Christmas Morning Almond Muffins

I tried another version of the Xmas morning muffins, this time with almond flour, for those who can't have coconut. The texture was quite different, but still very good.

• 2 cups ground almonds
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon or mixed spice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 3 eggs
• 8 Tbs (100gm, 4oz) butter or coconut oil, melted
• 4 Tbs honey
• 4 Tbs juice from an orange
• Grated zest of the orange
• ½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
• 1 cup frozen cranberries

Line a 12 muffin pan with patty pans. In a large bowl, combine almond flour, baking soda and spices.  Stir in cranberries. Blend together eggs, butter or oil, orange juice, honey, salt and zest.  Mix the two together. Pour batter into muffin pans. Bake at 350° for about 20 minutes. If the tops start to get too brown, cover with some brown paper or foil. Cool and serve.

Twice Baked Pumpkin

Ya know, I've never been that fussed on pumpkin. I love butternut pumpkin in soup, but the usual big grey pumpkin leaves me cold. But there are 4 ways that I actually quite like it - which is good, cos it's such a handy GAPS vegetable.


The first is in bread or cake - I've already posted recipes for Cashew Bread and Coconut Almond bread, which both have pumpkin as an optional ingredient.


The other 3 are "Twice baked pumpkin".


Cut your pumpkin into pieces, scrape out the seeds and place spaced out on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake for about an hour at 175C, till a knife goes through easily. Scrape the flesh away from the skin and put into a food processor with a little salt and some ghee. Process till smooth.


1. With feta (not GAPS friendly, or at least not till later stages):


Put 1/2 of the pumpkin into a baking dish. Sprinkle a generous layer of feta on top (1/2 to 1 block). Pour on the rest of the pumpkin. Grate some tasty cheddar cheese and mix with breadcrumbs or ground almonds. Sprinkle on top. Put back in the oven for about 15 minutes till the cheese is nicely browned.


2. With peanut butter


A chance comment from a client about putting peanut butter into pumpkin pie lead to this variation. When you add the ghee and salt to the food processor, also add a couple of large spoonfuls of peanut butter - preferably either Reilly's or your own homemade. Zizz till smooth, pour into a baking dish and bake for about 15 mins. It's amazing the difference this makes to the taste.


3. Souffle.


This version comes from Emma on the GAPS Australasia Support Group. She makes it with butternut squash and calls it Pumpkin Pie. Her version is a sweetish breakfast dish. Make the peanut butter version above but also beat in 6 eggs that have been whisked up in a separate bowl. Bake for 15 minutes or so till firm and lightly browned. Serve as a vegetable side dish. Or for breakfast or dessert, top with shredded coconut, ground up nuts or berries.


Versions 2 or 3 can be part of our GAPS Xmas Feast.

Chilled GAPS soups

At this time of year, hot soups aren't as appealing as during winter. So I've been searching for chilled soups for our daily dose of GAPS stock. I'm especially looking for red and green soups that would be nice for Xmas Day. I haven't actually made any of these yet, but hopefully will get away from the computer for some recipe testing over the weekend.


Borscht:

• Make Dr Natasha's borscht recipe from the GAPS book. Let it go cold. Puree or keep it chunky - your choice. Chill. Serve with the recommended garnishes.
• Or this recipe looks good too. Omit the sugar from the soup recipe, and of course no potato to garnish. Use your own cultured cream or drained yoghurt.

Gazpacho:

• For this Tomato Soup recipe, omit the sugar. Note that cilantro = coriander, and consomme = stock
• This Cold Spiced Tomato Soup recipe doesn't need any adjustments - it's already GAPs friendly

Green soups:

• Green Goddess Soup (avocado and spinach) - use meat or chicken stock instead of vegetable stock
• Avocado Island - replace the vegetable broth with chicken
• Chilled Cucumber and Green Apple Soup with Cilantro - actually this doesn't have stock in it, but it does have olive oil. Green onions = spring onions.

Spinach Roulade

A spinach roulade is a classic dish that can be varied by using different fillings. The mozzarella and tomato version, which is good either hot or cold, comes from Rose Elliot’s Vegetarian Kitchen. A couple of other variations have been included. The red with green looks very festive and this would make a nice Xmas entrée, side dish or to cater for a vegetarian family member.

