Flax seed crackers

One thing I miss about going grain free is crunchy stuff. These flax seed crackers were delicious with my GAPS-friendly lima bean hummus.

Recipe:
1 part ground flax seeds
1 part water
salt to taste
optional: herbs, spices.

Mix ingredients together, spread on a sheet, and bake at 350 degrees until dry.

Blood Orange Carrot Cake -- GAPS friendly!

I'm slowly getting the hang of experimenting with making foods that are allergen-friendly and GAPS-approved. Here is a blood orange carrot cake recipe that I made this morning.

Recipe
1/4 cup carrots
1/4 cup almonds, soaked overnight
1/2 cup walnuts, soaked overnight
1/8 cup ground flax seeds
2 pitted dried plums

1 tsp blood orange zest
Juice from one small blood orange
1/4 cup shredded coconut, lightly toasted
1 T honey

Frosting
1 T ghee
1/4 tsp honey
1/2 tsp blood orange juice

In a food processor, combine carrots, almonds, walnuts, and dried plums. Transfer mixture to a bowl and add the ground flax seeds, zest, blood orange juice, shredded coconut, and honey. Transfer mixture to two ramekins. Top with frosting and serve.

Optional: Bake the ramekins at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool, top with frosting and serve.

Com Chay

Com Chay is one of my favorite foods, and I made this a while back and hadn't gotten the chance to post it yet. While I'm on the GAPS diet, I won't be able to enjoy this, and Dr. Shanahan's Deep Nutrition book has convinced me to banish vegetable oil from my diet forever, so from now on when I make this in the future, I will be using chicken fat to crisp the rice and a natural-pressed oil for the onions.

Com chay literally means "burnt rice."


Start with fat in a non stick skillet and heat it:

 Add cooked rice to the skillet. Stir it around a bit so the rice is coated

Cook the rice without disturbing it so that bottom crisps. This takes a while, and you can shake the rice to the side and peek to see how it's doing. You need a lot of fat for this so that nothing sticks, and you want it to be a saturated fat because those are more stable when you heat them.

Keep peeking until the crust develops to the desired amount. The more golden-brown it is, the more delicious.

Meanwhile, in between checking the crust of the rice, slice some green onions:

Mix the green onions with oil, and slightly mash them to release their flavors into the oil.

Add the onion and onion oil to the com chay and serve. Mmmmmm!

Chicken Broth

Chicken broth is so comforting to me. I buy chicken bones from Lunardi's, make stock, strip the chicken from the bone, skim off the fat, and try not to let anything go to waste. My chicken broth includes bones, an onion, some ginger, and a handful of cilantro if I have it on hand. If I'm going to make it pho style, I'll throw in some pho spices (star anise, cardamom, cinnamon, coriander). Broth needs to be crystal clear, so all that scum on top will need to be skimmed off. It takes time, but there is something beautifully comforting about standing over a stock pot and fussing over it, tasting it, and skimming it.

The fat is delicious, and when I'm lucky, there's a lot of it. When the broth cools, I pull off the disk of fat that floats to the top and keep a jar of it for cooking.

The meat I strip off the bone is tender, and I pull off all the cartilage with it, then put the bones back in with the broth to continue extracting flavor and nutrients. With the chicken meat, I make chicken pancakes to freeze for snacks. Some of the shredded chicken I just freeze plain for future use.

I'm very busy these days, and since my diet is so restrictive, I need to have a food stash available so I can eat even when I don't have time to cook.

Liver Terrine -- the offal bits

Dr. Catherine Shanahan's Deep Nutrition has convinced me to incorporate more organ meats into my diet. Her book discusses the four pillars of world cuisine and how the wisdom of traditional cuisines  results in optimal gene expression  by way of influencing epigenetic markers.

As I'm eating foods to heal my gut and eliminate my food allergies, I've been doing a lot of reading on optimal nutrition through food. A common theme I'm finding is the magic of bone broth. I'm so grateful that my mom made us fresh broths throughout my childhood even though my dad thought it was a waste of time when broth can be had from a can. I also ate a lot of cultured vegetables throughout my childhood. My mom made delicious cultured mustard cabbage and cultured Thai eggplants (using brines of 3 tablespoons salt to 2 liters of water).

This evening I made a terrine that included chicken liver. My friend also gave me some beautiful lamb and beef fat that she had rendered, which I included in the dish as well.

The recipe I used is adapted from Gourmet Magazine (April 2009). I made modifications to make it GAPS-friendly, and I have included my notes for the next time I make this.

• 1 zucchini squash, pureed
• 3/4 cup finely chopped onion
• 3 large garlic cloves, minced
• 3 tablespoons pork fat/lamb fat
• 1/2 pound chicken livers, separated into lobes, trimmed, and rinsed
• soak them for a few hours in brine to clean them
• 1 1/2 pounds ground beef
• 1/4 cup chopped prunes
• 1/4 cup shelled pistachios
• 2 teaspoons thyme leaves
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 475°F with rack in middle.

Cook onion, garlic, and 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper in fat in a small skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until onion is softened, about 5 minutes. Cool slightly. 

Purée livers in a food processor, then transfer to a large bowl. Add beef, prunes, pistachios, thyme, eggs, zucchini, onion mixture, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and gently mix with your hands until just combined. 

Transfer meatloaf mixture to an 81/2- by 41/2-inch glass loaf pan and bake, covered with foil, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into center registers 165°F, 50 to 55 minutes. Let rest 5 minutes. Cover top of meatloaf with parsley before slicing. 

NOTES: This terrine was very tasty. I served it with cultured vegetables I had on hand-- a red cabbage/cilantro/garlic and a turnip/green onion/garlic mixture with a bit of Dijon mustard to top it off.

The pistachios did not add much in terms of flavor, and the texture they added was not interesting enough to be worth the trouble of shelling those pistachios. Next time, I will add an extra minced raw onion to the mixture to give it some texture as well as 3 cloves or so of minced garlic. I will also double/triple the chopped prunes since their flavors paired very well with the earthy flavor of liver. This recipe is also in serious want of bacon. Pork is a sweeter meat than beef and would showcase the flavor of liver very nicely.

Lemongrass chicken with thai basil

With the exception of convenience food and baked goods, I've found that a lot of the foods I eat are already allergen-free since most of my meals revolve around rice.

Here is a lemongrass chicken with thai basil that my mom made. It was simple, tasty, and quick. My mom used chicken breast which she diced and sauteed with lemongrass and fish sauce. Thai basil was added off the heat so that it didn't wilt.

Red Boat Fish Sauce

I discovered Red Boat fish sauce because I found out I was allergic to the fish sauce brands we had at home. Red Boat is an extra-virgin fish sauce with only two ingredients: anchovy fish and sea salt.

It has a beautiful, clear amber color and has a wonderful flavor. It's pungent, umami, salty-sweet, and not fishy at all. I've been putting it in all my savory dishes, Vietnamese or not.