Paleo raspberry breakfast bars

Greetings! Today is the last day of the year and boy, it's a SCORCHER. We've had a bit of a heat wave and temps have been consistently over 40°C+ the last few days. Mostly, we've stayed in with the AC on and it's even been too hot to cook. Dinner has been simple cold salads with whatever I could rummage out of the fridge. Breakfast has been slim pickings too.

I guess The Boy got tired of not having anything yummy for breakfast because he asked for the paleo breakfast bar I like to make for us occasionally. This time he wanted raspberries but really, you can do it with any fruit. We've done it with blueberries too.

It was 42°C outside but for The Boy, I put the AC on and then turned on the oven to make these for him. :-)

Cocktail sauce ... with doTerra lemon essential oil

It's been a while since I've done a foodie post, my apologies. For those of you who follow me on Instagram, you'll know life has been rather hectic and fraught of late since we had The Boy's father in the hospital for a few times. Fortunately, he is well now and we are home.

And the best part? I've started cooking again.

Okay, this is not much cooking but The Boy really likes a cheese platter with cold meats for a late lunch. It has been our go-to on a hot afternoon (and it's been really hot here!!).

The platter usually consists of a few slices of cheese, some cured meat, either prosciutto or salami, some rock melon and most recently, the addition of freshly cooked and chilled prawns. With the prawns comes a need for a good cocktail sauce and The Boy has not liked the store bought ones, so I've started making my own.

Paleo Brussels sprouts and cauliflower gratin ... in the Thermomix

I was looking for a side dish to accompany a lamb roast a few nights ago and came across a Brussels sprouts gratin recipe in a new cookbook I had recently acquired.

It looked intriguing enough I wanted to give it a shot but decided that since we're being good these days I would convert it into a paleo recipe. Off I went onto the interwebz to scour for a paleo gratin recipe. I found one using cauliflower and converted it into this recipe.

Here's what I ended up doing: (note: This recipe uses the Thermomix but I have also included instructions for those of you who don't use a Thermomix in your cooking).

Paleo Italian pumpkin and sausage breakfast casserole

The Boy and I have been working on getting healthier. We're going away soon and while away, I'm certain we will be eating a lot of naughty foods so we're being good before the fact. :-)

In an effort to be healthier, we did a big Spring clean of our pantry (so many expired things lurking in the back corners!) and have decided to cut out wheat (going gluten free) and carbs.

We're going gluten free because I've been feeling rather unwell in the morning after a dinner which contains wheat, like pasta of some sort. Cutting out carbs is just a good idea all round.

In our hunt for healthier food recipes, we're dipping our toes into some Paleo recipes and many gluten free ones. In a happy coincidence, Paleo is also gluten free. :-)

Asparagus and tomato salad

The weather has been completely bonkers lately. It's late Fall / Autumn here and is the weather cooperating? No. Mind you, the weather has been close to perfect. Warm, sunny days, cool, clear nights, but still ... not the normal weather for this time of the year.

So ... salads. We are still having a few of those now and then because the weather isn't quite what we'd call "soup weather" yet. But it's getting there. :-) This morning was a little chilly when we woke up.

This is a particularly easy to make salad and also great for taking to friends when out visiting and you want to bring a dish. You can easily assemble the salad at home, put the dressing ready to go in a jar and it transports well. It also keeps well.

I've really enjoyed this particular salad. It's fresh but satisfying. Sometimes, I like to jush it up with some marinated feta if I want to get all fancy. It adds to the flavor.

Chicken congee ... or as we call it, chicken "chook"

If you don't follow me on Instagram or the Daz in the Kitchen page, (what are you waiting for? Go follow me!!) you probably don't know I post a lot of pictures of the food I eat, whether it be eating out or eating in. I even post pictures of food I don't cook, thanks to my mummy cooking some meals for us when she is home.

Mum is a fantastic cook but her specialty is Asian, namely Malaysian and Chinese food. I don't cook Asian food because I've been spoiled by mum's cooking and any time I want good home cooked Asian food, I go visit mum.

Recently, I posted a picture of chicken congee or rice porridge which mum threw together for us for dinner. She had bought some BBQ chicken from Coles and I wanted mum to make me dinner. :-)

Steak and garlic butter rice salad ... perfect with leftovers

Yes, yes, can you believe it? Blog posts weekly for a few weeks!! You know what that means? It means I've been home and I have been cooking!! Nothing super fancy or super complicated, just some simple everyday meals that we enjoy and are tasty, tasty.

We cooked a huge cattleman's cut steak for dinner recently and it was HUGE. We shared one between The Boy and I and still only managed to finish half of it. I saved the leftovers for a steak salad and this is one of my go to recipes for a tasty steak salad. I like adding the garlic rice because it makes it super tasty. Garlic and butter .... mmmm .....

Here's what I did: