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)

So, I have been compiling a list of breakfast ideas for the egg-free diet.  I’m going to list it here and will link whenever possible.  In the meantime, I will begin working on compiling the recipes in e-book form and hope to have it available soon.  Release date to be announced! If you have more ideas, please feel free to list them in the comments or email me.

Dairy and non dairy:

• Almond milk – can also use cashews and other nuts or seeds
• Coconut milk
• Banana Milk
• Coconut yogurt
• Almond Crème
• Yogurt
• Kefir
• Yogurt Cheese (dripped yogurt)

Cereals and granola bars:

• Granola and Granola Bars
• Granola Bars – I use less than 1/4 cup honey and it is more like granola in the end
• Muesli
• Quick Nut Cereal:  1/2 cup any kind of nuts/seeds, finely chopped with your choice of milk
• Berry and Nut Breakfast Bars from Rawvolution by Matt Amsden

Bread and baked goods:

• Egg-free Almond Flour bread
• Egg-free Zucchini and Blueberry Muffins
• Fantastic Dunking Biscuits

Desserts for Breakfast

• Fruit Crumble – I have made this twice in the past couple of weeks and it’s great for breakfast
• Raw Strawberry Pie – I just found this and it looks delicious but I haven’t tried it yet
• Raw Carrot Cake
• No Bake Zucchini Cake – this was a little heavy on the flax – would use less flax next time
• Cinnamon Walnut Cookies – post coming soon!
• Raw Butternut Squash Cookies
• Shortbread

Fruit Salads

• Fruit Salad with Granola and Yogurt or Almond Crème
• Coconutty Fruit Salad
• Tropical Parfait

Smoothies:
(You can add hemp protein powder for extra protein, but I’m still trying to figure out of this is okay on GAPS)

• Blueberry Banana Coconut Smoothie
• Strawberry Almond Shake
• Sunburst Smoothie – orange juice, bananas, dates and ginger root
• Almond Lassi – almond milk, dates, cardamon and black pepper
• Raspberry cream – raspberries, avocados , banana, milk
• Cherry avocado smoothie
• Green smoothie –1/2 cup strawberries, 1/2 avocado, 2 cups spinach, coconut milk, water, honey to taste
• Kefir or yogurt smoothie

Meat:

• Sausage patties
• Left over meatloaf
• Sausage or bacon with sautéed zucchini, mushroom and onion
• Grass fed hotdogs
• Bacon – if you have a brand that is free of sugar, nitrates and preservatives, please share!
• BLT on Eggless almond bread or other bread
• Cauliflower Bacon Hash

Wraps:

• Mexican breakfast burrito – cabbage wrap with sautéed turkey and veggies and salsa
• Italian breakfast burrito – cabbage wrap with ground turkey, beef or chicken, artichoke hearts, pesto, cheese, spinach

Ferments:

• Sauerkraut – I NEVER would have thought I’d be eating sauerkraut for breakfast but I love it
• Yogurt or Kefir
• Kombucha

Soup and leftovers for breakfast:

Besides all of these ideas for grain-free and egg-free breakfast ideas, I rely on having soup for breakfast quite often.  This is how I have been getting my daily cup of broth by cooking a chopped zucchini, some onion and a cup or so of broth in a pan.  I blend everything up once it’s cooked and it feels so nourishing in my belly. 

I also eat leftovers from dinner quite often when I’m in a hurry. Sometimes I mix it with some yogurt, depending on what it is. 

Well, I guess you can say this is simply an opportunity to be creative in the morning when you jump out of bed!  I hope these ideas help you if you’re egg-free and need some breakfast ideas for the morning.

And, I’d love to hear from you!  Any more egg-free breakfast ideas you can think of?  Would love to hear about them.  Thanks!

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:

Homemade Tomato Sauce (sugar-free)

1 Tbsp. olive oil or coconut oil

1 whole onion

10-12 tomatoes ( used part plum and “round” tomatoes – don’t know what these are called)

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried marjoram

1tsp dried or 2-3 Tbsp. fresh parsley

1/3 cup freshly chopped basil

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp honey

2-3 Tbsp balsamic vinegar (optional) This is not GAPS -friendly but you can use 1-2 Tbsp lemon juice or apple cider vinegar in combination with a little honey.

