Chocolate cheesecake - Yeast free, sugar free, lactose free

This is my new favorite recipe and snack! The best part is that it takes under 10 minutes to whip up. I was inspired by a blog post about the things GAPS dieters do wrong. What did I do wrong? Well I don't drink enough broth or eat enough gelatin. So I went searching for ways to include gelatin in my meals and snacks. Then I found this recipe for a crust-less, no bake cheesecake. Here's my sugar free, chocolate it up version:

 Ingredients:

1 Cup Boiling Water

2 Tablespoons Gelatin (get the good stuff, it's worth it)

16 Drops of Stevia

2 Cups SCD Yogurt

1 Paleo Cacoa Bar

Directions: Stir the Gelatin teaspoons into the cup of boiling water, making sure it's fully dissolved and add your stevia.

 I like this kind of gelatin, it's the real deal, grass-fed beef gelatin. Ellie agrees ;)

Dissolved Gelatin

Allow the gelatin-water-stevia mixture to sit for three minutes.

In the meantime, melt that chocolate. I have worked and worked to figure out how to make chocolate or even carob powder make a descent homemade chocolate with stevia. I failed so many time that I've given up. Recently I found this chocolate bar, which is AWESOME!!! Just a warning it takes several weeks to receive your order and their customer service is lacking, but whatever, if you're patient you get the goods.

Now it's time to add the yogurt. I use my homemade SCD yogurt because of it's lack of lactose. If you aren't into this practice already and store bought stuff doesn't put you in bed, you can strain yogurt from the store or buy cream cheese.

This is the consistency of my yogurt.

Use a hand-blender to slowly blend the yogurt into the liquid.  I blend for about five minutes to make it super creamy. Deep bowls are best for this job!





























Now add your melted chocolate into the batter. I then add chopped walnuts to the mix.

I put mine in one cup pyrex bowls and top them with a few more chopped walnuts. Put them in the fridge and within a few hours, voila dessert!!

Coconut-Flax Muffins/Bread: Yeast-free, lactose free, sugar free, gluten free, starch free

This is another one of those recipes that I've worked on for many months to perfect so that it fits my dietary needs. It's always a great roller coaster to ride to do this, but the outcome is always worth the times you looked at your creation and dumped it in the trash. First let me give credit to my inspiration for this recipe. It's a good recipe on its own if you can eat all the ingredients.

The difficulty came when I needed to cut out the egg whites with the yeast free diet. Here's the egg substitution list that helped me conjure my perfect bread.

Bread/Muffin Ingredient List:

Dry Ingredients:

1 Cup Coconut Flour

1 Cup Ground Flax Seeds

2 Teaspoons Baking Soda

1 Pinch of Salt

Seasonings of Choice**

Wet Ingredients:

1/2 cup melted ghee

1/4 cup filtered water

4 Egg YOLKS Only

2 Teaspoons of Apple Cider Vinegar

2 Teaspoons of Vanilla Extract

Not Wet, but not Dry Ingredient:

1.5 cups Homemade Strained Yogurt

Optional: Walnut pieces

1. Start melting the the butter
2. Add all of the dry ingredients to a food processor or your equivalent and mix it up!
3. Add your seasonings
1. G's Option #1 Sweet: Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Allspice, Cloves
2. G's Option #2 Savory: Parsley, Oregano, Garlic Powder
3.  Turn your oven on to 350 degree
4. In a separate bowl mix together:
1. Water, Egg Yolks, Water, ACV, Vanilla Extract
1. If you are going for sweet 6-16 drops of Stevia Extract (365 Whole Foods Brand)
2. REMEMBER: If your butter is TOO hot it can cook the eggs!
   
   
5. In the dry food processor, add the yogurt and blend.
1. My yogurt is homemade and I strain it for several days with a cheescloth so it has a cream cheese texture. It may affect your recipe if you use a thin, watery yogurt. So either make your own SCD yogurt and strain for a couple of days, or buy yogurt from the grocery store and strain it through a cheescloth until you get the appropriate form of the yogurt. 

   

   Homemade Yogurt Texture

6. Turn on the food processor and slowly add wet ingredients
   

   

   Mixed Ingredients

7. Blend until smooth texture is acquired
8. Optionally add your nuts in and pulse!
9. Here's where you can decide between muffins and bread!

