Heart of Cooking

Lucky for all of you egg-free people, I’ve been experimenting more with egg-free baking these days than normal.  So I came up with a very yummy cookie that is egg-free, grain-free, gluten and wheat-free, dairy-free, and sugar free.  Yay!  I didn’t get a good picture of the actual cookies but you can see Elijah was enjoying his!

Cinnamon Walnut Raisin Egg-free Cookie Recipe (wheat, gluten, grain, sugar, and dairy free)

1 1/2 cups nut flour – I tried them with both almond and pecan flour and both are tasty

1/4 cup coconut oil, melted (you can use melted butter too)

1/4 cup honey or other sweetener of choice

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp baking soda (delete for GAPS)

2 heaping tablespoons nut butter

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup raisins or currants

1/4 cup or less water – start with less and add until you get a good cookie batter consistency

Steps:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 F.  Mix all ingredients except the water together.  Add the water after you have mixed all the other ingredients, a little at a time until you get a good cookie dough consistency.

2.  Grease 2 cookie sheets with butter or oil.  Make spoonfuls the size of tablespoons and plop them onto the cookie sheet, spacing them out so that you have about 12 to a sheet.  This batch makes about 16 cookies so you’ll need just part of the second cookie sheet.

3.  Bake for 12 minutes or until cooked through and a little crispy on the outside.  Remove from oven, let cool for about five minutes.  Then remove with a spatula and serve.  They remind me of Oatmeal Raisin cookies.  Yum!

Pear, Avocado, Almond and Coconut Butter Breakfast

It can be extremely difficult to give up certain foods you’re used to eating and depending on.  I have personally eaten eggs almost every day for the past “I don’t know how many” years.  I love eating them in the morning because they are easy to fix, don’t require defrosting or planning ahead, can hold me over all morning and are relatively inexpensive for a meal.  Then there is the whole “what the heck would I eat if I didn’t eat eggs” dilemma.

All of these reasons have kept me eating eggs, until up to about three weeks ago.  My belly had had enough.  I distinctly heard it say to me one day, “No More EGGS!”  Yikes!  What was I going to do?

Sigh.  Many people email me asking me for breakfast ideas, especially egg-free ones.  I have promised them a menu planner…soon.  I do have the Egg-Free GAPS Menu Planner available that has one breakfast idea for each week.

However, I have yet to deliver a complete list of recipes and/or menu planner for breakfast ideas that are free of eggs.  So, I don’t have a release date yet, but I am planning on compiling an e-book of egg-free breakfast ideas for people who feel just as lost as I do when I comes to facing breakfast in the morning on an egg-free diet. Hooray!

This morning my husband looked at my breakfast inquisitively.  He was obviously interested or maybe confused about what I was eating.  I told him it was avocado, pear, almonds and coconut butter.  He seemed a little impressed, but I don’t think he’s going egg-free anytime soon.

Here’s the recipe to my surprisingly filling breakfast:

Pear, Avocado, Almond and Coconut Butter Breakfast

1/2 avocado, cubed

1/2 ripe pear, cubed

1/4 cup almonds, soaked, dehydrated and chopped coarsely

2 Tbsp coconut butter at room temp. from Artisana

How to make it: Gently mix all the ingredients together and enjoy.

In the end, I had almost two helpings of this, but so far it has held me over and it’s just about lunch time as I write this.

List of Egg-Free Recipe Ideas (also grain, gluten and starch free)

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A couple of weeks ago our tomatoes were booming, so I made a batch of homemade tomato sauce.  It didn’t last long and it was delicious.  There is truly nothing like fresh home grown tomatoes and sauce!

I decided to leave it “chunky” but you could blend it up after it’s cooked if you want a smoother sauce.  Or you could blend up half and leave the other half chunky.

