Radically Natural Recipe: Winter Spice Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies (plus Soaked Steel Cut Oats)

We usually end up with leftover cooked oats on the mornings we eat breakfast porridge.  This recipe (borrowed and tweaked from lifebyjeanie.com) combines leftover cooked oats with gluten free flours and warm wintery spices.  We eat them for breakfast, smeared in butter, but you can eat them as cookies anytime.  They are soft and filling.  Enjoy!

[Fun fact...when made with sunflower butter, your cookies will turn green.  This has happened to me, and I just learned that the odd hue is caused by the sunflowers' chlorophyll reacting with the baking soda.  Check this out.]

Winter Spice Breakfast Cookies

1 cup coconut oil OR 1/2 cup coconut oil and 1/2 cut butter OR 1 cup nut butter
3/4 cup raw coconut sugar OR 1/2 cup raw honey
2 eggs
3 tsp vanilla
2 cups gluten free flour mix (check out the video below)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sea salt
1 Tb cinnamon
1/2 tsp. each ginger, nutmeg, cloves (more to taste as desired)
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup raw cacao nibs
2 cups cooked soaked oatmeal (recipe below)
4 Tb raw milk OR yogurt

Combine the wet ingredients (not the oats or milk yet) and mix well.  Incorporate the dry ingredients (minus raisins and nibs), then add the milk and the cooked oatmeal.  Finally add the raisins and the cacao nibs.  Mix until well combined.  Spoon onto greased or lined (silpat, parchment) cookie sheets.  Bake at 375º for 12 to 15 minutes.  The cookies will not spread and they will be golden and soft when finished (though thoroughly cooked inside...should not be gummy).

Here is a helpful video tutorial on making your own gluten free flour mix (thanks for the link, Amy!).

Soaked Steel Cut Oats (with cooking shortcut)

I have seen varying NT-style methods for preparing oats.  Here is my method.  If you don't already know why you should soak your oats and other grains (in an acidic medium) before consumption, please read Nourishing Traditions and/or the many available articles on the topic (I'll post a few links below).

Because oats are nearly devoid of phytase, the enzyme activated by soaking that helps to break down phytic acid, it is important to add a small amount of a grain that does contain phytase during your oat soak.  I use buckwheat because it is a gluten-free grain (as are oats when not contaminated).  The ratio is 1 Tb. buckwheat groats to 1 cup oats.  I usually cook steel cut oats for improved nutrient and taste profile.

My current method of "quicker" steel cut oats for breakfast is as follows.  On any given morning, I begin the soaking process by putting my oats and buckwheat into my pot with a small amount (about 1/4 cup) of kefir or a few generous dashes of ACV.  I then fill the pot with nontoxic water, basically in a 2-1 water to grain ratio.  (The oats will expand.)  I allow the oats to soak all day (minimum 12 hours).  Before bed, I rinse the oats with fresh water (some people do, some people don't...), then return them to the pot and cover the oats with water to about one inch above the oats' level.  I turn on the stovetop to medium and bring the oats to a gentle boil.  At that point, I turn off the heat, cover the pot with its lid, and go to bed.  In the morning, the oats will be cooked, having slowly absorbed the liquid overnight, and will only need to be heated before consumption.  I serve with generous amounts of butter, cinnamon, some raisins and raw milk.  Leftover oats are baked into breakfast cookies.

[Some suggest that oats should be soaked for 24 hours.  This is not bad advice.  The longer the soak, the more nutrients become available.  To soak for 24 hours with my method, just start the soaking on Evening A, and rinse and "cook" on Evening B.]

The "Why" of Soaking Grains

Living with Phytic Acid

Soak Grains for Optimal Nutrition

Proper Preparation of Grains

Radically Natural Recipe: Potato Chips

Don't eat junk?  Check.  Don't buy processed food?  Double check.  Curious to try a fun, healthy, salty starch snacks post GAPS?  Sure!  Let's make potato chips!

The primary health snafu with commercial potato chips (even those sold at "health" food stores) is the frying fat used.  We know that fake fats and "veggie" oils just aren't good for us.  But they certainly are cheap for commercial production.  If you want to fry foods and avoid deleterious health affects, make your own using real stable fats...saturated fats.  The best choices for potato chips are lard or coconut oil.

