Carrot Nutmeg Pie A La Mode

The recipe for this came from another blog called GAPS Guide by Baden. The recipe is called Carrot Mousse Cake and is about halfway down this page.

Baden says the recipe was loosely based on a recipe for a pie filling, so I decided to bake mine in a pie dish rather than a loaf pan. It is delicious! I decided not to use the coconut flakes yet, but I think they will add a nice touch soon.

The whipped topping is meringue batter that I put into my ice cream machine. It came out a little like soft serve ice cream, a lot like frozen whipped topping, and it works perfectly on the pie! The cold topping on the warm pie really gave this a "comfort food" sort of feel.

This would also work as a side dish- it's a bit like candied yams. It would really be nice with a roast turkey breast, chestnut stuffing, and Brussels sprouts.

Extravagant GAPS dinners

For Valentine's Day we wanted to have a dinner that was delicious and fancy and didn't remind us that we are on a special diet. This is what we came up with:

Crab legs
Artichokes with garlic mayonnaise
halibut steaks in a lemon sauce
Peas with mint
Green Salad with Vinaigrette dressing

Artichokes are a favorite food in our family, and are something that works on the diet fairly early. My favorite way to eat crab is alongside a green salad with a tangy vinaigrette dressing. The peas were cooked according to a recipe called "Peas in the French Style" from the book The Complete Vegetarian Cuisine by Rose Elliot. Basically, the peas are cooked in butter along with shredded lettuce, with a sprig of mint on top while cooking to impart a minty flavor (the mint is removed after cooking and discarded). This was an interesting variation on peas.

Around the second or third week of the diet, fillet Mignon was on sale at the grocery store and became the central player in our first extravagant meal, which also featured french onion soup and asparagus in ghee. Our family has been following various restricted diets for over 3 years now, and we have learned that this is much easier and more pleasant to do when we periodically splurge on something special. We never eat out anymore, so this takes the place of a restaurant meal. We call them "morale boosters".

Other ideas (some we've tried and some we haven't yet):

-Scallops and chanterelles cooked in butter and dry white wine
-Langostino tails (heck, why not lobster?) with a garlic butter sauce
-Bouillabaisse (may require a little modification, but probably not much)
-Mussels in a saffron broth
-Crab Cakes (again, some modification required)
-Shrimp cooked with coconut milk, lime, and cilantro

Hmm, I guess those are all seafood. If you'd prefer something else...

-Duck A L'orange
-Coq Au Vin
-Cornish Game Hens (or squab, or quail) with prosciutto and rosemary
(the next three recipes come from The Complete Vegetarian Cuisine by Rose Elliot)
-Pine Nut Roulade with Asparagus Hollandaise Filling
-Roasted Cashew Nut Roulade with Wild Mushroom Filling
-Hazelnut Roulade with Leek Filling

Even if you don't try any of these dishes, I hope this list inspires you to think of the many wonderful foods that are allowed on the GAPS diet. If you have ideas to add please do so as a comment!

Onion Torte

I wanted cornbread, but I obviously can't have it. I came up with this recipe that's not really like cornbread at all, but is very tasty nonetheless. It's more like a savory torte in that it's dense and moist. I'm sure it would be delicious with various herbs and spices added too.

Ingredients

1/4 cup GAPS "legal" bacon grease
2 Tbsp. butter
1 large onion thinly sliced
3 eggs, well beaten
1/4 cup filtered water or chicken broth
2 tsp. cider vinegar
1 tsp. honey
1 cup almond flour*
1/2 cup ground sunflower seeds
1/2 cup ground pumpkin seeds
1 tsp. sea salt
Pepper to taste

Method

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Melt grease and butter in an 8 inch cast iron skillet. Sautee the onion in the fat until translucent. Mix the remaining ingredients well. Add extra water, if needed. It should be about the texture of cornbread batter. Pour into the pan with the onions. Place in the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes until lightly browned on top and cooked through.

*I bought slivered blanched almonds and ground them to a fine meal in my food processor. I used raw seeds, but I will soak them and dehydrate them next time.

Honey "Caramel" Meringues

I arrived at this recipe after modifying the ones I found online, which all called for more honey. I found that with more honey, the whites took much longer to beat, and the finished product was sticky and burned easily. These are crisp all the way through and only a little sticky. They are the color of caramel, and to a non-GAPS diet follower, calling them "caramel" will transform that odd honey flavor into something special.

