Rosemary Chia Bread, Grain free!

This bread is so good I just had to share!

Rosemary Chia Bread

3/4 cup creamy almond butter
2 tbsp olive oil
3 large eggs
1 tbsp raw honey
1/2 cup almond flour
4 tbsp chia seeds with 4 tbsp water, let soak for about 15 minutes
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp aluminum free baking soda
1tbsp rosemary

Preheat the oven to 350 and grease a bread pan with olive oil, dust with almond flour.

Mix the chia seeds and water together before starting anything else.

In a large bowl, mix the almond butter and olive oil together with a handheld mixer until smooth. Then blend in the eggs and honey.

In a medium bowl, combine the almond flour, salt, and baking soda. Add in the rosemary.

Mix the chia seeds into the wet mix. Then add the wet into the dry and mix well.

Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake for 40-50 minutes on the bottom rack of your oven. You can check if it's done by inserting a knife into the center of the loaf to see if it comes out clean. It is important to let is sit and cool for about an hour {if you can} in order for it to cut properly. Other wise if you rush it the bread will not come out of the pan well and will crumble more. Still taste good though. ;)

We had it last night with a homemade creamy potato leek soup, pot roast, and baby salad greens. So good! {Atty now has potato occasionally, we try to stick to the low starch ones.}

Here's a link on the benefits of Chia seeds.

Enjoy!

Almond flour sweet crackers

Here's a sweet cracker recipe, makes a great substitute for the good ol' Graham cracker.

3 1/2 cups blanched almond flour

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cinnamon

3 eggs

2 tbsp oil

3 tbsp flax meal

40 drops stevia

Preheat the oven to 325 F. Set aside 2 large baking sheets. Cut 3 pieces of parchment paper to the size of the baking sheets.

In a large bowl combine the almond flour, salt, and spices. In a medium bowl whisk the eggs and oil then add in the flax meal and stevia. Stir the wet ingredients into the almond flour mixture until thoroughly combined.

Divide the dough into 2 pieces. Place 1 piece of dough between 2 sheets of pre-cut parchment paper and roll out to the edges evenly. Remove the top piece of parchment paper, cut the dough with a pizza cutter into two inch squares {or what ever size you want} and transfer the bottom piece of parchment paper with the rolled out dough onto the baking sheet. Repeat with the other piece of dough.

Bake for about 16 minutes. I cook them at the same time {separate racks one above the other in the middle of the oven} so about half way through baking I switch the baking sheets on the racks so that they both cook evenly. Let the crackers cool on the baking sheet about 30 minutes.

Valentine's day treat idea.

Holidays can be hard on a special diet. Especially when you have three kids that are not on a special diet and one that is. It's a fine balance. On the one hand I want the kids that are not on a special diet to just have fun on the holidays, splurge a little, maybe even go a little crazy. It's a holiday after all and we are so careful about what we eat for the most part. Healthy whole foods diet, very little junk food {and there is a lot of food that makes our junk list that others wouldn't consider junk} and my kids are great about it. Everyone likes to have special treats now and again though. So on holidays I like to let my kids have treats we normally don't eat. I'm fine with it. But now I have a kid that can't have anything sweetened with anything except stevia so that doesn't leave a lot of options come holiday time. I don't want him to feel left out. We've made lots of changes in the last two years, and once again my kids have been wonderful about it. No candy in bright shiny wrappers is our rule now. Because I just can't duplicate that one for Atty. So I buy bulk chocolates for the kids and dried fruit, things like that. Then Atty's freezer candy doesn't look so different and he doesn't really care about the dried fruits. It is fun to get treats in shiny wrappers though. That's why candy comes so colorfully wrapped after all, people like it. And my kids, like so many others, stare longingly at it in the store. So right before Valentine's day, while I was shopping, I saw red tin heart containers with chocolates in them and a light bulb went off for me. I quickly bought up four of them and went home and emptied one of them out. Then I made a batch of Atty's freezer candies and sprinkled some shredded coconut on top that I dyed red with food coloring. Once they had set in the freezer I put them in the heart container and stored it back in the freezer. Then on Valentine's day I was able to give all the kids a fun bright container of chocolates to celebrate. They were all very excited. So now I know to keep my eyes open for reusable holiday containers that I can empty out and put Atty's type of treats into. Helps to make him feel included.