It's time-consuming to make your own snacks, but the value of Real Food is undeniable.  And it's fun to get your kids involved...they are learning and they love the eating!  Be particularly attentive, though, when frying with children, as we want to avoid splatter burns.

Tips for Making Potato Chips

Choose the correct potato and slice it thinly.  A floury variety is best for chips, as they have a lower water and sugar content, allowing them to crisp more easily.  Basically, you want a Russett variety.

Use a wok or heavy-bottomed pot for the frying, and have a candy thermometer that can go to 350º F.

Perform a water rinse and vinegar soak on your potato slices, then dry them.  This removes starch and increases crispness in your chips, as well as reducing frying time.

Potato Chips:  The Steps

1.  Slice potatoes thinly, about 1/8" (either a mandoline or food processor work nicely)
2.  Rinse the slices in cold water, filling bowl with water and swishing about the potato slices, then draining water.  Do this multiple times until the water remains clear.  This is helping to remove excess starch for the frying process.
3.  Soak the slices in a vinegar water bath (1/2 cup vinegar to 4 cups water) for up to 2 hours.  This helps to increase crispness during the frying process.
4.  Allow the slices to air dry.  This reduces water content and shortens frying time, encouraging crispness.
5.  Heat about 4 cups of a healthy saturated oil (coconut or lard) in a wok or large, heavy-bottomed pot until it reaches 300º.  Monitor temperature with a candy thermometer.  The temperature will fluctuate as you add and remove the potatoes, so adjust the heat accordingly.  You don't want the oil so hot that the chips easily burn...I find that temps between 300º and 350º work well.
6.  Using a slotted spoon or Chinese bamboo strainer or other such device, add a group of slices into the pan so that all slices will submerge into the oil.  They will pop upon entry as water leaves the potatoes.

7.  Fry until the chips are done...they will be golden brown and the sizzling/popping noise will cease, indicating the absence of water in the chips.  About 5-6 minutes a batch.
8.  Remove slices (using strainer) to a paper towel-covered plate and season to your desired taste...lots of real salt, surely, and perhaps pepper or a homemade herb or spice blend.
9.  Allow to cool and dry completely before storing in a bag or container to ensure continued crispness.
10.  Save some for the kids!

What? No Bread with That Butter?

People who know me well know me as a butter pusher.  Fat (wonderful fat, nourishing fat, necessary fat, delicious fat, good fat) is the most essential human nutrient, and my favorite fat is pastured butter...homemade from raw grass-fed milk preferably, but hey, that's hard to keep up with 365 days a year...I buy butter, too!  Good butter is so beloved in my household that my younger son likes to give pounds of butter away to special people as gifts...you know he really thinks highly of you when he wants to send you home with some butter.

As my husband and I share with people how important good butter is in the diet and how essential it is to eat lots of it daily, we inevitably hear this question:  How do you eat butter when you don't eat bread?  Granted, we are beginning to eat some homemade sourdough breads of late, but it isn't a regular occurrence; and we were grain-free for two years on the GAPS healing regimen.  So the question remains...how do you eat lots of butter when you don't eat lots of grain-based foods?

I thought I'd enlist my kids to help spread the butter love and share how we eat our butter, hopefully inspiring others to eat more butter without thinking it has to be on bread.  The response I got was funny...my oldest son looked at me, head cocked, eyebrows raised and asked, "What do you mean, people don't know how to eat butter?  You just put it on everything."  I love it!  He is properly butter indoctrinated.

Basically, we just put butter on all our food.  Whatever the meal is that I've prepared, we just top it with butter.  Eggs for breakfast?  Butter them...and the pastured bacon that goes with them.  Steak?  Finish it with a pat of butter.  The accompanying roasted root veggies get buttered, too.  Salmon with carmelized onions and asparagus?  Butter, please!  Roast duck with butternut squash and pureed cauliflower?  How could you not drench with butter?!  We even put butter in our soups...it melts, and it's delicious.

We all know it's important to eat healthy vegetables with our main meals, so if you aren't doing a raw salad, try veggie sautes.  It's a regular standby here, and so easy, nutritious and delicious...just saute onions, garlic, carrots, fennel, summer or winter squash, kale or chard, whatever you have on hand!  When you plate the meal, just add butter!  Steamed veggies?  Of course they love butter.  Oh, how scrumptious veggies are with butter!  If you are eating any form of cooked vegetables, you have a butter vehicle just waiting to be adorned.

