The Best Brownies - Ever! (GAPS, Paleo, Grain-free, Refined Sugar free, Gluten-free, Dairy-free)

A bold claim, I know! And I don’t just mean “the best brownies, considering they are GAPS/Paleo/Grain-free.” No, THE best brownies.

To quote my husband: “Whatever you had written down as the brownie recipe you were going to make for the rest of your life - scratch it and make these instead!”
Yep. And my husband does not follow a GAPS diet, or paleo or even grain-free, or gluten-free. He could eat any old brownie if he wanted to!

Somehow they manage to be fudgy and slightly cake-y at the same time! As far as I’m concerned - that’s pretty perfect!

This recipe started it’s life as one of Megan’s (a.k.a. Detoxinista) recipes for brownies made from almond pulp. Don’t know who that is? You are so missing out! She has a wonderful blog, full of awesome, healthy and oh so tasty recipes!

Anyway, after playing around with the recipe for a while, adjusting ingredients and amounts, I came up with a GAPSified version, that works really well, is packed with nutrition, doesn’t use a ton of almond flour, and, as mentioned above, is now our absolute favorite!

And they couldn’t be easier to make. Just dump everything in a bowl, whisk to combine, bake, done! And if you’ve done “specialty recipes” before, “quick and easy” is NOT a given!

 

Ingredients:

1/3 cup organic unsweetened applesauce (I use homemade)

1/4 cup ghee (or coconut oil)
1/3 cup raw honey*

1/3 cup date sugar (I use this one)

1/2 cup almond flour (I use Honeyville Almond Flour)

1/2 cup organic cocoa powder (I use this one)
2 tsp. organic vanilla extract
2 large eggs, pastured
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 pinch of sea salt

*I use our local raw hickory honey - it is fairly thick, pretty mild in flavor but strong in sweetening power, even when baked. You may have to adjust your honey accordingly, depending on how it comes through once baked and how liquid it is. The closest commercially available honey that compares to my local ones in both flavor and consistency, is this one, another favorite of mine!

 

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Grease and line an 8”x8” dish or pan with parchment paper.
Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl until an even and thick batter results.

Bake for 25 minutes, until the middle is no longer jiggley and the edges are pulling away from the sides of the pan.

Allow to cool before serving.

 

Note: For an extra decadent treat, frost with a little of this buttercream once completely cool. SO good!

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Homemade Ham (GAPS, gluten-free, dairy-free, refined sugar free, preservative free)

 

 

Ingredients:

6 lbs. or so of Pork loin (excess fat removed)

3/4  gallon water

3/4 - 1 cup Himalayan sea salt

1 cup raw honey 

1 tbsp. dried sage

1 tbsp. dried thyme

8 whole peppercorns
1 cup  fresh celery juice (optional)

1 l prepared water kefir (also optional, but does help to prepare pork properly) - or more water + 1 tbsp. Apple Cider Vinegar or lemon juice

 

Preparation:

Place the water, salt, sage, thyme and peppercorns into a saucepan. Heat and  stir until salt is dissolved. Let it cool until just barely warm, then add 1 cup of raw honey. Stir until dissolved.
Let it cool all the way to room temperature, then add 1 bottle of homemade water kefir - this is less for flavor and more for the acid base to properly prepare pork, even though the flavor does contribute.  I love using homemade water kefir root beer in this!

Add the fresh celery juice  too. Stir to combine.

Note that celery juice does contain some natural nitrates, so if you are trying to avoid them, omit the celery juice. I am adding it for flavor, more than anything else.

I cut the loin into about 3 -4 pieces - they brine and smoke more evenly that way.

Place each piece in a gallon zip lock bag, divide brine amongst it.

 

 

I like to place my bags in a little box or basket, so they are pushed together a little more. The brine rises and  covers all the meat. That way you don't have to turn the meat.  If you don’t do it this way, turn the meat once a day, so all the sides get brined evenly.

 

Place in the fridge and let it brine for 3-4 days.

Remove meat from brine and rinse well. Pat it really dry.

 

{A double batch, just before smoking.}

I hickory smoke it for 3.5-4 hrs. at 200 F until the internal temp is 150F.

