Nomato Bisque

Ingredients

2 small onions or one large onion chopped
4 cloves garlic chopped
2 Tbsp oil
6 large carrots, peeled and chopped
1 1/2 cups butternut squash or pumpkin, peeled and cubed
2 medium cooked beets or 4 small cooked beets, peeled and roughly chopped
~8 fresh basil leaves
~1 Tbsp dried oregano
~1 quart chicken broth
Salt and pepper, to taste
Juice of 1/4 lemon

Method

Sauté onions, carrots, squash, and garlic in oil until softened. Add cooked beets, basil, oregano, salt and pepper and half of chicken broth. Stir. Puree to desired consistency. Add a bit more broth if desired. Heat through. Add lemon juice and stir to mix. Garnish with additional basil leaves if preferred.

Chocolate Paleo Pots de Creme

These are quite delicious, with a creamy texture and a deep chocolate flavor. My guests described a note of brandy, which must have been a result of the melding of flavors from the maple, coconut and chocolate.

I have transitioned away from strict GAPS, but I am still striving for a grain-free lifestyle, as it helps me to feel better in general. My approach these days is Primal/Paleo, with the addition or subtraction of fermented dairy, as my body and the seasons allow. (When my seasonal allergies get worse, I have a harder time with dairy in general.) I use maple syrup more often than honey right now, but I think this recipe would work and taste delicious with blackberry honey, if that's your preferred sugar.

My guests also suggested that this would make an excellent frosting or filling for a cake.

I created this recipe with inspiration from The Food Network. 

Ingredients

6 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped (I used Dagoba)
1 3/4 cups full fat coconut milk (I used a 13.5 fl. oz. can)
1 cup maple syrup
6 large egg yolks
1/4 teaspoon salt (I used a few grinds of Himalayan pink salt)
1 tsp. vanilla extract (I just used a dash from the bottle)

Method

Place the chopped chocolate in a blender. Whisk the coconut milk, egg yolks, maple syrup and salt in a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly with a heatproof spatula, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the spatula and almost boiling, 5 to 10 minutes. (I started on a lower temperature to avoid sticking.)

Immediately pour the coconut milk/egg mixture over the chocolate in the blender. Add vanilla. Cover and hold the lid with a thick kitchen towel (to avoid getting burned by steam or escaping liquid) blend until combined and smooth, stopping to scrape down the sides of the blender as needed. Divide the chocolate mixture among ramekins or small cups and refrigerate until set, at least 2 hours. I made these two days ahead of time, and they were still divine.

Note: The photo above is before refrigeration. The dessert, when served, will not be so glossy.

An Easy Way to Eat pomegranate

This is not a recipe, but a trick that I recently came across, and wanted to share.  We love pomegranates in our family but don't eat them often because it is so messy and time consuming to pick the seeds out.  This trick is simple and allows you to get the seeds out really quickly.

Tzatziki

This is a simple Greek condiment that is cool and crisp and goes well with meat in the summer.

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup yogurt or sour cream (or combination)
1 small cucumber
1-2 cloves of garlic
1/2 tsp salt (plus more to taste)
1 bunch of fresh mint or dill
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp olive oil
1/4 cup red onion, finely chopped

METHOD:

Prepare the cucumber by seeding and either grating or chopping the rest into small pieces.

Let the cucumber sit in a bowl with the salt on it for 10 minutes.  Squeeze out the excess liquid and pour it off.

Combine the cucumber with the rest of the ingredients, chopping the herbs and crushing the garlic.  Mix well.  Add more salt and garlic if needed. 

Does Junk Food Make People Morally Lax?

You know I don't usually write about political stuff, but this article really irritated me! I hate the way the whole slant was to try to pit consumers against each other. I personally do not give two (organic and locally-grown) figs as to what people choose to eat, but I felt the need to write the following parody in order to illustrate just how bad this “reporting” is. I used the same data from the study* to come to this alternate (and equally ridiculous) conclusion.

