Baking for the Road Trip

 

We just moved to Florida and it was a two day drive. I spent an entire cooking and baking to prepare for our trip. Here are some of my favorite creations. This was supposed to be coconut/almond flour blueberry muffins, but I made it in a cake pan. I got the recipe here: http://www.freecoconutrecipes.com/recipe_Blackberry_Streusel_Muffins.htm I substituted agave for the maple syrup, since I do better with agave. It was delicious and very filling!

 

I also made my favorite coconut flour pumpkin muffins. These are wonderful if you are on the Low Oxalate Diet. I ate them almost everyday while I was on it. Here is the recipe: http://www.freecoconutrecipes.com/recipe_Gluten_Free_Pumpkin_Muffins.htm I use agave and I sub baking soda for baking powder. If you are doing Low Oxalate, you would leave out the cinammon and the cloves and only use nutmeg. They are still delicious like this!

 

And for my son, these wonderful grain free cinammon bagels. I use this recipe from Kelly at Spunky Coconut and I substitute about a 1/4 mashed banana for the sweetner. http://www.thespunkycoconut.com/2010/01/onion-poppy-seed-bagels-cinnamon-raisin.html He prefers them without raisins (I love them with raisins, though!)
I also made my almond/garbanzo bean flour pizza crust for him for the trip and he loves to eat it plain. We call it foccacia! Between the baked goods, Larabars, hummus, nuts, and dried fruits and veggies, we made it through our road trip without having to stop for food or snacks.

Low Oxalate Veggie Dinner

 

It's been about two months since I have been off of the Low Oxalate Diet. For people who are not vegetarians, this is not that difficult of a diet to use. However, I am a vegetarian and have been for a very long time, so this was the most difficult diet I have ever done. For anyone who doesn't know, oxalates are only found in plants! The diet is used by people with ASD, kidney stones, and for women with different types of vulvar pain issues. The people at the Vulvar Pain Foundation have done the most extensive scientific research I could find about the amounts of oxalates in different foods. If you need information like this, you have to purchase their book, The Low Oxalate Cookbook 2. It is worth it just for the charts and other research information, but there are recipes in there, too. While I was on the diet, I found that I could not have any of my favorite spices at all, and most of the veggies that were lower in oxalates weren't my favorite ones, either. So, it took me awhile to find a way to make my food taste good. The solution was coconut oil! I have found that any rice or veggies taste great with some coconut oil and sea salt! So simple, and coconut oil also has many health benefits, too! So, here's my low oxalate dinner for tonight, complete with organic, unrefined coconut oil (because this kind is the most healthy and tastes the best!) and a little sea salt for added flavor. Coconut is a low oxalate food, too. I still have to be careful not to overdo it on the oxalates, although I have now added some back in like some beans and nuts (thank goodness!). Most grains and all soy are high in oxalates, so if you are a vegetarian and need to go on the Low Oxalate Diet, I do recommend eating eggs (free range and organic, of course) because otherwise there is just not enough protein.

Peanut Butter Coconut Bars

 

These are so yummy! The recipe I used is suitable for me, but if you follow SCD, you could totally make these using almond flour and honey.
Recipe:
2 big tablespoons of peanut butter
2 teaspoons agave
2 tablespoons of coconut flakes
1 tablespoon of coconut flour

Mix it all together thoroughly.
Bake at lowest heat in the oven, or use a dehyrator, at least one hour, probably two hours is better, so that it can set and hold together as a bar.

You could also add raisins or goji berries or dates.

This made 3 big bars.

I hope you enjoy!

Kelp Noodles with Peanut Sauce and Veggies

 

Before I learned to trust myself in the kitchen, I would not have been able to create the delicious dinner I had tonight. If you love Thai food like I do, and don't eat out for health reasons, this is like heaven! We are moving in a few days, so I'm trying to eat up what we have in the house. I eat asparagus really often because it is a low oxalate vegetable and also is a great food source of glutathione. Since this is the first time I made the sauce, I don't have the exact measurements of all of the ingredients. I had to keep tasting it and adjusting as I went along. But, if you want to make your own, here are the ingredients I used:

2 scoops of peanut butter
Organic, wheat free, low sodium tamari sauce (I only use organic soy products because 90% of soy is genetically modified.) - you only need a little bit of this to your liking
agave nectar (I have a sweet tooth!)
garlic powder
1 tsp of apple cider vinegar
unsweetened organic coconut milk

Heat them on low in a sauce pan until everything is combined and has the right consistency that you like (you can add more agave to make it sweeter, more coconut milk to make it thinner, etc.) I have learned not to be afraid to taste as I go and to modify and make changes as I go, too. I'm so glad because it didn't taste good at all at first, and then I realized that adding coconut milk instead of more tamari would make it much better, and it did!!
Then, add some kelp noodles and let them sit in the sauce on low heat for a few minutes until they are soft.

