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!

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!

It’s blueberry season here in Maryland and Elijah, my mom and I ended up going picking this past weekend.  We had a blast picking 8 lbs in less than an hour and Elijah got to eat all he wanted.  The farm we went to was called Frog Eye Farm and they had over 200 blueberry bushes!

I love blueberry muffins – but I don’t always like cleaning muffin tins – so I made a Blueberry Muffin Cake with the berries we picked.  It was yummy and very easy.

Blueberry Muffin Cake with coconut flour (grain-free, gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free)

1/3 cup coconut oil

1/4 – 1/3 cup honey

4 eggs

1/3 cup coconut flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda (not GAPS legal -delete for GAPS)

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

If the coconut oil isn’t melted, gently melt it in a pan on the stove on low.  Combine the eggs, honey and oil together until smooth (make sure the oil isn’t too hot though).  Add the flour, soda, and salt and beat until well blended and there are no lumps.  You can also put everything into a mixer or food processor.

2. Add the blueberries at the end and fold into the batter.  Grease an 8 x 8 pan with coconut oil or butter.  Pour batter into the pan and spread over the bottom of the pan.  Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until it is firm in the center.  Sorry – I don’t remember exactly how long it took.

Enjoy!

If you are grain-free, this lasagna is just for you!  Or if you’re gluten-free and can’t eat regular rice noodle pasta, this is a great alternative for you to be able to make lasagna again!

I came up with this recipe this past spring and I really love it.  I wanted to try to find something to replace the noodles other than zucchinis to make it taste a bit more like regular lasagna while still being grain-free.  So I ended up using very thin crepes made just from eggs for the noodles.  The result was very good and it was even better the next day after the flavors had melded a bit more.

I did use cheese on the top of the one in the picture.  We are now able to eat a particular brand of raw cow’s cheddar cheese and I am so happy about this!  It’s been so long since we’ve been able to enjoy cheese without reacting to it.  I would say this is mainly due to the healing we have been doing through being on the GAPS diet – hooray!

However, if you can’t eat cheese, I have cashew cheese sauce that works great if you can eat nuts.  It’s in the recipe below.

By the way, if you plan on making this, my tip is to make the egg noodles ahead of time because it gets to be quite a bit to make the noodles, sauce, and veggies all in once sitting…

So, here’s the recipe for you!

Veggie Lasagna with egg noodles (gluten-free, grain-free, starch-free)
TOTAL TIME:  1 HR. 30 MIN.
MAKES 8-12 SERVINGS

Ingredients:
Noodles:
8       eggs
¾      tsp salt
¾      tsp garlic powder
Filling:
1       Tbsp coconut oil
1       onion, chopped fine
20     oz. frozen or fresh spinach
2       cups mushrooms, sliced (optional)
1       tsp salt
2-3   tsp. dried basil, oregano, and/or parsley
2       cloves of garlic, crushed
10    oz. pitted black olives with no preservatives, sliced
2      cups cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
2-3  cups tomato marinara sauce (sugar free)
Toppings:
1/3  pound shredded cheese OR:
Cashew cheese:
1/2     cup raw cashews, soaked for 6 hours
1 ¼    cups water
1         Tablespoon olive oil
1         clove garlic
1/2      teaspoon salt

Steps:
1.  Make the egg noodles first.  Please click here to learn how to make them.

Steps continued:
Filling:
2.  In a separate cast iron skillet or large saucepan, sauté the onion in oil over medium heat for 8-10 minutes, or until soft and translucent.  Add the spinach, garlic, salt, herbs, and mushrooms if using.  Cook vegetable for 10 minutes, or until mushrooms are cooked.  Add the olives and tomatoes and cook just until tomatoes are softened, about 5 minutes.

Cashew Cheese (if not using real cheese):
3.  In a blender, combine drained cashews and fresh water.  Blend until very smooth.

4.  In a small skillet or pan, heat the oil to medium-high heat and then add the garlic.  Sauté for a few minutes until slightly browned.

5.  Add the cashew water and salt.  Bring to a boil briefly to thicken it and then reduce the heat.  Stir the sauce as it thickens.  Remove from heat.

Arranging:
6.  Arrange one layer of the crepes/noodles on the bottom of an oiled 13 X 9 x 2 pan in a single layer.  Cut them in half or in whatever shape that is needed to fill in the gaps.

7.  Once you have one layer of noodles, follow with a layer of vegetable filling and then a layer of tomato sauce.  Follow with a layer of egg noodles, another layer of vegetables and sauce.  Finish with a third layer of egg noodles.  To the top, add the shredded cheese, or the cheese sauce.  You can also add cheese or cheese sauce in the middle of the lasagna if you wish.

