Charlotte's Legal Blondies

My daughter Charlotte invented this recipe.  Very healthy and sooooo yummy!  Tastes like butterscotch.  She cooked it in our solar oven so the temperature is low and the time long.  I think it kept all the ingredients intact and flavorful. 

1 banana

2 cups dates

½ cup coconut oil

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 ¼ cups almond flour

½ tsp salt

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp cinnamon

½ cup chopped pecans

Put banana, dates and coconut oil in blender and process until creamy.  Add eggs and vanilla and process again.  In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients.  Add blender contents and mix well.  Mix in pecans.

Spoon into greased brownie pan.  Bake at 250F for 1 hour.  


Variation: if you want to make Brownies add 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder.  I love brownies, but amazingly, the blondies were even better!

Asparagus Velouté

A velouté (French for velvety) is a very smooth soup.  The asparagus and coconut flavors blend surprisingly deliciously.  Super easy too - and we GAPSters always have lots of chicken broth on hand!

Asparagus Velouté

2 cups chicken broth

1 bunch asparagus

2 cups coconut milk

1.  Rinse the asparagus. 

2.  Put about one cup of the chicken broth in each of two saucepans.  Bring both to a simmer on medium heat.

3.  Meanwhile, break the asparagus into 1 to 2 inch pieces with your hands.  Put the all the tips in one saucepan, and the rest except the pieces that are too tough in the other.  Simmer for about 8 minutes, until the asparagus is tender.

4.  Measure the coconut milk in your blender jar.  Add the contents of the saucepan that has the middle of the asparagus.  Process on high until completely smooth.

5.  Pour the blender contents into the second pan.  Mix and check seasonings (salt, pepper).  Serve lukewarm. 

Chia-fennel purée

I've been experimenting with savory dishes based on chia seeds.  This one turned out quite nicely, and is a good substitute for mashed potatoes. Kinda rounds out the meal, especially if you serve another dish with a nice rich sauce that cries for something to sop it up with. And chia gives you a full feeling like no other GAPS-legal food.  I searched through many

Make the chia gel ahead of time: the longer the chia seeds soak, the firmer the gel gets - meaning the less of those expensive seeds you use.  What's more, the longer they soak, the more nutrients you get from the seeds.  You can make the chia-broth gel in large batches to add to mashed carrots, squash, or other vegetable of your choice.  The gel keeps for at least a week in the refrigerator.

Chia-fennel purée


3 Tbs chia seeds
½ cup broth, seasoned to taste

1 onion, chopped
¼ cup butter, ghee or coconut oil
1 bulb fennel, chopped
½ cup broth, seasoned to taste

Prepare chia gel:

Mix chia seeds into broth in a container with a lid.  Stir once or twice then refrigerate 8 hours or more.

Cook fennel:

Sauté fennel in butter in a large pan on low for 5 minutes.  Add fennel and sauté for 5 minutes, then add broth and simmer until most of the liquid has evaporated, stirring frequently (do not cover pan).

Blend together:

Put chia gel and fennel in blender or food processor.  Process until smooth.  Check seasonings.

Serve warm.

Bettercestershire

Ok, bad one, sorry, couldn't resist.  And I am aware the first syllable in Worcestershire isn't even pronounced "worse."  My DH bought some Lea & Perrins Worcestershire even though sugar is listed as an ingredient, so what else can a faithful wife do but create a GAPS-legal taste-alike?  The thing is, it really is better for your health, so there's more to the name than a bad play on words!

I can't really give you exact amounts because the process involved pouring a bit more vinegar, a bit more honey, tasting, adding more of this or that, and tasting, tasting, tasting.  Using the genuine L&P as my guide of course.  But I can give you (while recording for myself) the list of ingredients, with my educated guess at how much actually went in:

Ingredients:

Vinegar (ordinary, not Balsamic which is not GAPS) about 1/4 cup
Coconut Aminos similar quantity
Honey maybe 1 teaspoon
5 cloves garlic. crushed in a garlic press
5 pieces of fresh onion cur into garlic-clove-size pieces and crushed in the garlic press
quite a few drops of Hot Scotch Bonnet sauce
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp mustard
1 capsule fermented cod liver oil, contents thereof
1/2 tsp Marmite*

* I'm pretty sure you can omit the Marmite!..  it just sits there on my shelf so I thought this could be a way to use it.   I'm not actually certain it's GAPS-legal.


1.  Mix all ingredients in a small bowl until the honey and the Marmite are dissolved  The FCLO is my substitute for anchovies, one of the L&P ingredients.

2.  Filter out the garlic and onion pulp using a permanent coffee filter.

3.  Taste and add more honey, salt, etc. as desired.  

(4.  Pour the L&P down the drain and refill the bottle with Bettercestershire.)

(5.  Don't tell anyone you did this.)

UPDATE: After going a couple of weeks with this horrid secret between DH and me, I 'fessed up and made him take the taste test.  He was really surprised at how close the Faux stuff  tasted. 

Thai-style Salmon Head Soup with Cilantro and Shrimp

This turned out very nicely, so I'm recording how I made it before I forget!