For muffins:
-  I use paper cups because I don't like to hassle with trying to pop a muffin out of a place its securely fastened to and make a mess and a sad looking muffin.
- I can usually do this directly after blending, but when my yogurt has been more watery I wait a little bit for the butter to harden a bit, this makes them easier to mold into balls.
- Mold the dough into ball and put them in the cups, then flatten the top out with your hand.
This is important for a gluten free/starch free muffin, because otherwise it looks unattractive on the top of the muffin, as well as unevenly cooked
- Cook for 20 minutes on 350 degrees

For Bread:
- I use parchment paper, because, again I dislike failure in the baking department.
- I use a 9 x 13 glass pyrex container.
- Bake for 40 minutes at 350 degrees. 

Almond-Coconut Butter Fudge (Diary Free, GF, Yeast free, Sugar Free!)

So don't hate me, but I flew by the seat of my pants again and didn't measure this experimental- I must-have-chocolate-now-or-someone's-going-down-recipe. I'll guess-ti-mate and hopefully repeat in the future for more exactness.

Chocolate may have to be kicked out soon, but since I don't know and it hasn't caused me any negative symptoms for the last six months, I went for it in my moment of weakness.

INGREDIENTS:
4-5 generous scoops of Coconut Butter (guesstimate)
1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder (I like Ghirardelli)
Stevia to taste (maybe 10 drops for me)
Almond Butter (I buy Artsana) (I'm going to say I used 1/4 cup)
(without the almond butter it was sweeter, so maybe you want to stop before adding the almond butter, or maybe not. We still don't know what's responsible for the hardening)

-Heat the cocoa and the coconut butter in a pan while stirring until the coconut butter melts and mixes with the chocolate
-Add stevia drops to taste
-Add the almond butter and stir

I put it over my SCD/GAPS lactose free yogurt. It made a hardened shell that made me reminisce about that chocolate I used to pour on ice cream that would make that crispy shell:) Well I can do it without sugar, boo-yah!

I'm pretty sure if put in an greased glass jar and put in the fridge this would make a rockin' fudge, but I was WAY to impatient for that.

Enjoy!
G

UPDATE: this did not make me feel good, I think coconut butter for me is like a pure jump into sugar land. Now I'm making fudge/chocolate with carob powder, ghee, coconut oil, stevia, walnuts, and vanilla extract. I'll post that recipe soon.

How to Make Homemade Almond Milk

Oh Almond Milk! It's so so good. But recently I've learned to make it so much better.  No worries, I'm on a blogging roll, so I'll share ;)

First take your almonds (I just use a bag of blanched almonds, but I'm sure it doesn't matter that much)

1) Soak those puppies:

What to add to the mixture:
a) Almonds (1.3 cups-- in the package I use)
b) Filtered water 'till container is full
c) Grapeseed Extract (I use 10 drops) this reduces the chance for the almonds to grow mold
d) Salt (inhibits bacterial growth)

2) I use my Food Saver and seal the jar and put it in the fridge overnight or 24 hours preferably.

3) When ready to use: Wash the Almonds with new water.

4) Put those almonds in your blender.

5) Add 4 cups of filtered water and a splash of vanilla extract.

6) Blend, blend, blend, blend, blend, blend, blend 'till your ears can't take the blender no more. About 10 minutes or so for perfection.

7) Strain with a cheescloth or nut milk bag (I prefer the latter!); squeeze extra milk out.

You can dehydrate or put the almond bulk in the oven to dry it for use in baked goods. Another option is to keep it in its wet state and use it to thicken gravies. Note that if you are using it for gravies, you need to get on that project, it quickly goes bad.

Simple Green Soup

 I've been GAPS and SCD for years, and I still loathe figuring out how to incorporate broth into my food. This is technically not the Candida diet, because of the red meat (buffalo) and broth is not required on this diet, but it's very soothing to ones stomach.

 I already had this buffalo meat ready to go. I've decided that I'm going to stroll towards this new diet. Stress is my middle name, so in my attempts to become a Type B personality, I shall take my time and do it right. 

My husband buys grass fed beef shanks (cheapest) from Whole Foods every week and makes his dish with it. Well while I was lamenting about my lame ass attempts to incorporate broth into my diet and instead let it rot in the fridge, he offered to not only give me his broth this week but make some onion soup with it.

