Blueberry-Lemon Bars {Paleo}

My friend E is not so much a sweets girl. When she asked me to make a dessert for her  Going Away party a few weekends ago I found an amazing sounding, paleo friendly, recipe for Bacon Chocolate chip cookies. As I was standing in the aisle at Whole Foods trying to decide how much more coconut flour I needed I realized the recipe I had found only made 8 cookies. After some panicked googling and found these delicious Blueberry-Lemon bars on The Spunky Coconut.

They weren't as sweet as I was expecting, but as E pointed out, they would be PERFECT for a breakfast. I added twice as many blueberries and probably would have done the same for lemon juice in addition to some zest. This also all came together nicely in my new blender so clean up was very easy! My adapted recipe:

Blueberry Lemon Bars {Paleo Friendly}

3/4 cup of Coconut Flour 

1/2 cup of Tapioca Starch

 1/2 cup of Shortening + 1 tbsp

 1/2 cup of Granulated Sugar

 1/2 cup of  Fresh Lemon Juice

1 tbsp of  Fresh Lemon Zest

 1 tbsp Baking Powder

 1/4 tsp  of Salt 

3/4 cup of Applesauce 

2 cups of Blueberries

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a square baking pan with parchment paper
2. In a blender, mixer or food processor, mix together the coconut flour, tapioca starch, shortening, sugar, salt, baking powder, lemon juice, lemon zest and applesauce until it forms a thick dough
3. Pour dough into a mixing bowl & fold in the blueberries
4. Place dough into the baking pan and press evenly into the pan
5. Bake for 43-45 minutes
6. After the bars cool, sprinkle the top with a pinch of granulated or powered sugar

Paleo-ish Strong!

I've been doing "paleo" for about 2 whole months now. I say "paleo" because I sometimes eat gluten/aka delicious carbs, but have been trying to stick to veggies, protein and some fruit 98% of the time. Also, if I do eat junk I make sure I know every word on the ingredients list....and yes, I technically know what high fructose corn syrup is, but I stay away :).

I've been feeling great! I went a little hard core the 2 weeks before my Junior League event and did zero carbs or sugar. It was hard, but I was feeling great. After 2 weeks of being amazing at eating healthy and working out, I decided I could indulge on a scone or cookie....or bag of milanos here and there :)

That was last week and I crashed. Hard. Core. I was either exhausted or so amped up on sugar that I couldn't focus. I never knew what I wanted to eat. My tummy was constantly full, yet my head was constantly hungry (carb addiction). This used to be a normal feeling for me and seeing the differences really made me see how much better I feel focusing on Paleo and I'm looking forward to continuing it.


I need to figure out how though. I no longer live DIRECTLY ACROSS THE STREET from a grocery store. What's this 'meal planning' business people do?