Atty loves these pancakes! I think it might have been a paleo recipe, I'm not sure, I got it from a friend a while ago, so I have nothing to link it to.
Banana pancakes
3 ripe bananas
3 eggs
3 tbsp nut butter
That is the original extent of the ingredients, but I've added the following
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/8 sea salt
a sprinkling of almond or coconut flour {I know that's not very exact, ha ha! Feel free to leave it out}
cinnamon to taste
Makes about 12 little pancakes, I usually double the recipe.
Heat a griddle coated in coconut oil, medium heat. {I don't like non-stick coating but I've yet to find a griddle that doesn't have that, plus these pancakes stick really easily.} Drop by the spoonful onto the preheated griddle. Wait until browned, then flip. Drizzle a melted coconut and honey mixture over top and serve. Or a homemade berry sauce. So yummy!
Enjoy!!
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Muffins, muffins and more muffins!
First recipe I found in the Gluten-free almond flour cookbook by Elana Amsterdam.
Banana Blueberry muffins
3 cups almond flour
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 tbsp oil {I use olive oil, she says to use grape seed oil}
3 large eggs
2 cups mashed very ripe bananas
1 cup frozen blueberries {I think it's important to use organic berries}
Preheat the oven to 350 and grease 12 muffin cups until well coated. {She says to use paper liners, but I never do}.
In a large bowl, combine the almond flour, salt, and baking soda. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil and eggs. Stir the wet into the dry until thoroughly combined. Stir the bananas into the batter, then fold in the blueberries. Spoon into prepared muffin cups.
Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the muffin tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in to the center of a muffin comes out clean. Let the muffins cool in the pan for 30 minutes {if you can} and then serve.
I have added a little honey to this recipe before to make it a little more of a treat, but if you do add honey remember to lower the oven temp. to 325, baking time is usually the same.
I thought I'd also mention that most people who are strictly following the GAPS diet don't use baking soda, but it doesn't appear to be a problem for my son, and I can make all kinds of yummy stuff for him with it so I have made the choice to use it. As always it's up to you whether or not to do that. You could also lower the amount of baking soda used and still get good results. :)
Okay here's the second recipe...
sweet potato muffins- This is not for someone in the first two years of the GAPS diet or someone who is super sensitive, because sweet potatoes are not allowed on the GAPS diet. But my son has been on a special diet over 2 1/2 years now, so I've made these a couple times as a special treat and he has had no negative reaction to them. I reduced the amount of sweet potato needed by using apple sauce as well.
3 cups almond flour
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp olive oil
3 large eggs
1/4-1/2 cup honey to taste
1 cup sweet potatoes
1 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
Preheat the oven to 325 and grease 12 muffin cups until well coated.
In a large bowl, combine the almond flour, salt, and baking soda and spices. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil, eggs and honey. Stir the wet into the dry until thoroughly combined. Stir the sweet potato and apple sauce into the batter. Spoon into prepared muffin cups.
Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the muffin tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in to the center of a muffin comes out clean. Let the muffins cool in the pan for 30 minutes {if you can} and then serve.
Sprinkling a little more cinnamon and drizzling a tad bit of honey on top of these really turns them into a special treat.
And last but not least...
Carrot spice muffins
2 cups almond flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 tbsp flax meal
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup honey
2 large eggs
1 tbsp organic sugar free vanilla extract
2 cups grated carrots, more or less ;)
Preheat oven to 325 and grease 12 muffin cups until well coated.
In a large bowl, combine the almond flour, salt, baking soda, flax meal and cinnamon. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil, honey, eggs, and vanilla extract. Stir the wet into the dry until thoroughly combined, then fold in the carrots. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the muffin tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Let the muffins cool in the pans for 30 minutes {if you dare, ha ha!} and then serve.
My son never wants to wait the whole 30 minutes, and besides them being a tiny bit more crumbly, there really isn't a whole lot of reasons to wait. We hardly ever do. :)
You can also turn these into Cinnamon Apple muffins by replacing the grated carrots with 2 medium apples, peeled, cored, and diced into little tiny pieces.
Remember my recipes are just suggestions that work for our family, you have to make the choice on whether or not they are right for yours! We love these recipes around here, so I just thought I'd share. :)
Enjoy!
