Coconut French Toast

The time has come for me to bite the bullet and surrender to that which every holistic practitioner has said – try cutting out dairy completely from your atopic (eczema) child’s diet  and watch the drastic improvement.  I did it – and it’s working.  Enter coconut milk.  Yummy for all.

Milk-free Favorite French Toast

Makes 4 slices.

1/2 c. whole coconut milk such as Thai Kitchen Brand

2-3 whole eggs depending on size…

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tbsp. vanilla

1 tbsp. local raw honey

4 slices of extra-thick, fluffy, 100% whole wheat bread

4 tbsp. coconut oil or butter

Grade B maple syrup and butter for serving

Shredded unsweetened coconut, no preservatives added such as Bob’s Red Mill brand, optional.

Mix with a whisk eggs, coconut milk, cinnamon, vanilla, honey.  Heat skillet to medium high and melt 1 tbsp. butter for each slice of bread.  Dip bread into mix and coat evenly on both sides.  For extra-coconutty flavor, then dip in unsweetened coconut.  Cook in butter until golden brown on both sides.  Reserve on a rack until ready to serve.  Great with fresh milk and fruit.

Cook’s notes:

-You may substitute regular milk if you don’t have coconut milk on hand.  Cream (not ultra-pasteurized!) is even better…remember it’s like you’re making a custard for the bread.

-I get Thai Kitchen brand coconut milk on amazon.com’s Subscribe and Save for a very competitive price.

-Cut each prepared slice into sticks for the kids to dip in syrup – they love this!

-If you’ve been making merengues or macaroons all day and have a ton of egg yolks, they work lovely in place of whole eggs – just double the amount of egg yolks (for this recipe 4-6).

Sorghum Pancakes

This is the closest I’ve come to sweet pancakes that have the same texture and fluff as wheat pancakes.  Another great thing about these is that they are virtually allergy-free.  They are gluten, egg, nut, and milk free.  You could add spices like cinnamon or nutmeg to make them even yummier.

Sorghum Pancakes

2  1/2 c. sorghum flour

3/4 c. tapioca flour

2 tbsp. whey

1 1/2 c. water

Mix the preceding ingredients the night before in the food processor so that they can soak about 12 hours.  This makes them even more digestable.  In the morning, add to the processor:

1 1/2 to 2 c. roasted butternut squash (about 1/2 large)

1/2 stick melted butter

1/4 c. honey

2/3 c. water

1 1/2 tsp. baking soda

Butter or coconut oil for pan

Process until smooth.

Preheat skillet to medium heat.  Pour 1/4 c. amounts of batter, one at a time, in blobs of butter or coconut oil.  After pouring, spread batter rounds no thicker than 1/2 in. with the back of a spoon.  Cook until golden, about 3 minutes, then flip.  Serve with honey and butter.  Cool the extras on a rack and then freeze.  Reheat in toaster, toaster oven, or skillet.

Yield:  About (20) 4-inch pancakes

Snowy Tree and Dill Soup

I made this soup day one of GAPS improvising – if you are on a soup diet and are craving potatoes, this is for you.  Usually creamy means potatoes, milk, etc.  so I was pleasantly surprised at the effect of my surprise ingredient – cauliflower!  (I don’t even like cauliflower!)  So I fixed the name for ME and the kids –

Snowy Tree and Dill Soup

1 tbsp. olive oil or butter

1 small white onion, sliced 1/4 inch thick

3 small cloves garlic, coarsely chopped

1 head of cauliflower, trimmed and washed

3 tbsp. fresh baby dill, chopped (herb)

5 c. chicken stock

1 tsp. salt (or more to taste)

Heat olive oil in a 4 quart pan on med-high heat, add onion when hot.  Reduce heat to medium and cook onion until mostly translucent, about 8 minutes.  Add garlic, sautee about 2 minutes.  Add cauliflower, dill, chicken stock, salt.  Increase heat to high, bring to a boil.  Cover and reduce heat.  Cook 25-30 minutes or until cauliflower is very tender.  Puree with an immersion blender.  Add tbsp. creme fraiche or yogurt for extra creaminess.  Serve alone or with chopped chicken breast.

You Threw Out the What? (Oatmeal Recipe)

Because you’ve all read my About Me page, you know that I’ve had to make a lot of changes in Emma’s diet.  One specifically was to cut out the sugar and decrease the grains.  So I threw out the cereal (it helped I had some pests in my kitchen infested in the cereals and flours).  If I had them in the house or she saw me eating them, I’d have to let her have some, so I decided to stop eating the stuff myself.  Now, it feels like a treat or a dessert when we do eat it.  I can honestly say it was one of the best choices I could have made for me and Emma.

Now each morning, even though it makes more dishes, I cook breakfast.  We eat eggs and oatmeal most mornings, and then if Emma is doing well I will make french toast, pancakes or waffles once or twice.  Because of this change, I’ve adapted a ton of recipes.  To start, this is what I do with oatmeal.

