Snacks

I also get asked about snacks a lot, so here's some ideas to get you started

• Stock or soup
• Fermented drinks such as kombucha or coconut water kefir
• Milk kefir smoothie
• “Crispy” nuts
• A little fried fruit with some nuts. NEW: Correction - fruit fried in some ghee or coconut oil would actually be fine , but I MEANT dried fruit.
• Fresh fruit with nut butter
• Cashew bread with ghee
• Coconut flour muffins
• Almond flour baking
• Homemade snack bars - made with coconut oil, ground nuts or nut butter and a little honey or dried fruit
• Homemade crackers
• Avocado dip and vege sticks
• Coconut ice cream

Breakfast ideas

Many people who are new to GAPS or SCD are at a loss for breakfast, if they can't have cereal or toast.

So here are some other thoughts on what to have for breakfast (depending on what stage you're at):

•  Start with a cup of stock or soup made from stock
• Eggs
• Grain free sausages (eg in NZ - some flavours by Stoneycreek Farm, Harmony, Acme, Hungarian Delicatessan)
• Homemamde meat patties
• Cooked mushrooms, tomatoes or spinach
• Homemade baked beans
• Starch free pancakes or toast with nut butter, avocado or tinned fish
• Nut muesli with chopped "crispy" nuts, dessicated coconut, yoghurt, stevia and spices
• Smoothies with yoghurt, coconut or avocado
• Fruit salad
•  Fruit crumble with nut topping or fruit pudding with coconut flour topping

There is nothing special about what you can have for breakfast, you can have anything that you would eat at any other meal. This may not be to everybody's taste, but for a special treat I love chicken liver pate with carrot sticks.

Chocolate Orange Drizzle Cake

When I was surfing about looking for sponge-like recipes for my trifle idea (still not tested, by the way) I came across this recipe for a Coconut Flour Orange Cake that reminded me of a cake Mum used to make. It was a Madeira cake that had orange juice drizzled over the top after baking, making it very moist. The topping was Cadbury dairy milk chocolate melted with a little butter. So I got nostalgic all over again, and had to give it a go.

For my trial, I made just a half recipe and baked it in a mini loaf tin. I made a couple of extra changes:

• melted the oil in a bowl that sat in another bowl with hot water in it, which meant it didn't get too hot and I could add it to the beaten egg mix, before the flour
• reduced the honey a little more, and used just 2 Tbs for the half mix
• replaced the baking powder with baking soda
• made a chocolate topping for it

I was toying with the idea of making the coconut oil topping shown, and just adding cocoa powder instead of orange zest. But I chose to make it even easier. I got some of Reilly's chocolate hazelnut spread, put it in a bowl inside another bowl of hot water, stirred it till was soft enough to spread, and voila!

Ok, so this isn't strictly GAPS, as chocolate and baking soda are illegal. But as an occasional treat, it will probably be tolerated fine by most GAPsters.

Back in May, Baden did an informal survey on her blog which showed that out of a group of 21 who had tried pure cocoa, 19 had no reaction, 1 wasn't sure and 1 had a reaction. If you think you react to cocoa, stick to the original coconut oil frosting.

Baking soda is allowed on the SCD, but not recommended for GAPS, as NCM believes most GAPsters have low stomach acid and this will worsen it. Many GAPS baked goods are fine with the soda missed out. But for the occasional cake, I don't believe a small amount of baking soda will be an issue. See Baden's comments on her blog.

Other Festive recipes

There are a bunch of useful Christmas recipes and resources on the Biomedical forum.

Here are links directly to each topic:

GFCF Christmas cake recipe
Raw carrot cake
Pina Colada Ice Cream (GFCF)
Christmas Pudding & where to buy premade Xmas goodies
Crisp biscuits
GFCF chocolate

Children's Party

While we're talking about parties, I'm reminded of all the great ideas that Hollie from Auckland posted about on the Biomedical forum a few months back.

She kindly gave me permission to repost it here:

I know the thought of upcoming parties is tough with our kids limited diets... so I thought you might be interested in some of the party food I created for our sons birthday party. All the food was GAPS (stage 6) friendly. The food was a hit with all people big and small. One little boy came and asked for his 4th 'cupcake'!!! No one even knew the food was ‘good’ for them... one mum was avoiding the food cos she thought it was too sugary for her kid – once I told her what was in it, she kept coming back for more, and the kid loved it.