Banana Blueberry muffins
3 cups almond flour
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 tbsp oil {I use olive oil, she says to use grape seed oil}
3 large eggs
2 cups mashed very ripe bananas
1 cup frozen blueberries {I think it's important to use organic berries}
Preheat the oven to 350 and grease 12 muffin cups until well coated. {She says to use paper liners, but I never do}.
In a large bowl, combine the almond flour, salt, and baking soda. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil and eggs. Stir the wet into the dry until thoroughly combined. Stir the bananas into the batter, then fold in the blueberries. Spoon into prepared muffin cups.
Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the muffin tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in to the center of a muffin comes out clean. Let the muffins cool in the pan for 30 minutes {if you can} and then serve.
I have added a little honey to this recipe before to make it a little more of a treat, but if you do add honey remember to lower the oven temp. to 325, baking time is usually the same.
I thought I'd also mention that most people who are strictly following the GAPS diet don't use baking soda, but it doesn't appear to be a problem for my son, and I can make all kinds of yummy stuff for him with it so I have made the choice to use it. As always it's up to you whether or not to do that. You could also lower the amount of baking soda used and still get good results. :)
Okay here's the second recipe...
sweet potato muffins- This is not for someone in the first two years of the GAPS diet or someone who is super sensitive, because sweet potatoes are not allowed on the GAPS diet. But my son has been on a special diet over 2 1/2 years now, so I've made these a couple times as a special treat and he has had no negative reaction to them. I reduced the amount of sweet potato needed by using apple sauce as well.
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp olive oil
3 large eggs
1/4-1/2 cup honey to taste
1 cup sweet potatoes
1 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
Preheat the oven to 325 and grease 12 muffin cups until well coated.
In a large bowl, combine the almond flour, salt, and baking soda and spices. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil, eggs and honey. Stir the wet into the dry until thoroughly combined. Stir the sweet potato and apple sauce into the batter. Spoon into prepared muffin cups.
Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the muffin tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in to the center of a muffin comes out clean. Let the muffins cool in the pan for 30 minutes {if you can} and then serve.
Sprinkling a little more cinnamon and drizzling a tad bit of honey on top of these really turns them into a special treat.
And last but not least...
Carrot spice muffins
2 cups almond flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 tbsp flax meal
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup honey
2 large eggs
1 tbsp organic sugar free vanilla extract
2 cups grated carrots, more or less ;)
Preheat oven to 325 and grease 12 muffin cups until well coated.
In a large bowl, combine the almond flour, salt, baking soda, flax meal and cinnamon. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil, honey, eggs, and vanilla extract. Stir the wet into the dry until thoroughly combined, then fold in the carrots. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the muffin tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Let the muffins cool in the pans for 30 minutes {if you dare, ha ha!} and then serve.
My son never wants to wait the whole 30 minutes, and besides them being a tiny bit more crumbly, there really isn't a whole lot of reasons to wait. We hardly ever do. :)
You can also turn these into Cinnamon Apple muffins by replacing the grated carrots with 2 medium apples, peeled, cored, and diced into little tiny pieces.
Remember my recipes are just suggestions that work for our family, you have to make the choice on whether or not they are right for yours! We love these recipes around here, so I just thought I'd share. :)
Enjoy!
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Looking back, looking forward.
