We first became aware of Julie and Charles’ book ‘Paleo Comfort Foods‘ through Robb Wolf’s excellent blog.   A Twitter follow (@PaleoComfort) later and a few friendly emails led to to what you are about to read below.  Enjoy and be well!

Julie and Charles

WF: So, neither one of you are professional chefs; please tell us a bit about yourselves and how you got onto the Paleo path? Did one of you get on the program before the other and was it tough to engage the other person at first?

PCF: Well, we actually met and began dating because of our love of cooking food.  We talk about this in the book a bit…but we’ll do the synopsis here: We were spearheading our first “Zone” meal swap at our gym (BTB Fitness).  There were quite a few of us living the Zone lifestyle at that point and weighing and measuring everything can get to be a bit overwhelming.  A group of 10 or so folks got thrown together to make tons of food each week and we would meet and swap meals.  It was great.  We could each cook a ton of one dish and then end up with 4-6 different dishes out of the swap.  Julie and I barely knew each other at this point in our lives (other than occasionally seeing each other for the food swap).  The owners of the gym (Jeff & Melissa Hayes) were also members of the food swap.  However, Jeff was in the middle of 100 days of home isolation following his stem cell transplant for a relapse with lymphoma.  Jeff couldn’t leave the house and Melissa was busy taking care of him plus she didn’t want to bring home any bad germs for her husband. Independently of each other, we started making extra servings of all our meals and sneaking them over to the Hayes house on Sundays to drop off and visit for a moment.  The funny thing is, neither of us knew the other was doing it.  We seemed to never run into one another during these secret trips to deliver our latest creations.  It was several weeks into this that Melissa finally called (Charles) to see about setting us up.  Needless to say, it has been an amazing world since those days.  We have enjoyed cooking together and bringing our own unique spin on things to the table ever since.

We hopped on the paleo wagon together.  At the request of Melissa Hayes (we are pretty good friends as you can imagine), we ventured down to Jacksonville, FL in the Spring of 2009 to take the CrossFit Nutrition Clinic.  It was taught by this gentleman, Robb Wolf.  He was charismatic and funny…and extremely patient with all of our questions about weighting this and measuring that.  Robb was a real sport…finally, he kind of put Charles in his place.  As only Robb can say: “Dude, put down the scales and just focus on eating real foods.”  We ended up meeting Robb and his wife, Nicki, for dinner that night and really hit it off as buddies.  So, we jumped into paleo with two feet from that day forward.  Doing it together certainly helped.  Not to mention the countless hours we saved not having to measure every ingredient we used.

Over the years, we have always cooked for Robb & Nicki whenever they are in town.  He is really the driving force that influenced us to give paleo a try.  It seems only fitting that he was the force that started this cookbook adventure for us also.

WF: I see that Charles is an avid hunter; it doesn’t get more Paleo than that!  Are there recipes in the book for wild game?

PCF: We have quite a few recipes in the book that use wild game.  Rabbit, venison & quail are a few items that are in there.  We also offer variations on some of our traditional recipes so that you can easily incorporate wild game.  I think Charles secretly wishes this cookbook will somehow get him invited on all these glorious hunts in pursuit of our next recipe idea.

WF: Why Paleo Comfort Foods?  Did you find that you were having a tough time sticking with eating Paleo?

PCF: Actually, the original name of the book (kind of joking kind of serious) was Redneck Paleo Cooking. That name was born because most of the recipes we found ourselves “converting” to paleo were southern recipes.  The Shrimp and Grits recipe in our book is the one that we were talking about with Robb and Nicki the night they put the whole cookbook idea in our head.  Seriously, we laugh every time we read his foreword in our book.   Did we have a tough time sticking to Paleo? Heck no. I think this is partially because we like being creative in the kitchen, and weren’t about to fall prey to eating the same thing all the time.  This lifestyle is quite suited to us. We love to cook anyway…why not cook with solid REAL ingredients?  One HUGE driving force behind this book are the countless folks that do struggle with making this a permanent part of their lifestyle.  We’ve helped coach a few paleo challenges at the gym and have spent countless hours answering questions and talking folks off the ledge. This book was our attempt at showing folks just some of the creative possibilities out there when cooking with real ingredients and  Comfort Foods seemed like the obvious backdrop for our book.  Since most Southern cuisine makes the comfort food list anyway, we found ourselves with a book title that didn’t offend anyone of Charles’ friends/family and gave us some room to incorporate recipes that didn’t necessarily fit into the “southern food” culture.

WF: What do you see as the number one benefit to a person living a Paleo lifestyle?

PCF: Ooooh…love that question.  OK…so that is going to depend entirely on the person making the change.  That said, we would most likely vote for how you FEEL eating this way.  Loads of energy throughout the day, clear headed & emotionally/chemically normal.  This quality is fairly universal for everyone…which is why it goes to the top of our list.  But being able to see clients reverse some disease, go off medicines, and just realize so many health benefits has been pretty powerful too.

WF: What is your favorite recipe in the book?   Would you consider sharing it with us please?

PCF: There are just too many good recipes to choose from.  Depending on the time of year, or whether we’re talking about a main dish, or a side.  It is hard to beat our Morning Glory Muffins…until you try our Country Captain recipe.  Or….we can have Country Captain and a Morning Glory Muffin for dessert.  Until we want some Gumbo or Country Curry, or some Sweet Potato Spears dipped in Chipotle Dipping Sauce…

Here’s just one recipe that has gotten some great reviews out there :

Morning Glory Muffins (From Paleo Comfort Foods)

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups almond flour
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups carrots, peeled and grated
1 large apple, peeled, cored and grated
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup raisins
3 large eggs
2 tablespoons honey (optional)
1/2 cup coconut or olive oil
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease a standard-sized muffin pan.
2. Combine almond flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.  Add carrot, apple, coconut and raisins and combine well.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs, honey, oil and vanilla extract together.
4. Pour the wet mixture over the dry ingredients and mix very well. The batter will be very thick.
5. Spoon the batter out into muffin pan and place on upper or middle rack of your oven for 40-50 minutes.
6. When a toothpick inserted into the top of a muffin comes out clean, the muffins are done.
7. Cool muffins in the pan for 8-10 minutes and then remove to a rack to finish cooling.

**If you are looking for variety, sub out currants or chopped dates for the raisins.  You can also add a little orange zest to give them a bit more citrus flavor.

Mmmmmorning Glory Muffins