The menu:

Ø      Muffin stand instead of birthday cake. Purchased coloured muffin cups and a fancy cake/muffin stand to put them all on. Did a variety of GAPS muffins:

o       Coconut berry muffins decorated with frosting and strawberries

o       Coconut banana and raisin muffins decorated with frosting and fruit leather shapes

o       Could also have done blueberry or pumpkin

Ø      Tahini and raisin biscuits decorated with frosting and dehydrated kiwifruit

Ø      'Fairy Bread’ - coconut bread, cut into shapes with cookie cutter, then frosted and dipped in dehydrated crushed raspberries and kiwifruits

Ø      Fresh fruit platters

Ø      Homemade lemonade sweetened with honey and topped with Soda water for some fizz

Ø      Homemade 'pink' iced tea (rosehip & raspberry) sweetened with honey

Goodie bags:

Instead of Goodie Bags packed with lollies and other crap, I got a bunch of helium balloons, ($3 each) which made great decoration - and handed each one to the kids as they left. They thought that was pretty cool too - and much cheaper than a bunch of $2-shop junk in a bag.

To check out the original post on the Biomed forum, click here.

Christmas menu

When we go to my brothers house on Christmas Day, there will be plenty of meat and veges, and my own starch free Christmas cake, so there'll be lots we can eat. There'll also be lots we can't have, and when my brother ran through the Xmas menu for me, I got to thinking about a Xmas menu that was 100% gluten free and starch free. Since we're in the Southern Hemisphere, and Christmas Day might be hot, we're looking for festive summer dishes. So here's some ideas to choose from for anyone who might be struggling to think of what to make.

Starters:

• Chilled borscht. I've never tried this, but there are lots of chilled borscht recipes on the net. I'd just use NCM's recipe from the GAPS book, and chill it, and there's our serve of broth.
• Fish kebabs - marinate some firm white fish for 12-24 hours in lemon or lime juice, then drain and mix with come coconut cream. Thread onto skewers, along with something red (tomato, red pepper, red onion) and something green (cucumber or green pepper)
• Chicken liver pate
• Guacamole
• Biscotti made from starch free bread, and carrot and celery sticks to dip in them

Mains:

• Any meat dish, but this one sounds nice - the stuffed leg of lamb in Nourishing Traditions (P344) has a pecan stuffing, so no starch
• Baked pumpkin, mashed with ghee and a large spoonful of peanut butter, then baked again
• Raw vege platter - cherry tomatoes, capsicum, cucumber, grated carrot
• Sauerkraut - we've just been trying out one made from red and green cabbage, carrot, apple, ginger and daikon radish, very festive. It's Vim and Vigour from Earthwise Gourmet in Canterbury, New Zealand.

Vegetarian options:

• Nut roast
• Spinach roulade, filled with chopped tomatoes and ricotta

Dessert:

• Watermelon cake
• Jelly trifle
• Starch free Xmas cake

Drinks:

• Punch made from organic fruit juice, kombucha and sparkling water
• Preservative free red wine

I'll post other ideas as they come to me. 

How to whip raw cream

Whipping pasteurised cream is easy, but raw cream doesn’t work the same way. It doesn’t thicken for ages, then it turns straight to butter. Nobody is exactly sure why this happens. I’ve heard theories like “pasteurised cream has carrageen in it” – but in NZ it doesn’t, or “your cream isn’t fatty enough” – but this doesn’t explain it either.

Traditional ways of thickening cream are culturing, or making clotted cream by heating raw cream, then leaving to sit. There do seem to be some ways of whipping raw cream, but it does take some preparation.

1.      Skim well – Pour your cream into a wide mouthed bowl or container, and leave for 24 hours or so. You will then be able to skim full cream off the top and be sure you don’t have remaining milk in it.

2.      Age it – Older cream whips better than fresh cream, so the skimming stage will allow that to happen. But there is a fine line here, if you leave it too long, it will sour, and that may not be suitable for your needs.