Oatmeal

We mostly eat soaked flours and grains now.  They are much more easily digested. And they taste better, especially in oatmeal, because the chewy texture is removed.

Serves 2

1 cup old-fashioned oats (rolled or cracked best)

1 cup filtered water

1 tbsp. homemade whey or plain yogurt

Mix the above ingredients in a bowl, cover and leave 12-24 hours or overnight.  This is easiest for me when I am making breakfast the day before.  I will think about tomorrow’s breakfast and start soaking it.

The next morning, bring 1 c. of filtered water to a boil.  When it’s boiling, add the oatmeal mixture.  Cover and reduce to lowest setting.  In 10 minutes, you have perfectly cooked oatmeal!

Don’t eat it like that, silly!  Add these to your liking:

Banana, Strawberry, Blueberry, Peach (fresh or frozen)

Milk, Cream, Butter

Chopped  and toasted pecans, walnuts, peanuts, etc.

Don’t forget the vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg!

Have a sweet tooth like me?  Try maple syrup or honey.

And when you’re feeling like something really decadent, try melted chocolate chips and a tablespoon of  honey peanut butter!

What’s your favorite oatmeal topping/flavor combination?

A Letter to My Readers – About This Blog

Dearest Readers,

I could spend hours and hours right now trying to get this to look all pretty, but I really just want to get into the food!  How about you?  I will be updating and working on a more beautiful blog, but in the mean time, I want to tell you about my food journey…

As some of you know, my dear Emma (almost 3) has been diagnosed too much since birth.  It started with eczema, sensitive skin, atopic dermatitis.  Then it was “toddler’s diarrhea” at 9 mos.  At 1 year, she had allergy testing done for the first time, and it came out positive for more than 15 food allergies.  She’s also suffered from recurrent ear infections throughout all of this.  Just after her 2nd birthday, the diarrhea got a lot worse and she went to the Pediatric Gastrointestinal Doctor.  It was after this appointment (5/09) that I lost patience with the whole doctor and laboratory scene.  I found a common thread with each doctor we had seen to date, and that was that they all treated the symptom and didn’t address the underlying problem.  Why were we emptying our healthcare funds for this, anyway?

So I got to work and got praying hard, determined to find my own answers.  I read books, blogs, websites – anything I could find.  Things that sounded true to me or linked to other true things I read I kept, until I found a body of information that can heal my daughter and protect my son from having the same problems.  I discovered along the way that I have my own bit of digestive issues as well.  What I’ve found is astonishing.  It’s changed everything about me.  And I’m a pretty simple person.  (I think about husband, kids, and food all day 🙂  The journey we are all on is still developing, and none of us are 100% healthy yet.  But, I know that I have the TOOLS to make us reach that goal over the next couple of years.  For any of you out there with health problems, I have to mention a couple of things:

The Lord wants you to be healthy.  Your body is a temple, pure and clean, and it should function that way.  Even seemingly trivial things like gas and heartburn are cause for review.  Probably half of our diseases and illnesses as a country can be healed simply by healing the gut through proper nutrition.  But it’s a slow process, and there is not a miracle pill or solution for all.  Diet alone is enough to flip someone’s world upside-down.  Believe me, I know.  When the Doctors told me that Emma was allergic to corn, wheat, rye, soy, and rice,  I was DEFEATED.  But I got back up after I prayed and cried on my knees.  And each of us, regardless of religion, race, demographic or status can do that anywhere in the world.  As I started my journey with her, I started reading books by some of the top specialists in the U.S.  For a couple of weeks I was adamant that we HAD to get her to one of the doctors that wrote my book.  But eventually after I calmed down, this thought came to me – it’s not your doctor that’s going to heal you.  It’s a treatment of some sort that’s going to heal you.  And that treatment can be found in ways other than spending the $ to go to the Doctor.  Heavenly Father will help you if you pour your heart out to him.  He helped me.

So now you know how I got hyper-connected to my food, let’s get to the meat and potatoes – the food.  This blog is all about nourishing food.  So what that means is food that’s good for you and that is mostly based (about 80%) on the principles found in what I like to refer to as food scripture, or Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon.  Lucky for me, most of the Mexican food we already eat didn’t have to be changed at all.  Which is very interesting, but that’s for another post.  The typical American diet is mostly being rejected in this book because, well, does anyone disagree that super-processed foods like sugary cereals and snacks are good for you?

Each week I will post the note-worthy meals and their corresponding recipes.  Emma is on a special diet most of the time so what she eats will mostly be excluded, unless you guys want some low-carb/alternative grain meal ideas for kids. I am hoping that ya’ll will comment with recipes or techniques you have as well.  Hopefully we’ll be one jolly recipe-exchange, equally benefiting each other. So let the games begin!

Love,

Michelle