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!

Perfected Cashew Butter Muffins

 What is perfection? Well I'm not really sure, but in this muffin story it means fluffy, fabulous tasting muffins to take with you for snacks or to gobble one up in the morning on your way out the door. They even freeze well! Of course any story of perfection comes with lessons that were learned along the way. Trials, tribulations, pangs of angst. Of course, I've also found a lazy way to make them, because it's me here. So you can pick your method to mmmmmmmmmmmm......

Lessons:
1) Nuts are hard to digest in general. The traditional method of preparing nuts is to soak them in water and salt for a period of hours (depending on the type of nut). Then if one is fortunate to have a dehydrator then you dehydrate your soaked nuts for about 24 hours on a low setting. (or in the oven as low as it will go). I have been drawn to the cashew nut ever since I started the GAPS diet. My body just likes this nut. Well in other versions of this recipe I would try to use almonds, walnuts, pecans. On the pecanbread site for Specific Carbohydrate Diet, they say that pecans and almonds are the easiest to digest. Well I found it rather odd, that any nut with the exception of the cashew nut just gave my stomach hell. Lucky for me I looked up the cashew to see why this might be. Why, you ask? Why it's not a nut at all, it's a seed. Check out all about cashews here on WIKIPEDIA. So for those of you that can't do nuts yet, try the fabulous world of seeds: pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and cashews!

2) Eating a lot of nuts or in this case seeds can be quite constipating. So in working with these muffins, I tried to reduce the amount of cashew butter I used to include a veggie, I came up with butternut squash. Also, sometimes I'm over the whole plain cashew butter muffin. So what do I do? I peel and sautee granny smith apples with butter and cinnamon and pop those into my ready to go batter and voila!

3) Butter and baking soda. The timing of your ingredients is super important in baking. I was late for something (generally everything) and I asked my husband if he could pour the batter into the cups and bake them for me. Well when I returned from said function, he hadn't gotten to that yet. So the batter/butter had hardened up and when I baked them they turned out as unappreciative, dense muffins that were full of psychological bitterness for being abandoned mid-creation.

Baking soda will make or break your muffins. Forget this important ingredient and you can just forget about the fluff.

Okay now onto that recipe of mmmmmmm....
CASHEW (Seed) BUTTER MUFFINS:

Ingredients:
2 Cups of Cashew Butter (you can get the cashew and soak/dehydrate/grind with olive oil or you can purchase from this company: Artisana)
1 Cup of mashed butternut squash (you can buy, cook, and mash or you can purchase from this company: Farmer's Market ) (some of their products have sugar, so still read that label)
3 Eggs
1/2 cup of honey 
1/2 stick of melted butter
1 teaspoon of baking soda
(any additional nut, fruit, vegetable you want to chuck in there)


Directions:

I use a food processor, but use what you can:
1) Start that butter melting (no microwaves!!)
2) Mix eggs, cashew butter, honey, and butternut squash
3) Pour in the melted butter and blend again
4) Put in the baking soda and blend again
5) Optional, add something you want in your muffins!
6) Pour in muffin cups (I use the ones from whole foods that are recycled)
7) Put in oven which should be heated a little below 350 (for my oven)
8) take anywhere from between 15-20 minutes.

VOILA, HAPPINESS!

This recipe is based off the general bread recipe given in "Breaking the Vicious Cycle"

Happy lunch! Stir fry with a side of cashew bread toast

Onion soup

Sometimes a dish works out at the last moment just as you feel like
you're going to have to suck it up and eat it. For instance, I thought
it was a great idea to have onion soup. I was too lazy to cut the
onion very much, so it ended up being this ugly soup with big chunks
of onion and squash. Well, my friend the blender rescued my dish and
won my heart, because now the soup I couldn't eat two hours ago...
gourmet!!
Ingredients:
Chicken stock/broth
Chicken, chicken livers and hearts
Acorn squash
A BIG white onion
Garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
Cooking route: crockpot

Yeah my raw milk kefir worked!!!

Quick Update

Just a quick update, I will be more active on here once I recover.

