Heart of Cooking

Sometimes when I’m experimenting, something doesn’t turn out how I expected but it does turn out as something that is very delicious.  For this recipe, I was trying to adapt the Devil’s Food Cupcakes from the Valentine’s Menu Planner into an egg free grain-free version.  At first, I thought it was a disaster because it was taking a lot longer to bake and it was bubbling.  It looked like bubbling chocolate hot lava and I really wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out.

I ended up baking it for about 50 minutes and it was still bubbling when I took it out of the oven.  But as it cooled, I had hope that it was still going to be edible.

What it turned into is an awesome batch of grain, egg and gluten free brownies.  Moist, very rich and very yummy.  It was so good that I decided to add the recipe to the Valentine’s Day Menu Planner for Limited Diets.  But I’m also going to give you the recipe here:

Devil’s Food Chocolate or Carob Brownies (Egg, Grain and Gluten-Free)

Dry:

1 2/3 cup almond flour

1/2 cup cocoa or carob powder, sifted

1 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 Tbsp flax meal mixed with 6 Tbsp. boiling water

Wet:

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup coconut oil or melted butter

1 cup coconut milk

2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp lemon juice

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.   Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl.  Mix the wet ingredients together in another bowl.  Mix the dry into the wet and mix until it is thick cake batter consistency.  Add a little flour if too runny or add a little milk if too thick.

2.  Grease an 8.5 inch square cake pan with coconut oil or butter.  Pour batter into pan and bake for 45-50 minutes .  Brownies will be soft and bubbling but should be done after 50 minutes.  Let cool for at least an hour or overnight before serving.  They will be very soft and moist.

Note about GAPS: This recipe is not GAPS-legal because it uses chocolate.  Also, carob is also not on the allowed list.  I have to confess I ate WAY more than I intended to, as I am trying to stick to GAPS.  I tested it for the menu planner but didn’t have the will power to just eat a nibble…

I did notice a slight increase in irritability, which is a good sign for me that chocolate doesn’t work for me.  I still don’t know exactly why this is though.  Anyone?

The Valentine’s Menu Planner for Limited Diets is now available! Don’t miss this awesome meal planned specifically for people with multiple food allergies, the GAPS diet and gluten-free diets.

Have a beautiful Valentine’s Day!

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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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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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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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 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 pizza crust, tarte style

Notes:  I’m having some quirky problems with my website so I am using bullets to separate the paragraphs in this post.  I am also submitting this post as part of the Tuesday Twister Carnival at GNOWFGLINS.  Please visit Wardeh’s site to see all the other wonderful weekly posts.

• As promised, I am posting a recipe for gluten-free pizza crust.  However, this is a different recipe than the one that I mentioned in my review of premade pizza crusts.  The following recipe is for a tarte style gluten-free pizza crust that I adapted from a recipe in Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon.  I have been slowly transitioning to more traditional methods of preparing and making baked goods, as suggested in her book.   The main step that is added in traditional methods of preparing baked goods is to soak the flour for 12-24 hours in yogurt, buttermilk, or water with lemon juice or apple cider vinegar if you can’t eat dairy products.

• This extra step (though it takes planning and time) makes baked goods much more digestible than if they are baked without soaking.  Through soaking flours, the process of lacto-fermentation begins, which is a natural process that creates healthy bacteria like the ones in yogurt and traditional sauerkraut.

• I have to say I’ve been somewhat resistant to transitioning to this new “lifestyle” of soaking flours ahead of time.  I usually end up wanting to make something right before I’d like to eat it, which doesn’t work so well for this process.

• But after making my muffins, and then this pizza dough, I am becoming sold on this way of preparing baked goods.  And it is mostly due to the way these baked goods make me feel verses ones that aren’t soaked first.

• When I ate this pizza crust, I didn’t get that “carbohydrate rush” that comes with most baked goods.  Instead, I felt nourished and fulfilled.   My blood sugar remained “stable” and it also felt more like a meal than regular pizza makes me feel.  I didn’t have any digestive upsets from it at all, which I normally have even a little bit of after I eat non-soaked flours, even if they are gluten-free.  On the contrary, I felt like it was nourishing food for my body.

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Raw Zucchini Chocolate Cake

For whatever reason, many of the recipes I worked on this week ended up being raw or mostly raw.  In part, I was continuing my quest for some travel-friendly treats for my son and decided to try some raw fruit and nut balls, similar to Larabars.

I was also testing recipes for my menu planners for limited diets free of gluten, grains, dairy, eggs sugar and other common allergens.  Many raw recipes work great for people with a lot of food limitations.  The only drawback I find is that they use nuts extensively, which is a common allergen.  I find though, that seeds such as pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seeds can be used in place of nuts in some of these recipes.

As far as eating raw nuts goes, it is really best to soak them for a varied amount of time, depending upon the nut or seed.  This process is what releases their enzyme inhibitors and unlocks their full nutritional value.  In terms of soaking, you can either soak just long enough to germinate, or longer to sprout (however it’s difficult to sprout some nuts).

I have to admit that I didn’t soak the nuts and seeds in the recipes I tested this week.  This was partly due to the recipes not asking me to do this and in part laziness and impatience on my part.  However, if I were to do them again, I would soak the nuts and seeds in these recipes.

Here is a list of some new and yummy things I made this week:

Cashew Apricot Bliss Balls and Cherry-Walnut Bites

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I receive a lot of emails from people who have found my site and are looking for ideas for their very limited diet.  Some of these people are at a complete loss as to what to eat because their diet is so limited.  I received one of these emails from someone last week inquiring about a diet for her daughter.

Here was her list of foods that her daughter was told to avoid:

gluten (wheat, barley, oats, spelt, kamut, tricale, and all products containing gluten such as soy sauce, etc)
grain (includes rice, millet, teff, and other gluten-free grains)
dairy
egg
soy
corn
banana
kiwi

This is a similar list to many of the people who come to me.  There are definite variations and more limited diets like those without any meat or fish, legumes, nuts, all fruit, etc.  But I thought I’d start with this diet to give you some ideas on where to start.

So what do you do when you get a list like this?  My hope is that in this post, I can give you my process for starting to come up with some foods and recipes you can eat when you receive a long list of foods you should be avoiding, even temporarily.

I am also working on compiling my recipes into menu plans for different diets such as this one so that people can have a menu planner for their specific limited diet.  I am also going to start writing some blogs about how you can start to do this for yourself!

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A wholesome and simple meal

Tonight I made a simple but very yummy dinner, inspired by the potatoes and zucchinis in my fridge and the lemon balm in my garden.  I’ll make this post quick since it’s been a long day but I was inspired to give the simple and easy recipes for this meal:

The Menu:
Turkey Sausage Patties
Baked Yukon Gold Potatoes with Butter and Nutritional Yeast
Zucchini Lemon Balm Soup

The Sausage Patties:

Ingredients:
1 pound ground turkey meat (could also use chicken or beef)
salt – about 1 tsp or less
a generous amount of pepper – at least 1/2 tsp
a tsp or so of ground ginger
a tsp or so of ground sage
a dash of cayenne

Mix all ingredients well in a bowl and then make into small patties.  Fry in a cast iron skillet with a little olive oil, about 4-5 minutes on each side, or until slightly browned and cooked through.

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