Heart of Cooking

Cranberry Raspberry Relish from Eatingwell.com

I had so much fun with the Thanksgiving Menu Planner that I am very excited about creating menu planners for the coming holidays as well!

So excited, that I am actually going to create both a Holiday Menu Planner as well as “Just Desserts” recipe booklet for people on limited diets.

I grew up celebrating Christmas, but if this is not the holiday you celebrate, these menu planners and recipes could most likely work for any festive celebration and holiday.

The Holiday Menu Planner:

I think for many families, having a nice breakfast on either Christmas morning or another special day during the holidays is very common.  So I decided to include a breakfast menu to the holiday menu planner as well as a dinner menu.

Once again, the menu planner is going to be free of the following foods, so that it can work for almost any limited diet:

no dairy -  (butter may be used in some recipes but there is always another option that is dairy-free)

no wheat or gluten – all grains and products containing gluten

no grains

no sugar - only natural sweeteners will be used, such as raw honey and maple syrup

no soy – no soybean oil, lecithin, and other soy products

limited starches

no corn

no beans and legumes

egg-free options

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Gluten Free Clafoutis

This is my weekly roundup of my kitchen twisting as part of the Tuesday Twister Carnival at GNOWFGLINS.  For other real and delicious food posts, check out the twister here.

Because I was pretty busy, I only tried a couple of new recipes this week, but they were both yummy!

Apple Clafoutis

The first was this Apple Clafoutis that I made based on Kimi’s recipe at the Nourishing Gourmet.  I saw her Cherry version of this recipe over the summer and knew I had to try it.  It took me a while to get to it but inspiration struck over the weekend.

I used apples instead of cherries so that I could use seasonal fruit and it was really a delight.  I used her coconut version of this recipe which works perfectly for the GAPS diet.  I omitted the baking soda but for people not on GAPS, I am sure the baking soda would make it more fluffy than mine turned out.

If you use a bit less honey or other sweetener, I think that this would make a great pastry for breakfast, even though it is traditionally a dessert.

Homemade Yogurt Fruit Leather:

Since I have a dehydrator now, I feel like there is a whole world of foods that I can now make.  One of these is fruit leather which my son loves.

When I was looking through the recipe booklet for the dehydrator, it talked about making fruit leather out of fruit yogurt.  I thought this sounded great!

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Gluten free and grain free pizza

Okay, so this may seem off topic.  But I’m doing a post about pizza today.  Reason being I’ve been wanting to do a post about this particular pizza crust for weeks and I finally got a good shot last week.  I also thought that people need some ideas for dinner prior to Thanksgiving so that they have the energy to do all the shopping and cooking this week!

I’ve been making this pizza crust for several weeks now and I really enjoy it.  My husband has confessed (a few times) that he misses the yeast-y gluten-free pizza dough I used to make.  I agree, it was tasty and tasted just like the real thing.

But since going grain free, yeast free and sugar free, the pizza crust I’ve been making marches to the beat of a different drum…

But it really is delicious in my opinion.  And if you can’t have yeast or grains or sugar, it is really a great alternative.

The best part of the recipe is it is so easy! No waiting for it to rise.  No kneading.  Only four ingredients!. Just mix and pat into a pan and then bake it.  It’s is feasible to make the whole pizza for dinner in 45 minutes depending on what toppings you use.  But you can also make the crusts over the weekend, prebake and then freeze them for later if time is an issue for you during the week.

I originally got this recipe made with hazelnut flour here.  But I used almond flour instead and I really like the texture.  I’ve also used almond meal and it also worked well.  It tasted more like a wheat crust.

This time I used the pizza stones that my mom gave me at least a year ago.  They are little so you have to make little pizzas.  The recipe made three small individual sized pizzas and the picture above is of the last piece before it got eaten for lunch the next day.

The pizza stones did make a difference I have to say.  It was a bit crispier but still “chewy” on the inside.  It had a great texture to it.

To get the recipe, visit the Grain Free Foodies blog.  The only thing I did differently was change the flour to almond flour.

Gluten Free and GAPS friendly Pizza Crust Recipe

Enjoy and have a blessed and beautiful Thanksgiving this week!

Pumpkin Pie with Coconut Crust

Pumpkin Pie is the only pie that I can say that I have always loved, especially for the holidays.  For me, I think it’s because I am just not a fan of the “flaky pie crust” that most pies are made with.  However, I am starting to love pies now that I have found some great gluten and grain free crust recipes.  I love the texture of the nut crusts much better than regular pastry dough.  So, I am beginning to love all kinds of pies – pecan and apple are my two new favorites!

I created this pie for the Thanksgiving Menu Planner for people with limited diets and I made it with a coconut crust because I wanted a nut-free as well as gluten and grain-free option for people.

When I first tried the pie before it was completely cool, I liked it but the crust seemed a bit soft.  But when I put it in the fridge overnight and tried it the next day, the crust had set up and it was great.  I really loved it and I want to make another one before Thanksgiving.

So, with Thanksgiving right around the corner and with so many people being limited in what they can eat, I wanted to post a pie recipe that almost anyone can eat.  This pumpkin pie does contain eggs, which I know is a problem for many.  However, if you’re looking for an egg free pumpkin pie, check out this one.  The trade off is that it uses almonds to keep it together in place of the eggs.  But if you can’t eat eggs and can eat almonds, this would be a great recipe for you!

It’s been a busy week so I will leave you with the recipe:

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Zucchini Pasta Noodles

It ’s been somewhat of a crazy busy week.  The main thing that threw my schedule off was that my computer crashed last Tuesday night.  My husband ran the anti-virus software on both of our computers Tuesday evening and when we woke up Wednesday, neither of our computers would boot up.

