I love cookbooks! I buy cookbooks more than I buy anything else for myself. My husband makes jokes that I am having an affair with the UPS man because he is at our house so often. 9 times out of 10 he is delivering a new cookbook I have purchased on Amazon.com. I love reading the stories behind the recipes and the inspiration I feel from looking at all of the scrumptious pictures.

My most recent purchase is Primal Cravings: Your favorite foods made Paleo. At a first glance, I like this book because it utilizes coconut flour and tapioca flour, which gives me an alternative other than almond flour, which is what most of my recipes, thus far, utilize. When consuming grain free baked goods we have to be careful about how much we consume because most contain large quantities of nut flours. These nut flours contain high amounts of omega-6 fatty acids. While omega-6 fatty acids are good for you, in excess, they can cause problems. It’s a good idea to keep your omega-3 consumption (from foods like organic butter, pastured beef, pastured eggs, raw organic cultured or fermented dairy, fish, etc.) twice as high as your omega-6 consumption to avoid possible inflammation. Thus, it is nice for me to have some other alternatives in my rotation. Balance is key!

I have only made two recipes so far and they have both been great. I modified them both a bit, but I imagine they would be just as good if I had not modified them. The muffins I made are called Chunky Monkey Muffins in the book. The recipe calls for butter, walnuts and coconut sugar, all of which I replaced with other ingredients. I will share my version with you because it turned out great!

I substituted honey for the coconut sugar. When purchasing your honey, raw unprocessed honey is a good choice. 75% of all honey sold in stores contains no honey at all. A comprehensive investigation conducted by Food Safety News (FSN) has found that the vast majority of so-called honey products sold at grocery stores do not contain any pollen, which means they are not real honey. “Raw honey is thought to have many medicinal properties,” says Kathy Egan, dietitian at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.  ”Stomach ailments, anemia and allergies are just a few of the conditions that may be improved by consumption of unprocessed honey.”

Instead of using butter, I used ghee. Ghee, also known as clarified butter,  is made by a simple process of gently simmering butter to remove potential allergens such as casein and lactose. What remains is the pure butter oil, which promotes good helath and longevity.  Ghee is a natural source of CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid) and the important fat-soluble vitamins A,D and K2 that are critical for maintaining good health.  CLA slows the progress of some types of cancer and heart disease and appears to help reduce body fat and increase lean muscle mass. We use Grassfed Organic Ghee.  The only ingredient is 100% Organic Butter.

Lastly, I omitted the walnuts and added more chocolate chips, but you can also add raisins, pecans, silvered almonds or anything else you may choose. We use Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips, which are certified gluten free, contain no wheat, dairy, peanuts, tree nuts, egg or soy. They are also made without casein, potato, sesame or sulfites and contain no trans fat or cholesterol. They are certified kosher, vegan – no preservatives, all natural. I replaced our Toll House chips with these chips without telling my kids and no one knew the difference.

When choosing your bananas for this recipe, they should be extremely brown, almost to the point when you would throw them away or freeze them. If they are not overly ripe, your muffins will not be as sweet and probably not taste as good. Another great reason to use ripe bananas is for the antioxidants. As a banana ripens its levels of antioxidants increases. These antioxidants in ripe bananas protect your body against cancer and heart diseases.

One last note and then we will get to the recipe! We use Unbleached Baking Cups which are made from premium quality, unbleached, greaseproof paper. These cups are Totally Chlorine-Free (TCF). Since no chlorine or chlorine derivatives are used to produce the cups, no chlorine or its derivatives get dumped into our waterways. From my experience, the muffins are much easier to remove from these baking cups than traditional baking cups.

These muffins lasted approximately 15 minutes until they were all gone (we had guests for breakfast). I hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

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Grain Free Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

See Detailed Nutrition Info on

Whole Food. Real Food. Good Food. www.facebook.com/wholefoodrealfood

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 1/2 cup tapioca flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup ghee, melted
• 1/4 cup raw honey
• 1 cup bananas, mashed (about 2 large ones)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 eggs
• 3/4 cup Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Line a standard muffin tin with paper liners.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together coconut flour, tapioca flour and baking soda.
4. In another large bowl, whisk together ghee, honey, bananas, vanilla extract and eggs.
5. Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
6. Gently fold in the chocolate chips or any other add-in you choose.
7. Divide batter among the lined muffin cups.
8. Bake until the muffins have puffed and the edges have slightly browned, about 20 minutes.
9. Enjoy!

Grain Free Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 1/2 cup tapioca flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup ghee, melted
• 1/4 cup raw honey
• 1 cup bananas, mashed (about 2 large ones)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 eggs
• 3/4 cup Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Line a standard muffin tin with paper liners.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together coconut flour, tapioca flour and baking soda.
4. In another large bowl, whisk together ghee, honey, bananas, vanilla extract and eggs.
5. Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
6. Gently fold in the chocolate chips or any other add-in you choose.
7. Divide batter among the lined muffin cups.
8. Bake until the muffins have puffed and the edges have slightly browned, about 20 minutes.
9. Enjoy!

Eat Better. Feel Better.