I use a heart shaped ice cube tray for Atty's candies. I use a mixture of cashew butter, a little coconut oil, a small amount of unsweetened cocoa powder, and liquid stevia to taste. I sprinkled unsweetened shredded coconut on top that was dyed red for a little holiday fun. You can also add coconut to the mixture it's really yummy that way. I have also added finely chopped pecan to the mix as well, very yummy. Put them in the freezer until solid. They melt easy so you have to eat them up right away when you take them out of the freezer, but Atty never has a problem with that, he loves these!

Here they are all nestled into the heart shaped container. :)

Now Atty has treats just like his siblings. Such an important thing when you're a kid.

No one feels left out, made this mommy so happy!

And there you have it. Atty loved his treats {as always} although I think he was even more excited about having a tin just like everyone else. He carried it around for the rest of the day and told his dad about it when he got home. :) Some times it's the little things that matter most.

Almond flour biscuits

Biscuits!

Okay here's another one...

2 1/2 cups blanched almond flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup oil of your choice
2 eggs
1/2 cup *coconut milk unsweetened
8 drops stevia
8 drops lemon stevia
{or just 15 drops stevia}

*Depending on where you are in the diet, you could also add 1 tsp freshly squeezed *lemon juice. If you do that it would be 15 drops stevia and 1 tsp lemon juice.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a large baking sheet with wax paper.
In a large bowl combine the almond flour, salt, and baking soda. In a medium bowl whisk together the oil, eggs, coconut milk, stevia {and optional lemon juice}. Stir the wet ingredients into the almond flour mixture until combined.
Drop the batter in large spoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto the baking sheet.
Bake for 15-20 minutes. Let cool briefly on baking sheet and then serve.

*Don't forget to count the carbs! If you want this to be a carb free biscuit just use water in place of the coconut milk and leave out the lemon. :) Less yummy... but less stress. And a limitless food, which is always good on this diet! At this point in Atty's diet I don't stress over the carbs in his biscuits any more, he doesn't have any reaction and I always pile on coconut oil or cashew butter on top for added fats. If I was adding say chopped fruit I would carefully count the carbs... but that has more to do with the sugar content. I don't worry about sour fruits anymore.

Almond flour bread!

Best Almond flour bread ever! :)
{I've actually already posted a bread recipe before, but this one is even better... haha!}
3/4 cup creamy cashew butter {or any nut butter you like}
4 large eggs
1/2 cup blanched almond flour
3 *tbsp of flax seed meal w/ 3 tbsp of water, let sit for a couple minutes to thicken

Update: I use to do the flax mix separately but now I just add it into the wet ingredients and let it sit in there for a couple minutes and it works just fine. You can also reduce the flax to two tablespoon if you want to with out messing up the bread, less carbs that way.
1/2 sea salt
1/2 baking soda

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a 7 by 3 inch loaf pan with oil {like grape seed, olive, or coconut} and dust with almond flour.
In a large bowl mix the nut butter with a handheld mixer until smooth, then blend in the eggs. In a medium bowl combine the almond flour, flax/water mix, salt, and baking soda. Blend the almond flour mixture into the wet ingredients. Pour the batter into the bread pan.
Bake for 40-45 minutes on the bottom rack of the oven. Let the bread cool in the pan for 1 hour.

*Don't forget to count the carbs in the flax meal! I don't do this for Atty anymore because he doesn't have any reaction and hasn't for about a year now of eating this bread... but if you are being careful of counting everything still then preslice the bread and split the carbs per slice to figure it out.

Makes a super yummy sandwich with some cashew butter in between two slices... one of Atty's favorites.

{Cream of Almond} Breakfast Cereal

Atty just ate two whole batches of this warm cereal this morning. He LOVES it! So excited to make a new recipe that he likes so that he can have something new to eat in the morning.

