Sugar-Detox Chocolate Banana Almond Butter Waffles (Paleo)

I am so pumped on life right now! I realize that my last post was very dramatic; I was very sad. But people are amazing. I was truly unsure if anyone would be willing to donate for Brave's medical bills. Or if they would just ignore it or think it was silly. I realize that many people can't afford their own medical care right now, let alone someone else's dog's. But hope is here! Thanks to some wonderful people, we've raised $315 already! Many other people have reached out to me by just talking to me about it and giving me ideas and encouragement. I so appreciate it all. I've had many tears of joy and gratitude. You can read Brave's update here: http://www.gofundme.com/33hbvk 

I'm also super pumped on linguistics and the history of the English language and the implications for teaching reading and writing. I've spent the last 2 days reading about this stuff to get my homewok done. And I'm actually reading these chapters beginning to end because I'm so fascinated. Did you know that some Bantu languages have over 10 tenses?! In english we just have 3, past, present, future. In Bantu languages there's verb changes(suffixes) to indicate today, yesterday, long ago, earlier today, right now, ongoing, consecutively, habitually, later, hypothetically, not yet and sometimes. Arabic and Hebrew only have consonants, vowel sounds are represented by diacritics, different squiggles above consonants. And the reason thief and thieves are spelled the way they are is that in Old English f and v both said /f/. Noah Webster successfully changed "re" to "er" (centre, center) for American English. He wanted to change "women" to "wimmen" and "pickle" to "pickel", but that was a no go. Fascinating, I know!                                                                   Birsh, J., (2005). Multisensory teaching of basic language skills. Balitomore, MD: Paul H. Brooks Publishing.
—Freeman, D. E., & Freeman, Y. S. (2004). Essential linguistics: What you need to know to teach reading, ESL, spelling, phonics, and grammar. Heinemann.

Selah will be here Monday! (imagine Oprah's voice here)

Reason # 4 that I'm pumped on life is that my sugar detox is going very well! I had headaches in the afternoon/evening the first 4 days. But that's gone. My taste buds have already changed so that a roasted sweet potato or tart Granny Smith tastes like candy. I'm making sure I'm eating a lot so I'm not hungry. Since Monday, I've had no grains, beans or sugars of any kind, except small portions of yams, green-tipped bananas and green apples.  Confession: today at Lucille's, I got pan-fried trout but the trout was lightly breaded! I ate it because I don't want to be that person. Sam's sugar detox is non-existent. I'm eyeing his empty pint of Ben and Jerry's right now. But I've got some kale chips and soon I'll have a spoonful of almond butter and a chug of almond milk. Cause that's what I do late at night. I made these waffles this morning and they came out pretty great for sugar detox waffles. If you're not into the sugar detox, I'd suggest subbing the 2T of almond milk with 2 T honey. You could also sub the raw coca nibs for chocolate chips. Otherwise, I think you'll love it. 

Sugar-Detox Chocolate Banana Almond Butter Waffles (Paleo)  Makes 3 waffles

Ingredients

½ cup almond flour

¼ cup coconut flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 Tablespoon cocoa powder

1/3 cup coconut oil

¼ cup smooth almond butter

4 eggs (pastured, organic) whisked

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon almond extract

2 Tablespoons almond milk

1 small mashed banana

1-2 Tablespoons raw cocoa nibs

Directions

- Preheat your waffle iron (mine is set on 4).

- Mix the dry ingredients in a small bowl. Sift in the cocoa powder (or it'll clump).

- Mix the wet ingredients in a large bowl (Save cocoa nibs for the end).

- Combine wet and dry ingredients and mix well. Let sit for 2 minutes.

- Add cocoa nibs and mix one last time.

- Add about 1/2 cup of batter to the center of the waffle turn, close, flip and let it cook. 

I toped mine with melted Chocolate Coconut Almond Butter. I made this with a little bit of left over coconut butter, some almond butter and a bit of cocoa powder in the food processor. Sam had maple syrup : )