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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Quick And Easy Homemade, Grass-Fed Ghee

Ghee is so delicious, don’t you think?

What is Ghee, you ask?

Ghee is basically butter with the milk protein and lactose taken out, leaving pure butter fat. Ghee is not only very flavorful, but it also has a higher burning point, meaning you can cook at much higher temperatures than butter without it burning.

This means that you can have the rich flavor of butter, without worrying about it smoking or burning at a low temperature, quite unlike butter!

While I am very sensitive to dairy, I find that I can consume ghee without any issues. Many dairy sensitive people find that they do well with ghee since it is casein and lactose free, when  prepared correctly! However, ghee can also be quite expensive, especially the grass-fed kind, which holds the most benefits.

So, I’ve been making my own ghee from the Kerry Gold Butter we get at Costco. Initially I thought this was out, as they only carry the salted kind at our Costco, but I soon found out, that the salt seems to attach itself to the protein, which is what we’re filtering out. So, the resulting Ghee is actually unsalted - and as far as I’m concerned - utterly heavenly!

I’m not only entranced by the flavor, but even more so by the smell this homemade goody produces. I have been known to just take the lid off my homemade ghee, so I can take a little sniff at the utter deliciousness! It makes me happy! And I put it on everything. On warm bread, on waffles, on my vegetables ...

My children even prefer it to butter of late!

Anyway, if you think producing Ghee is a long and laborious process that is very prone to failure - I’m here to tell you it isn’t so!

It’s actually quite easy and relatively quick. It generally takes me just 20 minutes to turn 3 blocks of Kerry Gold Butter into Ghee.

You will need:
Grass-Fed Butter
Unbleached organic cotton fabric/cloth
Fine mesh metal strainer
Large Saucepan
Jar( s) with lid

Turn the stove to medium and melt the butter in the saucepan. The temperature will stay at medium the entire time.

It really doesn’t matter how much butter you use at the time, as the process will be the same. If you’re using only one stick of butter the whole thing will of course happen faster than if you are using five.

Just make sure your saucepan is large enough to accommodate the rising foam later!

Once the butter is melted, it will fairly soon start to bubble like this. That’s the water cooking out. The bubbles will be relatively large and well defined, popping away and there will be steam. Stand away from the stove a little, just in case!

There will be some foam, but the most prominent thing will be the increasingly big bubbles.

After a few minutes, the volume will be somewhat less in the saucepan. You will be able to see this on the pot, where the melted butter formed a ring.

After a while you will see the larger bubbles disappearing and tiny little, foamy bubbles will start to appear instead.

Usually that’s when the laborious process of ghee making starts. You’re supposed to skim off all the foam. And it just keeps on coming, so you keep on skimming. I don’t.

That’s why we chose a large saucepan! We let the foam do it’s thing.

And it will! It will rise and rise. And there will be lots of foam.

If you have chosen a big enough saucepan, there’s no problem!

This is not a process you can walk away from. It’s not laborious, but you need to be standing there so you can gauge when it’s time to take it off the heat. When that moment arrives, you have to be ready and be quick!

However, up until this point, the butter is just doing it’s thing and you don’t really need to do much.

So, get your bowl, strainer and cloth ready.

A word on the cloth. Cheese cloth, even several layers of it, doesn’t do a good enough job in my opinion. Some of the casein always escapes and that is what we’re trying to filter out.

If you don’t have a cloth, you can use a dedicated white dish towel, or even unbleached coffee filters. The coffee filters take longer, but they do an excellent job!

Back to the butter. The foam will really be rising now. Tiny little bubbles all over the place, rising up!

And then there will be that point of change. It will be subtle, but unmistakable.

First of all, the smell will change. It will go from a melted butter smell to an unmistakably nutty smell.

The foam will no longer want to rise up, but rather go down now and certain areas in the foam will turn from yellow to a light golden brown.

And then little golden brown flecks start floating on the foam.

That is the point when you spring into action. You pull the pan off the stove straight away and you slowly pour it into your set up bowl with the strainer and cloth/coffee filter.

There will be quite a bit of browned casein visible at the bottom and the sides of your saucepan, once all the butter and foam is out.