2-4 cloves garlic, to taste – minced

1 tsp salt or more to taste

black pepper to taste

Steps:

1. If you don’t like tomato peels in your sauce, you’ll either want to peel them or dump them into boiling for a minute or so.  Drain the water and then let cool.  The skins should peel right off.  I don’t mind the skins so I skipped this step.
2. Chop the onion and then saute in the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.  Stir occasionally and reduce heat if they begin to burn.  Cook for 8-10 minutes or until soft and translucent.
3. You can chop the tomatoes up or you can just plop them into the pot with the onions.  I do the latter and then cut them up coarsely with a spatula.  It’s up to you how chunky you like your sauce.  Add the herbs, salt and pepper, balsamic or apple cider vinegar, paprika, and garlic.  Let cook over medium-low heat for 20 or so minutes, or until the tomatoes are cooked through the flavors begin to meld.  When it is almost done, add the honey so that it doesn’t get cooked, and the fresh basil leaves.  Taste and adjust seasonings to your liking.
4. Enjoy with gluten-free pasta, zucchini noodles, spaghetti squash or cook it down and blend for pizza sauce.  We ended up adding it to almost any dish we were eating because it was so yummy.

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!

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)

Makes approx 10 cups

1        apple chopped
1 ½  cup date paste (some dates soaked in a little boiling water and then whiz in the food processor until a paste is formed) I used figs for this because I didn’t have dates on hand
½      cup honey, preferably raw
2         Tbsp lemon juice – I used 4 Tbsp fresh squeezed orange juice
1         Tbsp vanilla extract (optional) – left out, still tasty
1         tsp cinnamon
½      tsp salt
½      cup sunflower seeds soaked 2 hours or more
2        cups almonds soaked 4 hours or more
3        cups pecans soaked 2 hours or more
1        cup pumpkin seed soaked 2 hours or more – used additional 1 cup sunflower seeds
1        cup dried cranberries or currants or sultanas – I left these out because I am avoiding raisins

1. In a food processor whiz apple, date paste or soaked figs, honey, lemon or orange juice, vanilla, cinnamon, salt and the sunflower seeds to make paste.  Transfer to a bowl
2. Add to the food processor, remaining sunflower seeds, almonds, pecans, pumpkin seeds (don’t bother rinsing bowl). Coarsely chop in a few quick pulses.  Add nuts and seeds to the bowl with fruit paste.  Mix well
3. Spread onto baking paper or dehydrator sheets and place in dehydrator at 115 F for 8 hours.
4. Flip the granola over and peel away the paper
5. Dehydrate another 12 hours until crunchy.
6. Break into pieces and once cooled store in the fridge in glass containers.  Enjoy as Raw Granola Bars or Raw Granola – just break up into smaller pieces for granola.

Yummy!

Nut-free? I don’t see why you couldn’t make this and simply use all pumpkin and sunflower seeds in place of the nuts.  You could also use 1/3 dessicated coconut and I am sure it would be yummy!

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)

1 can or 1 1/2 cups coconut milk

3 Tbsp raw honey

1 fresh vanilla bean, cut in half, lengthwise, and then scraped out

Steps:

1.  Scrape out the insides of the vanilla bean and add it to the coconut milk and honey in a small pan.  Heat on the stove gently on low, stirring constantly, just until the honey is melted and combined into the coconut milk.

2.  Let cool completely and then add mixture to your ice cream maker, following the directions on your ice cream maker.

It took ours less than 15 minutes to freeze through and it was yummy.  Enjoy!

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.

About helpful kitchen tools:

I’ve recently acquired some amazing peelers by Swissmar and they are so helpful, I highly recommend them.  My old peeler was simply not doing the job any longer and I was also looking for a peeler that makes vegetables into julienne strips.  I found this trio of peelers from Williams Sonoma for a pretty decent price and they are great!  They include one peeler for regular veggies, one with a serrated blade for delicate produce and one with a julienne blade.

So I’ve been experimenting with the julienne peeler and have used it on carrots, zucchini and beets.  It is really very easy to use and makes great strips for pasta noodles.  Last night I made the beet noodles and they were very good.  Compared to the zucchini noodles, they didn’t get as soggy and held their shape better.