I make a lot of one-pot meals with meats (lamb, pork, beef) and veggies...I like fewer pots to clean.  So whether it's Shepherd's Pie or No-Noodle Lasagna or just plain old beef and veggie stir fry, top it off with a spoonful of butter!  Many cultures drizzle all their dishes with olive oil.  We do that, too.  And we also dollop with butter...same concept.

Baked winter squash, baked sweet potatoes, baked all-other-kind-of potatoes, absolutely beg for butter.  And pureed cauliflower spiked with lots of butter (aka GAPS mashed potatoes) is a surefire crowd pleaser.

My kids butter their cheese sometimes.  And when I bake cookies (gluten free at this point), we butter those, too.  My husband likes to eat pick-me-up spoonfuls of butter drizzled with raw honey.  The kids love "chocolate treats," basically butter/cacao mousse.

If you eat grains, all the better to add more butter...rice, quinoa, millet, morning oats...whether plain or pilaf, accompanying grains are always better topped with butter.  Tortillas?  Top with butter, cheese, avocado, salsa, what have you.  Crackers?  Butter them.  Organic popcorn?  Come on, that's an easy one!

So, how do we eat our butter?  Well, I think the better question is how do we not?  (We have yet to dip cold raw veggies in plain butter...though celery sticks with butter and raisins are good.)  The key in my mind is that we are creating meals with Real Food from scratch...and good food begs to be accompanied by good butter.  And olive oil, too...I certainly don't mean to discriminate.  My passion for butter doesn't blind me to the other good fats, we use them all...coconut, lard, duck fat...they all have their place in the kitchen, some for prep, some for finishing.  

But around here, butter reigns supreme.  So grab some grass-fed butter and drip, dollop, scoop, smother...you'll wonder how your meals ever made it to your stomach without butter.

Recipe: GAPS Mashed Potatoes...Pureed Cauliflower

(Super easy, super delicious.  After 6 months on the GAPS protocol, you can barely tell the difference in flavor between this and mashed potatoes...well, we couldn't.  And we took this recipe with us after GAPS, along with many others, because it is just so delicious and nutritious!  It's not really a "GAPS" recipe as much as it's just another way to eat great food.) 

Steam a head or two (depending on size) of cauliflower in water.  When fork tender, put the cauliflower and 1/2 cup of the cooking water into your blender.  Add 1/2 cup butter and some real salt to taste.  Blend until smooth.  You can adjust the amount of liquid to suit the consistency to your taste.

For post-GAPS folks, blend the cauliflower with raw grass-fed milk rather than the cooking liquid, and don't forget lots of butter!...this version is even creamier.  Yum!

Radically Natural Recipe: Vanilla Ice Cream

The intense summer heat, combined with no air conditioning, means one thing around here:  Ice cream for dinner!  Vanilla ice cream requires no use of heat, so it is our crowd's current favorite.  An all-cream (or mostly all cream) version helps keep kids full until morning.  The extra spices enhance the vanilla flavor.  Sometimes we make an eggnog version, sometimes a Mexican vanilla.  Here's our latest iteration.  It is quite rich, so start with small servings.

Real Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

4 cups raw grass-fed cream

1 cup raw grass-fed whole milk

1/4 to 1/2 cup honey (to your taste, we prefer less sweetness)

4 egg yolks

2 tsp. organic ground vanilla beans (purchase pure vanilla powder from Mtn Rose Herbs or Amazon)
Generous sprinkles of cinnamon and nutmeg

Gently whisk all ingredients (you don't want to blend or beat, this adds air/foam), then chill mixture for a few hours.  Pour chilled mixture into your running ice cream maker, follow instructions for your unit, and Enjoy!

Radically Natural Recipe: Gelatin Jigglers

Who needs more gelatin in their diet?  We all do!  Gelatin builds collagen in our bodies, and collagen builds our tissues...bone, flesh, cartilage, etc.  Our gut lining needs collagen, our fascia and skin and joints need collagen, our brains need collagen.  We need to be consuming more gelatin, and soups made from homemade broths are not the only way to do it.  

Gelatin makes a wonderfully refreshing, jiggly summer treat (sure, we eat them all year long).  Who needs sugar-ladened, artificially flavored and colored jello?!  Instead, grab some good quality gelatin and make some Real Food jigglers!