Rereading this, as well as the other posts from that time period, makes my heart race. So glad we have come so far. Looking at the pictures, when all of that was going on, makes me sad. But also feel so very thankful for where we are at and how healthy he is now! I've been known to smile with tears.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
snags are no fun
So we hit a little snag switching over to the GAPS diet. I started with introducing some honey, then properly soaked white beans, and then properly soaked lentils and all was going well it seemed. So then I introduced just a little bit of cheddar cheese as well. I didn't test it first, which I should have I guess. There is a way to test foods before introducing them on the GAPS diet, but I was hoping after being on such a strict diet already for two years {the Modified Atkins for Seizures diet} that we could just switch over slowly to the GAPS with out doing the intro and testing and all that stuff. I originally wanted to start with the intro, but our schedules have been so overwhelmingly busy and I didn't want to put of starting the diet any longer so I've just jumped in with out for now. Anyways I didn't notice any thing right away and then behavioral stuff started sneaking it's way back in. And he started wetting himself again. Just little dark spots on the front of his pants like he use to. It's like he starts leaking or something. He was very embarrassed about it, and would get really upset when I would ask him if he had an accident or tell him to change his clothes. It took me a moment to put two and two together I'm afraid, I mean it was nagging at me but I was hoping, once again, that it had nothing to do with diet. Then the sensory things started again, the panicked, overwhelmed, crying stuff started all over again in large groups of noisy people. We went to a place called Jungle Playland, that has all sorts of climbing equipment, slides, etc... it's like a giant indoor awesome playground. He fell apart {in the end he did start to play, but for the first half he clung to me and cried and looked absolutely panicked}. And that's when it hit me. It's starting all over again. I almost had a panic attack myself while we were there. Just thinking, Oh my Goodness, we can not go back to that! So I took everything but the honey back out of his diet again. And you guessed it... back on the right track. It will never cease to amazing me how much diet affects us in so many more ways then we realize! I am glad that we caught it when it was mostly behavioral this time. But this really hits home that his gut is still damaged and highly reactive. I have reintroduced the white beans a bit with no reaction and I really don't feel that it was the lentils. I feel very certain that it was the dairy. He was very sensitive to dairy before his seizures even started, so I knew there was a possibility that he wouldn't tolerate it. He just really wanted to try and I let him, and now we know. Not ready for that yet, possibly not ever. Over all the GAPS switch over has been nice. To allow him unlimited veggies and fruit has been wonderful. Not having to count carbs, beautiful! Especially now that it's summer. He is able to eat out of the garden with out my having to count out 5 blueberries, or measure 1/2 cup of strawberries and then tell him he's done. That was really hard to do before, I just hated it! But no more of that, thankfully! I still want him to eat protein/healthy fats with his fruits and veggies because I feel like it helps balance things. But I've even relaxed about that when we are just eating out of the yard and I haven't noticed a problem with it, so I think it might be mostly a left over fear from when we were on the MAS diet. On that diet I had to pair all the carbs {his were from fruit and veggies sources} with a fat. I'd have to say the honey is by far the best change. Oh the yummy treats I can make with honey! So much better then stevia. I still use a little stevia, mostly to sweeten cold drinks, like his lemon water or ice tea, but I have been able to expand his recipes and make the most delicious things! One of them being a trail mix made with honey that when processed a bit in a food processor doubles as a breakfast cereal. Will be adding that recipe soon! :)
Sweet summer treat
Made some really yummy popsicles for Atty the other day. They taste sort of like fudgesicles. This recipe is not exact, it's a bit of a guess and test thing. :) Here are the ingredients.
Creamy chocolate popsicles
coconut milk
coconut oil
nut butter {choose your favorite}
raisins
unsweetened cocoa powder
honey
I was making six popsicles, and I just eye balled all the ingredients. I wish sometimes that I was more of an exact cook, it would make sharing recipes so much easier. :) But I actually like the freedom of throwing stuff together in the kitchen. The raisins will sweeten it up a lot so you don't need very much honey. Use mostly raisins, but taste test, you do want these sweet, the cocoa powder can make is sort of bitter if you are not careful. Start with mostly coconut milk and add to that, use only a little coconut oil, mostly nut butter to thicken. Blend it all up in a blender, including the raisins. I had a little of the mixture left over after filling the molds, and Atty had no problem finishing it off as it was. :) Pop these bad boys in the freezer until set, and enjoy!
So Good!
Creamy chocolate popsicles
coconut milk
coconut oil
nut butter {choose your favorite}
raisins
unsweetened cocoa powder
honey
I was making six popsicles, and I just eye balled all the ingredients. I wish sometimes that I was more of an exact cook, it would make sharing recipes so much easier. :) But I actually like the freedom of throwing stuff together in the kitchen. The raisins will sweeten it up a lot so you don't need very much honey. Use mostly raisins, but taste test, you do want these sweet, the cocoa powder can make is sort of bitter if you are not careful. Start with mostly coconut milk and add to that, use only a little coconut oil, mostly nut butter to thicken. Blend it all up in a blender, including the raisins. I had a little of the mixture left over after filling the molds, and Atty had no problem finishing it off as it was. :) Pop these bad boys in the freezer until set, and enjoy!
So Good!
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
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!
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! :)
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