Coconut flax perch

First, I have to thank Hillary over at CrossFit Bloomfield for giving me the idea for the coating with this recipe, she had some chicken a couple of weeks ago she had baked and it inspired me.

• 3/4 pound of fresh caught lake perch (or your fish of choice)
• Coconut milk
• 1/2 cup golden flax meal
• 1/2 cup unsweetened, shredded coconut flakes
• 1/2 cup almond meal
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• Shortening or your fat of choice

Soak your fish in coconut milk for several hours or overnight if possible.

When you're ready to cook, take the flax, coconut, almond meal, salt and pepper and combine.  I put mine in the food processor and pulsed a few times, just to blend everything together.  Take half the mixture and place on a plate for dredging, and reserve the other half to add more as needed, that way, if you end up with some extra mixture like I did, you can save it for breading another time.

Meanwhile, in a cast iron skillet, melt your shortening over medium heat.  I was excited because I finally had a reason to use this!  Preheat your oven to 350 as well.

One at a time, remove the perch from the coconut milk and dredge through the coconut/flax/almond mixture, making sure both sides are coated evenly.  Place in skillet and cook for about 3-5 minutes on each side, then transfer to a baking sheet and bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes or until the fish flakes easily.

Primal cookies!

If you know me, you know I have a sweet tooth.  Cookies, chocolate, jelly beans, Costco cake (seriously, those things are like 5 pounds of nothing at all good for you but oh so delicious, except last time I had some, oh it was too sweet) and thankfully, making the switch to PB doesn't mean giving up treats!  Enter the readers of Mark's Daily Apple and their awesome reader-created (free!) cookbooks. 

I was very excited to download the coconut cookbook, as I have recently purchased a bag of coconut flour and been wondering just what to do with it, and when we had a pot luck today at the box, these cookies were a big hit.  And while I can't provide a link because it's a PDF file, I'd like to thank whoever this Julie Miller is that submitted this delicious recipe.

Soft Coconut Flour Pumpkin Cookies

Dry ingredients:

• 1/2 C coconut flour (it's a good idea to sift the flour as coconut flour can be kind of lumpy, and, if you have coconut flour and you won't be using it for a little while, store it in the freezer so it doesn't turn rancid)
• 1/4 t sea salt
• 1/4 t baking soda
• 1 1/2 t pumpkin pie spice

Wet ingredients:

• 1/4 C butter or coconut oil, softened (I used 1TB of butter and the rest coconut oil and melted it enough so it wasn't all liquid, but soft, and while I love coconut oil, I hate how as soon as it hit the cold of the eggs, it solidified, so it just means some extra whisking but it's still good)
• 1/2 C canned pumpkin puree (finally, the case of organic pumpkin I bought on Amazon is finally coming in handy!)
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 C honey (I was going to use this awesome orange blossom honey I got at the farmers market last year, but that stuff wasn't cheap, so regular old honey it was, I'll save the good stuff for just topping things)
• 1/2 t vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper as sometimes the coconut flour products will stick to the pan (and for the record, the cookies came right off with the parchment paper).

Whisk together the dry ingredients in a small bowl and the wet in a larger bowl.  Remember, if you use coconut oil, chances are you are going to have some solid clumps when everything is mixed together, so break those chunks down.  Then, stir in the dry into the wet and mix.  You want the dough to be wet, but not so wet that it drips all over the place.  When you scoop the cookies out, you shouldn't expect them to move around too much (and if it's too thick, add some more coconut oil, or pumpkin, or a splash of water will work just fine, and if it's too thin, toss some more coconut flour in there). 

Drop the cookies by spoonfuls onto the parchment paper lined baking sheet.  (I used a cookie scoop, I think it's a tablespoon?) and I got 16 cookies out of it.  If you want more, just make them smaller.  Spread about an inch apart, they won't spread too much when they bake (and I pushed the tops down a little with a spoon to flatten them out a bit).  Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.  (I baked them for 15 minutes then turned the oven off and let them sit for another 2-3 minutes in the oven).  Remove from baking sheet and place on a cooling rack.

The result?  Not overly sweet, SUPER moist between the pumpkin and coconut oil, and when I made them last night and wrapped them after they had cooled, they looked a little wetter this morning (if that makes sense), so you may want to refrigerate them if you are making them the night before something.  But they still tasted great today.

Will definitely make these again, and this is a recipe that can easily be doubled or even tripled if you're baking for a crowd, and if you're a Grokette like me, you won't feel guilty about indulging in these!