3.      Chill it well – It may also help to chill your bowl and beaters. Cream turns to butter faster when warm.

4.      Beat it fast – Use the fastest speed on your beaters. (But be careful starting up, so you don’t spray cream all over the kitchen. A bigger than usual bowl helps too.)

5.      Additives last – If you want to add flavourings (eg vanilla essence) or sweeteners (eg stevia, maple syrup) add them AFTER the cream has thickened enough.

I can’t guarantee this will always work, but will increase your chances.

Jelly Trifle

I always think of my grandmother at Christmas, usually when I'm wrapping my presents. When I was at high school, every year I would go down to her house a couple of days before Xmas and sit at her kitchen table doing her wrapping for her. She would go round the house collecting up all the gifts she'd been putting away all year and tell me who each one was for. Things were more leisurely then, and we had a relaxed evening, with time to get every parcel just right.

I'm thinking of her early this year and remembering her trifle. Her speciality dishes included her apple pie, jam tarts and my favourite, trifle. It had to be made with jelly, not sherry. (When I was first introduced to trifle made with sherry, it was most disappointing.) It was spread with jam, layered with fruit salad, and then the jelly was poured over it. When it was set, it was topped with a thick layer of thick custard made from Edmonds custard powder. Then another thick layer of whipped cream, and sliced strawberries on top. Or sometimes grated chocolate. It was luscious. And mum, my sister and I kept up the tradition at family gatherings, always making it just the same.

I don't think I've had trifle since I went gluten free, so about 12 years, though I've been known to have a spoonful of custard and cream off the top.  But this year I've been thinking about how to make a GAPS friendly trifle. So far I don't have a firm recipe, just some musings - but I might try out a mini one this weekend.

So I'll start with something sponge like, probably made with coconut flour, as I think almond flour will be a bit heavy for this recipe. Maybe just a batch of blueberry muffins using the recipe in Bruce Fife's book. Or maybe this Triple Berry Coconut Cake. When cooled, they'll be cut into rough chunks.

Then I'll put half in one layer in my dish, then some berries, and another layer of each.

Next I'll take some red organic fruit juice - eg grape, apple & blackcurrant - dilute it a little, and use gelatine to make a jelly. I'll pour this over the top, press it all down firmly and leave it in the fridge to set.

The next day, I'll make a custard with real eggs, and either raw milk or coconut milk, sweetened with a little honey. It might not be as thick as Edmonds, but fingers crossed it will thicken up in the fridge.

Lastly, a layer of raw cream, whipped well, and more sliced berries.

I'll let you know how it  goes. In the meantime, I'd better do another post on how to whip raw cream, because you sometimes need to make some extra preparations.

Chicken Liver Pate

Christmas is at my brothers house this year, and I got a phone call from him the other day, with my instructions on what food to bring. I'm to take pate, fruit and christmas cake - 3 things that can be made GAPS and SCD friendly. I've been making this pate recipe for years now. It used to have bacon in it as well, so people who are not GAPsters can add a handful of bacon rashers. But unless you can find sugar free bacon, for GAPS leave it out.

• 50gm (2oz) butter or duck fat
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• approx 225gm (1/2 lb) brown mushrooms (a bit more or less is fine)
• 1 bayleaf
• approx 450gm (1 lb) chicken livers (a bit more or less is fine)
• a little sea salt
• 15ml (1 Tbs) brandy, sherry or port (optional, leave out if doing GAPS)
• ½ cup (125 ml) cream, plain or cultured – or – 50 gm (2 oz) softened butter or duck fat

Sauté onion, garlic, mushrooms and bayleaf in butter in a large frypan. Turn up the heat & add chicken livers and sea salt. Cook quickly for 5-10 mins till just cooked. Take off the heat, take out the bayleaf & let cool. Put into food processor, along with the brandy, and cream or butter. Blend till smooth. This will do about 3 bowlfuls. To keep for a few days – pour a layer of melted butter carefully over the top of the pate. This could take ½ a lb of butter. Make sure it completely covers the pate, and seals it in the bowl. Store in the fridge, and chip the butter off just before serving.

Serving suggestions:

• This is quite a soft pate, which can be served with toast or crackers, or serve as a dip, with corn chips, toasted pita breads and raw vege sticks
• Makes a very satisfying quick breakfast with vege sticks. Freeze in 1-cup containers and take out the night before.