Coconut Vanilla Bean Jigglers

2 cans coconut milk
2 Tb. gelatin
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla bean powder
~1/4 cup honey (or less...honey to taste)
optional cut fresh fruit

In a saucepan on low heat, warm the coconut milk and add all the ingredients (except the fruit), whisking vigorously.  Don't let the mixture simmer strongly (if at all), you just want it warm enough for the gelatin to dissolve...this preserves the nutrients of your ingredients.  If you use Jensen's gelatin, this should work without producing clumps.  Great Lakes gelatin works better if you dissolve it in liquid first before adding it to the entire batch for mixing.

Once all ingredients are dissolved and well combined, pour the mixture into a pyrex dish and refrigerate until the gelatin sets (about an hour).  Add your fruit before putting the jiggler mix in the fridge to set.

Hot Cacao Jigglers

(aka "Mama Medicine" Jigglers because of the addition of maca, a wonderfully adaptogenic botanical that helps our adrenal system)

2 cups raw grass-fed milk
2 Tb. raw honey (or honey to taste)
1 1/2 Tb. raw cacao powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. vanilla bean powder
1 Tb. maca powder
1 1/2 Tb. gelatin 

Same directions as above.

The key to jiggler success is remembering that 1 Tb. of gelatin gels a pint of liquid.  Results may vary depending upon your ingredients and the ambient temperature in your home.  Experiment with your own flavor combinations and have your kids help.  It's fun and easy to make jigglers, which is nice considering how quickly they get devoured!!  

Radically Natural Recipe: Mexican Chocolate Ice Cream

What do you do when summer arrives early, you live in an attic with no A/C, and you have goat milk coming out your ears because all four of your does ended up kidding at the same time?

You make ice cream!

Of course, it helps when you have a friend with a Guernsey cow that provides luscious, luxuriously thick cream.  Raw grass-fed cow's cream in combination with raw browse-fed naturally homogenized creamy goat milk makes deliciously decadent ice cream.

I purchased a Cuisinart 2 quart ice cream maker last month so we could put all our goat milk to work.  I really prefer the density of gelato to the air-whipped lightness of ice cream.  I also desire that my ice cream remain raw and contain multiple pastured egg yolks, so I can use it as a nourishing health food.  I'm working on creating a gelato consistency using the Cuisinart, and I'm getting close to a consistency I like.  But to achieve said consistency, a cooked custard must be created for the gelato base.  So I'm experimenting with various times and temperatures for the custard phase to balance my dual desires of consistency and rawness.

I've experimented with a completely raw vanilla bean ice cream, raw egg nog ice cream, and chocolate gelato-like ice cream.  Since I rarely measure when I create in the kitchen, the batches vary in flavor consistency.  But no one has complained yet!  I did promise a dear friend, however, that I would develop and share our current favorite, a dark chocolate, cinnamon-spiced gelato-like ice cream.  So I made a batch with measurements, and I now share with you my current working recipe.  Your consistency will vary depending upon the type of milk you use (if you don't have access to goat milk, you will need to add more cream and less milk for a thick, creamy ice cream), and your ingredient amounts may vary depending on your taste and the quality of your inputs (I recommend purchasing cinnamon and vanilla from Mountain Rose Herbs and I love the Earth Circle Organics raw cacao powder).

[Caveat number one:  I have found that my "DIY at home" ice cream maker doesn't produce ice cream of store-bought consistency.  But I much prefer a natural raw ice cream to the adulterated products offered commercially.  Maybe mine is softer, but it's so much healthier and so delicious...so who cares about stabilizer-filler-induced consistency?  If you can't afford a commercial compression machine, this isn't a bad alternative.  Caveat number two:  If you purchase through product links here, I can earn a small commission.  And I thank you, because that would be a great help to me.]