Note that the recipe as it stands isn't suitable for GAPS as these cheeses are not GAPS friendly. You may be able to tolerate them later in the diet, or you could substitute harder cheeses. 

The Roulade:

• 450g (1 lb) fresh spinach or 175g (6oz) frozen
• 15g (1/3 oz) butter
• 4 eggs, separated
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• grated nutmeg
• 4 Tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese           

Set the oven to 200°C/400°F. Line a 23 x 33 cm/9 x 13” Swiss roll tin with baking paper, extended a bit up the sides.

If you're using fresh spinach, wash well in sinkfuls of cold water, then put it into a large saucepan & cook over a high heat for 7-10 minutes, or until it is very tender. Keep pushing it down into the pan with a fish slice as it cooks. Or, cook frozen spinach in a tiny amount of boiling water, just enough to prevent it from sticking to the pan; it takes the same length of time.

Drain the spinach into a colander and press it very well to extract as much water as possible. Put it into a food processor, along with the butter, egg yolks and the seasonings, and whizz it all at top speed to make a smooth, creamy-looking puree. Whisk the egg whites until they stand in stiff peaks, then gently add the spinach mixture and carefully fold into the egg whites, incorporating as well as you can without stirring too hard. Tip into the tin, level the top gently and sprinkle it with 2 tablespoons of the Parmesan. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the top is springy. While the roulade is baking, prepare a piece of baking paper to turn it out on to, by sprinkling it with the rest of the Parmesan. 

The Filling:

• 2 x 150g/5 oz Mozzarella cheese, packed in water (OR 100g feta, OR 250g ricotta)
• 4 medium tomatoes (OR a red capsicum)
• 3 - 4 sprigs of fresh basil (OR small bunch fresh parsley)

Drain the Mozzarella & slice thinly (or crumble the feta); cut the tomatoes into thin rounds (or capsicum into chunks) & chop the basil (or parsley).

Putting it together

Take the roulade out of the oven and turn it out on to the baking paper. Peel the paper off the roulade, and add the filling:

• Cover with a layer of Mozzarella slices (or other cheeses) 
• Then a layer of tomato rounds (or capsicum)
• And finally chopped herbs and salt and pepper to taste.

Roll up the roulade, starting at one of the long ends. Serve immediately, or put on a plate, cover with foil & put it into the oven, at 160°C/325°F, for 15 minutes or so. 

Mushroom Nut Roast

A few years ago I went in search of a nut roast recipe, and was interested to find they were all so different. So I made up my own composite, picking all the tastiest sounding ingredients. And I was surprised how delicious it was. It keeps well in the fridge, and can also be frozen. 

This is a handy recipe if you have vegetarians in the family. For Xmas Day, they're festive made in star shaped tins, or mini loaf tins, and can be made in advance. At other times of the year, it's a satisfying any time snack for even a dedicated carnivore like myself.

If you’ve only got a small food processor, or are only feeding 1 or 2 people, it might be easier to make a half mixture.

• 1 Tbs each butter & extra virgin olive oil (or 2 Tbs olive oil)
• 1 large onion, roughly chopped
• 1 baby leek (optional), sliced and rinsed
• 5 cloves garlic, crushed or chopped
• 2 large mushrooms, finely chopped
• 1 1/2 cups crispy cashews
• 1/2 cup crispy brazils
• 1/2 cup crispy walnuts
• 1/2 cup crispy almonds
• 2 small slices bread (starch free is fine, or you could omit it), roughly torn into chunks
• ½ tsp sea salt
• Your own favourite fresh or dried herbs
• 1 egg (can be left out, if you don’t tolerate eggs)

In a large food processor, grind together almonds, cashews, brazils & walnuts until they’re the consistency of large breadcrumbs. Add the bread. Process again. Sauté onions, leeks and garlic in the oil and butter. Add mushrooms, and cook till softened. Add to the food processor along with seasonings, herbs and the egg. Process till smooth. Cook in a greased, lined ring tin, for about 40 mins at 180C, or in four individual tins for less time. 

Gingerbread Xmas Cookies

Last Xmas I had a go at making gingerbread Xmas shapes, which turned out reasonably well. This year I was going to tweak my recipe, but discovered that another GAPS blogger has beaten me to it. So no need to reinvent the wheel. If gingerbread is something that appeals to your Xmas spirit, I'll just send you over to Thinking Outside the Box. Thanks yet again dansmumm.