8.  Bake in the oven at 350 F for 20-30 minutes or until the cheese has melted.

Enjoy!

So what is this post really about?

It’s about these lovely little egg crepes that I make that are great for multiple uses…wraps, pancakes and yes, noodles.

My post following this will be about lasagna and how I use these little egg crepes to make delicious tasting gluten-free and grain-free lasagna…stay tuned!

A few tips:

For noodles: The recipe below is specifically for making the noodles for the lasagna.  They are very thin and quite delicate.  But they work great as noodles for this reason in the lasagna.

For wraps: you will want to use more than 1/8 cup egg batter that is recommended in the recipe below.  I would use just less than 1/4 cup for making one wrap. This will make it more durable.  You can use these for grain- free tacos or any other kind of sandwich topping that needs bread or a wrap.

For pancakes: now these aren’t your regular pancakes.  But my son loves to eat these just with honey and butter.  They are extremely easy because there is only one ingredient.  If you want more of a pancake, you may want to use a little bit more than 1/8 cup egg batter per pancake.  If you’re after crepes, then 1/8 cup should work great.  And you will want to delete the garlic powder.

So, here is how to make them…

Egg Wraps or Pancakes or Noodles (grain-free, starch free, gluten-free and dairy-free)

Ingredients:

8       eggs
¾      tsp salt
¾      tsp garlic powder

(Again, this is the amount you will use for the lasagna.  If you’re making pancakes or wraps, start with 3 or 5 eggs).

1.  Crack eggs into a medium mixing bowl.  Add the salt and garlic powder and stir until well combined.   Beat the mixture with an egg beater or you can use a blending wand to blend them.  You basically want to make sure they are very smooth and the whites and yolks are well combined.

2.  Heat a small 6-7” nonstick pan or cast iron skillet to medium and add a little coconut oil or butter. Once it is heated, hold the pan handle in your non-dominant hand with a hot pad.  (This is so that you can tilt the pan quickly and easily once you put the batter into the pan.)

Measure out about 1/8 of a cup of eggs and add to the skillet, tilting the skillet quickly so that it becomes round and as thin as a crepe. Put the pan back down on the stove. Let cook until it can be easily flipped with a spatula. It takes less than a minute to cook.  You’ll want to flip it as soon a it’s ready so that it doesn’t become overcooked.  Let cook on the other side briefly until cooked through.

3.  Continue to make the noodles in this way until all the egg mixture is used up.  You may need to lower the heat as you go as to not burn the egg noodles.

That’s it!  Only eggs and salt and you have crepes, pancakes, wraps or lasagna noodles that are grain-free, gluten-free, starch-free, and dairy-free.  So easy and so versatile.  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!

Time for dessert!  I was craving coconut macaroons this week so I ended up making some.  I adapted the recipe in Nourishing Traditions and ended up with a yummy starch-free version (the NT recipe calls for arrowroot).

I was also out of vanilla so I used some real vanilla bean that my sister had given to me from her time in Thailand.  I hadn’t used real vanilla bean before she gave me this batch and it is truly a treat!  I had no idea how to use it, but all you need to do is simply cut it in half lengthwise, and the scrape out the little vanilla “balls.”

It looks like dark black caviar but very small.   When I made ice cream with it, I cooked the vanilla bean with the scapings and ice creams ingredients and then discarded it.  For the cookies, I just used the insides of the bean.  You can see the little vanilla specks in the cookies:

These are really delicious!  They are moist, chewy, not too sweet, vanilla-e and hold their shape.  In my opinion, a perfect macaroon.  Here’s the recipe:

Vanilla Bean Coconut Macaroons (gluten-free, grain-free, starch-free, sugar-free, dairy-free, GAPS approved)

Makes about 20 cookies

Ingredients:

4 egg whites

pinch of salt

2 tsp. coconut flour

1/3 – 1/2 cup honey

1 Tbsp. vanilla or the inside scrapings of one vanilla bean

2 cups unsweetened dried and shredded coconut meat, finely cut

Steps:

1.  Line a baking sheet with buttered or oiled parchment paper. Beat egg whites with salt in a clean and dry bowl until they form stiff peaks.  Beat in the coconut flour and slowly beat in the honey and vanilla.  Fold in the coconut.  Drop by spoonfuls on the parchment paper.

2.  Bake at 300 F for about 1/2 hour or until lightly browned.  Reduce oven heat to 200 F and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour longer so that macaroons are dry and crisp.  Let cool completely before removing from parchment paper (no I didn’t do this but that’s what the book says to do!)  Store in an airtight container.

Mine were dryer when they first came out of the oven and then they became more moist once they were stored in the container overnight.  I actually prefer them a bit more moist but I think letting them dry out in the oven was important.

I hope you enjoy these as much as we do!

…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.