My latest kitchen gadget is a simple mandolin and I LOVE it!  The razor-sharp blade makes thin even slices of almost anything firm enough to be sliced at all. Here, I used it to make almost paper-thin slices of red bell pepper, green pepper, and ginger, which made lovely translucent colors floating in the white broth. 

Fish broth is made very quickly and should never be simmered at length like chicken or beef broth.  The broth can become bitter if simmered too long.  This recipe is easier than it looks. 

The bell peppers in this recipe are what I had on hand tonight, but they could be replaced by others like broccoli, green beans, carrots, which you would cook al dente in some of the broth rather than add raw like the peppers.  Avocado slices would be a nice addition just before serving, too.

Ingredients

2 Salmon heads with part of the neck
2 quarts filtered water

1/2 of a sweet green pepper (optional)
1/2 of a sweet red pepper (optional)
3 to 5 cloves garlic depending on size and how garlicky you like stuff
3 cups coconut milk (approx)
2 tsp salt or to taste
1 thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger root
1 lb fresh or frozen shrimp, with or without heads, peeled or unpeeled (optional)
2 Tbs chopped lemongrass (optional)
6 to 10 mushrooms, fresh or dried (optional)
6 to 10 sprigs fresh cilantro
6 green onions 
hot cayenne pepper to taste
3 lemons or limes or 8 key limes


Directions:

1.  If you have dried mushrooms, soak them in a bowl of boiling water.  If you have fresh mushrooms, cut them into thick slices and saute them for 5 minutes in coconut oil.  If you have no mushrooms that's ok too.  

2.  Rinse the fish heads. Put the heads in the large pot with the water, bring to just under boiling and simmer for 20 minutes.  Do not boil!  

3. Strain the broth into a large container and return to the large pot.  Let the strainer contents cool down in a bowl.

4. Meanwhile, slice the peppers thinly (a mandolin does this superbly), peel and slice the ginger very thinly (mandolin!), and slice the spring onions as finely as you like, green and white parts (but not the wilted or tough parts of the green).

5.  Prepare 2 extra containers for picking the heads apart.  In one container, put the flesh, which is mostly in the neck (collar?), but there's also a lovely piece in the cheek and other bits here and there in the head.  In the other container, put all the soft gelatinous or fatty tissues you can pick off the "bones" (it is cartilage).  You can put the eyes in this bowl (they're are said to have a wonderful flavor - I'm too chicken to taste them...!).  Discard the hard parts.  The skin has a lot of fat under it, so put it in the fatty tissues container (that fat is home to all those great omega-3 fatty acids). 

6.  Pour about 2 cups of the broth into the medium pot and add the shrimp.  Simmer until just cooked.  Pour 1 cup of the broth into the small pot and add the lemongrass, if using, and simmer 5 to 10 minutes.

7. Put the soft tissues in the blender with 2 cups of broth and the garlic.  Liquefy.

8.  Pour the contents of the blender into the large pot which has the rest of the broth, and also add the coconut milk, salt, thinly sliced peppers, green onions and ginger root, the salmon flesh, and the shrimp with its cooking broth.  Strain the lemongrass-flavored broth into the soup.  Add hot cayenne pepper to taste and correct the salt to taste.  Reheat the soup gently. 

9.  Meanwhile, wash the cilantro and discard any wilted leaves.  Lay in a bunch with all the stems in your supporting hand.  Chop the leaves into approx one inch pieces.  Add to the soup just before serving.

10. Juice the lemon/limes and add to the soup just before serving.




I wish there was a way I could figure out how much n-3 fatty acids was in a cup of this broth!  All I know is I read somewhere that some of the commercial fish oils are extracted from fish eyes, so I know the fatty acids are in there.

Coconut milk sugar composition

Ever wonder what sugars are in coconut milk?  I know it doesn't have very much, or I wouldn't have to add dates to make yogurt.  But the exact composition was a mystery to me, and I've spent several hours looking for it, never finding it... UNTIL TODAY.  I found this Australian Food Standards website.

The website gives the composition of coconut cream, defined as the liquid extract of mature coconut meat, presumably not using water.  So it's more concentrated than coconut milk, but if you pro-rate it it works out to, per 100 grams coconut milk:
Fructose, 0.1 g
Glucose, 0.3 g
Sucrose, 1.6 g
Total: 2 g, which is the amount listed on the box of Aroy-D coconut milk on my shelf.

So there it is: coconut milk contains sucrose, theoretically not allowed on GAPS. But it's a very small amount compared to most fruits, including bananas (6.5g of sucrose!). There's a great table showing the breakdown of sugars for a long list of fruits here.

Dried dates have about 60g sugar per 100g, which is usually pretty evenly divided between fructose and glucose, and that's what make them a good sweetener for GAPSters.

One-bowl recipe for Crumpets and Biscuits

These crumpets are delightful for breakfast or anytime with a cup of tea, are made in under 45 minutes, and use only one bowl.  I use a Pyrex 1-quart measuring cup, so I can melt the butter directly in the mixing bowl while preheating the oven.  Less mess, less cleanup!  If you don't have the Pyrex 1-qt measuring cup, use an oven-proof bowl -- glass, ceramic, or metal. 

