipe on http://paleomg.com and of course I wanted to try it, just because I always like any desserts that I make from this website. I tweaked it a bit and I think next time I will not squeeze zucchini to make sure that moisture stays in. The cake was good, but a bit too dry for my taste. Sorry for the quality of the picture (taken with iPod)

• 3  zucchini (peeled and shredded)
• 2 eggs, whisked
• 3/4 cup almond butter
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder (this gives really strong chocolate taste, so you can minimize for more subtle taste)
• 2 tablespoons coconut flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch of salt

Shred zucchini, squeeze a bit of water and mix in a bowl with all the rest ingredients. Be careful adding coconut flour because it is very liquid absorbent to make sure that your dough is not too dry. Grease you bread loaf with coconut oil and bake 375F for 25-35mins. It took me 29mins to have toothpick come out dry. Enjoy!

Double Layer Fudge

Ok. Now, we come to serious business. I have tried this recipe last week and it was so good that I think that I won’t make it very soon. It is just so good that is hard to stop eating and it is really fat. Though fats are good for us, right? When it comes to desserts, one of my favourite websites is Juli from PaleOMG, this girl goes hardcore and she does it really well. So, I saw this picture on website and just left page open in my iPod browser not to forget that I want to make this dessert (sorry for not having my own picture to upload). I hope Juli will forgive me for using her picture for this post, but I just did not have time to take my own picture and when I had, the fudge was gone 😦

Double Layer Fudge

• 1 cup coconut oil
• 1 cup almond butter
• 1/4-1/3 cup raw honey (Juli offers to add 1/2 cup of honey, but I was scarred that for me it would be too sweet. And it was sweet enough) 
• 1/3 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
• 4-5 heaping tbsp of pure cacao (the more cacao you will add, the more bitterness it will bring)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• pick of salt
• a handful of semi sweet chocolate chips (though not necessary)
• extra of shredded coconut for sprinkling

Add coconut oil, honey, shredded coconut, vanilla extract, almond butter and pinch of salt to a food processor and mix until fully combined. Pour half of the mixture to a bread pan or some other pan and use spoon to make the surface even (I used pyrex, but then it was a bit hard to cut first part as it sticked to the bottom). Place it into the freezer to harden. Meanwhile, add cocoa step by step to the rest of mixture and mix throughly until you get the desired taste and not too bitter. Once cacao is all mixed in add a pinch of salt and mix it well, pour chocolate mixture over hardened light fudge. Sprinkle with chocolate chips, shredded coconut and some salt. I was really surprised about the salt, but it was actually working really nice once the fudge was done and brought up some unexpected nice addition to the sweetness. Place in freezer for 10-15mins. Cut in chunks and try not to eat all the chunks at once. I was keeping them in freezer and it was all gone in couple days. It is amazingly good with coffee. So far, my favorite dessert!

 

Related articles

• Truffles a la Paleo (followmyself.wordpress.com)
• Paleo birthday cake (followmyself.wordpress.com)
• Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies (readypaleo.wordpress.com)
• Melt-In-Your-Mouth Coconut Oil Fudge Recipe (rawlivingfoods.typepad.com)
• Dark Chocolate Almond Butter Bark (holisticheroine.com)
• 7 Healthy & Delicious Paleo Dessert Recipes (bodyhack.com)

Climbing and working out

My first passion is rock climbing, but sometimes it happens that I do not feel like climbing. Since Monday, I have been thinking to go to climbing gym for some climbing, but managed only today. I just did not feel like leaving home and climbing. It happens. Maybe I am just simply bored of the routes in the gym and simply wait until there will be a competitions and the new routes will be created. Actually I think that subconsciously I sis not want to go climbing since the christmas time and  then my sweetness attraction I gained some weight, so I was scared to fail. It is not that I gained a lot, but I think I gained like 1,5 kg and in climbing it is a lot. I already weight too much for a climber and I am lucky just because I am strong. So, basically, 1,5 kg means that I have to carry those 1,5 kg while my muscles did not got stronger, so it means while I could be able to do some moves before, I might not be able to do them with changed weight. Complicated, no? Anyways, as I lost a bit of weight and I have been training at home with body weight exercises, I felt more encouraged today to go climbing. It was good, I did not achieve anything new, I just climbed the routes that I already climbed, tried some more difficult ones, but did not want to hurt too much my fingers. So, after spending in the Roc Gyms about 2 hours, I got actual climbing probably 45mins, as rest would be warming up, checking the routes, taking rest. I can’t wait to see the new routes when they will be done as it supposed to be changed on Saturday. Then it is easier to be motivated, when you have new challenges waiting for you.

After coming back from climbing I also made some 20mins. workout using Fleetfy app in my iPod. I like thins one as it is more community based and you can compete agains the others, so I joined some challenges and so far so long really enjoy working out. I just don’t like that most exercises are related to wights and as I don’t go to gym and don’t like going to gym my workout options are quite limited. But for now it is fine, I have some challenges to overcome.

When I look back, my first workout partner was Bodyrock.tv  that helped me to start working out as my subscription to the gym did not work out once more. I like doing sport and I really love challenging my body, but gym is not for me. I have fun for the first month as I want to try out all the classes and program created for me, but eventually I am bored and instead of having fun, I start suffering. Then I simply stop going to the gym, usually after 3 months. So, with Bodyrock I could simply workout at home, exercises are challenging and your body will definitely suffer first time, but then they started adding to much equipment to their workouts. And I didn’t like that too much. I don’t mind when they add jumping rope or fitness ball, it’s fine, but then you have different bars, sandbag, ugh ball, etc…So, it seems that I should start having some kind of gym at my home. Not for me….Especially when me and Keven were moving all the time in Barcelona, now changed to Quebec and have no idea where we will be nest Christmas. Keep it simple and light.

 

So, I started using Skimble app for workouts and it is also nice though sometimes funny to listen to robot voice telling you what to do or “pushing you”. But it is nice exercises and you have some kind of personal trainer telling you what to do and once you switch of the sceptical reaction to robot voice and concentrate on climbing it is really fun and useful.

 

I also use “MyfitnessPal”app for tracking my diet. Not so much now, but it was extremely useful during spring and summer when I wanted to loose weight, but could not figure out how to do that properly. It helped me to loose maybe 6-7 kg, simply by loving in what I eat during the day and knowing how many calories I am supposed to consume if I want to loose weight. It really helped with the unconscious snack problem that I think many of us have when we don’t even realize how much calories we eat without counting and it was extremely helpful for the empty calories (so I call drinks). I worked in the bar when I started to use this app and I was shocked to see how many calories can be consumed through drinks: little shot here and there, favourite drinks that are nice to sip while working, clients buying drinks. With this app I had literally to earn calories by working out. And I am sure that at least this way I lost 3 kg or more, just by minimizing drinks and various juices.  I don’t use it now, just sometimes to check for the calories, but I was absolutely following all my food intake for half a year.

Now I want to go back on track, workout a lot (I have time for that) and be in the best shape of my life ;)))