Heart of Cooking

I am very excited to announce the new Valentine’s Day Menu Planner for Limited Diets!

Many people like to spend a nice meal with their spouse or significant other on Valentine’s Day.

However, if you or your loved one is on a limited diet, this can be more complicated than making reservations at your favorite restaurant.

What if you were to surprise your loved one with a home cooked, romantic meal?

Maybe there is a menu that your significant other would love to eat at a restaurant but normally contains their food restrictions.

When I had the idea of making a Valentine’s Day Menu Planner, I thought of what kinds of meals that people on limited diets would love to eat – if only they could eat the ingredients!  I also considered food that is known for being “romantic…”

So, I put together a simple but delicious and allergen-friendly menu that I believe almost anyone could enjoy, even if their diet is very limited!

Here is the menu:

Veggie Lasagna (I am including three recipes so that you can use the one that work best for your diet)

• Grain-Free version (made with egg noodles – these taste just like real noodles!)
• Grain and Egg-Free version (made with zucchini noodles)
• Gluten-Free version (made with brown rice noodles)

Strawberry Avocado Salad with Crispy Pecans

Three Desserts to choose from to fit your diet:

• Hazelnut Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Icing (Grain-Free)
  
• Vanilla Cake with Raspberry Sauce and Vanilla Icing (Grain and Chocolate Free)
• Devil Food’s Chocolate Cupcakes (Gluten, Nut and Egg Free)

All dishes are free of the following:

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First of all I have to apologize for my absence and lack of blog posts lately!  Things have been a very busy on the home front between shopping for a home and Elijah being sick.  But I hope to get back into the swing of things soon!

So for today I want to share a very yummy and very simple recipe for gluten free drop biscuits.  The original recipe comes from Elana Amsterdam’s new cookbook, The Almond Flour Gluten Free Cookbook.  I love her recipes and her blog and they are very adaptable to the GAPS and SCD diets.  I simply use honey in place of agave and coconut oil or butter in place of the grape seed oil.

If you’re on GAPS or don’t want to use baking soda, I have found that separating the eggs and then beating the egg whites until stiff helps the bread to rise without baking soda.  You can read more about this here.

For this time, I also used almond meal (also called natural almond flour) because I didn’t have any blanched on hand.  In my experience, almond meal is more like “wheat flour” and blanched almond flour is more like “white flour.” These biscuits were still delicious with the almond meal, but I think they would be a little lighter with blanched almond flour.

So here’s the recipe:
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Egg, nut, and grain free pizza crust

I admit that when things get really limited and you start to use strange concoctions like gooey flax seed meal paste, ground up pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds, it is easy to have little hope that the recipe is going to be any good at all!

But even though this pizza crust is free of eggs, nuts, grains, gluten, sugar, dairy and yeast (all the things pizza is normally made with), it is mighty delicious!

I am continuing to be stretched by my own restrictions as well as others who are looking for recipes free of many of the common allergens including eggs and nuts.  I found the original version of this recipe at Grainfreefoodies and from there made it free of eggs and added a bit of honey to balance out the taste of the seed flours.  (It was already grain and nut free.)

I wasn’t sure how it was going to be replacing the eggs with the flax seed meal.  My husband even said he was “scared of this one.”  He actually thought it was going to taste like cardboard when I told him what the ingredients were.

We were all pleasantly surprised.  The crust was a bit crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.  It held together very well.  And the crust had a very nice flavor, kind of nutty even though I didn’t use any nuts.  And the last minute idea of adding the roasted butternut squash ended up being a great idea.  Elijah liked it too, and he’s been getting more picky lately.

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Last summer I was gifted a bottle of Tropical Traditions Gold Label Virgin Coconut oil along with the book, Virgin Coconut Oil by the company.  It has taken me this long to write a review of the coconut oil because of what I experienced when I started eating the oil on a regular basis.

At the time of receiving the oil and the book, I knew of coconut oil’s nourishing and healing qualities.  I wrote a post about it in the fall of 2008 talking about the different qualities of coconut oil.  I even wrote:

“The principle fatty acid in coconut milk, lauric acid, is a medium-chain 12-carbon saturated fatty acid that has potent antiviral, antifungal, and antimicrobial properties.”  Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon

However, I was also not eating coconut oil regularly enough to really benefit from its highly nourishing and healing properties.  But when I received the Tropical Traditions oil and read most of the book about its qualities, I decided to start eating it regularly.

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This is a follow up post from my previous post about my healing journey with the GAPS diet.  If you didn’t read my previous post, it may make sense to read it either before or after this one.

I have thought a lot about how to write about my life and how I have come to the place I am right now.  I feel as though I have walked over a landscape of mountains in my life and have arrived at a cozy meadow in a beautiful wood.  Things are pleasant and beautiful right now.  And while I believe that life is about growth and continually walking towards deeper healing and love in our hearts, there is something different about the meadow I am finding myself in right now.