For plain biscuits just omit the last three ingredients - those are the staple bread substitute at our house.  I often do both, adding half the indicated honey, cinnamon and currants after first dropping 8 plain biscuits on the cookie sheet.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter (one stick) or 1/3 cup ghee
2 eggs
1 tsp lemon juice or vinegar
2 1/2 cups very fine almond flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp honey
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 to 1/2 cup currants

Directions:

1. Put the butter in a medium-size ovenproof mixing bowl and put the bowl in the oven.  Turn the oven  to 325 F to preheat. 
2. If the eggs are cold, set them in a mug of warm water to bring them to room temperature.

3. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
4. When the butter is melted or almost melted (one to four minutes depending on how cold it was), remove from oven.  Do not overheat. If you're using ghee melting will take much less time.

5  Add lemon juice/vinegar (I usually use ACV) and eggs.  Mix well.

6. Add 1 cup of almond flour and mix very well.
7. Measure the remaining 1 1/2 cups almond flour into the bowl, then sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the flour.  Mix very well.
8.  Add the honey, cinnamon and currants, mix well, or not so well, as desired.  You might like it with streaks of honey/cinnamon!
9.  Use 2 soup spoons to drop onto the parchment-lined baking sheet.  Make about 18 blobs. Shape is not important.
10.  Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

They should still be somewhat moist when you take them out.  They will firm up as they cool.  Keep in a basket or bowl at room temperature.  Unlike grain-based breads, these don't dry out.  Though to tell the truth, they never stay long enough to tell!

Day 4 of week challenge

For one week, I'm writing down everything I do to prepare food.  Not the buying, not the eating, just the cooking.  It's been mostly about making dinner, since breakfast is usually each person on his/her own, and lunch is usually leftovers from previous dinner. 

Friday.

0900  Put chicken in crockpot on Low, sprinkle generously with sea salt.  Cover.

1100 Add ground turmeric, paprika and a little hot cayenne to the chicken - gives it a nice color and great flavor.

1215 Pretty late to start cooking lunch, but was busy with baby.  Wipe mushrooms with a paper towel, slice, sauté in ghee.  Meanwhile, wash and chop broccoli. Cut "bark" off broccoli stems and chop too.
1235 Remove mushrooms from skillet, add the broccoli and more ghee.  Toss frquently.
1300 Put mushrooms back in with broccoli, add salt and a crushed garlic clove. Serve with leftover spaghetti squash and meat sauce for lunch.But first a generous helping of picled carrots, green beans, broccoli, onions and garlic,with a drizzle of EVOO. 
1430  Chicken is cooked, but not too cooked.  Put skin on baking sheet for "chicken chips."  Remove all the meat from the chicken in the crockpot,  Return all the bones and cartilage to the crockpot, add 2 qts water, turn on High. Store the meat for later use, put skins in fridge.
1510 Done with sorting chicken,
1700 Turn crockpot to Warm,  Take open box of Aroy-D coconut milk from fridge, notice half of it is lovely clump of mostly oil, guess you couild call it coconut cream, and the rest is liquid.  Pour the liquid into a glass bottle, label it Lite coconut milk with yesterday's date (when the box was opened).  Spoon the "cream" into Vitamix blender (about 3/4 cup), add remainder of frozen mangoes DH left in fridge to thaw several days ago, must use soon, about 1 cup. Add 2 tsp Martinique rum. Process on High.  Pour into pudding cups, cover, refrigerate (found great glass pudding cups WITH LIDS (plastic) at a dollar store).
1720 Decide to make salmon for dinner.  Preheat oven to 375 F.  Defrost 4 salmon fillets in microwave, one at a time, about 2 mins each.  Meanwhile, clean up and dig into fridge to look for a side veggie to cook.  Find fennel bulb. Put salmon fillets in small square Pyrex, smear with coconut oil, sprinkle with Old Bay seasoning.
1735 Place salmon in oven.  Slice the fennel bulb.  Place slices on baking sheet.  No oil,, no seasonings.
1740 Put fennel in oven.  Peel one carrot, then keep peeling to make slivers for the tossed salad.
1745 Put baking sheet with chicken skins in oven (was in fridge).
1750 Remove salmon from oven. Continuing with carrot, switch to slices.  Put carrot slices and slivers in salad bowl. add previously fermented (pickled) carrot slices and 1 Tbs of the juice.  Add freshly crushed garlic clove and 2 Tbs EVOO.  Top with lettuce and sprouts.
1805 Fennel has brown tips. Remove from oven.  Wash cilantro, about 1/2 bunch.  Dry in salad spinner.
1810 Process cilantro in small but fast food processor until chopped fine.  Add about 1/2 cup previously fermented whipping cream yogurt and salt to taste, process until it's a lovely green sauce for the salmon (should also have put in capers, whole, or even pureed into the sauce).  Transfer to puddung cup to serve with salmon.
1820 Puree fennel in same processor without washing.
1830 Serve!
Crockpot still has simmering chicken broth, which I'll leave all night.

Day 3 of week's challenge

Thursday

Forgot to write that yesterday, I took out a package of ground beef (extra lean, yuck) to thaw.

1300 – Have to go out but need to take a headstart on dinner: pop a whole spaghetti squash in the crockpot, set on Medium.