Does Junk Food Make People Morally Lax?

Jane Doe has encountered her fair share of comfort food slobs, but a recent trip to a Des Moines diner left her feeling like she’d stumbled onto the set of “My Name is Earl”.

“I stopped in at the diner, hoping to get a nourishing meal to sustain me for the next leg of a cross-country road trip. When I had to visit the ladies’ room, I couldn’t help but notice the couple in the next stall loudly copulating. Imagine my shock when I heard them laughing about their being cousins! When I reported the incident to the manager, he said, as he munched on a brownie, ‘Lady, you need to take a chill pill and get over yourself!’ Seriously I could not believe that he had no problem with this behavior, and I couldn’t help but feel like I was in an episode of ‘My Name is Earl’ where junk food and morally suspect attitudes were weekly staples.”

“There's a line of research showing that when people transgress their own ethical codes, they feel the need to grant others a degree of moral license that they might otherwise find reprehensible,” says author Jack Smith, assistant professor of the department of psychological sciences at Something University in Sometown, USA. “I've noticed a lot of junk foods are marketed with morally indulgent terminology, like Chocolate Decadence, and wondered if you exposed people to junk food, if it would make them go easier on other folks for their moral and environmental choices. I [also] wondered if they’d be more eager-to-please.”

To find out, Smith and his team divided 60 people into three groups. One group was shown pictures of clearly labeled organic food, like apples and spinach. Another group was shown comfort foods such as brownies and cookies. And a third group--the controls--were shown non-organic, non-comfort foods like rice, mustard and oatmeal. After viewing the pictures, each person was then asked to read a series of vignettes describing moral transgressions.

“One vignette was about second cousins having sex,” says Smith. “Another was about a lawyer on the prowl in an ER trying to get people to sue for their injuries. Then the groups made moral judgments on a scale from one to seven.”

In another phase of the study, the three groups were asked to volunteer for a (fictitious) study, with each person writing down the amount of time--from zero to 30 minutes--that they would be willing to volunteer. The results did not bode well for the “comfort [junk] food” folks.

“We found that the comfort food people were much more likely to give the moral transgressors a pass compared to the control or organic food groups,” says Smith. “On a scale of 1 to 7, the organic people were like 5.5 while the controls were about a 5 and the comfort food people were like a 4.89.”
When it came to gratifying a fictitious researcher, the junk food people also proved to be more eager-to-please, volunteering 24 minutes as compared to 19 minutes (for controls) and 13 minutes (for organic food folks). Perhaps the organic food folks had gotten a short-term boost in their intelligence, realizing that volunteering for a fictitious study was nonsensical. Perhaps the junk food folks jumped at the chance to assuage their guilt in such a non-binding way.

“There’s something about being exposed to junk food that made them feel worse about themselves,” says Smith, “And that made them kind of morally lax, and eager to do some kind of [easy] penance I guess.”

Why does eating worse make us act worse? Smith says it probably has to do with what he calls, “moral mitigation”.

“People may feel like they’ve done something wrong,” he says. “They seek to mitigate their own guilty feelings by judging other people’s transgressions more leniently, so that they themselves seem less bad in comparison. It’s like when someone is eating a cookie and they offer you one, but you politely decline, and they become more and more aggressive with you, insisting that you eat the cookie, so they aren’t alone in cheating on their diet.”


*A link to the abstract of the study can be found here. I did not wish to pay the money to read the entire study, so I used the figures as reported on MSNBC.

Please vote for Roo's Clues

Hi, Sierra here.  As many of you know I have another blog called Roo's Clues that covers how I recovered my son from autism, including the GAPS diet of course :)  This blog has been nominated for Babble's Top 30 Autism Blogs for Parents in 2012.  The competition is based on votes, so if you would like to support my blog please go to it and vote by clicking on the banner:
http://roosclues.blogspot.com/



You can also go directly to the competition page, scroll down the alphabetical list, and click "like":
http://www.babble.com/baby/baby-development/top-autism-blog-nominate/index.aspx#

Thanks for your support!