He made the broth with the shanks in the pressure cooker, then threw onions in and cooked those down. I am using the onion soup as my base. Since I'm to work more and more RAW foods into my diet, my idea is to heat the broth up, just so that it mixes, let it cool to room temp, and then throw in the veggies. I think it worked quite well! Just pretend this is turkey or some other white meat and everybody will be happy :)

Also, I find soups the only tolerable way to eat raw garlic. I use my handy dandy garlic press and it's much more tolerable than popping a raw piece of garlic in your mouth.

Ingredients:
Broth (from your bone and meat of choice)
1 White Onions

Add whatever!
Here's what I added:

Ground Buffalo
Red Bell Peppers
Power greens cut with my herb scissors
Cilantro
Parsley
Garlic
Broccoli ( I actually put this in right away because it was frozen and helped cool down the broth)

Sometimes I add a raw egg yolk to my soups, because it makes them uber delicious, but this was already so delicious I thought I would do without.

The Best Greens!

So I just want to thank my friend Cat for introducing me to Baby Kale. Who knew that you could buy kale that was smaller, less of a hassle to fit in the fridge, and that was triple washed already! Yep, I'm a lazy food nerd, but look what I found, extra time! A triple threat really: Baby Kale, Chard, and Spinach. I just wanted others to know that this exists, if you too loathe soaking Kale in Apple Cider Vinegar and then drying it, and then storing it, and before you can start to cook with it. With a pair of herb scissors, this baby can change your world.

Healthy Sugar-free, Fruit-free Popsicles

Sometimes, the Internet fails you. Could I find one recipe for popsicles that did not contain a fruit or sugar of some sort? NO. So I just made up my own. This is a work in progress, but I'm pretty pleased with my first round. When you bite in at first, you're like, what the hell is this? Then after the third bite, you're feeling pretty proud of yourself for being a sneaky health food genius.

In a blender:
2 Cups Homemade Almond Milk (I'll post my recipe for this later)
Many handfuls of Spinach (sorry I just don't measure things)
A little splash of vanilla extract
Six drops of Stevia (whole foods 365 brand) (I don't like it too Stevia'd, you may prefer more)

BLEND FOREVER, Drive EVERYONE MAD with your blending. No I'm just kidding, but my husband did ask when I would be finishing up with the blender. Probably blended for 10 minutes, but that's because my blender is no Vitamix. Someday Vitamix, you will be mine.

I then strained my concoction because I'm somewhat of a texture freak.

Pour in your designated popsicle holder, I like the stainless steel ones I got from amazon, the only store I seem to frequent these days.

Freeze 'em, eat 'em.

Candida, Parasites, and More Changes

"Don't Look Back"

Inspirational Picture by Mary Engelbreit

Yep, I'm going at it again. Something has to work, right! I must say frustration is high as I look into another diet with different restrictions and get sick trying some of the ingredients.  I haven't gotten to fully participate in anyone's birthday or good time out in so many years and I'm really ready for that to change.

But I have a post-card on my refrigerator that keeps it in perspective. It has a fork in the road. One side says "Your Life", the other says "No Longer an Option". I can't whine or say poor me, I'm a 31 year old woman that has been sick for twelve years and be irritated by the continual vitality of others that make poor lifestyle choices. I have to deal this package of cards and be grateful for the experience, despite my tendency towards bitterness.

So I haven't blogged much, but I'm working on a graduate degree, so my time is limited. I do have a desire to give back to those seeking information as I have gotten so much information from others that took the time to blog it. As well, I selfishly want a database of all my recipes and ideas, so I'm trying to make that happen.

I've been on the SCD/GAPs diet since October 2011, so almost 2 full years now. I'm still stuck in some of the beginning stages and enough is enough already. While it remedies my symptoms, it's not healing the problem. So I looked further.

I started with a parasite cleanse. I have done this for a full month now. I saw many a worm of different shape and color come out of me, and am very glad I did it. In the meantime, I had cranberries and pineapples, both which are supposed to help get rid of parasites. I'm sure they do.

However, when I started spiraling into depression on my third week and feeling like an irritated monster, I then asked the question I do each time this happens. Where's the sugar? Oh yea, that pineapple and cranberry daily juice. That did it. Open mouth, stick out tongue, yep, there's the oral thrush, brilliant!

So now I've decided to do an elimination of candida while still staying true to a lot of the SCD/GAPS principles. I guess the lesson being, just because you're attacking one species of pathogen, does not mean others aren't lurking in their wake, ready to copulate and take over.