So here’s my recipe:

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One of our meals last week was a delicious Roasted Chicken with herbs and lemon as well as Cold Beet Salad, Sauerkraut and Garden Tomato and Basil Salad.  The three salads looked so beautiful together, I couldn’t help but take a picture.  And they tasted great together as well.  The beet and tomato salads are very easy while the sauerkraut takes some time and effort, but all were very delicious.  So I thought I’d share the Beet and Tomato salads with you today and keep the Sauerkraut for another day…

Garden Tomato and Basil Salad

Garden tomatoes – as many as you’d like, chopped up into medium sized chunks

Fresh basil, chopped – about 1/4 cup to 2-3 large tomatoes

Dressing: About 1/3 vinegar to 2/3 olive oil  (you can play with the proportions – I usually don’t measure but simply pour onto the tomatoes)

Apple Cider Vinegar or Balsamic Vinegar (not GAPS friendly)

Olive oil

Salt and pepper, freshly cracked, to taste

Mix all ingredients together and enjoy.  You can chill ahead of time and the flavors will mingle together.

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Cold Beet Salad

4-5 beets, peeled, cut into chunks and steamed until tender, chilled

Fresh mint, chopped – about 1/4 cup (I actually didn’t add mint this time but it is very good with the beets)

Same dressing as above for the tomato salad

Mix all ingredients together and enjoy.

For the beets, you will need to chill them before serving.  Enjoy!

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I hope you enjoy these simply delicious summer recipes for these really hot days we’re having!

I was craving cereal over the weekend (doesn’t help that my husband buys cereal I can’t eat!) so I finally tried out a recipe I had found for Raw Nut Granola.  It is a bit of a process but it was so worth it.  It turned out as raw granola bars that you can break up into granola for cereal.  So you really get two recipes in one!

This recipe does require a dehydrator so if you don’t have one, you may be able to bake the mixture at about 300 degrees F until it is crisp.  You may want to put it on parchment paper or just grease the pan very well.  You’ll also want to make the mixture quite thin on the pan.  This does kill the beneficial enzymes in the nuts and seeds but it is an option if you don’t have a dehydrator.

I did make some adjustments to the recipe, simply due to not having dates, lemon, pumpkin seeds or vanilla.  But here is the original recipe as well as my adjustments.  For me, it made two  full sheets of granola on the Excalibur dehydrating sheets which later fit almost into two quart sized jars (one is already gone…)

Raw Nut Granola (egg-free, dairy-free, grain-free, gluten-free, sugar-free, soy-free)

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Coconut Vanilla Ice Cream - Dairy, Egg and Sugar Free

It’s summer and we all love ice cream, right?  The best dairy-free and sugar-free vanilla ice cream I’ve found is this one.  It is really delicious, both with the lavendar and without.  It is creamy and smooth and freezes well.  However, it is quite a bit of work so I don’t always feel like making it.  It also has eggs in it so for people who can’t eat eggs, it won’t work for them.

So I set out this past week with the goal to come up with a very easy vanilla ice cream.  While it’s not quite a creamy, it is still delicious and very vanilla-y.

GAPS note:  I did use canned coconut milk for this recipe and used Trader Joes’ brand which doesn’t have guar gum in it.  However, I still only use this at the most once a week because of the BPA in the cans.  This is the only canned good I still rely on besides sardines and fish at times.  For those of you who are staying away from all canned goods, you can try making this ice cream with your own homemade coconut milk.  There are a few recipes floating around but here one of mine:

Homemade Coconut Milk

Ingredients:
1     box “Let’s Do Organic” Creamed Coconut (you can find it in the baking section in health food stores in a small green box)
14   oz. filtered water

Steps:
1.  Bring 14 oz. of filtered water to a boil, then turn off heat.  Add the creamed coconut from the bag.  Stir until well combined.  You can use less or more water depending upon the consistency you want.  It will have the coconut meat in it so if you want a smoother coconut milk, put the creamed coconut through a strainer.

So now onto the Coconut Vanilla Ice Cream Recipe!  (Dairy-free, sugar-free and egg-free)

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I believe that almost anything is possible with a few ingredients:

• creativity and looking outside the box
• a few helpful kitchen tools
• amazing abundance of foods that the earth has given us

With these few ingredients, you can really come up with anything no matter how limited your diet is.  I really believe this.  Maybe it’s because the more limited my diet has become, the more I have discovered just how many ways there are to make pancakes, tortillas, noodles and other common food items.

Yes, I know, they are not the “same.”  But I tend to believe that different is good, no matter how crazy it sounds to make tortillas out of just eggs or noodles out of cabbage.