 

 

{All done! Now just cooling down before slicing and freezing!}

Let it cool and slice/shave it thinly (with a deli slicer!)

 

{Yum!}

 

Store in the refrigerator. Unlike the commercial ham, this will not keep nearly as long, even when refrigerated, since we have no preservatives. Treat it like you would any other cooked meat.
I find that slicing one of the pieces and keeping it in the fridge, while freezing the others and then taking them out one by one as we slice and eat it, works well!

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Salted Caramel Ice Cream (GAPS, SCD, Paleo, Gluten-Free, Refined Sugar Free)

This is not your run-of-the-mill caramel ice cream. It has a very satisfying honey flavor with a hint of salted caramel, enveloped in a rich and velvety ice cream texture.

And, this ice cream is scoop-able right out of the freezer!

My children have declared it “the best ice cream you ever made.” That is high praise, especially since they love all the other ice creams I have made before!

 

 

Salted Caramel Ice Cream

 

Ingredients:

3/4 cup of pure honey

2 tbsp. water

1 can of  Coconut milk 

1/2 tsp pink Himalayan sea salt

4 egg yolks (fresh, preferably from pastured chickens) room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cup of cultured cream (I make mine from raw milk, culturing it for 24 hrs. with some milk kefir grains)

 

Preparation:

Place the honey and the water in a pan. Let it cook to 240 F (soft boil stage) on your candy thermometer. This takes about 8-10 minutes.
Then, carefully, add 1 can of coconut milk and 1/2 tsp of sea salt and stir to combine.

Let it cook until the temperature goes back up to 190 - 200F.

It will look like sweetened condensed milk, but a bit more runny.
Remove from heat and let it cool down to room temp.

Then add 4 egg yolks, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 1/2 cups of cultured cream. Whisk together and process in the ice cream maker. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, that is fine. Whisk it a little longer to thoroughly incorporate the ingredients and whip in some air.  Then pour into a container and freeze over night.

If you are processing this in an ice cream maker, please note that this particular ice cream will stay really slushy and soft. It barely gets to soft serve stage, so just transfer it to your ice cream container and freeze at least over night.

Unlike other ice creams, this scoops right out of the freezer, so no need to set this ice cream out to thaw a bit before serving.

Enjoy!

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CRUNCHY Butternut Squash Chips (GAPS, SCD, Paleo, Gluten-Free, Grain-Free)

This, my friends, is a bowl of truly crunchy heaven!

When you are on GAPS, or many other diets, you seriously lack the crunch factor. There is the odd crispy thing, but there is no real crunch crunch. There’s the kind of crunch you get from a cracker, or the crunch you get from dried zucchini chips (which is a little on the chewy/leathery side) and of course there is the crunch you get from a carrot - but there nothing close to the crunch you get from a potato chip or a tortilla chip.
Until you make these little babies!
They are truly crunchy. And delicious. And even though somewhat labor intensive, not hard to do!

My family really, REALLY likes these! Even the ones that aren’t doing GAPS! Who would have ever thought that my kids would beg me for butternut squash anything on a regular basis? Not me, but here we are!

So, let’s get started!

This recipe only has two ingredients. The recipe is not so much in the ingredients however, it is in the method.

It does help to have a dehydrator to make it easier to make these chips, but an oven works too.

Butternut Squash Chips

Ingredients:

1 Butternut squash, preferably one with a long, straight neck

Ghee, or frying oil of choice

Equipment: Potato peeler, Mandoline or other slicer (you need something that produces thin, even slices,) a dehydrator (or oven,) and means to deep or pan fry, kitchen tongs.

Method:

Slice the butternut squash just where it begins to bulge outwards.
That is where the seeds usually start. We want to use the top part for chips.

You can also use the bottom part for chips, however, they will end up being thin-ish half moon shapes.  I generally hollow out the bottom part and place it in the freezer. Once I have collected a few, I defrost and stuff them with meat and veggies for dinner. Not only does it taste delicious, it also looks really cute, prepared in it’s own little butternut squash bowl!

   

Peel the top part of the squash. You generally have to go over the same spot a couple of times to get to the bright orange flesh, with no whitish skin left, or the green veins that sometimes run under the skin.