1630 – Get home.  Spaghetti squash is just right!  Pure luck.  Chop finely one large onion and 5 garlic cloves.  Take beef fat reserved from a too-fatty beef marrow bone broth, melt in frying pan, add onions, sauté until tender, add garlic and sauté 1 minute.  Remove onion and garlic from pan, add 2 Tbs coconut oil (I’m out of beef fat) and brown the ground beef, breaking into bite-size pieces with a spatula.  Meanwhile, finely chop the beef marrow (reserved from above-mentioned broth, DH does not like in soup).  Add to the browned ground.  Add 1 cup tomato sauce (bought in glass bottles) and 1 tsp dried oregano.  Cover and simmer.  Meanwhile, drop 2 roma tomatoes in boiling water in small saucepan for 30 secs.  Peel, chop into big chunks, add to ground beef, simmer 5 more minutes until tomatoes are just tender.

1730.  Slice some of the bread made yesterday and toast twice in toaster-oven, until somewhat dry on the surface.  Let cool, then rub with a peeled garlic clove and spread with ghee – garlic bread!

1745  Open spaghetti squash by cutting a door in the side.  I serve it just like that, using a pasta spoon.  Because, I’m out of time!  Quickly put together a green salad with previously washed lettuce. 

Not a big cooking day, just got by on leftovers most of the day.  There just isn't that much time with the baby here (3 weeks old yesterday) and I'm glad I have lots of sauerkraut and pickled vegetables on hand, and have perfected making yogurt and kombucha before the baby was born!

Day 2 of Week Challenge

I’m going to attempt to write down everything I do to prepare food for one week.  Not what I eat, which includes munching on previously made foods and drinks.  Just the cooking.

Wednesday

1030 Look for a better ghee recipe. This one looks good.  Lots of pics and explanations.

1045 Start making ghee by putting 1 lb butter (regular unsalted, can’t afford organic) in my small 1 qt crockpot, turn on High, leave uncovered.  The recipe says to use a heavy saucepan but to watch carefully.  With an infant to take care of, watching is unpredictable so I’m giving the crockpot a try. 

1145 Mix leftover chicken livers cooked with onions and sweet peppers with some of the broth made yesterday and some of the beans cooked yesterday, for lunch.  Press and mix in a garlic clove just before serving.

1100 – 1500 Check ghee every half hour without disturbing.  Looks just like the pictures on the blog.  Great!

1500 Cut up 2 turnips, 2 carrots and half a butternut squash into tiny dice for tonight’s soup. 

1530 Ghee looks great but no brown stuff at the bottom yet. 

1600  Yes!  Brown stuff at bottom of pot, crackely foam at the top, and golden liquid in between.  Remove crock from heating element and set in a pan of cold water to cool down.  Smells wonderful!  Like butterscotch.  Next instruction is to strain it in a permanent coffee filter.  I’ll wait for it to cool down completely first.  Turn off soup.

1700 It’s a bit late to do so, but start making Lois Lang’s Luscious Loaf bread – from Breaking the vicious cycle with my additional instructions.  I make this so often (but am so forgetful) that I’ve photocopied the page and taped it to the inside of a cabinet door.  The additional instructions are, 1. Line the loaf pan with parchment paper.  2.  Put 3 eggs in a bowl of warm water to bring to room temperature so the melted butter (I’ll use ghee) doesn’t harden.  3.  Preheat oven to 350 F, etc as directed, skip the instructions to butter and flour the pan, and change “shape the loaf with wet hands” to “drop the batter onto a wet flexible cutting board, curve the board into a cylinder and roll the dough around until it has the right length for your pan, roll into the pan.”  Remainder of instructions unchanged.  Except, no need to run a knife or spatula around the edge, I just lift the loaf right out of the pan, and the paper doesn’t stick to it at all. 

1730  While the bread bakes (for 1 hour), take chicken meat cooked yesterday out of fridge.  In a small saucepan, mix about ½ cup of the chicken broth and legal “mole sauce” previously made.  Pour over chicken meat, mix, and put in oven next to bread. 

1745 Make a salad, same as Tuesday’s, except with avocado chunks and tomatoes.

1755 Check soup for seasonings, turn heat back on to warm up just enough to serve.  Pour into bowls and add 1 raw egg yolk to each bowl, mix well.  Save egg whites for next batch of crepes.  Reheat leftover vegetables as side dishes.  Should have made guacamole, terrific side for chicken with mole sauce. 

2100 Hm. Ghee has hardened.  Place crock into pan of hot water.

2130  Strain ghee through permanent coffee filter placed in 2-cup pyrex measuring cup.  Pour most of the ghee into a glass jar, because the measuring cup is too full.  Scrape everything out of the crock into the coffee filter.  looks and smells GREAT!  Thanks, Radhika!

Week's worth challenge

For one week, I’m going to attempt to write down everything I do to prepare food.

Tuesday

0800 – Open crockpot to concentrate the beef marrow bone broth that has been simmering for about 20 hours – 3^rd use of the bones, kept them in freezer in between.

0900 – Google scd coconut crepe recipe using the egg whites left over after adding yolks to DH’s broth.

0930 – Put navy beans to cook in small crockpot (1 ½ cups, soaked 24 hours) with nothing but water to cover.