So the bad symptoms got me to the place where I said, GAPS here I come. I started on the intro on Saturday. There are some awesome places to get food here in Tulsa. If I wanted I could just buy fish stock from Bodeans Seafood Market for super cheap.  I was feeling pretty good and then I was insanely emotional, crying over everything. "Die-off" is certainly a new sensation that I'd prefer to be without. Sunday morning, I was fine, but I looked at my tongue in the morning and had a raging cause of Oral Thrush, aka Candida Albicans. So I went to the store to get probiotics, because I don't yet have the BioKult, the recommended probiotic for GAPS (they are coming through amazon). Once taking many of those I felt better....until there was night time. UPDATE 6/13: Biokult has hidden sugars if you are sensitive. For me it was a no go.  Right before bed I started feeling nauseated, my abdomen was gurgling, and I straight up had a fever. This morning the bathroom and I had a reunion of which details should not be discussed openly, and I again felt feverish. Today has not been the best in my record of "fabulous vitality days", but it has shown me how much I really needed to do this.

The GAPS diet is all about killing the bad guys, but also really emphasizes restoring the good guys through broths and fermented foods. I've made my first beet kvass, which is rather tasty for something that contains beets, garlic, and whey protein.

All in all, I'm feeling good about going down this road, despite its difficulty. I know now that it is very true that it must get worse before it gets better. I'm grateful for all the information on the interweb where people have discussed their "die-off" symptoms so I know that this is normal.


What I have learned to do to fight the yeast is:
Probiotics
Hold yogurt in my mouth for a minute (it's crazy, it sticks to the yeast- it was like Braveheart in my mouth!)
Oil of Oregano
Olive Leaf Extract
S. Boulardii (another type of yeast that fights the might C.A.)

I've been updating my links as I do research so that there is more linkage goodness in one place. I found two places to get supplements. I'm very intrigued with Dr. Ron's supplements that are additive free. I was concerned about their multi-vitamin because it contained Boron (Aspartate) which is the same thing as Aspartame. They called me back within 2 hours and explained that it was a very low dosage and was put in the multi to prevent osteoporosis. They also told me that it was from a natural source that doesn't cause the problems that the synthesized molecules do. Quality company. I'm definitely buying my Fermented Cod Liver Oil from them (also recommended supplement for GAPS diet to heal the GI lining). I'll post if the Multi is legal. I've written them an email requesting the information if it is or not.

Tasty Way of Taking Oils

One of the important things I learned this week was that we must take supplements during the time that we are on this diet to properly heal the gut. In the GAPS diet, one of these supplements is Cod Liver Oil, because of it is plentiful in Vitamin A (it is also very high in Vitamin D). The first time I took it, which was straight from the spoon, was a slightly icky moment.

When I was speaking with the woman with 140 different food allergies, I mentioned that perhaps one of the reasons things weren't getting better for her (along with the fact that she was not on the correct diet) was that she wasn't supplementing with gut healing remedies. When I brought up Cod Liver Oil, her eyes got quite wide and she said, "Oh yes, I just can't take that, it's really gross."

Well if you know me, you know I'm generally a no excuses type girl. Where there's a will there's a way; Fight fire with fire, and etc. So I masterminded a remedy for the faint of palate.

I thought first, perhaps I could mix it with something delicious or just have a strong chaser. But then, I went back in the noggin' where the chemistry info is stored and picked out this simple and yet effective truth: Oil will float on water.

So I took out my handy dandy shot glass, my freshly squeezed OJ, and my rather untasty supplements. I also take Vitamin E by way of Sunflower Oil, so I put a dose of that in as well.

First pour a bit of OJ, then follow it by the doses of oils. Swig it back and it naturally has just the taste of orange juice (or whatever juice you choose). So simple!

 

  Update: Since I have been on the GAPS diet, I am unable to drink orange juice (at the present time). Any one on the intro will not be able to drink any type of fruit juice or vegetable juice. Using water as a base works just as well with oil supplements like cod liver oil. The only time you have to have some type of chaser is when what you're slinging back is water soluble (like grapeseed extract)/ JUST DO IT! motto is all I can help with there. Also, I have found fermented cod liver oil from Dr. RON's that helps take out the sting. My favorite is the Arctic Mint. Be careful, not all the flavors are legal!