Almond Flour Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I have thought about trying to make a GAPS chocolate chip since the very early days, but since chocolate wasn't strictly legal back then, and since I hate to waste a lot of food on experimenting, I never did get around to it. Thankfully, the folks over at Our Nourishing Roots did the job instead. I tried their recipe (linked below), but I used unsweetened chocolate in lieu of the cocoa butter/cocoa mixture. I'm not sure if that is why my chocolate came out sort of chewy, like a stiff caramel, or whether it's because I kept adding honey until the chocolate tasted bittersweet to me. Either way, it turned into a delicious and functional chocolaty substance. I left it to cool overnight at (Pacific Northwest, winter, unheated) room temperature. The next day, I cut it into strips and kept it refrigerated. I really needed to work quickly with this stuff to prevent its melting, but it held together beautifully in the cookies.

Do try the coriander. It is a secret little trick that I used to use with my old white flour recipe.

Did I mention they're delicious? They are only very lightly sweet, but my recently off-the-wagon kids gobbled them up as happily as they had done with premium conventional ice cream merely days before.

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup honey
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt
3 cups almond flour
1 tsp. ground coriander (optional)
1/4 tsp. baking soda (optional)
2/3 cup GAPS chocolate chunks, cut into small pieces

Method

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Cut up butter and place it in an oven-proof bowl, and melt butter in oven while it heats. When butter is melted, remove bowl and add honey. Carefully mix in honey. At this point your bowl will probably be cool enough to touch. Blend in egg and vanilla. Add in salt and mix. Add in almond flour and optional coriander and baking soda. Stir well. Dough will be slightly stiff. Add in chocolate chunks and stir through. Place heaping tablespoons of batter onto a cookie sheet and press to flatten* (and round if necessary). Bake for about 10-15 minutes until lightly browned. Remove from oven and allow to cool for about 5 minutes on the baking sheet. Using a very thin offset spatula, carefully transfer cookies to a cooling rack. Once they are cool enough to touch, eat them and enjoy. They hold up well, at this point. When they are thoroughly cooled, I recommend storing, tightly wrapped, in the refrigerator.

*This dough does not spread, so you can place them close together, but you need to make each round as flat as you want the finished cookies to be, keeping in mind that if they're too thick, they won't cook through. I go for about 1/2 an inch high.

Kale Chips

Do you think your kids won't eat vegetables? Try these. I am generally against recipes that require me to stand around doing repetitive work, especially when the fruits of my labor are then gobbled up in less than 10 minutes. But I have to make an exception for a recipe that gets my kids chanting, "Kale! Kale! Kale! We want kaaaaaale!" I think we all know that kale is a "super food" and these delicious chips have the added benefit of being crispier than potato chips!

Enjoy!

Ingredients

2 bunches kale (the flatter varieties are easier to work with, but any type will do)

1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil* (or other oil/fat, if desired)

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Method

Heat your oven to 250 degrees F. Wash kale and remove tough central rib (you can skip this step, if your kids will eat up to the rib, and you don't mind having chewed on stems around). Pat kale dry. Place in a bowl and coat with olive oil (I use my hands to rub the oil on all surfaces). Place kale in one layer on two baking sheets. Sprinkle with sea salt and pepper (you can leave out the pepper. I sometimes do). Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes or until leaves are very crispy (they will easily break apart). Allow to cool until they are easy to handle, then watch the feeding frenzy begin.

*NB, Dr. Campbell-McBride advises against heating olive oil. Personally I do not have a problem cooking with extra virgin olive oil at low temperatures (below its smoke point). I have not read any scientific studies that corroborate the claim that heating olive oil causes it to take on unhealthful properties. I would be happy to peruse any such studies that my readers might know about. (I'm not interested in links to claims, only to actual studies or reports of actual studies, where the journal of publication is cited). If you wish not to use olive oil, any fat would work, but the flavor would be different (though almost surely very tasty). Obviously hard fats would need to be melted first.