Slice on a mandoline. I have tried several different thicknesses and personally I prefer 1/8 of an inch. They don’t take too long to dry and they still make a pretty sturdy chip.
You can go a little thinner or a little thicker, but I really wouldn’t go thicker than 1/4 inch, as the puffing up later will be impeded if the chip is too thick.

 

  

Bring a saucepan of water to a boil and in batches, boil the squash slices. About 2 minutes per batch.

They should still be pretty firm when you pull them out and by no means cooked through. I use kitchen tongs to pull them out and they still stand up really well to that grabbing pressure. If they fall apart on you, you are cooking them for too long. We really just want to blanch them!
I usually blanch them in 4-5 batches. Make sure that you put them into the boiling water one by one, so none of them stick together going in!

Once blanched, layer them onto the trays of your dehydrator. I tend to wait until they have cooled down just enough for me to touch all the slices, then layer them in there. Process according to your dehydrator instructions until completely dry. Some will curl up, some won’t - it’s all good.

You can also lay them out in a single layer on cookie sheets and dry them on the lowest setting of your oven.

And this is what they will look like once done. Completely dry, somewhat hard, but in a leathery kind of way.

Now, the magic happens.
I have no photos of the actual frying process. There is a reason for that!

The reason is .... you need to be FAST. As in, split seconds fast, so there’s no way I could photograph and not have the chips burn.

I generally fry mine in a small pan with about an inch or so of ghee in it. You can use other oils or fats too. It all works.


Heat your fat to about 350-375 F.

Now, fry them, one by one. Yes, don’t be tempted to dump them all in, I guarantee you they will all burn as you can’t get them out fast enough.


So, one by one, using kitchen tongues again, place a dehydrated chip in the hot fat, almost instantly flip it around to the other side and them take it out. I am literally talking about a second on each side.
But in that second, magic happens. You will see the chip puff up, sometimes it will uncurl, and it will turn to a deep orange. Sometimes the color doesn’t look like it changed much, but it will continue cooking even after you pulled it out, so DO pull it out. They will turn into an orangey brown once they cool.


Place on a kitchen towel to drain the excess oil/fat.


Keep doing this, one by one.

If you leave them in to get really brown, they are still crispy, but the more “burnt” they become, the more bitter they will taste, and that’s not what we want. So, one second each side, remember?

See the difference in the photo below. The left one went too far, the right one is what you’re aiming for !

Below you can see how the chip changes from dehydrated state to fried state. See those lovely bubbles? That’s the crunch factor!

    

Dehydrated squash slice.                                     Fried chip from dehydrated slice.

And there you have it. I like to give a light shake of Herbamare over them and enjoy, either by themselves or with dips, salsa, as nachos, etc.

Yes,  these are a bit of work! But the good news is that because they are dehydrated, you don’t have to do ALL of the above every time you make them. You can make large batches of dehydrated slices and store them in an air tight container and fry them up pretty quickly whenever you want them!
And butternut squash season is coming, so they will be a lot cheaper too. Well worth stocking up on!

I generally store the dehydrated slices in an air-tight jar and then fry up as many as we will eat. However, if you are going to store the fried chips longer, make sure they're in an air-tight container or bag, otherwise they will lose some of their crunch!

Notes:

Since this is a little labor intensive, I did of course experiment with seemingly simpler ways. None of them worked out.
Here is what I’ve tried:

• I tried them fresh and fried, total flop. Literally. Nothing crispy about them at all!
• I tried them fresh (without the dehydrating step) both blanched and not blanched. Also didn’t work out. Except for making them paper thin ... but those don't hold up to much and they were quite hard to get to the right crispness without completely burning them. And no puffing up either.
• Tried them just soaked in water and then dehydrated and fried - got crispy and a little bit puffy but they also had an oddly bitter flavor, which I really didn’t care for!
  