0930 – DD & I start making crepes.  Alter the recipe because of missing ingredients, plus I want to make 4 times the recipe, since I have 4 egg whites.  Make more changes after tasting the first crepe - too mealy.  What’s “1 Heaping TBS of coconut flour” times 4, anyway?  Blame the original recipe.  Add more water (¼ cup), more coconut milk (¼ cup) and 2 tsp rum, for taste (the alcohol evaporates in cooking, but the rum gives the crepes a yummy yeasty taste).

1000 – ladle beef broth into mason jar.  Leave about ½ inch broth in crockpot because wearing baby (DGD), can’t pick up the crock.  Put whole chicken in crockpot, cover with salt and sprinkle with rosemary.  Change heat to High.

1025 – eat a crepe prepared by DD wrapped around shredded swiss cheese and salad sprouts.  Yum!  The elasticity of the cheese blends well with the mealiness of the crepe.  Leave the rest of the batter for dinner, surely DH will be impressed?  They don’t have the chewiness of real crepes, but have a nice flavor and a beautiful golden color.

1030 – start writing this post.

1040 – Clean up.  Notice beans are still cold, plug in crockpot…

1050 – Non-Food Related Activity (NFRA)

1145 – Think of dinner menu:

• Chicken-carrot broth (w/ egg yolks stirred in j.b.serving)
• Crepe chicken wraps with greens in yogurted whipping cream – or should I use the crepes for dessert?  Crepes with mango and whipping cream yogurt?
• Carrot sticks (DGS’s fave shape) cooked in chicken broth.
• Tossed salad with skj vinaigrette (regular vinaigrette using half skj, half ACV)

Go pick up crying baby.  Decide to go with the chicken-filled crepes and a lighter dessert. The crepes will replace the squash replacing starch for once.

• Coconut yogurt mango smoothie, nearly frozen in individual pudding cups. With a dollop of whipping cream yogurt with vanilla & eensy bit of honey.  No bananas in the smoothie since they made DH sick last week.  Sprinkling of nutmeg. 

1200 Sprinkle paprika and turmeric over chicken.  Peel and cut carrots.

1205 NFRA

1315 Resume cutting carrots.

1325 Open coconut.  Spoiled coconut!  grrr…

1330 NFRA

1500 Transfer chicken breasts, legs & thighs, and wings from crockpot to pyrex dish.  Pull out bones and return them to crockpot. Cover chicken meat.  Add carrots and 2 qts water to crockpot. Cover.

1508 NFRA

1630  Make coconut yogurt-mango smoothie.  (1 cup cy, 1 cup thawed frozen mango chunks, blend in Vitamix).  Pour into cups, freeze.  Clean blender jar.

1645.  Make crepes with remaining batter.  Batter is still too thick, add more water.  Meanwhile, wash greens, cut off stems.  Slice stems.  Cut leafy parts into large pieces, sauté in duck fat in a large skillet, cover.  Toss occasionally.  Turn off heat after completely wilted.

1720 Take carrot sticks out of crockpot with slotted spoon and place in serving dish.  Cover.  Add sliced stems to crockpot.

1730 Chop some of the chicken meat and add to the greens.  Check that mixture is not too hot, add whipping cream yogurt, stir, spoon onto crepes, roll crepes, stack them in serving plate.  Cover with an inverted bowl to keep warm.

1745 Squeeze half lemon into salad bowl.  Sprinkle with salt.  Crush in 1 clove garlic.  Add 2 tsp skj + 1 Tbs evoo.   Mix.  Add lettuce and sprouts. Toss.

1800 Serve! 

1930 Cleanup.  In the madness that characterizes dinnertime in a household with three DGC aged 19 mos, 15 mos, and 2 weeks, the soup didn’t get served.   A headstart on tomorrow!

2000 NFRA

2100  Strain the broth, pour into mason jars.  Put the strained stuff in a container. Transfer cooked beans to jars and refrigerate everything.

So here’s the final crepe recipe.  And Yes! DH was QUITE impressed, wants crepes to be regular item.

Coconut flour crepes

4 eggs

4 egg whites

½ cup coconut flour

1 cup water

¾ cup coconut milk

¼ tsp salt

2 tsp rum (for flavor – optional)

fat for the pan (coconut oil or ghee)

small frying pan (bottom is about 6” diameter)

In a bowl, combine all ingredients except the fat for the pan.  Mix until smooth. 

Let it sit while preheating frying pan to low/med low.  Add 1/2 tsp ghee or coconut oil, swirl the pan around to coat entire bottom.  Pour about 1/8 cup (2 TBS) of batter to the pan, swirl the pan to coat the bottom but not all the way to the edge (for easier turning).  When the edge of the crepe is golden, turn and cook the other side briefly. The exact time depends on the heat, but these cook pretty fast.

Use with sweet or savoury fillings.

You are what eats what you eat

That's right.  "You are what you eat" is passé.  The Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) theory gives us new insights on personality, heredity, and development, and adds new shades of gray to the nature/nurture debate.

