Occasional indulgences...
There are special occasions when it is nice to make ‘treats’ (probably not the best word to use) – birthdays, dinner parties, etc. – and there are a host of Paleo recipe websites that provide excellent ideas.
We made these Chocolate Truffles from Nom Nom Paleo and they are just beautiful (no eggs, no dairy). We split the mixture and made half orange truffles and half brandy truffles. I can’t recommend these enough. Beware though of using chocolate with a very high cocoa content (85%) as we found that the mixture didn’t blend well. Not quite sure what caused this so we stick to 75% or 70%.
Chocolate mousse is another great desert that we make often. This recipe from MDA site is definitely the best. This also contains eggs.
Civilized Caveman’s Lemon Pound Cake is truly delicious (I make an orange spiced version at Christmas) and his Banana Bread is also fantastic. Both contain eggs though so are unsuitable if you are avoiding them for autoimmune conditions.
We do eat dark chocolate pretty regularly. I bought some 100% chocolate recently as a treat. Our favourite was the Domori (red box at the front). It was wonderful and definitely the smoothest tasting.
Alcohol
We drink wine with a meals at the weekend but we have both noticed that some types of wine triggers headaches that we do not get with spirits (this affects me particularly badly). Look for gluten-free spirit and reduce sugar-laden mixers. Tequila is the least processed of the spirits.
We do occasionally have natural wines, courtesy of our friends Kate and Marc and this is definitely something that we would like to explore further. See RAW out for further information.