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Okay, so if you’re not a cabbage fan, please don’t run off too quickly.  I used to pass this beautiful vegetable by without a glance because I didn’t know how versatile and delicious it is.  Now that my choices are much more limited, I have been forced to eat more veggies and be more creative with them.

…The result – I feel better than I ever had in my life, but that’s another story!

I love the almond flour tortillas that I make for tacos, but they are quite a bit of work, especially if I need to grind my own almond flour.  So lately I have been primarily using cabbage leaves as taco and burrito wraps.  I have one thing to say – easy and delicious.  Plus they are virtually allergen free except for anyone allergic to cabbage.  (not very common)

Here’s the run down:

wheat-free, gluten-free, grain-free, corn-free, egg-free, nut-free, seed-free, sugar-free, yeast-free, dairy-free, casein-free, nightshade-free – you get the idea!

Kid friendly?  My son gobbles these tacos down like there’s no tomorrow.

One thing I want to start doing on my blog is to do more step by step tutorials on how to do certain things in the kitchen.  I am a very visual person as are a lot of people and I know photos help a lot in explaining how something works.  So the last time I made these cabbage tacos, I took pictures every step of the process so that you can see first hand how to make them.

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Here is another necessary summer recipe!  If you love to grill and if you can’t eat gluten, soy or sugar, you may be looking for a great barbecue sauce you can use on your grilled vegetables and meats.  I ended up making this recipe a few days ago when I wanted to make a Barbecue Meatloaf recipe.  I couldn’t find a barbecue sauce that was free of sugar, starch and gluten, so I made my own.

I am now in love with this sauce and found myself putting it on my zucchini noodles in place of pasta sauce last night.

I started with Ali’s Chipotle Barbecue sauce and just changed a few things.  I made it GAPS friendly by changing the maple syrup to honey and I just deleted the black-strap molasses.  I also used regular chili powder instead of chipotle because it is really too spicy for me and my son.  I also added a tsp. of paprika like Ali suggested.  In the end, I added 2 Tbsp mustard.

I too love the strained tomatoes that Ali talks about in her post, made by Bionaturae.  I buy the tomatoes along with their glass-jarred tomato paste to make most of my tomato dishes like spaghetti sauce.  This is because we are trying to avoid the BPA found in most cans of food.  Why the companies use this chemical to line their cans is beyond me!

I used my blending wand to blend it up, which I was surprised to see didn’t quite blend all the onions up.  But I actually like it a little chunky.  If you like your’s very smooth, use a regular blender for this recipe.  Here it is:

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Sugar Free Lemonade

My son has discovered something that he really loves – “lemon juice,” or otherwise known as lemonade.  It all started when he got sick a few weeks ago and started coughing.  The natural medicines I was using weren’t helping so in the middle of the night, I made him some hot lemon water with honey.  It not only helped him with his cough but he now asks for “lemon juice” everyday.  My husband also loves it so we’ve been drinking quite of a bit of this stuff.  (I am however a little wary that drinking this everyday is hard on his teeth…)

And even though it’s not “officially” summer yet, it has sure felt like it lately here in Maryland.  We started getting some cooler weather a couple days ago but before that, it felt like the middle of July.  So having lemonade has been a very refreshing and yummy drink to enjoy on these hot days.

So if you’re like us and can’t drink the regular sugar-sweetened lemonade available at the store, here is a simple and delicious recipe for lemonade made from fresh lemons.  I vary it a little bit each time and don’t usually measure.

Sugar-Free Lemonade

For 1 serving – multiply by the number of people you want to serve to make more

Ingredients:

1/2 lemon (preferably organic), squeezed

1 cup water (part boiling water to help dissolve honey)

1-1/2 Tbsp. raw honey, to taste

ice cubes, optional

Steps:

Depending upon the kind of honey you’re using, you may need to dissolve it in warm water first.  So I usually do this and then add ice cubes at the end.  Basically add just enough boiling water to the cold water to make it warm enough for the honey to dissolve (don’t put the raw honey in boiling water).  Add the lemon juice, stir, taste, and then add more honey or lemon, depending upon taste.

Add ice cubes, serve, and enjoy!

See?  Very easy!  Enjoy!