Raspberry Scone-Grain-free

Here is another scone recipe from Health, Home & Happiness.

I made a raspberry (frozen ones) version and I made mine in one cake and scored it before I baked it. One tip is to wet the knife so the dough doesn't stick to it so much. So I had to bake it longer. I kept putting on my timer and checking it. I ended up baking it about 25 mins.

This is a good recipe. I liked it better than other ones I've tried. The other change I made was I substituted 1 cup of flax meal for part of the almond flour.

I've started putting the recipes that I consider basics that I will use over and over again in plastic sleeves so that I can find them easier as well as protecting them.

Linda

Artichoke, Kalamati Olive, Sun Dried Tomato and Arugula Grain-Free Pizza

I took my pizza dough out of the freezer. The link to the pizza dough recipe is in this post.

I saw a recipe in one of those old gardening magazines I've been looking through for Spring Pizza and it sounded good so I gave it a try.

1. Mix minced garlic with 2 tabs. olive oil and spread on pizza.
2. Place thinly sliced Mozzarella cheese evenly over pizza.
3. Place cooked artichoke hearts over the cheese ( I used frozen, but the recipe cook fresh baby artichokes. The frozen ones were a little bland, I steamed them. I think next time I might sauteed them a bit with olive oil and season them with salt and pepper.)
4. Sprinkle over that pitted kalamati olives and some fresh oregano if you have it. I used dried.

5. Bake in a 450 oven for 10 mins. My crust was very thin and the almond meal crust cook pretty fast. The recipe used a 500 oven for 10 mins. It would have been a regular pizza crust.

6. Take out of oven and top with arugula and Parmesan cheese. You can pop it back into the oven for a couple of mins. to wilt the arugula and melt the cheese. I didn't and it was delicious.

Linda

Grain Free Blueberry Lemon Muffins

A muffin recipe from Real Sustenance Blackberry Coconut & Lime Muffins (Grain/Starch/Dairy/Corn/Soy/Refined Sugar-Free)

I wanted to try another muffin recipe. This one is different than others I've tried because it has 3 eggs in it and shredded coconut. It is made with almond flour. I didn't have blackberries or lime so I substituted blueberries and lemon, but I'd like to try the original recipe when blackberries are available. I also used my coconut sugar.

Linda

Tarte-Grain-Free Leek and Goat Cheese

This recipe comes from Real Sustenance

I wanted to learn to make a good tart shell and this is a really good one, plus that Leek and Goat Cheese Tarte is wonderful, very rich, a little goes a long way. In France they eat these for lunch, great with a salad. It make a good meatless meal as long as you can have dairy.

This is a press in dough so you can't do a top crust. It was easy and has a nice flavor. You need a tart pan, I'm not sure how well it would work with a regular pie pan.

Hamburger Buns- Grain Free

I'm trying to learn to replace some of the wheat products that I can no longer eat, so I tried this recipe for hamburger buns with the idea of a substitute for sandwich bread. So far I haven't found a really good bread recipe. Anyway these were pretty good. They are a little  too bulky for a hamburger. I had a hard time wrapping my mouth around it. It was also too much bread and not enough meat. So next time I think I'll do my hamburger open faced.

The recipe is from Against All Grains again. Her's look a little prettier than mine. It's a learning curve. lol

I also like that she said you could freeze these and then toast them.

Linda

Baking- Chocolate Chip Cookies with Almond Flour

I've started to do some baking with the almond flour again. These chocolate chip cookies really tasted like regular ones except maybe a bit softer. They are from Against All Grain. She has some great recipes. They do have honey in them and coconut sugar. She uses palm sugar. The other substitute I made was using butter and I used regular dark chocolate chunks and added some chopped walnuts. These are good, but I have to make sure I don't have more than a couple. They are hard to resist, that's the problem. I'm trying to learn moderation.

I've cut out all grains and starches and I'm working on more veggies. I'm not weighing myself. I'll see my doctor in 2 months.

Linda

More of Funky Fresh Kitchen Challenge

My find today for the Funky Fresh Kitchen Challenge was Taco Shells. I had 2 boxes. I'm replacing them with homemade coconut flour taco shells and here . I made gluten-free pizza dough last week and froze part of it, so maybe I can do the same thing with this dough.

