I've been incredibly lazy on the recipe/cooking front lately. On Sunday night, the thought of making guacamole was almost too much to bear--luckily I had a hungry and determined fiance available to cut avocados in half. So, as I'm sure you can imagine, I've been all about the easy way out. What do I already have? What can I whip up in just a few minutes that isn't totally boring? Enter egg salad bacon bites. Fancy enough to make as an appetizer for friends, but easy enough to make because you've probably got the ingredients in your fridge already.

I love cooking, and I love tortilla soup, but I don't always love going to the grocery store for a big list of things specific to just one recipe. While my brother was visiting, we vowed to make a big pot of it, and somehow made it work mostly with ingredients I already had in my kitchen.

Full disclosure: some cumin, chili powder, a habanero pepper, and paprika would have been nice. Feel free to add some of that to yours if you make it. But this was flavorful and perfect for a cold evening spent at home watching the Olympics, which is exactly how we did it.

This year, I'm bringing my Paleo take on Pigs in a Blanket! If you haven't noticed yet, my Paleo version of anything that is usually covered in bread is just wrapped in bacon instead. I also made a honey mustard sauce for dipping, because I think Super Bowl snacks are all about dipping, and I totally love a little homemade sauce to fancy up a dish. Happy Super Bowl weekend, friends, and go...team, go!

I have a confession: I don't own any fancy kitchen gadgets. I need one of those spiral things that turn vegetables into noodles, but I don't have one. While I want a juicer and an espresso maker with a steam wand and a food processor, I'm also in that weird liminal space between forgetting your kitchen things in storage and creating a wedding registry full of awesome stuff that other people will probably buy for you. Normal, right?

A couple of months ago, my friend Jenna sent me and a few other Paleo-minded bloggers an email with an idea. 

"I want to start a website," she said, "and I want it to take what I always loved about my blog and make it into a magazine-style site that women go to for:

Fall is coming to an close and I think we're finally entering the end of Pumpkin Everything Season--to me, Christmas and New Year's Eve feel more like chocolate and caramel things. But I didn't want to let it go without one more festive pumpkin recipe! And when Lavazza sent me some coffee to try out and challenged me to create a complimentary recipe, I knew these little pumpkin custards would be just perfect.

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday--mostly because of the food--so it was not without a bit of anxiety that I experienced my first Paleo Thanksgiving a few years ago. My mom has always done a fantastic job coming up with Paleo-friendly Thanksgiving alternatives, so this year I used her as inspiration when Relay Foods asked me to make them a Paleo Thanksgiving-themed dish. It's full of sweet potatoes and sausage and love.

After we went apple picking the other weekend, we had a bunch of apples in our kitchen. Imagine that. I spent a few days slicing one up and dipping it in almond butter, but I really felt like we couldn't go through fall without a dish that at least somewhat resembled/tasted like an apple pie. So I made this Paleo Apple Pie-ish Crumble. That's the scientific term for it.

I've been really into squash this fall. Pumpkins, butternut squash, and acorn are definitely my favorites, but I have to say I just love acorn squash the most. They're the perfect shape and make a fantastic side dish, just by cutting one in half and roasting it up in the oven. I decided to get a little fancier and actually serve dinner in the squash the other night, and we loved it so much that I made it again that same week!

My experience with the Paleo diet for the past two years has been nothing but amazingly positive, so I practically jumped at the opportunity to work with Grain Brain, Dr. David Perlmutter's eye-opening book and diet program. I feel so much better when I stay away from gluten, sugar, and carbs in general, so I've been finding myself shaking my head with every turn of every page of this book.

Grain Brain is about lifestyle changes you can make today to keep your brain healthy, vibrant, and sharp. Gone are the days when smart, aware, and healthy people just died of old age when it was their time, Perlmutter says; now we're falling prey to all sorts of diseases. He explains that the fate of our health and brain is not solely in our genes, but in the food that we eat. According to him, the cornerstone of many brain conditions is inflammation, which can be triggered by carbs, especially those containing gluten and are high in sugar.

He goes on to illustrate how fat is and always has been a fundamental part of our nutrition. Did you know that the human brain consists of more than 70% fat? I had no idea. And it contains more connections than there are stars in the Milky Way! I mean, we all know that our brain is powerful and important, but that's pretty awesome. Good fats, like coconut oil or DHA omega-3 found in fatty fish and algae help reduce inflammation and cretain vitamins, mostly A, D, E, and K, require fat to get absorbed properly in the body. I always kind of naively hoped that the food I ate would just sort of cover me as far as vitamins go, but now I know that as I get older I'm going to have to take supplements. Might as well start today!

I'm really enjoying the book because Perlmutter gives me enough scientific background to really understand what's going on when I eat excess carbs, but his writing style is conversational, and his technical details are accessible to my generally science-less background. He also has a chapter of awesome recipes, so that's an added bonus. I'm excited to finish it and begin the Grain Brain Challenge.

Today I have a guest post for you from the darling Ksenija of With An Open Mind. She's made some delicious seasonal treats for you--and they're Paleo, too! I hope you enjoy. Here's Ksenija:

Happy Tuesday, Freckled Italian readers. I am Ksenija from With An Open Mind and delighted to be guest posting on Megan's lovely blog today. Blogging is an outlet for me to share my various passions from healthy living and recipe developing to travelling the world and online marketing.
I am a foodie at heart and thus I was more than happy to work on a seasonal Paleo scone recipe to share with you. Do you remember the delicious PPSL (Paleo Pumpkin Spice Latte) Megan wrote about last October? I wanted my scones to be something to eat alongside a steaming cup of PPSL, using similar ingredients, and be easy to prepare. For those of you not following a Paleo diet, don't worry: I shared my scones with friends and family and they were a big hit. Nutty, soft and satisfying, while also healthy, dairy-free and gluten-free.
1. Preheat oven to 180 °C (350 F).
2. Mix all of the dry ingredients first: almond and coconut flour, spices, salt and soda. In a second bowl mix pumpkin puree, vanilla, coconut oil, egg and maple syrup. Add wet ingredients to the dry. Incorporate until you get a dough. It won't be quite kneadable and remains a bit sticky.
3. Sprinkle some almond flour on a lined baking tray, place the dough in the middle of the tray and start forming a circular shape with wet hands. It should be a bit less than 1 inch thick. Cut into 12 triangles without separating.

4. Whisk the leftover 0.5 egg with maple syrup and cinnamon. Spread the mixture on top of the dough (there might be some left over) and place the tray in the preheated oven.
5. Bake for 15 minutes. Take out when slightly golden.
6. While you wait for the scones place all of your glaze ingredients in a mug, microwave them for up to 30 seconds (to melt the coconut cream) and whisk until they are evenly incorporated. Place in the fridge for 10 minutes.
7. Let the scones cool for a few minutes when they come out of the oven. Fill the glaze in a zip lock bag, cut an edge off and drizzle it over your scones. Wait until it firms up (patience!) before separating the individual scones and enjoy the first one while still warm.