Just soak that in a bit of hot water and washing up liquid and it will wash right off!

The cloth/coffee filter will be doing it’s thing.

When you get to the end, give the cloth a quick twist and press with a spoon to get all the remaining butter fat out.

What will be left in the cloth is this:

Now, to enhance the nutty flavor, you can let the ghee go a little longer, which will make for darker residue and a darker ghee. I have done both, both is very flavorful, but personally, I prefer it right about at this stage.

If you’re doing it for the first time, go by these visuals and see how it works for you. After you are a more seasoned ghee maker you will develop your own preferences!

Once you are done with filtering, you will have perfectly wonderful ghee. It’s still hot though, so be careful while handling it!

If you didn’t filter straight into a jar, decant the ghee and close the lid.

Let it cool down a little bit at room temperature, then place in the fridge.

I find that it has a creamier texture when it’s fully cooled in the fridge.

I generally keep my ghee in the refrigerator when not in use. Strictly speaking this is not necessary, as ghee is shelf stable at room temperature, but I prefer it from the refrigerator. Since it’s quite warm around here, it gets soft at room temperature fairly quickly, so using it while too hard is rarely an issue!

Once it cools and hardens a bit, it has this lovely deep yellow color and beautiful aroma and flavor! Yes,  I totally love the stuff!

So, there you have it! Lovely ghee!

And if you would rather not make your own, this is the ghee I use and recommend when I don’t make my own!

Purity farms ghee is organic and certified cassein and lactose free!

Vitacost seems to have far the best price on it and has fast shipping, be it the flat rate shipping or the free shipping for purchases over $49!  If you haven’t signed up for Vitacost yet, do it now through my link and receive $10 off your first purchase of $30 or more!

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Homemade Almond Milk / Almond Milk Creamer (Dairy-, Gluten-, Soy -Free, Low-Carb, Raw, Vegan)

As you know, I’ve been making my own nut milks, but for some reason it hadn’t occurred to me to make my own almond milk. I have had the almond milk in the cartons and even though I don’t dislike it, it doesn’t blow me away either. So, almond milk wasn’t really on my to do list.

Since another Azure Standard delivery is coming in a few day’s time, I was in “use up the last little bits here and there and make room” mode and found some almonds in the freezer.  So, just because I was in the mood for a change, I thought I would make some almond milk!

Oh my goodness!! Homemade Almond Milk is N.O.T.H.I.N.G like the stuff in the cartons! It’s not even in the same flavor category!

The homemade stuff is rich and creamy (not slightly watery like the bought stuff) with a full round flavor, slightly sweet and very satisfying!

And with the addition of just a couple of healthy ingredients you have a delicious non-dairy creamer that won’t separate or curdle in hot or iced drinks!

And it’s so easy to make! If you have never tried homemade Almond Milk, you are so in for a treat!

Basically I went about it much like I did with my cashew milk.

Homemade Almond Milk

Soak 1 cup of whole almonds (I use organic) in water for 4 hrs. or as long as over night. Drain the almonds and rinse.

Place almonds in a blender with about 4 cups of filtered water. If you have a Vitamix, just fill it to the “max” line of the 32 oz. container with water. Blend on high until it’s all well incorporated. It takes less than a minute in the Vitamix, but will probably take longer in a regular blender.

Place a Nut-Milk Bag in a large bowl and pour your almond milk through the nut milk bag. Then squeeze, squeeze, squeeze until there’s no more milk coming out.

Discard the pulp (unless you want to reuse it, but I haven't found anything that yields a tasty result so far) and decant the Almond Milk into a jar or bottle.

Personally, I like to add a pinch of  Himalayan Sea Salt , 2 tsp of Maple Syrup and 1/2 tsp of Butter Vanilla Bakery Emulsion (or extract) to mine to round out the flavor some more, but that is optional. Shake it up and refrigerate!

Give it a quick shake before use. It doesn’t separate, but the milk can settle a little. A quick shake takes care of that though!

Note:

1.) Any kind of sweetener of preference can be used in this.