Linda

Grain-free Pizza

Here is the link for the crust I used. It is actually a flat bread. I looked at several recipes and most of them were poured out and spread kind of like a pancake. This one forms a ball and you roll it out like the crackers. I thought it sounded better. I didn't use the rest of her recipe although I think it sounds good, but I wanted to do a fresh veggie topping. I did try some of the soy cheese (not good). After it was baked I topped it with arugula.

When I tasted it I realized that the things I chose to use (olive oil, mushroom, red onion and tomato) just weren't strong enough in flavor to compete with the flat bread and I didn't have enough stuff on it. So I added some salami and the fake cream cheese that I use and it was better. The flat bread itself was good and nice and crunchy. I think next time I will make 1/2 the recipe and roll it out even thinner. The sides are nice and thin but it gets a little thick in the center for me.

Linda

Mixed Berry and Cherry Pie with Almond Flour Crust

Well I continue to experiment. I made an almond flour pie crust using this recipe by Comfy Belly. The dough rolls out very nicely but it just falls apart when you try to move it. However it is easy to push together, it just doesn't look very good.

 I expect I'll get better at it. I used plastic wrap to roll out the top and it was definitely easier to get off. I followed her recipe for the cherry filling except that I used coconut/palm sugar instead of honey and added a little water. Also I used frozen fruit and mine was a mix of berries and also cherries. I'm so happy I can make a pie now.

Barb asked if I'm on the Paleo Diet. No I'm not really I'm on a low carb, grain-free, gluten-free, dairy-free diet and am able to use a lot of the Paleo Diet recipes because they are also grain-free and dairy-free sometimes, but they are not necessarily low carb so that is where I have to make adjustments, but I'm learning to substitute ingredients I can eat. I like the Paleo recipes because they do a lot of things with veggies to substitute for grains. I don't really go along with the we should eat like cave men idiology. If I could eat grain I would except for the fact that I believe it makes you gain weight and is very allergenic if you have that tendency. I'm doing dairy-free and gluten-free because of intestinal issues. I'm gotten better since I eliminated them, but still can't put them back.

Linda

Fluffy Coconut Flour Pancakes and Coconut Flour Tips

Well my poor pancakes look pretty bad, but there is a learning curve with making them. The batter is quite thick and I made mine too big and next time I would spread out the batter to make them thinner. I also think my heat was a little to high. I've made almond flour pancakes before and these taste similar. They both tend to be a little dry. I put fake butter and all fruit on mine. Her is the linkhttp://www.nourishingdays.com/2010/07/fluffy-coconut-flour-pancakes/ I had three different recipes but these were the easiest.

Here is also a link to an article about baking with coconut flour and a bread recipe. I plan to try this bread some time.


Linda

Almond Flour Flatbread with Olive Oil and Sea Salt

I've been wanting to try a flatbread, this was a good one. It was a little tricky getting it into the frying pan. You roll it our between parchment or plastic wrap. I chose the parchment and it was hard to peel it off without it falling apart, so I may try plastic wrap next time. It's funny because I was about to throw out my plastic wrap and force myself to learn to use other things. Maybe wax paper would work. These are similar to the crackers, but firmer and crunchier. I also have a recipe I want to try for pizza crust and tortillas.

My upper back is sore I guess from the furniture moving. It's raining today. Actually I don't mind the rain it's makes it feel cozy inside, but I have some planting I want to do.

Linda

Baking Day Goodies For Elevenses

These are Chocolate Coconut Cookies on about.com. There recipes seem to be pretty good. The only changes I made on this were I used coconut milk and coconut sugar. Also I guess I made mine bigger because I only got about half the amount. This was easy to make you whisk it all up in one of those big quart glass measuring cups if you have one.

C.S.Lewis liked his cup of tea at eleven. I had mine today.

Linda

Garlic Herb Crackers and Books I'm Reading

I tried another cracker recipe. It taste like ranch dressing. It has dried herbs and garlic granules in it. It's not my favorite. I still think the 2 precious recipes were the best, but here's the link if you like ranch dressing.

I'm reading like crazy. I just read a book yesterday about housekeeping and am motivated to do some more decluttering. My dd has given me a couple of books by Michael Pollan about our food and I've got C.S.Lewis's "Silent Planet".