  
  
  

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The Big 20/20 Event: Day 6: Make Your Own Chicken Pad Thai

Welcome back to “The Big 20/20 Event” - I am so glad you’re joining us! We will be sharing 20 fantastic tutorials from a host of awesome contributors, for 20 days.
If you enjoy the tutorials, make sure you sign up for my newsletter, as all my newsletter subscribers will receive a beautiful PDF eBook at the end of the event, showcasing all 20 tutorial projects to keep and peruse at their leisure!
Here we go with our Day 6 tutorial.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Make Your Own Chicken Pad Thai

 

 

Hi! My name is Jacquie and I blog over at Confessions Of A College Angel. I am so happy to be a part of The Big 20/20 event!!

 

My how to is really yummy, How to make Chicken Pad Thai--- now this isn’t COMPLETELY the traditional version of Pad Thai, although I do LOVE that kind as well, this was made for a super picky eater, my fiancée Kensei and his even more picky of an eater Dad. I really hope you like this and give it a try!

 

What you will need:

• Pad Thai Noodles, (I found mine in the organic/gluten free isle of my local Kroger)
• 1 cup to 1 lb. of chopped chicken breast
• (I also added 4 gluten free all chicken organic chicken and pineapple sausages)
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 a white onion or 3-5 green onions
• 1 egg per person eating
• carrots, bean sprouts, corn, broccoli any veggie you know that you  and your family will eat. (we used shredded carrots, bean sprouts and fire roasted corn)
• Roughly chopped peanuts (I put mine in a Ziploc bag and smacked them with a mason jar.)

For the sauce you will need--

• The Juice of 1 lime
• 3 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar
• 3 tablespoons fish sauce (from  Kroger’s Asian isle or your local Asian market)
• 4 tablespoons white sugar (I used 2 white and 2 brown)
• Crushed red pepper flakes to taste

So what do you do?

Start by cooking your rice noodles until they are almost done! I boiled some water, turned it off and let the noodles soak for 5 min)

 

 

Then Pour out the water and let the noodle's drain, you might want to run cold water over them to stop the cooking process.

 

 

While the noodles are draining, start chopping and cooking your meat--- when you cook the meat add 1 tablespoon of peanut or veg oil to the pan.

 

 

While the meat is cooking mix the sauce and set aside.

Once the meat is all cooked remove from the pan, add 1 more tablespoon oil, scramble eggs and cook until fluffy and broken up.

 

 

Remove egg from pan, add 1 more tablespoon oil and cook garlic, onions and veggies until slightly softened, then add the meat, scrambled eggs and noodles to pan, before pouring sauce over everything and stir frying for 2-3 min. If it looks dry you can add water, or I used a little Orange Juice for extra bright flavor.

 

 

Now you can eat!! I plated everyone up a small bowl topped with crushed peanuts and 3 wedges of limes for squeezing on top ( I love the flavor of lime in this dish!) What is your favorite Asian food? do you have a make at home recipe? I would love to know! Also if you try this please leave me a comment and let me know what you liked about it!!

A little more about Jacquie:

What inspires me

a. I am inspired by the little things in life, a good day, a hug or kiss from someone I love things like that. I have found there is just to many negative things to not pay attention and be inspired by all the small things!

Where do I get my ideas from?

a. I tend to find something I like and want to recreate it at home. I have a lot of trial and error but somethings urn out better than what I had in mind to start.

What is my biggest dream for my future?

a. Currently getting married and starting a family.

 

Jacquie's Bio:

I am Jacquie and I blog over at Confessions Of A College Angel. My blog is all about life through my eyes as a full time college student with a full time job, who just recently moved to a new city transferred universities and lives with her boyfriend. I am a little bit of a dork, a geek and a nerd, I love photography, in fact, that is my major. I also love to read and cook. My blog is a little bit about everything! I hope you come and check it out!!

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The Long Lost Blogger

Wow, it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted here!

It has been BUSY around here! Not that that’s new or different!

Catching you up will be a long and picture rich post, but here we go!

 

On top of the regular scheduled “programming” around our house, I’ve been busy with this:

 

 

My “babies” turned eight years old! (Seriously?! When did that happen?!) And we had a party! And it was an awesome party! And of course there were the cakes!

 

Anna wanted a Lalaloopsy cake, with figures she could keep! So, that was an easy one! Making all the buttons, butterflies and flowers was fun and quite easy - and then I just topped it off with some mini Lalaloopsies!