• 1/2 cup almond meal/flour


• 2 tablespoons flax meal (count the carbs)


• 1/2 tsp sugar free vanilla extract


• 15 drops stevia


• 2 cups water


• Add cinnamon to taste if desired

Combine all ingredients in pan and stir (I put 1 1/2 cups water in at first and then the other 1/2 after it has been simmering and thickened up a bit), cook over medium high heat until bubbling hard then turn down to a medium heat and simmer for 3-5 minutes. Don't let it get too thick, it will thicken as it cools! To me it seems to have the consistency and look of Cream of Wheat. I haven't really been counting the carbs in flax meal for Atty for quite a while now, it just doesn't seem to matter for him. But every child is different. Because I don't count the carbs in the cereal I usually top this with 1/3 of a sliced banana. He really likes that. I tasted it myself of course and it really is pretty yummy!

Holiday cookies!

Here are the holiday cookies I came up with for Atty. The first try was an absolute flop. I was going off of a recipe from the almond flour cookbook and just changed the sweetener from agave nectar (which he can't have) to stevia drops with 1/4 cup water. It did NOT work, they fell apart after cooked no matter what I did. So I grabbed my trusty Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and looked up sugar cookies. Then I used my imagination...and came up with these... Here's what I did.

Holiday cookies for cut outs

2/3 cup coconut oil

1 tsp baking powder

a dash of sea salt

1 egg

1 tsp sugar free vanilla

2 1/2 cups blanched almond flour

{about 50 drops of Stevia liquid}

Beat the coconut oil until creamy, add baking powder and a dash of sea salt, beat until combined. Then beat in the egg and vanilla. Add the almond flour and stevia and mix well. Form into 2 balls and then put in the fridge for a couple hours. Roll out the dough to 1/2 inch thickness {or more, you do not want to go thin on these!} between 2 sheets of parchment paper. If the dough is sticky dust with almond flour. Remove the top piece of parchment paper and cut out the cookies with a holiday cookie cutter. If needed dip the cutter in cold water after cutting each cookie to prevent sticking. Transfer the cookies to a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, leaving space between cookies. Bake for about 8 minutes until lightly golden at 350. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 1 hour before serving.

Frosting

Whip coconut oil until creamy and add a tiny dash of vanilla and if desired stevia for sweetening.

Sprinkles

Put cashew nuts in a food processor and process until finely ground. Then add food coloring and mix until well blended and desired color is achieved. Sprinkle onto holiday cookies after frosting.

Notes:

Use a really simple cut out that the cookies can easily pop out of.

They are still really delicate and crumbly so you have to handle with care.

Make sure you let them sit for 1 hour, do not try to hurry up the process.

Keep the dough as cold as possible during the rolling out part. Put back in the fridge when necessary.

I might try adding flax meal next time, it won't have the same great "sugar cookie" color with the flax in it, but I think they might hold together even better that way. If so I will up date on here. This is always such a work in progress as I learn more and more each day. I'm going to try Pecan Shortbread cookies next!

Almond flour bread recipe!!!

Bread recipe! Just in case someone stumbles across my blog and happens to be on the Modified Atkins for Seizures diet {or has a kid on it, or knows someone on it...} I've got an awesome recipe for you! I adapted a recipe from "the gluten-free almond flour cookbook" by Elana Amsterdam. It's a really great book for ideas, but the recipes have to be changed to make them work on Atty's MAS diet.

Here is the MAS recipe:

3/4 cup creamy roasted almond butter at room temperature
4 large eggs
2 tablespoons flax meal with 2 tablespoons water, let it sit for a couple minutes to thicken.

1/2 cup blanched almond flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground flax meal

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease a 7 by 3 inch loaf pan with grape seed oil and dust with almond flour.

In a large bowl mix the almond butter with a handheld mixer until smooth and then blend in the eggs and {2 tablespoons}flax seed mixture. In a medium bowl combine the almond flour, salt, baking soda and remaining 1 tablespoon of flax meal. Blend the almond flour mixture into the wet ingredients until thoroughly combined. Pour into loaf pan. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes on the BOTTOM rack of the oven until a knife inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Let the bread cool in the pan for 1 HOUR, then serve.

Each loaf contains 6 grams of carbs {every 2 tablespoons of flax meal is 4 grams of carbs). Slice the loaf into 12 even slices so that each slice is .5 grams of carbs or round up to 1 gram of carb per slice if you are more comfortable with that. Remember to always ask your dietitian about every new recipe before trying it. :) To store wrap the bread slices in a paper towel, place then in a resealable container and refrigerate. Stored this way it will keep for up to six days.