To make these, I use:
about 5 or 6 egg whites
1 cup of honey
dash of salt

Method:
Combine all ingredients and beat on high for a very long time. Using the whisk attachment on my KitchenAid, I can beat it until stiff peaks form, although I wouldn't call them as stiff as normal meringue "batter". If you are not able to get to the stiff peak stage, this should still work.

Preheat the oven to about 175-200 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Using two tea spoons, scoop up about a spoonful of the "batter" and drop it onto the cookie sheet, then use both spoons to form it into a flat circle. These do not spread and can be placed close together.

Bake them at least 2 hours, then check to see if you need to rotate the pans so that they will brown evenly. I then leave mine in the oven overnight with the oven temp set as low as it will go (about 150 degrees). When they are done, they will be mostly firm but still a little gooey and sticky. Turn the oven off, and leave them in the oven with the door propped open to let them dry. If after 30 minutes they are still too gooey, you can just turn the oven back on bake longer. Once they are dried and crunchy, they should immediately go into an airtight container, and make sure to close the container fully each time- these can get a little gooey if left out pretty quickly.

A FEW THINGS TO TRY FOR VARIETY:

Put peanut butter between two of them to make a sandwich cookie.

Instead of baking the batter, put it into an ice cream maker- it makes something close to soft serve ice cream that my kids love.

The batter would work well as a whip cream substitute, which would be delicious served with berries or other fruit. It would also function as a light frosting, especially if a flavor extract where used.

The batter has the taste and texture of marshmallow cream. I will be experimenting soon with trying to make marshmallows out of it.

Sauerbraten

I used this recipe from The Spice House, and made my own sauerbraten spice mix from the list of spice blend ingredients that it links to.  It was delicious! I served it with green beans in a lemon vinaigrette dressing and purple cauliflower. When I took the meat out of the dutch oven, there was this fabulous soup left in the pot of the chopped veggies in this very flavorful broth. This can be turned into a sauce, but as I was running short on time, I simply served the veggies alongside the meat. I plan to use these veggies to stuff cabbage rolls to serve with the leftovers. My kids loved the meat and beans from this dinner.

Coconut Cappuccino

Coconut Cappuccino

Technically, I'm supposed to have only "weak" coffee. I'm not sure if the decaf espresso in this drink qualifies, but I'm limiting myself to once a week, on Sunday mornings. I used coconut milk instead of regular milk for the foam, and it really tastes great. I sweetened it with a touch of honey and topped with a sprinkle of cinnamon. I made this last week when our guests were here, and my non-GAPS friend really enjoyed this too.

Light and Fluffy Intro Diet Pancakes with Lemon Honey Syrup

When it came time to try the pancakes for the intro diet- the ones made with nut butter, squash, and eggs- I was not inspired. I couldn't find suggested proportions of each ingredient, and the first batch I made came out dense and very flat and not terribly appetizing. I played around with this recipe until I came up with this version, which are light and fluffy, look like regular pancakes, and taste pretty good.


Ingredients:
1 C pureed, cooked squash
1 C nut butter
5 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1 T cinnamon
dash of cloves, nutmeg, and any other "pumpkin pie" type spice

Method:
Separate the eggs, and beat the whites until fluffy (soft peaks are fine). In a large bowl, mix together the 5 egg yolks, the squash, the nut butter, and the salt and spices. Blend thoroughly. Fold the egg whites into this mixture gently, so that the resulting batter is airy and light.

Cook on a well-greased griddle on a somewhat low heat, as they do burn easily. Flip them gently as they do not stay together as well as regular pancakes.

NOTE- Pancake batter provides a great opportunity to "hide" healthy ingredients. This morning, I blended in 2 T of beef marrow and about 1/4 of pureed mushroom soup, and the pancakes looked and tasted fine.

For the syrup, you will need:
1/4 C honey
juice of half a lemon
vanilla (optional)

Combine the first two ingredients in a saucepan and heat over medium heat. They will heat up and become much thinner very quickly. Turn off heat, and add vanilla, if using. At this point you can further thin the syrup by adding in some filtered water.

This would also be good with a different fruit juice, such as pomegranate or cherry. The Knudsen's Just Juice line is supposed to be acceptable for GAPS, and this could offer some welcome variation.