Natural Wine and Paleo Food Event in Brooklyn, NYC

One of my best friends is a sommelier. Now that is a good friend to have if you ask me! Wine with Kristen is teaming up with Chef Melissa Gellert on Wednesday, August 27th in DUMBO, Brooklyn, NYC for a cool event natural wine and paleo food event.

During Popping Your Cork: Natural Wines and the Paleo Palate, you will cover topics such as

• Guides to pairing your food and wine
• Foods that are on the Paleo diet 
• Guides to buying natural wines
• Hints on how to start your own Paleo diet

This event is perfect for those eating gluten free and dairy free, along with anyone interested in finding out more about these types of diets and drinking good wines.

To learn more and to also find a discount code for this event, please visit the Popping Your Cork event page on the NYC Celiac Meetup website.

About your hosts:

Wine with Kristen founder, Kristen Siebecker, has been a great fan of viticulture and vinification since her first illicit sip of Boone's Farm wine beverage many years ago. She hosts "Popping Your Cork" a recreational wine class in New York as well as chats about wine on her blog, winewithkristen.com an dis co host of the podcast "I Feel Vine".

Kristen is a Certified Sommelier through the Court of Master Sommeliers, holds the Advanced Certificate from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust with distinction and is certified in Advanced Blind Tasting by the American Sommelier Association.

Chef Melissa Gellert is a culinary professional and has worked as a private chef and at yoga retreats in Vermont, New York, and Mexico.Shespecializes in health-suppportive, Paleo, gluten-free, vegetarian, and vegan cuisines.

Holiday Weekend Hummus

I am not a cauliflower eater. I look at it and gag. I am not sure if it is the color or texture or what, but cooked/raw/steamed/whatever I just cannot eat cauliflower. Cauliflower is "low in fat, low in carbohydrates but high in dietary fiber, folate, water, and vitamin C, possessing a high nutritional density." Very healthy, but still not appetizing to me.

Ever since I read about this paleo hummus on the Greatist.com website a few weeks ago, I have been obsessed. The base of the hummus is made from cauliflower but with enough cumin, paprika, garlic, tahini, and a few long sessions in the food processor and you have one smooth and delicious treat. I've made this hummus three times now and all three times it was gone within days. I add it to crackers, carrots, cucumbers, and even chicken. It is yummy but most importantly at all, it has no resemblance to the original cauliflower. Thank goodness! I added spinach into the last batch of hummus and it was just as good.

Click here to access the full paleo hummus recipe from the Livin' Paleo website. This would be the perfect addition to your weekend BBQ.

Happy 4th everyone! 

Elimination Experiment: Almond Meal Pancakes

I got the go ahead to add eggs back into my diet on Friday. This made me very happy. The one thing I really feel that is lacking during this elimination diet is protein. Actually, I always feel like I should have more protein in my diet. Anyway, with the green light for eggs I decided to make some almond meal pancakes both days this weekend.

On Saturday, I made pancakes using this low-carb recipe minus the sweetener. They were good although I was missing that pancake syrup big time! On Sunday, I decided to change it up a little bit. I wanted more flavor so I put my own spin on these Paleo Pumpkin Pancakes. I basically took the first recipe and added pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spice instead of all of the individual spices. Although I didn't get the ingredients quite right and the pancakes fell apart a little bit, I liked these much better than Saturday's batch. They had more flavor, which is what I was looking for.

Although I miss my sugary maple syrup, it is nice to know I can once again have a weekend breakfast favorite like pancakes.

Caveman Cookies

This weekend, I was excited to share with my nieces the samples of Caveman Cookies that I received last week. My twin nieces are gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, and almost 100% grain-free. I knew they would be the perfect testers of these new cookies since it met all of their dietary restrictions.

Caveman Cookies are…

• Made with nuts, honey and berries!
• Certified Gluten-Free
• Dairy-Free
• A good source of protein
• Kosher Certified
• Just 65-75 calories per cookie (depending on the variety)
• Consistent with the principles of the Paleolithic Diet (aka the “Caveman Diet”).
• Satisfying due to the protein, dietary fiber, and good fats that they contain!

The girls each gobbled up one of the cookies. Although they were smaller than I expected, they were the perfect size for a four-year-old's snack. I only got a small bite of the Tropical Caveman Cookie because sharing is something my nieces are still working on. From what I tasted, the cookies had a nice flavor and interesting consistency. These cookies were moist but not really a cookie consistency. They were more the consistency of a fruit/nut bar such as Larabar. It wasn't a turn-off, it was just not what I expected. The girls liked the cookies and fought over the third sample. I tried to save it for their little brother but I am sure one of them snatched it up when I wasn't looking.

At $9.95 per 12 pack of cookies, I think these cookies are a bit expensive. If the cookies were larger, I could maybe justify buying a package of these cookies at that price. I do think Caveman Cookies have the advantage of being one of the only paleo cookies on the market. Next to the gluten-free diet, going paleo seems to be very popular at the moment.

Here are the nutritional labels of the cookies:

Learn more about Caveman Cookies at the Caveman Bakery website. http://www.cavemancookies.com

You can also find them on Twitter and Facebook.