What you eat goes through your gut, gets digested, and becomes you.  So we all learned in grade school.  But now a much more complex process is being uncovered by researchers everywhere.  Our intestines are host to trillions of bacteria, yeasts, bacilli and other microorganisms, all of which have a DNA of their own (all together, about 150 times the number of genes in the human genome).  They exist in a kind of organized ecosystem, vying for nutrients and space just like flora and fauna do in the seas or in a tropical rainforest.  I like to think of it as a coral reef, beautiful, fruitful, and fragile, with new layers building on top of older layers.  The first layer, as Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride explains so well, is formed during the first 20 days after birth.

The French wikipedia articles on probiotics and the microbiota mention that there are 400 different species of bacteria living just on the average human hand (yes, in spite of all that handwashing and dishwashing), and over 10,000 in the human gut (this article says 40,000!).  Meanwhile, the MetaHIT  (Metagenomics of the Human Intestinal Tract) research team, in Europe. presented a paper on Enterotypes (April 2011), which says the human population can be divided into three groups according to gut biota (biota is a more correct term than flora, because it includes both flora and fauna and anything in between).  So there’s all this diversity (40,000) but much similarity from person to person.  To quote: “each individual harbors some 170 bacterial species out of a total of about 1000 that are predominant in the gut. Most of these species are common to many individuals, showing that we are all rather similar.” 

As the GAPS book explains, the influence of gut flora on mental function is huge.  The heartbreaking stories of autistic children whose symptoms all disappear when the child receives Clostridia-eradicating medication, only to return after a couple of weeks because this medication itself is too toxic to be taken any longer than that, are illustrations in point.  The parents get a glimpse of who their child "really" is.  Who is the real child?  The autistic child that the parents live with day in, day out, or the child within, the child they hope to know some day? 

Wish I had time to read more, and write more.  But this is becoming clear as research confirms Dr. NCM's theory: we are what eats what we eat.  Our personalities are influenced, in varying degrees, by the gut biota that feeds on what we swallow.

So, "Be all that you can be", “To thine own self be true”, and “Discover yourself”: free yourself and your family from the microorganisms that undermine your mental health and alter your personality.  Eat the nutrient-dense foods indicated in the GAPS nutrition protocol, and avoid foods containing toxic ingredients like sugar, starches (i.e., almost all processed foods) and industry-created chemicals.  Listen to Mother Nature, who made our guts and all the food they’re meant to digest. 

Quick and Easy Coconut Milk Yogurt

I've revised my coconut milk yogurt recipe. It's much faster, much easier. No heating, no cooling down, no watching temperatures.  Because it's made with coconut milk it has no lactose and no casein, so no 24-hour incubation needed.  You do need a blender and a yogurt maker or other way to keep the microorganisms thriving at their favorite temperature for 8 hours. I use a crockpot plugged into a dimmer switch.

If you are doing strict SCD or GAPS you must make your own coconut milk.  There are lots of good recipes on line for this.  I actually use Aroy-D Coconut milk in 1 litre TetraPaks, which has won awards (I know...).  It lists only coconuts and water as ingredients, and as far as I know, the TetraPak packaging contains no BPA, which canned coconut milk (like all other canned foods) does contain.

Dates are added to provide food (fructose) for the microorganisms that turn milk into yogurt (Lactobacillus, Streptococcus, etc).  Dates are said to be very digestible, but if you prefer, you can replace the dates with 1 Tablespoon of raw honey.

The unflavored gelatin sets the yogurt to a soft gel as it cools.  One pack of gelatin usually sets 2 cups of liquid to the bouncy "Jell-O" consistency we all know.  Here we're doing over 4 cups of liquid, so it won't be as firm as Jell-O, but of a gentle consistency that blends in a heavenly way with the coconut milk's creaminess. Gelatin is also very soothing for the digestive system.

Keep refrigerated, like any yogurt.  Should keep well for at least a week but in my house it's gone within about a day, so it's a good thing it's quick and easy to make again!

COCONUT MILK YOGURT

Ingredients:

4 cups coconut milk , at room temperature or up to 42 C
1 package yogurt starter or the dose for 1 quart milk
1 package unflavored gelatin (1 scant Tablespoon) or 1 1/2 Tablespoons unflavored Vegan Jel
5 raw dates, pitted

 Directions:

1. Plug in your yogurt maker to warm it up.  Place all the ingredients near your blender.

2. Pour the coconut milk into the blender jar (use the jar measures to get the right amount if using canned milk).  Start the blender on a low speed, take off the whole lid, and sprinkle the unflavored gelatin and the yogurt starter into the middle of the swirling milk.  Turn off blender, add dates, put the lid on, and process on high for 1 minute, until dates are liquefied.   Pour into yogurt maker and follow your usual yogurt-making steps.  Incubate 6 to 8 hours.

3.  After about 6 hours, the yogurt will still be liquid and the cream will have risen to the top. No worries! Mix well and taste the yogurt to see if you prefer to let it ferment longer.  If it's got that great yogurt taste, put the lid on the container and refrigerate.  After cooling 1 to 2 hours (depends on your container), the gelatin will be starting to set, and it will be starting to separate again. Mix again (add 1 tsp vanilla if desired). Cool 2 to 3 more hours before serving.

Avocapaya Salad

All eager to embark on adding enzymes to our diet, I made this salad today.  I credit my relative Claire for introducing the Avocado-Papaya combination years ago, and I never forgot how good it was.  This is the first time I've been able to make something approximately as good as what she made that day at the beach.

