Here is a list of various coconut flour recipes that I’d like to look through later.
Archive for May, 2012
Coconut Flour Recipes
Posted in Recipe, tagged GAPS diet on May 27, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Review: The Nourishing Home’s Southern-style Strawberry Shortcakes (grain-free)
Posted in GAPS, Recipe, tagged baking, comfort food, dessert, fruit, GAPS diet, homemade, in-season, review, special occasion on May 25, 2012| 3 Comments »
It is no longer strawberry season here but blueberries are available locally. We needed a snack this afternoon and I decided to try these shortcakes, subbing blueberries for the strawberries (no extra sweetener with the blueberries,though…I just added them plain). I made the recipe as written but cooked them in the Sun Oven since it was such a warm day. Then it clouded over about halfway through the baking process and I ended up leaving them in to cook for about 2 hours. I’ll have to try them in the gas oven sometime for a true test, but I thought these turned out well.
We used a Tovolo Mini Whip Cream Whipper to whip the cream. It was our first time to use the whipper and we were in a rush to eat our shortcakes before my piano students showed up so we ended up stopping our attempt before we made it to true whipped cream status. I poured the honey-sweetened cream over the shortcake and blueberries and we chowed down.
Verdict: a keeper! Warm, straight from the solar oven, with fresh cream on top and fresh berries – I thought as I ate it, “I am totally not missing anything on this diet.” Yum.
Cabbage moths, squash bugs, and others of life’s mysteries
Posted in Efficiency, tagged GAPS diet, garden, homemade, in-season, local, pumpkin, vegetables on May 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »
I’ve been keeping a sharp eye on my accidental garden, and by accidental, I mean that about half of what I intended to grow either did not germinate or was taken out by slugs & birdies, and that another third or so of my garden has been taken over by volunteer squash or whatever Dad decided to stick in the empty spaces. I’m not sure at what point I actually get a say in what grows there, but for now I’m trying to take care of what I’ve got under my stewardship.
We’ve been noticing squash bug eggs on the bottom of a few squash leaves every morning and have been picking them off & squishing them. It occurred to me today, however, that we will be leaving town soon and those eggs that we’ve been picking off daily will have no one to pick them off for at least a week…and that could mean BIG TROUBLE. We also had at least 30 cabbage moth larvae eating our 6 broccoli plants this morning (the broccoli was Dad’s doing, I think…pretty sure we wouldn’t have volunteer broccoli sprouting from the compost!) and I noticed a few aphids on the tomato plants. Then there were these weird black beetles with orange markings that bored into the stem of another squash plant and made it all wilty and sad; I thought I had squash vine borers, but no! Four nasty black beetles who made a mess of my plant overnight. And I have lots of other squash plants. And we’re leaving town soon, did I mention that? I did? Ok. I’m not panicking or anything.
The squash I am most excited about is the Turk’s Cap. He’s about 4″ diameter now. I am so thrilled that I didn’t pluck up this seedling! This really is a fun squash and if we can make it to maturity, I’ll be happy! I have no idea what any of the rest of the squash are, other than one butternut. We have lots of something resembling banana squash and maybe spaghetti squash, and we’ve got something round that I hope turns into a pumpkin. Mostly we’re just holding our breath and wondering what we’ve got, so I’m not too emotionally invested in many of these guys. :) But I’ll have to do something to protect them until we get back.
I dug out my Pyola, Safer Insecticidal Soap, and Neem-Away this morning. They are all at least 5 years old so I’m not sure how effective they will be. I sprayed some leaves as tests to see how the plants tolerate the sprays, and if we don’t see any burn we’ll probably spray right before we leave. I don’t know if the Pyola or Neem-Away will do what I intend it to do, but I know the insecticidal soap will kill caterpillars because that’s how we did away with the cabbage moth larvae today. :/
Blueberries!