With this recipe for bread you can now enjoy things like tuna fish sandwiches, french toast or just toast with cashew butter {Atty's favorite}.

ENJOY!

Our first successful outing!

I survived my first party out with Atty...and so did he! There was food Every Where!! Food that he couldn't have. Food that his brothers could have. Food that everyone else was eating. You don't really notice those sorts of things until you have a kid that can't have that food. I packed a lot of food for him and it was a good thing I did because he was fixated on food. His brothers ate a little and then went to play, Atty on the other hand kept saying he was hungry and wanting to eat. He almost lost it a couple times when I had to start telling him no and that he had to go play. It was getting ridiculous though how he just wanted to sit next to his cooler and eat and eat and eat! I'm glad I brought his Stevita drink mix because that helped smooth over a few situations and there was plenty of water available to mix it with. So this is what I did that worked. I brought a little cooler and packed it with:

• His special muffins I made that morning, I decided to put some of his strawberry Stevita powdered drink in his magic muffin mix instead of plain stevia and I'm glad I did. It made them even more delicious! I made sure he was really excited about it so that he was looking forward to his special treat. I brought 4 even though we were only going to be at the party for about three hours. Good thing I did because he blew through every one of them! I saved one for the last in case there were any treats and it's a good thing I did because there was some cake that ended up getting passed out. He didn't even care about it because he had his muffin.


• I packed 2 cooked hot dogs with a cold pack and he ate those while his brothers ate there food from the BBQ. He can't have the regular hot dogs because of the fillers, and he doesn't like hamburger patty's plus people often put marinate on the patty's that he wouldn't be able to have.


• I made him his flax seed meal crackers, for a filler just in case...he ate them too.


• I packed nuts to snack on.


• I packed his Stevita powdered drink mix, so glad I remembered that because he definitely noticed when his brothers got juice.


• I packed him an avocado and he ate the whole thing.


• I packed 1/3 of a banana (5 grams of carbs), I also went ahead and let him eat 1/3 of a piece of watermelon (another 5 grams of carbs) and I just left the carb out of his dinner that night. He really likes watermelon and so do his brothers so they were eating a lot of it and I didn't want Atty to feel totally left out.

I did get a few funny looks when I talked to Atty about his special magic diet, as we are calling it, but that's okay. I made sure to be proactive and voice out loud a lot about the fact that he was on a special diet and couldn't have any food except the food that I brought him. I felt a little pushy and over bearing but I know it's so important that there aren't any mistakes so I just tried to be as friendly about it as possible. And I hovered, I'll admit it. Maybe at some point I will trust that he won't get his hands on non-diet food, but for now I am on super high alert. That being said he has still almost got his hand on a few things not on his diet while we were at home. Just the other day he snuck and eat some raw carrot left over from one of his brothers lunch. I then had to skip his carb for dinner because I didn't know how much extra carb he had consumed. Which is why when we were at the party I felt like I had to be extremely cautious with him. It would be too easy to loss track of the seriousness of the issue in the middle of all the chaos, it's easy enough to do that at home. It's hard because people who don't know him would not be able to tell that he has a serious health issue and wouldn't know to stop him if he grabbed some food, or they wouldn't know not to offer him something. One seemingly harmless slip up could cause him to have seizures. Just one slip up. I'm tossing around the idea of making some sort of cute tag to pin on his back at parties that lets people know he can't eat any of the party food, but I'm not sure yet how I feel about doing that to him. I'm going to get him a medical alert bracelet, but there's not a lot of room on those for the details and they are not always all that noticeable. He is starting to learn at home to bring me any food he finds and he's been being pretty good about it (except for the carrot thing). I'm repetitively using the term magic diet and talking about Atty's food and other people's food and he seems to be picking up on the difference. I am hoping that at some point he will be able to speak up for himself and tell others if they are giving him something he can't have. Maybe I'll be able to relax a bit then. Then again maybe not... Hopefully he will understand better at some point the importance of this diet. I worry though because he has to be on it for at least two years and if he stays seizure free he won't remember the seizures he had at three when he's four or five. The importance of the diet might be lost on him. I've really got to stop worrying about things like that though and instead focus on the here and now. The here and now seems a little less intimidating now that I have survived my first party with Atty! I think the only thing I will change for future outings is that I will wait to give him the carb I bring just in case there is a carb that he wants at the party (like he did with the watermelon) I also need to get a big measuring cup I can bring with me so I can measure out the right amount depending on what it is that he wants. I will copy the page that has those measurements on it and bring it with in the cooler. I will also remember that I do have a little wiggle room in the sense that I can leave out a carb in a regular meal if needed. Like I did when he wanted the watermelon. I started to stress out about it and I did say no at first but then I realized there was no need to make it a sad thing when I could just not give him a carb later to make up for it. That sort of thing is okay every once and a while. As long as he gets no more then his 15 grams total for the day he doesn't necessarily need them split up into his main meals.