Marinated fish in coconut cream

Usually I serve this in a bowl. But at the moment, my thoughts are on Xmas and I can just see a platter full of kebabs, with the white of the fish alternating with red and green veges. If Xmas Day is hot (but with it having dropped to 12C in Wellington today, who can be sure it will be?), fish kebabs would be a light and refreshing alternative to a roast. They could even be tossed on the BBQ for a minute on each side. Here's my regular recipe, plus thoughts on kebabs.

• ½ cup lemon juice (3-5 lemons approx)
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 500g (1/2 lb) firm white fish (see note below for good types of fish)
• approx 100ml (1/2 cup) coconut cream
• slice of red onion, chopped up finely
• about ¼ telegraph cucumber, chopped up small
• handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
• mesclun or other lettucy type greens

Start preparation 24 hours before you want to serve. Mix the lemon juice and the salt together in a medium sized bowl. Cut the fish into chunks that are roughly 2 cm (just under 1 inch) a side, and mix together well. Press the fish down, so that the juice covers it. If the lemon juice doesn’t cover the fish, add a little extra. Marinate in the fridge for 24 hours, stirring occasionally.

Drain the fish well, put into a clean bowl and stir in the coconut cream. I don’t measure it; I just slosh in enough so that the fish has a nice coating. Chop up the salad veges and stir them in. 

The amounts given are approximate and will depend on your taste and how you are going to serve it. If you are serving it as a main meal, you’ll want to add more vegetables than if it’s an entrée. You can vary the vegetables as well, eg by using spring onions or capsicum.

Kebabs

Leave the fish to sit in the coconut cream for an hour or two. Then thread onto skewers, alternating pieces of fish with your choice of raw salad vegetables – e.g. cherry tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, capsicum, radish or baby turnips. Cold, cooked roast vegetables such as pumpkin could also be interesting.

Xmas kebabs

For the red veges: cherry tomatoes, capsicum or red onion

For the green: cucumber (or zucchini if going on the barbie), celery, green capsicum

What fish should I use?

Good fish to use: terakihi, kawahai (with the brown meat cut off), cod, mullet, halibut, skipjack or albacore tuna

Fish to avoid: Gurnard, bluefin or yellowfin tuna

If in doubt, ask the fish seller for a recommendation 

Beetroot dip

I love baby beetroot, and we got some picked fresh from my sister's garden last week. I turned them into a beetroot dip which we served with fish for dinner.

• Baby beetroot (5 of them made a dip that served 2 of us for 2 dinners)
• Cultured cream, homemade yoghurt or yoghurt "cheese" (ie after dripping out the whey). For a dairy free option, homemade mayo would probably work fine.
• A little himalayan or celtic sea salt

You can add extra flavourings, though I didn't this time. Some possibilities (choose one only!):

• Horseradish cream is a classic addition (check for non-GAPS ingredients)
• I've used PureWasabi by Coppersfolly as a horseradish substitute before
• Lemon juice, ground cumin, ground coriander seed, crushed garlic
• Or just the lemon juice and cumin

Trim the beetroot, leaving about a 1cm of stalk and tail. Wash well, but leave the skins on. Put into a pan and cover with cold water and a little sea salt. Simmer till they can be pierced with a skewer, approx 45-60 minutes, depending on size. Drain off the water and cover them with cold water, till they're cold enough to handle. Slice off the two ends, and you'll be able to slip the skins right off.

Put into food processor with a couple of tablespoons of the sour cream or yoghurt, and zizz. Add more sour cream till it comes to a good consistency, and seasonings to taste. (Sorry, I didn't measure anything). I didn't even take a photo, the one above is pinched from another site. But it's there so you can get a rough idea of what the colour and consistency will look like.

This would  make a lovely Xmas dinner starter, with a bowl of guacamole and maybe a third bowl of chicken liver pate. Make some biscotti from starch free bread, or cut up some vege sticks or chunks to go with it.