I used the Vegamix yesterday, that thing is amazing. You have a smoothie in 2 seconds and it holds a lot of greens. I need to start saving my dollars.

Linda

Baking Day-Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

This week I made these Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies. Honestly they were a little dry, but they tasted nice and coconutty so I think I'll try them again and add a little more moisture to the batter. I did change the original recipe because I don't use honey. I used coconut sugar instead and it is dry so I probably should have added a little water. Also my pastures eggs are small. I was thinking I should have added one extra. Coconut flour does tent to be dry and I also could substitute part almond flour or flax meal. So I'll try these again.

Linda

Paleo Bread

Here is another bread recipe. It turned out pretty good and it's all done in the food processor so it's easy. This one has mostly almond flour with just a little coconut and flax. I think I'm going to end up baking several days this week. I have some cookies I want to make. My dd and I were talking today about how much time we spend in the kitchen cooking from scratch. I also feel like I'm always going to the grocery store restocking my supplies and finding containers for all the bulk stuff. Since I just redid my pantry I had some extra room, but it is fast filling up.

Linda

Sunflower Sesame Crackers

I tried a different kind of cracker this time. I like it better than the other one because it has a firmer texture, the other one was a bit crumbly, they both taste good. You grind raw sunflower seeds in the food processor along with sesame seeds and make a flour out of it. I didn't have enough sesame seeds so I added some flax meal. I really like the fresh rosemary in the other crackers and that or another herb could be added to these also. Here is the link for the crackers. I haven't tried the Shrimp Pate but it sounds good too.
I put liverwurst and faux cream cheese on the crackers, my fav. lunch right now. It's good with some slices of apple along side.

Linda

Baking Day-Zucchini and Cranberry Bread

Here is the link you have to scroll down the page. It doesn't look very good but it tastes just the way I remember zucchini bread tasting. This one has almond butter in it as well as the almond flour. The only change I made was to omit the honey because I can't eat it and used instead stevia and coconut crystals. The only mistake I made was using a pan that sticks. I didn't use my non stick pans because they are a little small so I guess I need to get a larger size non stick loaf pan. Even though I used coconut oil in the pan the bottom stuck when I tried to turn it out. It's nice to know that now I can make an old favorite. I used those frozen cranberries by the way. A tip with this recipe I had to throw my almond butter in the processor to mix it because it had separated and it was pretty gummy so I mixed it in by hand to make sure it broke up and didn't stay in a lump. Also I reduced the spices a tad because I was afraid it would be too spicy and it really needed them.

Linda

Baking Day-Gingerbread Apple Crisp

Here is the link. It was a tad on the spicy side, lots of ginger and cinnamon and my apples were on the dry side. I don't know if it was the kind of apples I used. She has another crisp recipe Granny Smith Apple Crisp that I want to try and it looks like it would be moister. These are both made with almond flour. The only changes I made in todays recipe were instead of palm oil which I didn't have I use grape seed oil which I am trying to use up and instead of honey I use the coconut crystals. I added a little water but it was quite sticky so I don't think I needed to.

Linda

Coconut Flour Bread

I made this coconut flour bread today. Here is the link. It turned out pretty good. I think this is the best one I've made so far. Other things I've made with coconut flour I didn't care for, but this one was good. Like most of these products it's a tad dry, you usually need some butter or some kind of spread. I found that one baking day wasn't enough so I'm adding another one.

Linda

Baking Day-Grain-free Apple Puff Pancake

I gave the link before for this but here it is again. It didn't puff up that much, but it tasted good. Some of my apples were a little undercooked so next time I need to make sure they are all sliced very thin. This recipe used a couple of ingredients that are new to me canned coconut milk and coconut sugar.

I made another recipe that didn't turn out. It was a muffin that was suppose to taste like a doughnut but it was bitter tasting. It had a lot of the flax seed meal in it and I'm wondering if my flax meal is old even though I just bought it. I did some research on flax and they said if it's bitter it's rancid. There is a learning curve in baking with these alternative flours and finding recipes that work for me. I liked the flavor the coconut milk gave my puff, it was subtle but I could slightly taste it and it seemed sweet enough so the crystals seem to work. I'm enjoying my baking day but I can't get it all done in one day. I get too tired. I still need to make something savory like bread or biscuits. I could almost use 2 baking days. I'll have to think about that.  

Linda