Another day down...another hurdle crossed and we continue on this journey.

I made a winner!

I've now made the BEST fake muffin, cake, cornbread concoction EVER! I say fake because I use NO flour or sugar in it. If I need muffins I put it in muffin tins...Actual muffins tins not the paper kind, so that they don't stick. If I need cake I use these adorable little round baking bowls, and if I need cornbread I stick it in a little square dish. It's the look that counts. He loves it!! Here's the recipe. I know most of you have no need for it but just in case there is some one out there trying desperately like I was to make some sort of baked good for a child on the modified atkins for seizures diet, that they would actually eat...here it is. Yummy!


muffin recipe updated on 10/26

{Makes 12 muffins}

4 eggs separated.

1 and 1/2 cups almond flour

6 tbsp oil, I use grape seed.

1 and 1/2 teaspoons sugar free vanilla (more or less to preference)

1/2 cup water

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

For the muffins or cake add 30 drops of liquid stevia or 1 1/2 tsp flavored stevia powder like Stevita Breeze. It's actually a powdered drink mix, but it works really well for strawberry (or any flavor your kid likes) muffins. Best part...adds flavor with out carbs!!! For the cornbread add 15-20 drops liquid stevia and 1/2 teaspoon sea salt.

Mix all ingredients except the egg whites together. Whip up the eggs whites until fairly stiff and then fold into the mix really well. Oil each muffin tin well (the more oil the better) and pour batter in until full. Cook in a preheated oven at 350 for about 20 minutes until light golden brown.

If putting into a pan add oil to the pan first so it doesn't stick and it adds fat to the recipe which is a plus on this diet. Melted butter works well for the cornbread, melt it in the pan then add the mix, super yummy! I've been baking it in a oven at 350 until light brown and a toothpick comes out clean. There is no set time since the pans vary depending on what I need. You don't want to over cook these though so keep a good eye on them.

Fruit can be added but then I have to count it as a carb on Atty's diet and it gets a little tricky. The first time I used banana in the recipe for a cake on Spike's birthday. (1/3 of a banana mashed and added to the mix was equal to 5 grams carbs) He can only have 15 grams of carbs per day in the form of fruits and vegetables and he had already had 10 grams that day. I then had to leave out the vegetable in his dinner to make up for the 5 grams of carb in his cake and I didn't really like that very much. So I decided to make it with out fruit and changed the recipe a little and came up with the recipe above. From now on unless it's a special occasion I'm just going to leave the fruit out so that I don't have to reduce the amount of fresh fruit/vegetables for the day. I like that with out fruit it doesn't count as a carb on his diet and I can add it to any meal or give as a snack or treat. I guess you could always put less stevia in it, but he likes it the way it is and since he can't really have any treats or sweets right now I'm leaving it as is.

So anyways there you go...best fake muffin, cake, cornbread ever...BEST. Just ask Atty he's already ate three muffins this morning. It feels great to be able to bake something for him again and it makes it so that I can bake yummy treats for my other kids now and I don't have to feel bad about it. It's a win/win...which is the best way to play if you ask me. :)

Oh and I think I forgot to mention that we were able to switch Atty to a dairy free version of the diet, except he still has some butter. The butter doesn't really seem to bother him though, at least as far as I can tell. He's still loving the avocado...what a blessing that has been!