Long story short, my computer is running again thanks to my husband.  But it took some time to get programs reinstalled, etc.   We still don’t know what happened with the spyware…

I was planning on working Wednesday morning, but I couldn’t so…. I made chicken broth and yogurt instead.  It was kind of weird.  Usually I’d be a bit frantic, running around trying to figure out how to get my work done.  But I felt like the situation was beyond my control.  It was actually nice to get the chicken broth started from the chicken carcass and meat from the night before.  I also was glad to get the yogurt going since it takes a whole day to ferment in the dehydrator.

I actually have to attribute my mood and ability to deal with the stress to the GAPS diet.  I have to admit that by the end of Wednesday, I was very tired.  But for the most part, I know I dealt with this much better than I normally would before I went grain-free.

The other thing that kind of astonished me when I thought about my week is that I cooked a wonderful meal every night and was able to plan ahead for the next day even though I was super-busier than normal.  However, I didn’t take one picture this week of food.  I guess that was the thing that got dropped amongst the busy schedule.  (The picture of the zucchini pasta is an old picture).  Here is what we ended up having for dinner each night.

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Gluten and Dairy free Green Bean Casserole

I have to admit that when I think Thanksgiving, I don’t think about the traditional Green Bean Casserole.  I didn’t grow up eating it and so I tend to think about dishes  like  mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie!  But I received a few requests for this dish on the Thanksgiving Menu Planner so I thought I would take the challenge to create a healthy, gluten-free and dairy-free version.

Most recipes I found called for canned onions loaded with sugar and wheat as well as the all-famous Cream of Mushroom soup.  Well, neither of these ingredients are anything close to allergen-friendly or healthy so I knew everything had to make from scratch!

I found one recipe at Eating Well that caught my eye.  Here is the description of the dish:

“This is not the no-mess, super-easy recipe of yore, but it is low in fat and high in flavor. To go one step further, substitute 1/2 pound fresh green beans for frozen. Simply trim and cut into 1-inch lengths. Then blanch the beans for 1 to 2 minutes in boiling water, refresh under cold water and spread in the baking dish.”

So, I took this recipe, which called for milk, sour cream and breadcrumbs and made it gluten-free, dairy-free and grain-free!  I will say that it is no longer low in fat as claimed by the original recipe.  But it is all healthy fat from nuts and healthy oils.

This recipe is part of my Thanksgiving Day Menu Planner, but I decided to make a blog post about it and share the recipe because I think there are a lot of people who would love a healthier and allergen-free version of this traditional but not so healthy recipe!

So here’s the recipe!:

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Gluten-free and Dairy-free Pecan Pie

Hooray!  Thanksgiving is coming and if you have a limited diet, you will have some amazing and delicious recipes to make!  The Thanksgiving Menu Planner is now available and it is specifically for limited diets that are free of foods like gluten, wheat, dairy, corn, sugars, starches, nightshades, and peanuts.  If you’re egg-free or nut-free, you’ll also find some great options to create a beautiful allergen-free menu for the holidays!

I want to thank my subscribers who gave me some wonderful ideas and recipes!

• Lori – she had to idea to have snacks for hungry children on the menu
• Sarah – pumpkin bars with “cream cheese” frosting
• Rebecca – stuffing and cranberry sauce recipes
• Sarah – traditional green bean casserole – I made a healthy version!
• Holly – whipped coconut cream recipe
• Rahma – sauerkraut – I included a lacto-fermented version so that people have a digestive aid on Thanksgiving
• Andrea – pumpkin dip with apples recipe
• Anonymous – Pecan Pie
• Ann – Butternut Squash and Apples
• Wardeh at GNOWFGLINS.com offered her Egg-Free Pumpkin Pie as well as the Coconut Icing

Here is the final menu:

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It’s been another busy week in our kitchen. I feel somewhat obsessed, like I just can’t get enough of cooking, creating and trying out new recipes. I read about a recipe or want to make something that I would normally buy and it’s like a bookmark is created in my mind and a few days later I find myself making it.

However, I really feel like this obsession is actually a healthy one for me. Because I presently feel healthier than I have – physically, emotionally and mentally – than I have for a while. I feel as though the GAPS diet is like taking a chill pill for me. I really need to write a separate post about this because it’s a long story. But I will just say here that I am finding that being grain-free, starch-free and sugar-free is giving my mind, heart and body a much needed break and time to heal in a way that it just hasn’t had a chance to for many years.

Like I said last week, I’ve been in the kitchen a lot. I was actually in the kitchen all day Sunday this week except for a walk that I took with my husband and toddler. But it doesn’t really tire me out because I love it so much. It doesn’t even feel like work to me, until I get tired of doing the dishes.

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Somehow I missed out on the Tuesday Twister Carnival at GNOWFGLINS last week so I’m making up for it this week!  I haven’t really been keeping track of everything I’ve been making, so I had to sit down and think about what exactly I’ve been doing in the kitchen lately.  It seems as though I spend half my time cooking or cleaning so there had to be some things I could write about today!  (A day late!)

When I started making my list, I realized that yes, I spend A LOT of time cooking.  But I’m grateful for it and it feeds my heart to be creating nourishing food for my family.  Being on the GAPS diet, I am finding that I am in the kitchen even more than I used to because I have to make so many things from scratch.  I still haven’t made the mayo yet, but I don’t miss it because I don’t use it that much in my cooking.

So here’s the run down.  Many of these dishes were made the past week, except for a couple of baked goods.  I’ll start with the soups.

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