Dukkah

Ok, this probably isn't an authentic dukkah recipe. I didn't even look on the net to see what usually goes into it. I just grabbed a few things I had in the cupboard. I think these were the quantities:

• About a cup or so of nuts: tamari roasted almonds and cashews, pistachios
• About a tsp ground cumin seed
• About a tsp of curry powder

Zizz in mini food processor till it resembles bread crumbs. Keep in a jar in the cupboard, and use to spice up your sauerkraut salad.

To make it fully GAPs or WAPF, it would be better to use your own "crispy" nuts. You might then need to add a little sea salt.

Sauerkraut Salad

Some people love sauerkraut. And some people just don't like it at all, but know it's good for them. When you're first introducing a tiny bit of kraut into your diet, you can usually hide it in something, but once you're up to 2-3 tablespoons, it's harder to hide. One way you can make it more interesting is to vary what goes into your sauerkraut - carrots, red cabbage instead of green, some beetroot.

We've recently been enjoying sauerkraut salad. This would be good if you're still easing into GAPS, or later on, when you're digesting raw vegetables well. It's not suitable for the early stages of GAPS Intro.

This is enough for two people:

• About 4-5 Tbs sauerkraut
• A carrot
• Or an apple
• Or 1/2 a beetroot
• A little red onion, finely chopped (optional, if you can digest it)
• 1-2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
• 1-2 Tbs chopped nuts and seeds or homemade dukkah

Grate the carrot, apple and/or beetroot. Or roughly chop them, then zizz in a mini food processor till in small chunks. Mix everything except the nuts and seeds together, then stir those through.

This particular salad looks very carroty, as the original sauerkraut also had carrot in it.

For Xmas, I'd use zizzed beetroot and apple, and some chunkier pieces of almond. Maybe serve it on a lettuce leaf  such as baby cos.

Dr Fife's magic oil

There is a drawback of cooking with coconut flour that you've probably all noticed - things stick to the tin like crazy! When  possible (eg when making a loaf) I use baking paper to line the trays.


But for muffins, it's more difficult. Pattie pans don't work. One possibility is to cut a square of baking paper and slide it into the muffin trays.


Or you can use Dr Fife's magic oil. He talks about it in his book "Cooking with coconut flour". He doesn't ship it to NZ, but did share the secret with me - it's a combination of coconut oil and lecithin. He didn't tell me the ratios, but after some trials, this is what I came up with.

• Measure ½ cup (3.5 oz, 100g) coconut oil in the jar you want to store it in. 
• Put into a bowl of hot water till melted. 
• Stir in 1 tsp of liquid lecithin.

Keeps fine in the cupboard for ages.

Christmas Morning Muffins

I love Nigella Lawson's recipes, even though most of them are full of white flour and sugar and other things we don't want to have on a WAPF diet, let alone GAPS! I love her passion for food and her ideas. This morning her recipe for Xmas Morning Muffins arrived in my Inbox, and I could immediately see how to make them GAPSy. My recipe is a variation of Bruce Fife's Honey Blueberry Coconut Flour muffins.


For those who can't have coconut, see the almond flour version I tried later in the week.

• 1/2 cup sifted coconut flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon or mixed spice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 6 eggs
• 4 Tbs (50gm, 2oz) butter or coconut oil, melted
• 4 Tbs honey
• 4 Tbs juice from an orange
• Grated zest of the orange
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 cup frozen cranberries

Grease a 12 pan muffin tray with Dr Fife's magic oil, or line with baking paper. Sift the coconut flour, baking soda and spices into a bowl and mix thoroughly. Blend together eggs, butter or oil, orange juice, honey, salt and zest.  Mix the two together until there are no lumps.  Stir in cranberries. Pour batter into muffin pans.  Bake at 400 degrees F (205C) for about 16-18 minutes.  Makes 12. (If you want to make less bigger muffins, adjust cooking time accordingly.)

Note that there is a small amount of baking soda, which is technically not GAPS legal. For most people, that small amount shouldn't cause a problem, and I think the texture would really suffer if you left it out. Use your own judgement, or talk to your GAPS practitioner about it.


For my first trial, I used just the mixed spice (in place of the original cinnamon and nutmeg). Ian thought it was spicy enough, but I didn't, so next time I'll add the 1/4 tsp nutmeg as well.


They came out a nice consistency, both warm and cold, and didn't need a spread. But they would be extra good with ghee, sour cream, or yoghurt cheese. Or maybe even sour cream or yoghurt cheese mixed with some lemon juice and honey.