2.) We are soaking the almonds to remove the enzyme inhibitors from the nuts, so please DO discard the soaking water, as we don’t want them in the milk.

3.) For an even (naturally) sweeter Almond Milk, peel the skins off the almonds (or use blanched almonds) to make the milk.

4.) I have read that the 1 gallon paint strainer bags at Home Depot work just as well as nut milk bags and are much more inexpensive. They don’t last as long, but apparently they do the job. I haven’t tried them myself however.

5.) Four or more layers of fine cheese cloth also works for straining and squeezing the Almond Milk.

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Almond Milk Creamer

Make almond milk as above, then after squeezing the milk, return the milk  to the blender and add

1.5 tbsp. Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil

2 tbsp. Maple Syrup (or sweetener of choice)

pinch of  Himalayan Sea Salt

2 tsp of Vanilla (or any other kind of flavor you like your creamer to have) extract

Blend to incorporate fully.

You can use this straight away, especially the foamy head it makes in the blender for a Cappuccino or Café au lait, or refrigerate for later use.

Shake before use.

Notes:

1.) This creamer doesn’t seem to separate or curdle like almond milk does in hot or iced drinks. At least not for several hours! However, if preparing an iced late, I would recommend adding the creamer last, so the coconut oil doesn’t harden around the ice cubes.

2.) You can just make a little at a time too by using about 1/2 cup of homemade almond milk, 1/4 tsp Coconut Oil, 1/8 tsp flavor extract of choice and sweetener to taste.

3.) Use up to 2.5 tbsp. of Coconut Oil  for a richer, creamier result. Personally, I like it best at 1.5 tbsp., but experiment and find your own happy place!

4.) Use 2 dates in place of sweetener and blend until it is thoroughly incorporated.

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Grain-free Cheddar Bacon Spinach Muffins (GF, LC, SF)

Or they could be biscuits - or even  bread. It all depends what shape you bake them in. My favorite method for these are however these  muffin cups from IKEA! 





Shape wise they are a bit of a cross between the size of a muffin cup but almost as high as a popover form. Nothing ever sticks to these little things, they stand up by themselves, which means you are not restricted by a muffin tin and they crisp the cheese up around the outside of the muffin and on the bottom just right!





{YUM!}
I was really pleased with the texture of these. They are delicious straight out of the oven. Very flavorful and moist, without being soggy or eggy, which can often happen with these kind of ingredients.
Even cold these were a hit with the family and they toast up deliciously the next day!



{Look at all that yummy goodness!}


This recipe is quite versatile and you can switch out some of the ingredients to your liking. I will give some indications behind each ingredient what you could substitute with.



Cheddar Bacon Spinach Muffins

Makes 12 regular muffin sized and 8 large sized muffins


Wet ingredients:
4 eggs
1/4 cup bacon grease (or coconut oil, olive oil, softened butter)
1/3 cup mayo (I use veggienaise)
1 handful of fresh spinach leaves (Kale, fresh garden herbs, chopped onions) - I add them to the blender, but if you prefer your muffins not to have a green color, just finely chop whatever you are adding - about 1/4 cup chopped. It looks much prettier but doesn’t affect the flavor!
1/3 cup green onions, chopped
Dry ingredients:
2 cups almond flour
1/2 cup golden flax seed meal (I prefer golden, but you can use regular flax seed meal)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp guar gum (or xanthan gum)
1/2 tsp salt (or seasoning salt if you don’t’ use bacon)
1  cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese, grated
1/3 cup parmesano regiano, grated
1/2 cup bacon bits ( or sausage crumbles, or chopped vegetables, chopped nuts or seeds)


Preparation:


1. Preheat oven to 350F and line a muffin tin with paper liners or grease your muffin tins/silicone forms.
2. In a blender, combine the wet ingredients. It doesn’t have to be totally liquified, just a fine chop will do.
3. In another bowl combine the dry ingredients and use a whisk to combine. Then add the wet ingredients and stir together with a wooden spoon. Make sure everything is well combined. Let the batter sit for  a couple of minutes. It will thicken a little bit.
4. Divide the batter equally among your muffin papers and bake  for about 17 - 25 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Don’t overbake these or they’ll be dry! If in doubt, ever so slightly underbake!
5. Allow them to rest for a few minutes after they are out of the oven, then enjoy!
6. 
   