 

 

 

Max, of course, wanted an Angry Birds cake again, this time with the star wars theme! He wanted to be able to eat everything, so I made everything edible!

 

We also had a bouncy castle, and Daddy was manning the cotton candy machine and lots of friends came and everyone had a lot of fun!

 

 

 

 

And then there is also a lot of this!

 

 

Bumper crops, canning, freezing, prepping, freezing, jam making, drying, freezing,  pie filling making, apple sauce making, jam making, fermenting, you name it and I’ve done a LOT of it this year!

 

And of course, now there is also a whole lot of this

 

 

 

Unfortunately, our latest hard frost took out most of the zucchinis, tomatoes, peppers and egg plants. But a lot of the more cold hardy things have sprung up and are doing great! And since we have generally very mild winters, it’s prime gardening season around here even now!

 

And then there was the purging, because all of that wasn’t quite enough! I got some kind of bug which I like to call “no room left behind”, which basically includes every room, every cupboard, every box/basket, etc sorted through, organized, purged (if applicable) and cleaned out.

I am mostly through the house now (except for my husband’s office - I’m calling that one a lost cause ...) with only a couple more areas left to do!

It’s an ongoing thing really, but it is amazing how much accumulates in a family of hoarders  organizationally challenged people, even when I try to stay on top of it on a regular basis! And it always seems to be such a big deal with the husband and the kids, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth and all that!
Even though, once we are through it, all of them are quite clear that they feel much better without all their rooms/lives in a hot mess and all cluttered up! Go figure!

 

Anyway, then Thanksgiving happened, with family staying in town for a while and we were in the rather more unique position of also incorporating a little of Hannukah into our Thanksgiving celebration, making it a once in a lifetime Thanksgivukkah! With a variety of allergies running high in the extended family, it was an interesting experience, making all the familiar, expected and traditional goodies, while keeping everyone happy and healthy!

We had gluten-free Rugalach (nuts and honey as well as poppy seed filling,) gluten-free corn casserole, the turkey of course, dairy and gluten-free gravy, dairy-free and regular mashed potatoes, potato cakes with apple sauce, lingon berry and cranberry sauce and speaghetti squash! For dessert with had gluten-free dutch apple pie, marshmallow dreidels, gluten-free chocolate and cookie acorns. Wondering what our dietary restrictions are when we all get together? No dairy, no gluten, no coconut or derivatives, no soy or derivatives, no garlic, no fish, no artificial sweeteners and no red peppers and no beans. Those are the bigger ones, not including the “dislikes” that everyone brings along too!
Anyway, as you can see, we had a feast and everyone was safe and happy!

I have taken a bunch of Thanksgiving photos, but I can’t find them right now, so this will serve as a place holder for me to add them later! It’s not like I don’t have a lot of other photos for you to look at in this post!

 

And now of course we’re racing full steam toward Christmas! It will be the first time that our little family will be just us for Christmas! We have never had that and even though it is unfamiliar, I am really looking forward to a laid-back, nowhere-to-go, nothing-much-to-do, keep-your-pajamas-on-all-day kind of a Christmas!

 

The other thing that’s been taking up my time and passion again, has been art journaling/painting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been doing two art courses (online) in the last few weeks. And I have loved, loved, loved them!
The first one was Tam Laporte’s (aka Willowing) Fabulous Faces class which is just plain awesome! Rarely have I enjoyed a course quite that much, I have to say!

 

 

The second one is a portrait class by Gabrielle DeCesaris on skillshare and it has helped me tremendously in the technical areas and I have had quite a few “AHA” moments in terms of proportions and realistic feature composition!

{In progress}

 

And I think I have left my “can’t do faces right” persona behind now and things are looking up - and a lot more like actual faces now! I still need a lot of practice, but this kind of practice is so much fun, so I’m looking forward to that!

And in that spirit I have also signed up for Lifebook 2014 and I am SO excited for it to start - I can hardly wait!

A whole year of artsy, messy, healing, journaling, learning and expanding goodness is waiting to be explored and I will be part of it! YAY!

 

 

So, yes, that’s the last 3 months or so in a nutshell!

What new things have you been tackling in your life?

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