1 large Papaya (or two small ones)
3 sprigs Cilantro
3 Hass Avocados (or 1 or 2 Fuertes)
1 lime

Rinse the papaya, because you'll be eating some of the peel, which has most of the enzymes.  Cut the papaya in half along the "equator" (not the usual way).  Save one half for another use (smoothie!).  Place the other half cut side down on a cutting board and use a sharp knife to slice off the top and cut down along the sides to remove the peel.  This method is fast and minimizes handlling.  Save some of the peel for smoothies, except one or two long pieces, which you now cut into little bits for this salad - don't worry, they will go totally unnoticed among the cilantro leaves.

Turn over the peeled papaya half, and remove the seeds.  The seeds are also enzyme-rich, so you may want to leave a few in the salad. They should be swallowed without chewing, because they have a bitter taste.  You can also drop them into smoothies just before serving, where they'll be like bubbles in bubble tea.

Cut the now peeled and seedless papaya flesh into chunks about the size of a walnut, and place in salad bowl.

Cut the bottom of the cilantro sprigs where the stems meet, and rinse off any dirt. Shake the water off. Chop into 1/2 inch pieces and sprinkle onto the papaya in the salad bowl.

Cut each avocado in half and pry out the pit by chopping your knife halfway into the pit and twisting.  With a soup spoon, scoop out large chunks of the avocado into the salad bowl. Use the empty skin to pull the pit off your knife.

Juice the lime and sprinkle onto the goodies in the bowl.

Toss and serve. I promise it will disappear.

This is a SALT-FREE recipe but the lime juice does have sodium.  All the other ingredients are so rich in potassium that this is an excellent dish for sodium watchers.

Why I haven't posted for over a month

Because my laptop's been with the Best Buy Geeks all this time. "One to two weeks," they said. (Hope they don't read this... they wouldn't load a virus on it for revenge, would they?) On the positive side, they are replacing my screen, which had stopped showing anything, and my hard drive, which they discovered had problems after they fixed the screen, for no extra charge.

On the other hand, I've had more time to smooth out some of the wrinkles of starting the SCDiet and I'll be able to cut to the successes rather than blog about my "Eat It Anyway" crunchings...!

How to bust and milk a coconut

We're talking about making fresh, "raw" coconut milk out of a whole, mature coconut in the hard, brown, hairy shell. What took hours of grating yesteryear is now done in a minute in a blender. But there's still that nasty part about getting the "meat" out of that hard brown shell... Well, I do have a few tricks to make that part easier.

Materials and ingredients: a coconut, water, a blender, a cloth (a 20-inch square cut out of an old pillow is just right), a small pointy knife like the one in the picture, a large drinking glass, a large mixing bowl, a colander that fits in the bowl but with some clearance underneath, a mesh like the ones they sell fruit in, a twist-tie, a clear plastic bag, and a concrete sidewalk or other concrete slab (in my house it's in the garage).

Note: When choosing coconuts at the grocer's, pick the heaviest ones, and shake to make sure each has water.  A dry mature coconut is a spoiled coconut.  The flesh comes out more easily if you let the coconut sit for 24 hours in the fridge after removing the water.  You can also freeze it after removing the water; freezing doesn't affect the taste or nutritional value.  Even the fragile enzyme lipase retains its effectiveness after 6 months at -20 C! (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18800302)

See me opening a coconut on YouTube!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD3Zqrmvcew

Step 1: Draining the coconut. The coconut has three "eyes" and there's always one that's soft enough to be opened with a short pointed knife. It's the one that looks the most different from the other two.  Dig the point of the knife in with a twisting motion, go around a couple of times.  Then poke in a chopstick until it pops through to the center. Shake some of the water into a tall glass, then rest the coconut on top of the glass until all the water has dripped out. This water is excellent and nutritious, and you can drink it right away.  In my household it is shared like precious liquor.

Step 2: Shell-busting - this is the fun part (caveat: take care the coconut doesn't land on anyone's head). Place the coconut in the mesh, close the mesh with a twist-tie, then place all this in a plastic bag, tie the bag closed loosely, and take it to your concrete slab. Throw the coconut down with some force onto the slab. It will break, and the pieces will stay inside the net and bag. Repeat until all the pieces are of manageable size -- 2 to 4 times. Don't overdo it. You don't want lots of little pieces, they're harder to hold when prying the flesh out. When you're satisfied with the busting, return to your kitchen, take the coconut pieces out of the net and bag, and pry the flesh out of the shell with the same short knife. Or, leave it out on the counter or fridge to dry overnight, and the flesh will come out more easily. This won't alter the taste.  Do taste a piece of the flesh, because occasionally, you may find that your coconut just isn't fresh.  When in doubt, throw it out.  If you have hens, feed the meat to them.  Otherwise, throw it in your compost bucket.  BTW, the shell burns nicely in your fireplace or BBQ.  No waste!