Posted in Efficiency, tagged fruit, in-season, local on May 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »
We picked 5 gallons of blueberries this morning. There has been such a rush for local berries that they have been selling out within hours of opening time – and apparently, today was no exception. The bushes at our chosen location were so picked over that it took us 3.5 hours to come back with those 5 gallons. We can normally pick that much in just over an hour!! We are zonked.
My dad called and asked if we wanted to go pick at another location tomorrow morning. When I asked the kids, they both said, “NO!” heeheehee
I like to get at least 10 gallons to hold us for the year. I think I have at least 2 gallons still in the freezer, and with the addition of today’s 5 gallons I’m going to call it quits for 2012. I sure hope we have a good year next year – we’ll be in trouble if there is a crop failure and I don’t have any reserves. :/
Review: The Nourishing Home’s Sweet-n-Spicy BBQ Chicken
Posted in GAPS, Recipe, tagged comfort food, GAPS diet, main dish, meat, review, special occasion on May 19, 2012| 8 Comments »
I decided to switch up our BBQ routine and try a new recipe this week. Kelly at The Nourishing Home posted her Memorial Day menu at The Better Mom, and a recipe for BBQ chicken was included. It looked like a GAPS-friendly recipe, with the exception of the coconut aminos (I don’t think coconut sap is GAPS-legal because of the sucrose content). The idea of nightshade-free bbq sauce was also pretty intriguing. I looked in my pantry and surprised myself by finding some apricot fruit spread; that sealed the deal. I tossed some wings in the oven and mixed up the glaze.
I did use the coconut aminos because I had them – and with just 1 Tblsp spread out over so many servings, I wasn’t really that worried. I think you could substitute apple cider vinegar for the coconut aminos if you want to make this recipe a little more GAPS-friendly. I baked the wings without the glaze at 325 degrees until my carrot cake was done – so maybe 30 minutes? Then I glazed them and baked another 30 minutes at 325 degrees. (The sauce was nice and thick and I think it would stick nicely to meat on the grill; I went the oven route because it was already in use. Plus I figured it would reduce the likelihood of me burning supper again. Don’t laugh.) Then I turned the wings, glazed the other side, and turned the oven up to 425 degrees to reduce the sauce a little. I turned the oven off after 15 minutes and let the wings sit while I prepared the rest of our dinner.
Verdict: Yummmmmmmm. My son promptly declared that this was going to go on his birthday menu. We all had seconds, which is a feat that few foods can accomplish. This would make a yummy stir-fry sauce, too! But at over $3/jar for the apricot fruit spread, it could be pricey. This will go on our “special-occasion” rotation. I managed to get a pic of the leftovers, with a cameo by my lamb stock and some sweet onions purchased this morning at the farmer’s market:
Yep, that was all that was left of 3 packages of wings.
Update: Nourished and Nurtured’s Grain-free Sandwich Bread (GAPS)
Posted in GAPS, tagged baking, comfort food, GAPS diet, homemade, review on May 18, 2012| Leave a Comment »
We made an almost-spur-of-the-moment day trip to Devil’s Den State Park today (planned out 8 hours ahead of time, which is about as close to spur-of-the-moment as I like to get). Last night I decided we’d go scout out campsites this morning, but that meant I’d need to pack at least one meal and snacks.
Spur-of-the-moment meal packing on GAPS can be tricky if you don’t happen to have the right stuff on hand. And I didn’t want to spend time making mayo or devilled eggs before we left. I wanted something I could throw together in 10 minutes. Then I remembered that I had GAPS bread on hand, and I think the angels sang while I danced.
I had the sandwich bread in the freezer, pre-sliced and ready to go. I had some butter at room temperature. I had some Applegate Farms deli turkey in the freezer, which is as close to GAPS-legal lunch meat as I have access to. I had some cheese. That is the beginning of a good sandwich, folks. Those sandwiches and some apples and dilly carrots made their way into our lunch sack. Then some GAPS almost-legal chocolate chip cookies made their way into the sack. We still don’t know how that happened. Don’t worry, they won’t bother us any more…we took care of them.