They will keep in an airtight container or ziplock baggy in the fridge for several days.

They are best heated either by toasting them or by wrapping a damp kitchen towel around them and nuking them in the microwave for 30 -45 seconds.

The carbohydrate count of these can vary widely, depending on the carb count of your individual ingredients and what you choose to add. With MY ingredients (making 12 muffins,) each muffin has 6g of carbohydrate, 3 g of fiber and 12 g of protein. So 3 g of net carbs.

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Homemade Gyros (Restaurant style)

Ahhh, Gyros - one of my favorite meat dishes! I was pretty much raised on Greek food and I love it so!

Don’t you just love the type of gyros you get at the restaurant, with the ridiculously crunchy edges, shaved fresh off the huge loaf of meat rotating away on that spit! The fine mingling of flavors, the unique texture of the “meat loaf” - so yummy!

Well, here’s the spit-less (that doesn’t sound quite right!) way of doing it at home! And the flavor and texture are SO CLOSE, that I tend to prefer making it at home these days.

The “secret” is not so much in the ingredients, they are pretty much standard fare, it is in the method of preparation.

There are two ways to go, the high-tech/electric way or the low-tech/get-rid-of-your-pent-up-anger way!

I will share both with you and you decide which way you want to go!

Ingredients:

1 lb. of ground lamb

1 lb. of ground beef

1/2 cup of Italian bread crumbs (or it can be regular bread crumbs, or gluten-free, or low-carb bread crumbs - it all works)

2 tsp onion powder

2 tsp dried oregano - if you use plain bread crumbs, use 3 tsp

1 tsp garlic powder - or 2 fresh cloves

1 1/2 tsp salt - if you use plain bread crumbs, use 2 tsp

1 tsp pepper

Preparation:

High-tech way:

Place everything in the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment. Start it off slowly, to mix the ingredients together for about 1 minute. After that, turn it up as high as it will go without your meat flying out everywhere. The paddle will “slap” the meat against the sides of the bowl. Let it go for 3-5 minutes until your meat looks quite emulsified and even.

Turn it out onto the counter, knead it through like a loaf of bread for one round in order to get everything into a uniform loaf. Form a rectangle about an inch or so high.

Then proceed as described below.

Low-tech way (personally I think this works best: )

Mix all the above in a bowl, really getting your hands in there and mixing it thoroughly.

Then take the loaf of meat and SLAM it down on your counter top. I mean really slam it. With some force!  Scrape it up, knead it like you would a bread dough, then slam it again. Keep doing that for about 10 minutes. We are trying to emulsify the fats here and it’s crucial to the texture we are trying to achieve. And it’s a good work out too!

You can use a dough scraper to scrape up the fat/meat that sticks to your counter as you go. Put it back in the loaf and carryon.

Once you did this for 10 minutes, form a flat rectangle loaf, about an inch high.

Please note that I’m using a half sheet.

Place on a non-stick jelly roll sheet and bake at 350 F for about 45-50 minutes.

Make sure you place it on something that has raised edges because there will be a fair bit of fat and juices dripping out.

Let it sit for 10-15 minutes before you slice it. If you have an electric knife or deli slicer, I highly recommend you use that and slice everything as thin as possible. Think shaving kind of thin thin!

I usually cut the whole loaf and store it in a container. Then before serving, I heat a non-stick pan really hot, drop the gyros slices in just to randomly crisp up some edge. Stir the strips around for about 1-2 minutes, letting it crisp and brown, then serve on Greek Pita with Tzatziki, onion, lettuce and tomato!

Or serve it my favorite way, just wrapped in butter lettuce leaves with Greek cabbage salad on the side! YUM!

Enjoy!

PALEO/GAPS/LOW-CARB VARIATION:
Replace the 1/2 cup of bread crumbs with either eating plan legal bread crumbs, or 1/4 cup of almond flour and 1 tbsp of coconut flour. Follow the recipe as written.

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