Next day PS: We just had one each out of the fridge for morning tea. Ian had his plain and I cut mine open and spread with coconut ghee. Both ways were great.

Cranberry Sauce

Turns roast turkey, chicken or duck into a Christmas treat.


This is an easy sauce, made from the recipe on the frozen cranberry bag, but using natural sweeteners instead of sugar.

• 1 cup frozen cranberries
• 1 tart apple, peeled and grated
•  Juice of one orange
•   Zest of half the orange
• a bit under 1 cup rapadura, shakkar or muscavado sugar

Simmer berries, juice, zest and sugar together till sugar melts and glazes the berries, and berries are hot. Add grated apple. Simmer lightly for 5 minutes. Put into blender and pulse blend until berries are broken up but still chunky. Serve at once. Or make ahead of time, store in the fridge or freezer till needed, and reheat. It's also good cold.


Use the leftover turkey and leftover sauce to make a yummy meatloaf.

GAPS friendly version

Replace the sugar with 1/2 cup honey. After pulsing, taste and add more honey if needed.

White Christmas slice

We recently discovered dried strawberries. Not the sugar coated, preservative laden things you might have seen in the supermarket, but ones where strawberries are the only ingredients. I found them in Hardy's Health food shop. They're so sweet, it's hard to believe there's no added sugar. Anyway, I got thinking about how they would be a good substitute for glaced cherries in some Christmas recipes, and had a hazy memory of something called White Chrismas.

When I googled it, it turned out to be a rice bubble slice with glace cherries, Kremelta, and dessicated coconut and of course lots of icing sugar. So today I've been playing with versions of creamed coconut slice, and here's what we've got so far.

Version 1 used creamed coconut, coconut oil, vanilla essence, dried strawberries and sultanas. I didn't add extra sweetener. It tasted ok, but nothing special, just an everyday slice. For version 2, I used cocoa butter instead of the coconut oil. I added some mixed spice, and replaced some of the strawberries with dried pawpaw (cos I didn't have enough strawberries). It was much more Christmassy.

If you wanted extra sweetness, you could add a little honey. If you wanted some rice bubble like crunch, you could add some chopped nuts.

So here's the final recipe - well, as final as these things get. I'll probably tweak it again next time I make it. But we've got a lot of slice to eat before the next trial!

• 250ml (1/2 jar) creamed coconut
• 50g coconut oil -OR- cocoa (cacao) butter
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1-2 tsp honey (optional)

• 50g dried strawberries (or other red dried fruit of your choice)
• 50g apricots, pawpaw or pineapple
• 50g sultanas or raisins
• 50g almonds, cashews or macadamias (optional)

First, get your jar of creamed coconut softening in a bowl of hot water. (If you've got a jar already prepared, you won't need to do this). Next, line a plastic container that's about 15x20cm, or 12x25, or similar, with baking paper. Prepare your fruit: stir through the raisins and sultanas and remove any stalks; chop the rest into small pieces with kitchen scissors or a sharp knife. (note: choose fruits that are free of sweeteners and sulphites)

If you're using nuts, chop them up. (Best nuts for flavour, texture and digestibility are ones that have been made into "crispy" nuts, but raw or roasted unsalted will also do).

When the creamed coconut is soft enough to get out of the jar, scrape it all into a food processor and zizz till smooth. You might need to jab any big bits with a knife to break them up a bit more, and zizz again. When it's smooth, pour half back into the jar for another batch later on, or for adding to soups or stews.

If you're using cocoa butter, grate that and add. Or just spoon in the right amount of coconut oil. Add the other flavourings and zizz till it's all mixed together and smooth. Add the chopped fruit and nuts and pulse just enough to mix them in, but not mush them.

Pour into the container and mix around a bit to make sure the fruit and nuts are evenly dsitributed. Refrigerate for an hour or so, till hard. Lift the baking paper and contents onto a chopping board, and use a large knife to cut into small pieces, 1-1.5 cm wide. Gather up the corners of the paper, and you'll be able to stuff the whole lot back into the container, put the lid on and back into the fridge.

If you want to make them look pretty, spoon the mixture into mini muffin patty pans that have been stuffed into mini muffin trays. Or use foil thingies that are designed for truffles.