Almond Flour Brownies

Imagine my delight when I discovered that Dr. Campbell-McBride had decreed that cocoa powder was OK for us advanced GAPSters. Then imagine my sadness when I discovered that there were zero decent almond flour brownie recipes out there on the internet. Of course I had to fill the void. Some things are worth a little trial and error! I believe I have finally got it right. These babies could definitely give the old gluten-laden variety a run for their money. I made these today, and there is one left (only because I don't think anyone else realizes it!).

These make a dense, moist, chewy, chocolaty brownie.

So here it is in all it's simple glory :)

Ingredients

2/3 cup honey
1/2 cup melted butter or coconut oil
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 cup almond flour
1/2 cup cocoa (I used raw cacao)
1/4 tsp. baking soda (this can be omitted)
1/4 tsp. sea salt (omit if using salted butter)

Method

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix honey, butter, vanilla and eggs until smooth. (If omitting baking soda, beat eggs until foamy before adding in other wet ingredients.) Add almond flour, cocoa, baking soda and optional salt. Stir to blend. Pour into greased 8x8x2 inch pan. Bake for approximately 25 minutes, until center no longer jiggles and top feels cakey.

Cool on a wire rack at least until sides pull away from the edge of the pan before cutting.

Chili

The problem with chili is that it doesn't photograph well. It's not exactly an elegant dish, but it is delicious and a crowd pleaser. Giving up most beans does not mean you have to give up chili! Real chili doesn't include beans anyway (but you can add navy beans, if you don't mind the look). I have been making this chili for a while now, and it is a big hit with my family and with company. It's also a lot of fun to prepare a variety of toppings for people to add as they desire--chopped tomatoes, chopped avocado, chopped jalapenos (or other chilies), chopped onions (or scallions), minced fresh cilantro, olives, guacamole, salsa, sour cream, hot sauce, etc.

This is another recipe I don't measure precisely with, plus I always make a huge batch and freeze any leftovers. Also, I tend to make my "spicy" dishes mild and let people add more hot sauce, if desired.

Ingredients

2 Tablespoons fat (for browning meat)
Salt and pepper
5 pounds beef stew meat, cut into cubes
1 1/2 large onions, finely chopped (my kid doesn't like chunks of onions)
3 Tablespoons dried ground paprika
2 Tablespoons dried ground cumin
1 Tablespoon dried oregano, crushed in palm before adding
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2-4 Tablespoons red wine (optional)
2 Cups beef broth (or water)
3 cloves garlic, crushed

Method

Sprinkle salt and pepper over meat. In a large cooking pot, brown the meat in the fat over medium heat. You will probably need to do this in batches. Add onions, and saute until softened and translucent. Add all meat back to the cooking pot. Add paprika, cumin, oregano, and cayenne to meat and stir over medium heat for about a minute to coat and allow spices to "activate". Add optional red wine, and stir to blend. When simmering, add beef broth to cover meat at least half way. Bring to a simmer then lower heat to keep at a low simmer and cover. Cook for an hour or two until meat is tender. Add garlic at the end and stir through. Taste and adjust seasonings as desired.

If you want to do this in a slow cooker, just add all of the ingredients after you've browned the meat and softened the onions. If you put everything in together at once (raw), it will still taste good, but the onion flavor will be stronger, and the meat will have less depth of flavor and color.

Chicken Salad

This is my favorite chicken salad "recipe". I don't measure with this, but I love this flavor combination. These are my best guesses for amounts, but don't be afraid to experiment.

Ingredients

2 Cups cooked shredded or cubed chicken
4 Tbs. homemade mayonnaise
1 tsp. grated lemon zest or 2 tsp. chopped, preserved lemon peel
1-2 tsp. chopped pickled jalapenos (OR whole non-pareil capers)
1 clove garlic freshly crushed
Salt and freshly ground Pepper to taste (you will probably not need salt if you used preserved lemons and/or if you salt your mayo)
Fresh greens, such as arugula, spinach, butter lettuce, romaine lettuce, etc.

