Almond flour pizza crust

So in my last post I mentioned the GAPS friendly pizza... so here is the recipe! :)

I unfortunately don't know the source for this recipe, someone wrote it down for me on paper awhile back and it didn't work for Atty at the time on his MAS diet, but wow am I glad I kept it!

Almond flour pizza crust

makes two med thin pizzas {12" pans}

Dry
2 cups almond flour
1/2 tsp of salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp basil

Wet
3/4 cup mashed white beans {that were soaked the right way and cooked prior}
3 eggs
3 tbsp olive oil

Preheat the oven to 350 and line the pans with parchment paper. Mix all the dry together in a bowl and then make a well in the center. Mix the wet quickly in a blender and then add to the  dry and mix thoroughly. Will be wet, spread evenly onto the parchment using a spatula, wet if sticking {it didn't need to do this} Bake for 10-12 minutes. Then drizzle some more olive oil over the crust and spread a layer of tomato paste over the whole thing. Add a sprinkle of sea salt and what ever toppings you like. We used some veggies/black olives/pineapple/chicken and cheddar cheese. Any GAPS approved cheese would work. Bake for another 10-15 minutes.

The only thing I will do different next time is I will bake the crust for a little longer, but I like crunchy thin crust pizza so it's a personal taste thing. :)

Remember that these recipes are just suggestion, I am in no way an expert on the GAPS diet and you should always research for yourself the foods that you eat. That being said, my whole family loved this pizza, well worth making!

Switching over to the GAPS diet

April 24th 2012 Atty was release from care at Children's hospital and no longer needs to be on the Modified Atkins for Seizures diet!!! Next month on the 26th he will be seizure free for two years! Amazing!!! The doctor and dietitian at Children's are really impressed with him, and someone is going to be writing paper on his case which is really awesome! Also we might be able to help in the future with a case study his neurological doctor wants to see happen, some sort of gene testing. Because apparently he has notice that kids who have the drop seizures that Atty had respond best to the diet for seizure control and he wants to know if there is a gene connection with these kids. If they found a link that would open the door to genetic testing for kids who are having no luck with medicines for seizure control. I would hope they would do genetic testing from the beginning and start with the diet, but that probably won't be the case. It would eliminate some of the wasted time trying different meds that don't work... hopefully. It was such a mixture of emotions driving home from that appointment. I cried thinking back on how far we have come. It's truly wild how fast these two years flew by! So we are now switching over the the GAPS diet full time and will do this for probably two more years and then take it from there. When I told the dietitian this she was excited and said that a different family had mentioned that diet to here and wanted to know if she could put them in contact with me. I said absolutely yes! She also wants to keep in contact so she can get more recipes from me... :) I've had the Gut and Psychology Syndrome book for some time but I recently got the GAPS Guide and the Internal Bliss cookbook and I've been experimenting with more recipes. It's like starting all over again. I have been debating starting from the introductory diet for him so he can have optimal healing but so far it hasn't worked out. It's very restrictive and intense and I wanted my husband around to help out but the weekends are always full and it's hard to make it work during the week. So I'm starting with the full GAPS diet and then I will do the introductory if needed and where ever it fits best.  We have been gradually adding in GAPS foods for the last 6 months or so. I felt more comfortable with a gradual introduction to new foods and unlimited amounts of fruits/veggies. I started with unlimited amounts of veggies and he was fine with that, then slowly started in with larger servings of fruit and just recently unlimited amounts. We also recently switched over to local honey as the sweetener. Makes everything yummier! :) We have come to find out {it seems} that our oldest boy might be sensitive to food in the rag weed family. He had been complaining of headaches for a while, close to two years. We tried chiropractic care which helped for other things but didn't seem to make the headaches go away and we also took him to get his eyes checked {they are perfectly fine}. To make a long story shorter  we made a connection to the stevia that we have been using for Atty for the last TWO years {his headaches had been going on for about the same amount of time}. It was the only sweetener Atty could have and I'd gotten in the habit of using it for the other kids as well. Especially in the lemon water that my kids have daily. So anyways I took the stevia out of his diet {as well as some other food that I found connected to the ragweed family} and his headaches pretty much went away! Wow did I feel awful for taking so long to figure that out. But no one mentioned the ragweed connection to me when they told us to use that for Atty's sweetener, in fact they didn't mention any of the side effects at all. I think because I was already so overwhelmed I started using the stevia with out researching it well {very unusual for me} and now I feel frustrated that I did that. Not everyone has reactions to it, but the people that do really suffer! So all that to say that we are now cutting stevia out of our diet and going to local raw honey. :) I was the most scared when introducing honey to him. I felt like I was holding my breath for weeks before I relaxed! I no longer keep track of the amount of honey and he's had no reaction what so ever! I really want to introduce homemade yogurt the GAPS way but I've yet to figure out how to keep it at the right temp for 24 hours. I will be posting more GAPS friendly recipes now on this blog as that is what we are focused on now.  Starting with a GAPS friendly pizza recipe that I made the other night, wow is it good! The whole family scarfed it and Atty was so excited, he hasn't had pizza in over two years after all! So far I am really loving the GAPS diet for him and I feel strongly that this diet would have been the right one for him from the very beginning, but I guess we will never know for sure... what I do know is that it's the perfect one for him now! :)

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.

Sirens

When I am driving if an ambulance goes by with lights and sirens flashing it still chokes me up! My heart starts to race and I get a lump in my throat, my eyes moisten, I start to breath faster and my mind begins to race. I instantly flash back to the {multiple} ambulance rides Atty and I {and baby sister} went on during his seizure episodes. The feelings that I felt then come crashing over me again. Fear, confusion, frustration, that broken inside sensation. The non-stop begging and praying that was going on in my head, and frankly out loud at times as well. I can remember him clearly laying on that big gurney, showing how little he truly was. Looking so vulnerable. The eerie lighting, the sires sounding as we speed down the freeway. The paramedic attending to his needs. Talking to me to try and distract me from my obvious impending nervous break down. {Although I never did break down in front of any of them, I know I was teetering at moments, especially in the dark of the ambulance when I couldn't stop the tears from coming.} I would sit there and tell him over and over again that mommy was right there, don't be afraid, we will fix this, I love you, it's going to be okay. I just wanted him to hear my voice and know that I was right there. The fear that I felt in those moments of uncertainty still overwhelms me. Our lives when from normal {what ever that is} to absolute turmoil in the blink of an eye. It was so fast it was hard for my brain to catch up. I felt like I was having a horrid night mare so many times through that whole process.

So now we are on the other side, I know this when those feelings wash over me, and it still doesn't make them any less raw. They still hurt. But only for a moment. Then I glace into the rear view mirror and see the smiling face of a healthy happy boy and I remind myself of how far we have come. And I'm so glad that in the end I could keep those desperate promises.