Mexican Chocolate Ice Cream

In a medium-sized saucepan, gently heat (just under a simmer) until well mixed and slightly thickened:

• 3 cups raw goat milk
• 1 cup raw cacao powder
• 1 1/2 Tb. cinnamon powder
• 1 tsp. vanilla bean powder
• 1/2 cup raw honey
• 1/3 cup coconut sugar
• 2 eggs (lightly whipped with fork before adding)
• dash salt

In a separate bowl, whisk together:

• 2 1/2 cups raw cream
• 4 pastured egg yolks

Pour cacao custard mixture into cream/yolk mixture, whisk well to combine.  Your custard will be liquid-y, but thicker than milk consistency.  Place custard into refrigerator for a few hours to chill, or place in freezer for a shorter period of time...check to make sure it is chilled quite cold before you make the ice cream.

To make the ice cream, follow your machine's instructions, pouring the appropriate amount of custard into your machine (mine is 6 cups) and running it for the requisite time (about 25 minutes).  You'll need to understand how your machine works to decide when your ice cream is finished, but the consistency will likely be soft like frozen yogurt, or like a really thick milk shake.  When the process is complete, remove the ice cream from the bowl into another container and place in freezer for a little while to firm it up before serving.  If you freeze the ice cream completely, it will become much harder.

Play with the ratios and flavors and Enjoy!

Radically Natural Recipe: Sourdough Brownies

I made sourdough brownies for my eldest son's recent birthday.  To be honest, the consistency was far more cake-y than chewy, thick brownie.  But my kids were ecstatic to partake of the celebratory delight and not a one of them complained about the finished product.  

This recipe was one of the highlights in our continuing saga of post-GAPS "are our guts ready for NT-style grains?"  The jury is still out on our healing quest's end game...more on that in weeks to come.  But for those of you who tolerate and enjoy properly prepared grain goodies, here is a recipe to try.  Just remember me by adding extra cinnamon love!

In the following recipe, I use The Grainery's raw cacao paste, which you can purchase from Azure Standard Co-op.  This paste is similar in texture and taste to unsweetened baking chocolate, but the paste is pure cacao bean/nibs ground into liquid and then solidified at room temperature.  Baking chocolate may be an undesirable choice, depending on the ingredients/source.  Baking chocolates contain soy lecithin, and some contain sugar.  Pure cacao paste is just that.

This recipe is inspired by the Cultures for Health recipe of the same name.  

Sourdough Brownies

4 oz. cacao paste 
1/2 cup hot water
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups honey
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 Tb. cinnamon
1 1/2 cups sprouted flour of your choice (preferably low gluten, or ancient grain variety.  I used a mixture of Kamut and Einkorn)
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups sourdough starter

• Melt cacao in double boiler, low to medium heat.  Pour in the hot water, mix.  Stir in baking soda until mixture is foamy.  Set cacao mixture aside to cool (should be warm, not hot).
• Cream together butter/coconut oil and honey.  Add eggs, mix well.
• Add vanilla, cinnamon, chocolate mixture.
• Slowly add flour and salt.
• Add sourdough starter.  Fold to combine gently.
• Pour batter into greased 9x13 pan.  Allow batter to rise in a warm spot for 1/2 hour.
• Bake brownies at 350º for 30 to 40 minutes (test with toothpick for doneness).

Top with raw whipped cream and enjoy!

Radically Natural Recipes: Pit Powder

While it has become common knowledge among women who care that many commercial anti-perspirant/deodorants should be avoided for their inclusion of aluminum, it is less common for women to understand that using commercial anti-perspirants at all is undesirable.  Blocking the sweat glands under the arms contributes to clogging the lymphs located there, which can increase toxic buildup in said glands.  We need to sweat...it is an essential component is detoxification.  To keep your lymphatic system running cleanly, ditch your anti-perspirant and use the natural solution:  coconut oil and "pit powder."

Coconut oil is a wonderful "deodorant," as it is naturally anti-microbial/anti-fungal.  These properties aid in destroying the stench-causing microbes that live on your skin.  Added bonus: coconut oil heals chafing and creates baby-smooth skin.  I use it plain as my facial moisturizer, and as a base in homemade lotions.  Coconut oil is a veritable face and body healing/beauty balm.

I shower in the evening...love to go to bed squeaky clean.  I apply coconut oil liberally after the shower, including under my arms.  In the morning, I apply pit powder.  It's really not necessary, I find, to apply the powder at night before bed.  I also don't need to reapply coconut oil in the morning.  This system works for me.  You can play with it and see what combination works for you.  