Method

Mix all ingredients except greens together until desired consistency is reached. Serve on a bed of greens.

Sorry we've been out of touch

Hi All,

I'd like to apologize for our having been out of touch for awhile. I have not had regular access to a decent computer. Additionally, we've both been pursuing other post-GAPS foods/diets, but in my case, I'm returning to full GAPS for awhile as a transition to a low-carb/paleo-friendly form of GAPS. I will continue to post new recipes here as I come up with them. I would expect that you will see quite a few sweets in the coming weeks, and then a lot more soups/salads/meat dishes.

I may also start to add more of my musings on food, farming, nutrition, etc.

I hope you all are doing well!

Sincerely,

Teri

Crustless Quiche

If you have a crust recipe that you like, you could certainly use one, but I find this so easy without a crust.  This recipe is so simple and works for any meal of the day, is relatively portable, and can even be fancy enough to bring to a gathering or serve to guests. 

INGREDIENTS:

4 eggs
1 can (14-16 oz) of coconut milk without additives
1-2 T butter or fat for cooking
1/2 onion
1 cup diced meat (I prefer ham)
OR diced vegetables (bell pepper, asparagus, greens, or zucchini work especially well)
1 cup of cubed cheese
1/2 tsp salt
other herbs and spices, optional

METHOD:

1.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2.  Crack the eggs into a mixing bowl and beat in the coconut milk.  Mix in the cubed cheese, salt, and any other herbs or spices that you are using.

3.  In a 10 inch skillet (ideally cast iron), melt the fat and saute the onions for several minutes.

4.  If you are using vegetables, add them now and saute several more minutes, allowing any moisture to come out (such as with mushrooms).

5.  Turn off the heat, add your meat and stir, and then pour the egg mixture over the top.

6. Bake for 45 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean.

Pork Carnitas

This is a really delicious and easy dish. We can't get enough of it in our house. Left-overs are even better. It's a nice meal for a warm evening or for a cold night when you're sick of traditional winter foods. It's excellent served with an avocado/tomato salsa (as pictured here) or served up "taco salad" style with lettuce, olives, cheese, sour cream, hot sauce etc. Even though you see cheese in the picture, the recipe is dairy-free, and it is also quite tasty without any garnishes.

Ingredients

1 teaspoon salt
3 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon crumbled dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon olive oil, softened butter or lard
1 (4-5 pound) pork roast
2 bay leaves
2 cups chicken broth

Method

Mix first seven ingredients together to form a paste. Add more olive oil, if necessary. Rub mixture all over the roast. Place bay leaves in the bottom of slow cooker. Place roast on top. Carefully add chicken broth around meat (don't pour over the meat or spices will rinse off). Cover and cook on low heat for six to ten hours, until meat shreds easily with a fork. Remove from pot and allow to cool a bit. Shred the meat with two forks. Alternatively you can refrigerate immediately and shred the next day with your hands (This is what I usually do. Sometimes I cook it overnight, then refrigerate all day, then shred and eat for dinner.) The shreds are also good fried in coconut oil.

You can also make this in a pot on the stove top or in the oven. Just keep the temperature low and cook for a long time.

Lacto-Fermented Mayonnaise

This is another fabulous recipe from our friend Chris over at Lost Arts Kitchen.  Chris is brilliant in the kitchen and a great teacher about food and food preparation if you are in the Portland OR area.  There are many recipes on the Lost Arts Kitchen site that are GAPS or GAPS-friendly, but she now has a GAPS blog as well called Cooking GAPS. 

So here is Chris' recipe for lacto-fermented mayonnaise, which is now the only kind I make!

Shredded Beef Soup with Kimchi

This was so easy and delicious. I've been making a lot of "recipes" that are quick throw-togethers lately. I'm guessing that there are a lot of other people out there who'd like some ideas for what to do with leftovers or big pots of meat and broth!

