Pi Day

Happy Pi Day!  

It's a great excuse to make a delicious savory pie for dinner and a sweet pie for dessert.

Shepherd's Pie

Photo: Ditch the Wheat

  

Pizza Pie - Sweet Potato Crust

Photo: Delectably Domestic

 Pizza Pie - Cauliflower Crust

Photo: Carly Johnson

Chocolate Pie

Photo: Paleo Magazine

Pumpkin Pie

Photo: The Paleo Mom

Apple Crumble Pie

Photo: Our Paleo Life

No-Mato Sauce

Photo: Angels Homestead

30 days FODMAPs-Free and cutting out nightshades for inflammation means finding new ways to feed your cravings.

This sauce is yummy and can be used as a pasta or pizza sauce.

Try it with my Pepperoni Pizza Casserole, Cauliflower Crust Pizza, or the Sweet Potato Crust Pizza recipes.

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp asafoetida
• 1 cup carrots, roughly chopped
• 2 T apple cider vinegar
• 1 T lemon juice
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 T Italian spices (oregano, basil, rosemary, thyme, parsley, garlic powder*)
• homemade bone broth or water or stock
• 1 can pumpkin puree

Directions:

1. In a saucepan add all ingredients (except pumpkin) and just enough bone broth to barely cover the carrots.
2. Bring to a boil.  Turn to low and simmer until carrots are very soft, about 20 minutes.
3. When carrots are very soft pour saucepan ingredients into a blender and add pumpkin.  
4. Blend until super smooth.

This sauce freezes well.

* omit garlic powder to keep it FODMAPs-Free

Slow Roasted Beef Back Ribs

Photo Nom Nom Paleo

We don't have ribs very often but when you buy a whole, 1/2, or 1/4 cow you're bound to get ribs.  When you do, remember slow & steady wins the race.  This recipe is delicious!

Ingredients:

• 4 racks grass-fed beef back ribs, about four ribs/rack, about 12 lbs
• dry rub* - I used oregano, thyme, garlic powder, sea salt, cumin seeds, sage, cayenne, basil 
• bay leaves, 1 for each rack
• homemade bone broth for basting

 Directions:

1. Pat your racks dry with paper towels and rub the seasonings on each rack.  Don't be stingy on the dry rub.
2. Allow to sit in the fridge for 2 hours - 24 hours to marinate, optional.  We skipped this step just because we didn't plan for it.  The ribs still turned out full of flavor.
3. Preheat oven to 200˚F.
4. Set the racks on a foil-lined, rimmed roasting pan.  Put a bay leaf on top of each rack, seal racks tightly in foil.
5. Roast for 6 - 8 hours.  Half way through, flip the racks.
6. Remove racks and turn oven to high broil.
7. Baste racks with bone broth and place back in oven for 2 minutes.
8. Remove, flip, and baste again.  Place back in oven for 2 minutes.

*Can be made FODMAPs free - just omit garlic powder
*Can be made nightshades free - just omit the cayenne

Banana Rice Cakes

When my tummy started bothering me and I couldn't figure out what was wrong, I did a 30-day FODMAPs free journey of  experimenting & observing the foods I was eating (or not eating) and how my body was affected.   At the time I was only able to eat bland, soft foods like rice, white fish, and bananas.

I re-discovered organic, brown rice cakes.  They really satisfy the crunch and salty cravings.  Cooper loves them, too (how about that!).  In addition to this recipe, Cooper and I like them with Kerrygold grass-fed butter and salt.  This is my new favorite snack!

Ingredients:

• 1T raw almond butter - we started making our own.
• 1/2 banana, sliced
• 1 rice cake
• cinnamon

Directions:

1. Spread almond butter over rice cake
2. Top with sliced banana
3. Sprinkle with cinnamon

Chocolate Protein Banana Bread

I've made this recipe several times.  Every time people have loved it.  Me?  Not so much.  But I'm posting it anyway because it can't always be about me.

Photo: Chocolate Chilli Mango

Ingredients:

·     1/2 cup raw almonds* or walnuts*, ground fine

·     3 T arrowroot starch

·     1/4 cup natural whey protein isolate powder, we use Bluebonnet French Vanilla

·     1/3 cup raw cacao powder

·     1 teaspoon cinnamon

·     1 teaspoon baking powder

·     pinch of sea salt

·     3 very ripe bananas

·     2 whole eggs

·     1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1.  Preheat the oven to 350˚F.

2.  Grease a loaf pan lightly with butter.

3.  Place dry ingredients into the bowl of a food processor and process until combined.

4.  Add remaining ingredients and pulse until smooth.

5.  Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. 

6.  Bake for about 45 – 50 minutes until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. 

7.  Remove and cool on a wire rack before removing from pan.

 *  raw, soaked, dehydrated

Butternut Squash Risotto

My husband and I are of the paleo and bulletproof thinking that white rice is ok, as long as you can tolerate it.  For more info than you really want about rice you can check out FitBomb.  Fitbomb says,

If you stick with white rice (which doesn’t contain the phytate and trypsin inhibitor content of the less-milled brown rice) and you cook it properly (which neutralizes the haemagglutinin-lectin), you don’t have much to worry about from an anti-nutrient perspective... It is essentially a blank slate, nothing all that bad about it, but nothing all that great, either.

Chris Kresser, whom my husband and I both highly respect, shares his idea of a paleo template and the optimal diet for modern day humans.