(Health FYI: body odor is directly connected to gut dysbiosis and pathogen load.  You will notice significant decreases in body odor and bad breath after doing gut healing and anti-candida protocols.  You eliminate toxins through your sweat; this is a necessary and beneficial bodily function.  When you are systemically imbalanced and toxic, your eliminations smell bad.  Learn more from the links below.)

Making your own pit powder is ridiculously simple.  The ingredients help to absorb odors and sweat.  It is not a bullet-proof formula by any means, and it won't stop sweat the way chemical formulations do.  But remember, we need to sweat.  And, whatever you put on your skin gets absorbed into your bloodstream.  So a little less-stinky sweat is better than using chemical cloggers.

To make pit powder

Mix equal parts:

• Baking soda 
• Bentonite clay (I like Pascalite)
• Arrowroot powder 

I make a large batch and store it in a half-gallon mason jar.  I transfer smaller amounts into shaker jars for application.  Into one cup of pit powder, I add 10 drops of whatever essential oils suit my fancy (a favorite is DoTerra's Citrus Bliss).  Stir well and cap.  To use, just sprinkle powder in the palm of your hand and apply as needed.  A little natural moisture does help the powder to "set," so if your pits are bone dry, you might apply a thin layer of coconut oil first.

(This post is shared at Real Food Wednesday, check out the great links there!)

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Radically Natural Recipe: (GAPS Friendly) Chocolate Mousse Super Snack

For an easy, delicious, nourishing treat, what could be more desirable than chocolate?  If you follow my blog, you undoubtedly have observed my little love affair with raw cacao and pastured butter.  My kids know what a butter pusher I am, LOL, and my middle son tells people that he values butter higher than money.  They echo my mantra, "More butter for everyone!"  And, "Butter builds brains!" Ah, how children make a mother proud!

Super Fast (and Super Fun) Garlic Peeling

I was inspired this week by a Saveur trick for 10-second garlic peeling.  

Smash a garlic head, place the cloves in a bowl, and, well...check out the link above and then the home video below.  It couldn't be easier...it works, and it's fun!   Just remember to "shake the dickens out of it..." 

Radically Natural Recipe: Butter Toasted Garlic Chunks

On the heels of big brother sharing his birthday cake recipe, my second son, Quinn, wanted to share with our readers his current favorite kitchen concoction.  Here to tell you more about it is Quinny, 7:

To make this recipe, you will need a whole bulb of garlic.  You will need good salt (we like the pink stuff) and extra butter (the yellow kind).  I used a mezzaluna rocking knife.  If you don't have a mezzaluna, you can just use a regular chopping knife.

Radically Natural Recipe: GAPS Vanilla Fig Birthday Cake

The first week of October was my birthday, and my wonderful, number one son created this beautiful and delicious cake as a surprise gift.  It was scrumptious, and not just because my son baked it for me.  Here to share his recipe is my guest blogger, Caleb, 13:

The morning of my mother's birthday, I realized that I had not made a gift, gotten a card, or even baked a cake.  There was an idea!  Baking a cake was right there on the list of things I could do without help.  I got out the KitchenAid mixer, found a recipe, and started to bake.

Radically Natural Recipe: Raw Cheesecake with Coconut Cacao Mousse

My family is still healing on the GAPS protocol; we each have different sensitivities, which makes baking quite a challenge.  One child does poorly with coconut, seeds and nuts, another with eggs, another with dairy.  As we have continued the protocol without cheating, however, we find issues steadily resolving.  That's real healing...slow and steady.

My challenge this week was to create a birthday cake for little princess that everyone could eat without too many flare ups.  We are all doing fairly well with small amounts of our raw goats' milk yogurt and raw cacao, so this delicacy was the winner!  (Because of our sensitivities, we do the cheesecake without crust.)

Radically Natural Recipe: Indulgent, Nourishing, Healing (GAPS-friendly) Cacao Bites (aka Chocolates!)

I have the best husband in the world.  I'm sure many of you ladies would say the same (that you have the best husband in the world, not that mine is, LOL), but I need to sing the praises of my man.  I happen to be 13 weeks pregnant.  I suffered a miscarriage in September, but to my shock found myself pregnant again soon after.  I have a history of infertility (my stint with veganism didn't help), miscarriages and rather uncomfortable pregnancies.  So while we are ecstatic about this newest child, we are being cautiously optimistic at this point.  My pregnancy this time is typical of my other successful pregnancies, though, meaning I'm sick, sick, sick (9 month stomach flu, anyone?)...but on the bright side, I'm keeping most of my food down, which is an improvement over past pregnancies (thanks to GAPS).  