I had planned to make a large batch beef broth with my grass-fed "soup bones". It turned out that those bones had loads of meat on them. I boiled the beef in filtered water (with the usual salt, pepper, carrots, onions, celery and bay leaf) until tender. Then I stuck the whole lot in the fridge to cool. The next day I shredded up the beef by hand and came up with this dish.

Ingredients

1 cup beef broth
1/2 cup shredded beef
2 whole garlic cloves, minced or crushed
2 scallions, washed and sliced
1/4 cup kimchi
2 Tbsp. chopped cilantro (well rinsed)
A couple dashes hot pepper sauce to taste (optional)

Method

Boil the beef broth and shredded beef until hot. Pour into a bowl. Add garlic, scallions, kimchi, cilantro and optional hot pepper sauce.

Chocolate Avocado Pudding (Transitional Recipe)

We have decided to include some recipes on the site for those either transitioning off of GAPS or transitioning on.  We feel these recipes still embody the spirit of GAPS by focusing on real, nutrient-dense foods as ingredients, but with one or more ingredient that is not legal on the full diet. 

Chocolate Avocado Pudding

This delicious and creamy pudding works well as a snack, a breakfast, or even as frosting!

INGREDIENTS:

2 avocados (ripe but not over-ripe)
1/4 cup plus 2 T honey
1/4 cup plus 2 T cocoa or carob powder
3 T coconut oil, melted
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

METHOD:

Place all ingredients into a food processor and blend until smooth.  Taste and adjust flavors if needed.

NOTE:  The first time you make this, you may want to begin with just the 1/4 cup of honey and carob or cocoa and see how you like the flavor.  It is easy to add more of these ingredients later. 

Peach Pomegranate Cranberry Sauce

This is a simple yet unusual twist on cranberry sauce that has become our favorite.  If you like cranberry sauce, you can have a lot of fun trying different combinations of fruit, juices, and vegetables.

INGREDIENTS:

4 cups cranberries (one 4 oz bag)
2 cups of peaches, cut into chunks (frozen work fine)
1/4 cup pure pomegranate juice
1/4 cup honey (or to taste)

METHOD:

Combine all ingredients in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and bring to medium heat.

Continue to heat, stirring occasionally, until mixture has simmered long enough for the cranberries to pop, about 20-30 minutes.  The mixture should thicken as it simmers- if it gets too thick, or begins to scorch, you can add more pomegranate juice. 

Lemon Cardamom Cashews

Not to toot my own horn, but these are unbelievably good!  I can't have many cashews because of the oxalate levels but these are worth suffering for :)

INGREDIENTS:

2 T butter or ghee
1/3 c honey
zest of 1 lemon
1 1/2 tsp cardamom powder
2 cups of cashews (preferably soaked and dehydrated)

METHOD:

Dry toast the cashews in an iron skillet or other heavy-bottomed pan on medium heat until they are slightyl browned and crunchy.

Add the butter, allow it to melt, then add the other ingredients.  Stir them to combine and cook until the liquid has bubbled for about 5 minutes.

Pour the mixture onto a cookie sheet lined with greased parchment paper and allow to cool.

Store in an airtight container preferably in the refrigerator.

Chili almonds

These are sweet and spicy and make a nice gift.

INGREDIENTS:

2 T butter or ghee
3 T honey
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp chipotle powder (or cayenne powder)
2 cups almonds (preferably soaked and dried)

METHOD:

If the almonds are not crunchy, dry toast them in an iron skillet (or other heavy-bottomed pan) on medium heat until they reach desired level of crunchiness.

Add the butter to the nuts and allow it to melt, then add the other ingredients and thoroughly stir them together. 

Continue heating and stirring until the liquid bubbles for about 5 minutes, then pour the mixture out onto a cookie sheet lined with greased parchment paper and let it cool.

Store in an air-tight container, preferably in the refrigerator.