While I know I will continue growing, something really profound has opened up in my life the past few months.  In short, I believe this beautiful meadow is here to stay as a presence of happiness in my heart and in my life, despite any changes life may bring on the outside.  A couple months ago, I wrote this in my journal:

“This is how we were made – all of us – full of joy, happiness, beauty and creativity.  But what happens to us during our life can take this away, and it is our journey to find it again, and to know it is the truth and realness of who we each are.

“Although there is suffering in life, life is not about suffering.  It is about finding a way through our suffering to find the joy again.  To discover that it was there all along, but we simply didn’t see it.”  I would add now, “couldn’t feel it” as well.

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Apple Cinnamon Coconut Muffins

I have always used baking soda and baking powder in baking.  After I suspected corn was bothering me, I started making my own baking powder with arrowroot powder instead of cornstarch.  Here is the recipe I was using:

Corn and gluten free Baking powder:

1 part baking soda

2 parts cream of tartar

1 part arrowroot powder

Mix well and store in an airtight container

However I never really thought that the actual baking soda may also be a problem for me until I came to the GAPS diet.  According to Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, baking soda shouldn’t be eaten by people following GAPS because most people with digestive issues have low stomach acid.  Baking soda is very alkaline, and therefore decreases one’s stomach acid even further.

I have been a little slow to accept this fact completely but do follow it most of the time.  I did use baking soda in the cake I made for the birthday party.  But for the most part have tried to find other ways to create leavening in my baked goods.

While I was creating the Just Desserts for Limited Diets recipe book, I created most of the cakes free of baking soda or baking powder by using egg whites as leavening.  This worked extremely well and I am continuing to use this method to create moist and springy baked goods without baking soda.

It is very simple but it does take more time and equipment.  But the results are worth the extra step I assure you.

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I don’t have a picture of this very yummy soup that my husband made while I was working last week but it is very worthy of a posting.  To me it was just like eating potato leek soup but maybe I have simply forgotten what potatoes taste like.  The texture and taste were great and we ate it up within a couple of days.

So if you’re following GAPS or a low-carb diet, or you can’t eat potatoes or nightshades for any other reason, this recipe is not to be missed!

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painting by Sarah Schatz

This is the first year I can remember in  a long time where I am not being affected adversely by the cold weather and lack of sunlight.  December and January are usually my least favorite months and I often feel like I am hanging on by my finger nails until spring time when I can again feel the warmth of the sun spreading its light upon the earth and my body.  Strangely, I even felt this way when I lived in southern California where it is sunny and temperate all year round.

A lot of things have changed for me.  And I don’t think it is a far cry to say my life has completely changed in the past six months or so.  This is all due to embracing a diet that is really working for my body and is helping me heal from the inside out.

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This week I’ve been reflecting on the past two years of my life and how amazing it has been to watch Elijah grow into the boy he is today.  He turned two last week and my husband’s birthday was just a few days before so we did a birthday party for them on Sunday last week.

Over three years ago when I first felt like a baby was soon going to be coming into my life, I was excited and scared.  And when I felt my heart and what this child would bring, I remember feeling that this child would be a great blessing to my life.

What child isn’t a blessing?  They bring all the joy, excitement, and love that we are usually craving by the time we’re adults and have lost touch with the childhood magic.

But I never would have imagined the trials and hardships we ended up facing when he was a young baby nor how much my life would change for the better through raising him.  All of this has made me who I am today and I am grateful for all of it, even the hard stuff.  I know I’m not giving much detail here but I hope to elaborate on this subject sometime in the near future.

But for now, I want to share the birthday cake recipe that I made for my husband and son for their birthdays.  The original recipe is here, but I added the lemon zest and juice and adjusted some of the other ingredients.  It turned out to be a hit.

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Sugar-free Almond Roca Candy

This stuff is yummy!  It tastes like the inside of a heath bar!  The above picture shows two different batches – the darker one got heated a bit longer than the golden one.  They are both yummy though!  My mom made these to test an Almond Roca recipe for the Just Desserts for Limited Diets e-book.  It does contain butter and from my experience, it is better to use butter verses coconut oil.  But if you can’t eat butter, coconut oil will work – it just may not be as crunchy.

I do feel I have to say a word or two about heating honey.  I believe that eating raw honey is absolutely the best option for everyone.  Raw and untreated honey is not only healthy but it also has been used for centuries as a healing remedy for many illnesses.  Unfortunately though, when honey is heated to high temperatures (not clear how high), certain chemicals start to form that are not good for you.

However, the reason why I used honey here is because it is one of the only GAPS friendly sweeteners.  Also, I believe that candy like this shouldn’t be eaten in handfuls, only a little bit at a time (it is very rich.)  I also think that if you make this only once  a year for the holidays, it is not going to do that much harm.  I also think that eating heated honey is better than eating sugar and corn syrup.

These are my thoughts – what do you think about using honey to make candy?

Here’s the recipe:

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