You can add any veggies that you like. You can steam or saute them first, or just use them raw.

Mix it all together, and enjoy! My tummy and my mouth are both very satisfied now!

 

These kelp noodles are wonderful! I order them online at http://www.kelpnoodles.com They are raw, and you don't even have to cook them. I like them right out of the bag, they have a tiny bit of a crunchy texture, and they are also yummy if you cook them over low heat where they get really soft, which is what I did today. These are a treat for anyone gluten or grain free because you can eat them like spaghetti noodles if you add pasta sauce.

Raw Birthday Cake

 

It was my birthday yesterday and I wanted a sweet treat that my son and I could both enjoy. We found this raw apple pie at Whole Foods and it was wonderful! It amazes me how raw food chefs can take the simplest, whole food ingredients and make the most delicious creations! If I remember correctly, the only ingredients in this delicious apple pie were apples, pecans, cinammon, dates and sea salt. YUM!! It's been a tradition for me to get an apple pie on my birthday, and I am so happy that I was able to continue, but without the sugar, wheat, and trans fats. My son never liked those pies, anyway, but he loved this raw one! I think that amazing raw creations like this create such a joyful and uplifting vibration. Not only do they look and taste amazing while you are eating them, but they also leave your body in a state of higher vibration and harmony than those filled with sugar and wheat that have been so over-baked that they no longer hold much of the food's original vibration (all of the nutrients and their connection to the Earth). Joy and happiness through and through! Thank you to the Whole Foods chefs who created this!

 

And as an added bonus, we found this snack at Whole Foods and my son loved it, so I bought several bags.

Snacks That Someone Else Made

 

My son has always been a very picky eater, so I understand when other parents say how they would like to feed their children more healthy foods, but they won't eat it. My son only used to eat wheat and dairy products, which of course, is typical of kids who have gut issues and are addicted to the opiate reaction their bodies produce when they eat wheat and dairy. So, once we took those foods out of his diet, he had no choice except to eat other foods. Here are a few healthy types of snacks that we like to eat. Remember that most non-organic corn products are made with GMO corn, and many packaged "gluten free" foods are made from non-organic corn. So, if you buy a corn product, make sure it is organic. These Inka plantain chips taste like potato chips and are so yummy. My son calls these sprouted sunflower seeds from Kaia foods, "Pizza seeds" because they have garlic, which reminds him of pizza. I like to dehydrate fruits in my dehyrator, but I don't always have time, so it was nice to find these apples from Bare Fruits.

 

I have to special order the Organic Just Peas, but it's worth it because my son absolutely loves them. We recently discovered these Spinny Chips, which are made with organic corn and organic spinach. Hey, if you are going to have a chip, you might as well add some extra nutrition to it. The most difficult thing for me while we were doing the SCD was that we couldn't buy much of anything that was prepackaged. My heart goes out to those who are working hard to do this healing diet for themselves and their children - it's worth it!

Homemade Larabars (date and nut bars)

 