I don’t have pictures of the sandwiches as we unwrapped them at the picnic because we were too hungry to wait for me to go get my camera from the car before we devoured them. The bread held up better than some store-bought gluten-free breads I’ve tried in the past, and I was pleased. I’m not sure why I never thought to pre-slice bread before I freeze it, but I have to say I’m pretty much in love with that idea too. Both kids liked the bread. Since it was the first sandwich I’ve eaten in almost a year, I am not sure my opinion is without bias…but I really liked it too.
Verdict: Winner.
Cherry Cobbler (GAPS)
Posted in GAPS, Recipe, tagged baking, cherries, comfort food, dessert, fruit, GAPS diet, homemade, in-season, review, special occasion on May 17, 2012| 2 Comments »
I picked another 3 pints of cherries this morning and decided to try out a revised version of a cherry tart. I wanted to end up with a crisp topping and a juicy filling instead of the soupy mess I had previously made, so I flipped the ingredients for a cherry upside-down tart. Genius, right? heehee :) Then, because it was rather warm here today and I didn’t want to heat up the kitchen, I decided to mess it all up by trying to cook in the Sun Oven on my first try.
I don’t like to post recipes that may or may not turn out the way I like them, but I don’t think I’ll have enough cherries to try again in the oven before the season is over. I’ll post what I did and then fiddle with it when I have enough cherries in the future.
Cherry Filling:
- 3 pints pitted sour cherries
- 1/4-1/2 cup honey
- 1/4 tsp almond extract
- dash nutmeg
Mix together in a 2-quart baking dish and bring to room temperature before topping with the cobbler. (Since I seem to have so much trouble with the cobbler overbrowning, I might actually bake the cherries for a while before topping next time.)
Topping:
I used this shortbread recipe, adding an extra 1/4 cup almond flour and about 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Then I patted the dough into a thin disc and set on top of the cherries.
Next I put the pan into my solar cooker and waited. The Sun Oven didn’t get above 250 degrees for the first 2 hours, and the cherries weren’t bubbly yet so I repositioned the cooker and went inside to practice for tonight’s rehearsal. Then I forgot about the Sun Oven for about 45 minutes, which was a bad idea because the temp rose to about 325 degrees during that time. And the topping was overbrowned. Again. sigh…
My solar cooker provides a fairly moist cooking environment, as the steam cannot escape the cooker. As a result, achieving a crispy texture is not common. This cobbler, cooked in my Sun Oven, did not have a crispy topping. We all really liked it, though! And I feel confident that in a regular oven the top would crisp up nicely during baking.
I poured some fresh cream over each serving and we chowed down. Both kids gave it a thumbs-up but I didn’t care because I was too busy falling in love. I think an oven-baked topping and dollop of homemade ice cream would knock this one out of the park.
Review: Nourished and Nurtured’s Grain-free Sandwich Bread (GAPS, primal)
Posted in GAPS, Recipe, tagged baking, comfort food, GAPS diet, homemade, review on May 15, 2012| 4 Comments »
I wanted to try this GAPS-friendly sandwich bread since it was designed to fit a normal loaf pan rather than the mini-loaf pan that this Paleo Bread uses. I made the recipe as written, except I baked it at 350 degrees since I had several other things in the oven at the time that required that higher temperature.
The edges got darker than I would have liked before the middle was set, so next time I will keep the oven temp at 300 degrees to see if that solves my problem. I sliced the bread and put pieces of deli paper in between each slice as recommended, then I saved the heel and put the rest in the freezer to see if the bread holds up to longer-term storage. My daughter and I both tasted some of the heel, and though it was too brown we both decided that we still liked it very much.
My loaf does not look as tall as the loaf in the original recipe. I’m not sure if that is due to temperature or some other factor. I don’t think baking soda can “go bad”, and that is the only other thing I can think of that would yield a flatter loaf. It still produced a decent size slice for sandwiches, so I’m not too worried.
We will probably try the bread from the freezer later this week, and I’ll update to let you know how it fared.
Verdict: Thumbs up. I will make this in the future.
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