I bought an E-book, Yeast No More. The adverstising is a little much. I  wanted to poke both of my eyes out, it was so much infomercial, so little information. Also, if you try and look for someone who says something bad about it, not to be found. I was suspicious. But at the end of the day, I thought, whatever, if it's a 40 dollar mistake, so be it. Well, I don't think it was. I haven't started the protocol yet. I have just tried to piece it together and try some different food combos. There's a lot of information, so it takes a good amount of time with a notebook jotting notes and putting things together to understand the order of everything. I also received an email from Linda Allen, asking if I had any questions. If you know me, you know I always have a question ;) She wrote me back within 24 hours. I am impressed. I've been really alone during my journey of figuring things out. Of course, there is my husband, and my physician, but when it's come to making decisions and food choices, I've had to research and experiment alone. So the recipes I blog from this point until I say differently (please no!) are going to be YEAST FREE recipes. Because I not only follow copyright law, but ethically feel it's the right thing to do, I will not be giving away the books instructions. So if it interests you, take a chance on a $40 mistake or just enjoy the recipes I come up with.  I just wanted to give a little intro into why many titles will now say YEAST FREE and what this new path is for me.

Wish me luck!
G

LINKS SCD/GAPS/Candidia Diet/ETC

Instead of filling my side bar with these I thought a nice post that I update from time to time would make it so I can keep track of my own recipes better and still keep these treasures. Enjoy!

LINKS:

Informational Videos	Dr. Rawlins Lecture on MTHFR mutation
	Dr. Seneff's Interview about Sulfur Deficiency
Candida Diet:	Dosing with S. Boulardii
SCD Links Info:	Breaking the Viscious Cycle Yahoo Group
	Enhanced SCD through Weston Price
	Pecan Bread (lots of info, including stages)
	Stages of SCD
SCD Blogs/Recipes:	Heal Balance Live
	Hold the Bread, Please
	Honey Pie... SCD style
	Intestinal Health through Diet
	Kat's Food Blog
	Mrs Ed's Research and Recipes
	SCD and me
	SCD Girl
	SCD Recipes
	SCD Recipes
	Z's Cup of Tea
GAPS Links Info:	The GAPS diet
GAPS Blogs/Recipes:	30 Days on GAPS Intro Handbook
	Cheese Slave
	Dr. NCM's GAP page
	GAPS Diet Journey
	Grain Free Goodies
	Loving Our Guts
	Taste is Trump
	The Liberated Kitchen
Buying SCD/GAP Food Links:	Azure Organic Bulk Foods
	Coconut Cream Concentrate
	Comfy Tummy
	Legal Coconut Wraps
	SCD Bakery
	Wise Choice Market
Paleo:	30 Paleo Crockpot Recipes
	The Food Lovers Kitchen
Books:	5 Spices, 50 Dishes
	Breaking the Vicious Cycle (SCD)
	GAPS diet book
	Nourishing Traditions (Weston A. Price)
Further Information Links:	Autism Resource of Yuma (Info)
	Happy Tummy (articles)
Supplement Resources:	Dr. Ron's Ultra-Pure additive free company
	Bulk Salts
	Detox Baths
	Radiant Life
Blogs that do SCD/Paleo/GAPS/ Weston A. Price Combos	Real Food Forager
	Comfy Belly
	Intentionally Domestic
	Healthy Home Economist
	Dom's Kefir FAQs
Healthy but generally need substitutions:	Chocolate-Covered Katie
Fermented Foods:	Cultured Food for Life
	Heal Thyself Groups
Other:	Stool Analysis
	Our Yogurt Maker

Coconut Flour- Almond Butter Muffins

Makes 9 Muffins:

1/2 stick Melted Butter
6 Eggs
6 Drops Liquid Stevia (365 Whole Foods Brand)
1/2 cup Coconut Flour
1/2 cup Almond Butter (I use Artsana)
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1-2 Tablespoons Shredded Coconut 
A little cinnamon, allspice, clove, nutmeg to taste

Blend: I do the eggs, butter, and stevia first and then add the rest into a food processor.

Add topping if you like:

Optional Topping:
1 TBSP Shredded coconut
1 TBSP Ground Flax
1 TBSP Cinnamon

Bake: 400 degrees for 15 minutes
Yum!