When we did the SCD Diet, I was thrilled to find that Larabars are legal (allowed). And my son loves them! However, they aren't organic and the nuts aren't activated, and I wanted to raise the vibration by making my own this way. So, I found someone's blog who had figured out many recipes for making all of the yummy flavors of Larabars. However, my son and I didn't really want all of the flavors, we just wanted some nuts, maybe some seeds sometimes and dates. So, here is my recipe for these yummy, nutritious treats:
First of all, it's REALLY EASY to make these!! Trust me, it really is!
All you need is organic medjool dates and any nuts or seeds of your choosing.
It is optional to soak and then dry the nuts in a dehydrator. This takes many hours and you have to plan ahead.
My son likes the nuts ground really fine into a flour, like you see in the picture. I like them chopped into bigger pieces so that I can crunch them when I take a bite.
So, grind the nuts (you don't need many, just a small handful) to the consistency of your liking in a food processor or coffee/nut mill. The ones you see above are made with raw peanuts, cashews and hazelnuts, and the one in the middle has chia seeds added to the mix.
Slice the dates in half and take out the pits. I have made these using a food processor, but I find it much less messy, loud, and much easier to just chop them by hand. I use a sharp serated steak knife and chop them into several small pieces each. Then, I smush the pieces together by hand. Once the dates are smushed together into a ball, put them into a bowl. Then, take about the same size pile of nuts and mix them into the dates with your hands. Work them in thoroughly and then form them into a bar shape. That's it!! It's so easy! I store them in the refrigerator. You can wrap them in plastic wrap to form nice rectangular bar shapes if you want, too. After eating the homemade ones, my son and I don't even like the store bought ones anymore! Enjoy!!
I also made some with organic dried figs and they were delicious! Tasted like fig newtons!
Here's a link to some recipe resources for other flavors: http://www.healthhabits.ca/2010/06/18/homemade-larabar-recipes/

Grain Free Crackers

 

It took me such a long time to figure out how simple it is to make crackers. Here is all you have to do to make these delicious grain free crackers:

Choose some nuts that you like. I used hazelnuts, peanuts and cashews.
Grind some into a flour. I use a coffee/nut grinder and it is so simple and only takes a minute to do. Don't over grind them or they will turn into a paste like peanut butter.
Choose another type of flour to add. I used a little buckwheat flour and a little garbanzo bean flour.
Mix all of the flours together.
Add just enough water so that it forms a dough (be careful not to make it too watery)
Spread the dough into a thin layer on some parchment paper on a cookie sheet.
Cut lines to make squares.
Sprinkle salt on top if you want.
Bake in the oven until they are browned and crispy.

That's it! Isn't that easy? I've also recently made some crackers out of just seeds and it was basically done the same way. Grind the sunflower seeds into a flour, then mix in sesame and chia or whatever you want and some garlic and salt and bake them. Voila! Crackers! It's so easy!

Grain Free Pizza Crusts

 

In order to eat foods, which vibrate in harmony with ourselves, we really need to eat things that we like. However, the beautiful thing is that there are so many choices of ingredients out there that a person can make just about anything that they want and still be honoring of what they need in order to thrive.
It's only recently that I have started to make my own recipes for foods instead of borrowing other people's. I am so grateful to all of the amazing women out there whose blogs I have looked at for ideas for so long. It is because of them that I have found the confidence in myself to create my own! So, today I am happy to share my grain free/egg free pizza crust. I had been searching for a recipe, but couldn't find one that didn't have eggs, so I made it up! This was the pizza for my son as it fits his dietary needs right now. Here are the basics of what I did:

Grain Free/Egg Free Pizza Crust:

1 cup of blanched almond flour
1/3 cup of garbanzo bean flour
1/4 tsp aluminum free baking soda
dash of salt
about 1/2 tsp each of dried oregano and basil
garlic powder or fresh garlic (use to your liking)
enough almond milk to make a doughy consistency
1.5 tsp of chia seeds ground into a flour, then mixed with some water and allowed to sit for a few minutes to form a gel (this is the egg replacer)

Preheat oven to 375
Mix everything together in a bowl and then spread it out into a pizza shape on a piece of greased parchment paper on a cookie sheet.
Allow to bake until bottom feels firm and inside isn't gooey.
Spread tomato sauce on top, and top with whatever else you like (we used Daiya cheese today)
Bake until for a few minutes until cheese is melted.
You could replace the garbanzo bean flour with another kind of flour. I think that the extra flour helped to hold it together better than when I've tried to make this with just almond flour alone.

 

Then, I made another crust for me since I resonate better with coconut flour than almond flour. This one I did get from a recipe online at Tropical Traditions for Coconut Flour Pizza Crust. It was delicious! I topped mine with tomato sauce, mushrooms, and cheddar Daiya cheese. Normally, we wouldn't eat the Daiya cheese, since it isn't loaded with much nutrition, but today was a special occasion for my son, so we celebrated with a "cheese" topping.

 

The best part of the experience - my son loved his pizza!!