Step 3: Blending. Rinse the meat in a bowl of filtered water, and transfer to a blender. Check the back of each piece to make sure there aren't any pieces of hard shell attached. They could damage your blender.  Cut the meat into large pieces so your blender doesn't get stuck. Add 2 to 3 cups warm filtered water. Blend on high until smooth. If you have a Vitamix, start the usual way and then keep it on High for 1 minute. Some recipes use hot or even boiling water, but I believe in handling delicately anything containing fragile vitamins and enzymes.  Heat destroys lipase, which is a real pity, because lipase digests fats, including the ones in the coconut milk. Like other enzymes, it is destroyed by temperatures above 120 F.  On the other hand, coconut oil hardens at 73 F, so your water needs to be warmer than that.  

Step 4: Milking the coconut! Wash your hands thoroughly (and rinse well). This is literally a "hands-on" method, and, again, kids love to help with this. Wet your cloth with filtered water, and then wring it out so it doesn't soak up your coconut milk (you may also sterilize by stuffing the wet cloth in a mug, covering with a saucer, and microwaving for 1 minute; be careful when handling, the steam and cloth will be quite hot!).  Place a colander inside a larger bowl.  Line the colander with the cloth. Pour the contents of the blender in the cloth. Let it rest for 10 to 15 minutes to let most of the liquid drip into the bowl.  When most of the liquid has dripped out, pick up the cloth by the corners, hold the four corners in one hand, then pick up the new corners that have formed, so that you hold the cloth at 8 points. Hold *tight*, with those 8 points above your fist, and twist the cloth, holding it over the bowl. Twist, and twist the other way, and wring, and press, and squish! And twist the other way again! You're milking your coconut! When you can't wring much more out, dip the clothball in a bowl with 1/4 cup water, let it soak in a bit, and wring again, to get those last drops of deliciousness.

Alternately, just fold the cloth edges over the center while still in the strainer, and press by setting a saucepan filled with water on top of the cloth.

(Truth moment: I got myself a press after a few weeks of milking by hand).

This makes 3 to 4 cups of coconut milk, perfect for drinking. Its light, nutty taste is fresh and wonderful, a lot better than that "coconut milk drink" (yep, I'm talking about So Delicious, which was a terrible disappointment for a coconut connaisseuse like moi), plus it's a lot cheaper (see below). Did I say it tastes incredibly fresh, rich and wonderful? (Don't toss the "dregs", by the way. That's Coconut Flour. It's high-fiber to an extreme. Use it in your meat loaf, casseroles, cookies, or make coconut flour pancakes or other baked goods - this flour is legal for the SCD & GAPS diets, since it contains no starch. But use it sparingly, that much fiber can be overwhelming to your digestive system.)

(Truth moment number two: I haven't found ANY good SCD recipes that use the dregs, oops, coconut flour. I did notice that one batch of flour turned into some kind of slime after a few weeks of neglect in my fridge!  I was afraid to taste it... Maybe it was a miracle cure for something...)

Pour the milk into a glass bottle and store in the refrigerator. Use within 2 or 3 days. Shake before using. It will separate, the cream rising to the top like in an olden day milk jug, just because it's a whole food. Because it doesn't have emulsifiers. Because it's homemade. Because it wants to give you a choice: coconut cream? coconut "skim" milk? coconut "whole" milk? You get to pick each time you pick up the bottle (esp. if you have a gravy separator).

Use within 2 days, because that wonderful lipase will start doing its thing on the milk, as well as the ever-present bacteria by the billions.  Fresh food usually needs to be eaten fast.

Health Benefits: Coconuts contain Manganese (very good source), Phosphorus, Magnesium, Folate, Vitamin C, Selenium, Zinc, Copper, Iron, Potassium, Thiamin, Pantothenic Acid, Vitamin E, and more! The coconut protein array is among the best (most complete) available from any source, animal or vegetable. The fats in coconut are saturated, so whether coconut is a terrible threat to your health or a miracle cure remains a subject of controversy in some circles. I'm convinced it's a very healing food.  The fatty acids present in coconut (and coconut milk) are lauric acid, myristic acid, and palmitic acid. Lauric acid is converted by the human body into monolauric acid, the main fat in breast milk, so it must be pretty good for you. Myristic acid is named after a variety of nutmeg, Myristica fragrans (love that name!). It's also present in butter and sperm whale oil. Palmitic acid is also found in palm oil as you may have guessed. Palm oil got a really bad reputation because early research was done using hydrogenated palm oil, which contains trans fats. But recent research shows that populations that consume coconuts and coconut milk in their raw, unprocessed, non-hydrogenated, un-de-vitaminized, un-trans-fat-ified, non-emulsified, non-additive-itited, great-tasting state, have healthy cholesterol levels.  As for the "more," it's enzymes!  Hard to find the info from a reliable source, but you can get those enzymes in the milk if you DON'T HEAT IT or heat the water you use to make the milk.  

Whew!  A long blog to describe a simplified method. It seems long as written above, but with the concrete-slab shell-busting method, it really is doable. I've timed it to 22 minutes from poking the eyes to bottling. I'll add photos when I replace my lost camera...

Pricing: one coconut costs $1.49 where I live, and makes one quart of milk, so this milk costs about $2.98 per half-gallon (So Delicious is $3.49 per half-gallon). Comparable to whole milk (cow's) where I live. And that's not counting the coconut flour, if you can figure out how to use it.