If we are indeed asking what the optimal diet is for modern humans (rather than simply speculating about what our Paleolithic ancestors ate), there’s no way to answer that question definitively. Why? Because just as there is tremendous variation amongst populations with diet, there is also tremendous individual variation. Some people clearly do better with no dairy products. Yet others seem to thrive on them. Some feel better with a low-carb approach, while others feel better eating more carbohydrate. Some seem to require a higher protein intake (up to 20-25% of calories), but others do well when they eat a smaller amount (10-15%).

The only way to figure out what an optimal diet is for you is to experiment and observe. The best way to do that is to remove the “grey area” foods you suspect you might have trouble with, like dairy, nightshades, eggs, etc. for a period of time (usually 30 days is sufficient), and add them back in one at a time and observe your reactions. This “30-day challenge” or elimination diet is what folks like Robb Wolf have recommended for a long time.

As I try to figure out what my optimal diet is, I've begun to "experiment and observe" with a fodmap free template.  Cauliflower is a high fodmap food and so we've had to cut out the cauliflower rice recipes that have become so popular.  Fine with me.  I like rice and can tolerate it well.

With all that in mind here is a fodmap free, very yummy recipe for risotto.  Of course, if you would rather stick with cauliflower, substitute the arborio rice for a head of cauliflower (about 1 1/2 lbs).

Photo: The Italian Chef

Ingredients:

• 1 butternut squash (about 1 1/2 lbs), peeled and cut into chunks
• 4T ghee or bacon fat, divided
• 1 1/2 cups arborio rice
• 1 teaspoon asafoetida
• 1T fresh sage, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 4 1/2 cups grass-fed bone broth or organic, grass-fed beef or pastured chicken stock
• about 3 slices bacon, cooked, chopped, optional

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425˚F.
2. Place the butternut squash on a foil-lined baking sheet and coat with 2T bacon fat and sprinkle with salt.
3. Roast for 15-20 minutes, until tender.
4. Blend squash with 1/2 cup broth in a blender.  Set aside.
5. Heat broth in a small saucepan and simmer over low heat.
6. While squash is roasting melt 2T bacon fat in a large skillet.
7. Add rice, asafoetida, sage, and nutmeg, stir about 2 minutes.
8. Add 1/2 cup heated broth to rice.  Stir together until liquid is absorbed, about 5 minutes.
9. Repeat with remaining broth, 1/2 cup at a time, until all liquid is absorbed.  Rice should be cooked through and creamy.
10. Fold blended squash into rice.
11. Season to taste with salt.
12. Top with bacon.

Hot Dog!

Is it a secret that sometimes you need to be creative when you are cooking?  Going paleo I find I need to be creative to come up with ingredient substitutions and new ideas.  When I started avoiding FODMAPs I really needed to kick up the creative juices.

Thanks to the many bloggers, I can pretty easily find new, easy, yummy recipes.  My dear friend, Kindra at Bon Appetit Paleo, is brilliantly creative.  Hence, a hot dog!

OK, we're no strangers to organic, grass-fed, beef hot dogs.  We've been buying the Applegate hot dogs for a couple of years and eating them bunless.  We love them!  But when Kindra told me her idea for a bun, I HAD to make it.

It was perfect!  PERFECT!  I barely had to convince myself I was not eating a hot dog bun.

Ingredients:

• organic, grass-fed, beef hot dogs
• small organic sweet potato or yam (about the size of your hot dog)
• condiments

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400˚F.
2. Scrub potatoes and slather with ghee or bacon fat.
3. Bake sweet potatoes for about 20 - 30 minutes, until soft and skins are starting to crisp.
4. Grill hot dogs.
5. Remove potatoes and allow to cool, to handle.
6. Scoop out flesh.  This is your side dish.
7. Add hot dog to potato skin and top with condiments.

Love, love, love this dish!

Flourless Mocha-Bacon Brownies

Nineteen years ago today my husband did the greatest thing - he proposed to me!  Thankfully, I was smart enough to say, "YES"!

In honor of our good choices, 19 years ago, I made my husband a batch of these to-die-for-brownies from Diane Sanfilippo's book Practical Paleo.  Now don't just copy the recipes from my blog.  Go out and buy the book yourself.  It is chock full of information along with great recipes like this one.

Photo: Practical Paleo

Ingredients:

• 4oz dark chocolate, melted and cooled
• 1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled
• 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons very strong coffee
• 2 tablespoons fine coffee grounds
• 2 slices cooked bacon, chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375˚F.
2. In a medium-sized mixing bowl combine chocolate, butter, maple syrup, and eggs.
3. Slowly sift in the cocoa and mix to combine.
4. Add coffee and coffee grounds and mix to combine.
5. Spread into a parchment lined brownie pan.
6. Top with chopped bacon.
7. Bake for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
8. Dust with cocoa powder.

Did you notice this recipe is grain free? It is also FODMAPs free!

Enjoy, we did!

Green Bean Fries

Cooper asked today (like most days) if I would take him and Carly to Yogurtland.  Of course not.  I am striving to be a champion for my kids health.  One day they'll thank me.  The next question was, what is for snack?  Both of my kids turned their noses up when I told them it was green bean fries.

Here's my recipe adapted from Delighted Momma's recipe:

You'll need:

• Fresh green beans (even though I used leftover parboiled green beans from last night's dinner)
• Olive oil
• Salt and garlic powder to taste (omit garlic powder to make these FODMAPs free)

 Then:

• Preheat oven to 400º F
• In a large bowl toss all the ingredients together
• Bake on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet for about 30-35 minutes.  As they brown they'll get caramelized & crispy. 

And much to their surprise both kids loved them.  You will, too.  This snack will definitely hit the spot when you're craving salty & crunchy.  And you don't have to feel guilty about eating them all up!

Photo courtesy of Delighted Momma