As for peeling the beets, it was a bit more difficult than peeling vegetables that are long like zucchinis.  When I got down to the center of the beet, it became too difficult to keep peeling it so I put the two beet cores into the food processor with the grating devise.  I did this so that they wouldn’t go to waste but the shreds were much shorter than the ones I got with with julienne peeler.

As far as cooking the noodles, if you’re a raw foodie, you can just eat these raw.  I like mine a bit cooked so I put them in boiling water for about 6 minutes and they were nice and tender. 

As far as quantity, I used two large beets and it made a good amount of pasta – I would say at least four servings.

So that’s it!  I hope you enjoy this!

I am submitting this post to the Tuesday Twister Carnival at Gnowfglins.com.  I used to participate weekly in this carnival but it’s been a while, mainly due to being busy with buying the house and other projects.  But I want to start getting back in the habit of contributing!  Thanks Wardeh for hosting!

…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.

Step one:  Buy a medium to large cabbage.  Small ones will work but it will be harder to get the leaves off and you won’t get as many tacos out of the head of cabbage.

Step two:  Find the cabbage leaf that is on top of all of the rest.  Find the base of the leaf at the bottom of the cabbage.  Cut the leaf at the very bottom and only cut this one leaf.  The first one or two will fall right off of the cabbage once you cut the bottom.  See below:

Cabbage leaf falls off after first cut.

Step three:  Continue to cut the leaves at the bottom of the cabbage.  After the second or third cabbage leaf, they will start to stick to the cabbage head.  The best thing I have found to do is to insert the knife under the cabbage leaf at the base of the cabbage.  (This wide knife works well for this.  If you use one with a point, it will probably pierce the leaf.)  Gently wiggle the knife under the cabbage, being careful not to tear it.  As you move it under the leaf, it will come off the head in once piece.  See below:

Step four:  continue to cut and peel the leaves away gently with the knife.  For the cabbage you saw above, I got 11 leaves out of it that were a good size for making tacos or burritos.  You can keep going, you’ll just have smaller leaves.  I usually stop when my cabbage looks something like this (below).  Then I use the rest of the cabbage for making stir fries or steamed cabbage.

Step five:  Stack the leaves gently on top of each other and then place them in a large pot with a steamer basket and about 2 inches of water.   Steam for about 12 minutes or until they are soft and no longer bright green. The photo below is of the leaves before they got steamed.

Step six:  After they have cooked, let them sit with the lid off to let the steam out of the pot.  Also remove them from the heat.  Remove a cabbage leaf with tongs (or tough fingers) and place on a towel.  This is an important step if you don’t want soggy tacos.  Dry off the leaf.

Step seven:  Transfer cabbage leaf to a plate.  Add your taco fillings.  From here, you can just fold the leaf in half and eat it like a taco.

Step eight:  If you want it more like a wrap or a burrito, first fold the thick stem part of the cabbage leaf over with your fingers.

Step nine:  Fold in the sides of the leaf over the thick part and then fold over the top part of the leaf.

Voila!  Here is your cabbage burrito!

I hope that if you are looking for some allergen-free tortillas, I have opened your eyes to a remarkable way to wrap up your burrito goodies using cabbage.

You can of course use these cabbage wraps for anything else that you need a wrap for.  The other night I was out of turkey meat and my son wanted a wrap.  So I cooked a hot dog (starch, sugar and additive free), added mustard and Barbecue sauce, and it was  a hit.

Other ideas include tuna or salad wraps and any other kind of filling you would put in a taco or wrap.  Enjoy!

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:

Barbecue Sauce (sugar-free, soy-free, gluten-free, and starch-free)

Again, the original recipe is from Nourishing Meals.com

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

6 to 8 cloves garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped

one 24-ounce jar strained tomatoes

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

2 teaspoons or sea salt

1 to 2 teaspoons chipotle chili powder or regular chili powder (I used 2 tsp)

1 tsp paprika

2 Tbsp mustard

1/2 to 1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Steps:

1. Heat a large pot over medium heat. Add olive oil and let it heat up for a minute before adding the onions. Saute onions in the oil for about 10 minutes, or until they are very soft and golden brown. Add garlic and saute a minute more.

2.  Add the remaining ingredients, stir, cover and simmer on medium-low heat for about 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3.  Remove from heat and transfer sauce to a blender and blend until smooth (I used a blending wand).  Taste and adjust salt and seasonings to your liking.

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!