Quick jam: strawberry

My son is on a produce strike, and this includes fruits. It's insane, as he used to eat berries as if they were going out of style. At one point I couldn't even keep berries in the house. And now - nothing. He won't eat anything. BUT, he loves jam. Only problem is that most everything I can find in the stores has added sugar or pectin, etc. So, I decided to make my own. I recalled a recipe in "OMG. That's Paleo?" for cherry jam, which called for coconut oil, cherries and honey. So I omitted the honey, used strawberries instead, and made my own strawberry jam!

Ingredients
1 pound strawberries (quartered, stems removed)
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 tbsp honey

Instructions

1. Melt coconut oil in saucepan
2. Add the strawberries, and stir periodically to keep from burning 
3. Cook and stir 20-30 minutes
4. Place in an 8-ounce jar or other sealed container, and store in the fridge

The strawberries begin to cook down quickly - I snapped this photo after about one minute of cooking!

Bright-colored jam! No sugar added. Beautiful. Fragrant. DELICIOUS!!

Turkey loaf

I never really made meatloaf prior to our Paleo conversion. My husband thumbed through the newest cookbook gracing my shelf, "OMG. That's Paleo." a few weeks ago, and flagged the chicken basil meatloaf recipe. Since then I've concocted various versions of meatloaf or meatballs, inspired by the recipe he saw, but I have not following it exactly. My recipes have varied based on what I have in my fridge, or what I want to sneak into my two-year-old's tummy.

Today it was turkey loaf (or turkey meatloaf, or turkeyloaf - whatever you want to call it), with carrots, onion and chard!

Ingredients
1 pound ground turkey (or meat of choice)
1/4 cup steamed carrots, chopped
1 chard leaf, chopped or minced
1/3 of a small red onion, chopped
1 tbsp flax seed meal* + 3 tbsp water (OR 1 egg, whisked)
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp fat (coconut oil, bacon fat, etc.), melted + more for greasing the baking dish

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F
2. If using flax meal in place of an egg, place 1 tbsp flax meal into 3 tbsp of water, mix and allow to set for 5 minutes
3. Combine all ingredients except for turkey (meat)
4. Add the meat, and mix thoroughly (wooden spoon or your hand)
5. Grease a small baking dish - I used a Pyrex bread dish (see below)
6. Place mixture into dish, cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes or so. Remove foil, and bake until golden brown and cooked through (about 15 more minutes)

Chopped veggies

Flax meal setting in water

Turkey loaf prior to baking - sorry, I didn't get an after photo - we ate it all up!

*Depending on who's Paleo rules you may follow, flax seed meal is either OK or a no-no. According to the Whole30 program from "It Starts With Food," flax seed meal is permitted in small quantities on the Paleo diet. I use it once or twice per week at most.