Radically Natural Recipe: Coconut Macaroons

I have always loved coconut macaroons...bite-size, chewy, golden balls of vanilla coconut goodness.  In past years, when suffering through bouts of "I'm too sick/exhausted/busy to bake," I would purchase and enjoy Jennie's Macaroons.  The original recipe was simple and healthy.  In recent years, however, I noticed that the company changed its recipe, adding cane sugar in addition to honey.  Because I don't want to feed my children cane sugar (it's not as healthy as honey), and because we have been doing GAPS anyway, I decided to finally conquer the healthy minimal-ingredient macaroon.  After a few disappointing iterations, I think I finally succeeded with a macaroon whose flavor, texture and nutrient profile is pleasing (the trick is using the blender).  I hope you enjoy them as well!

Radically Natural Recipe: GAPS Fudge, Take Two (aka Fruity Fudge)

I stumbled upon a raw chocolate fudge cake recipe over at Chocolate Covered Katie's site, and it inspired another session of GAPS fudge making in my kitchen.  My kids call this creation "freezer brownies," I call it fruity fudge pie, but we all call it DeLICiOuS!!

My first attempt involved raspberries from our neighbor's garden.  The fudge was scrumptious, but grainy...I had used the mixer without first blending the berries.  So, for my second (and more successful) iteration, I used strawberries and the blender (alas, all the raspberries found their way into our bellies before concoction number two).  The results were quite pleasing, very smooth and creamy.  You can make it either way depending on your palette's preference for texture.

This recipe will fill one standard pie dish.  You can either blend or mix (by machine or hand) the following ingredients:

1 cup ripe organic berries (or thawed frozen berries with their juices)
3/4 cup raw cacao powder
6 Tb raw grass-fed butter
6 Tb coconut butter -- see Katie's recipe (I used Tropical Traditions Coconut Concentrate)
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1/2 cup raw honey
1 tsp. cinnamon

Spread mixture into pie plate and freeze until quite firm.  Non-GAPS folks could top with whipped raw cream; we will top with whipped coconut milk and extra berries.  Enjoy!

Radically Natural Recipe: Ever Just Have Fudge for Dinner?

Well, it happened. I was tired, hot and grumpy, and I fed my children nothing but fudge for dinner. BUT, before you judge me too harshly, fellow Real Food crunchy mamas, let me assure you that it was healthy, luscious raw butter fudge!

Radically Natural Recipe: GAPS Moist, Chewy Cacao Cake

The progression through Full GAPS is a unique process depending upon your sensitivities and level of dysbiosis.  My family suffers on different levels and struggles with varying rates of healing.  But we are finally at a place where I can experiment more with baking, and we are able to occasionally enjoy this chewy chocolate treat.

This is what I consider to be a "universal" baking recipe, one that can be called cake, muffin, cupcake, even brownies.  The texture will vary depending on the amount of each ingredient used, so feel free to tweak and experiment to achieve your desired consistency.  Here's the formula we've been enjoying:

Celebrating One Year on GAPS...Recipes and My Favorite Things

It's the end of May (wow, how did that even happen?), which brings our family to the one-year anniversary of our GAPS protocol.  From thinking that Intro would literally kill me (initial die off was severe), to having children complain 101 times about "soup AGAIN?!," we persevered, learned some tricks, and actually came to like many of our new GAPS meals.  Thus, we celebrate the end of Year One, hopefully the halfway point for our GAPS journey.  In honor of this momentous occasion, I wanted to share with you some recipes and a list of a few of my "favorite things."  [Cue Julie Andrews swirling in a lush high-mountain Alps meadow, swelling music, and.....la da da da dee dum.....ooh, look...grass-fed raw butter...run, children, run to the butter!  ahem...er...  Have I mentioned how much I adore butter?]

Radically Natural Recipe: Super Snack...Grain-Free Popcorn!

OK, It's not really popcorn without the corn, but we think it's pretty close.  I'm talking about crispy kale.  It's a fantastic snack and easy to make.  We had an abundance of kale in our summer garden and have been enjoying weekly bowls of crispy kale.