One month of Meal Photos!

 Menu planning. That daunting task that greats me with each new month like bright sunshine on a pounding headache. To make this task easier on my visually-minded self, I took photos of our dinner every most nights. And now I can share these images of inspiration with you!

Right now, my older Daughter is very low oxalate, mommy is on full GAPS, and Daddy can eat anything, so he sometimes has some grains on the side. We're eating a LOT of butter right now and loving it. What's been on your plate lately? Here are pictures of ours:

Lemon herbed chicken with Brussells

"White Castles"

Buttered Shrimp and Cabbage

Really a snack - Crispy Chicken Skin

Clam Chowder with navy beans

Browned Butternut salad with Chicken

Simple Lentil Stew

Bacon arugula quiche and butternut hash browns (a special breakfast!)

Buttered burgers with caramelized onions and bacon broccoli

Bok Choy Chicken Teriyaki

This was almost gone by time I took a photo - simple green bean and broccoli soup

Buttered Bacon Boiled Cabbage

Buttered Spagetti and Meatballs

Garlic Shrimp Scampi and Broccoli

Butternut Fried Greens Casserole

Beef roast and fried turnip greens

Lamb Meatballs with buttered cabbage

Salmon salad

Scrambled Broccoli Eggs

Sweet avocado salad with fried eggs

Steak and Brussells

Squash,Bean, and Arugula Stew

Simple Creamed Lentils

Sweet n Sour Lentils with chicken fried cauli-rice

Roast and fried greens

Bok Choy clam soup

Teriyaki beef and Broccoli (with lentils and noodles for Daddy)

Fried Green beans with Garlic (a fantastic snack)

How to make your standard fare seem special

When you're on a limited diet - special occasions are harder. I'm prone to lamenting what treats we cannot have, or indulging because, "it's only one day." Here are some techniques we've found to make things "special" without feeling lousy in the process!

Presentation

Maybe it is your usual soup, or jello, or squash, but if it is in a special shape or special dish - all of a sudden it seems more of a treat than usual. For Easter we made our usual jello (we eat it daily right now) but I put it into these cute little molds. My DD was thrilled! We also had pavlova in the shape of a bunny. We have seashell dishes and fancy china bowls. Even just grabbing some fresh herbs and putting a garnish on the plate makes it look a little nicer. A lot of things I look to take a little extra time, such as making zucchini noodles instead of the usual chunks, but the love and joy it brings is well worth it.

Save certain foods for holidays

 We get enough steaks with our side of beef to have steak once a month! Yet I usually save them for a special occasion. There is one almost every month anyway, so it makes meal planning a little easier. Bacon is a treat too, as it is expensive for us. Maybe for holidays you splurge and get extra brussells sprouts or a fresh version of something your mostly have frozen.

Gather around special people

Friends make the party sometimes. It may have been taco salad, without tomatoes as I'm off all nightshades, but it was with my family. Taking the focus off the food and just spending it with other people is a wonderful thing while on special diets.

Celebrate in other ways

Sing songs, decorate, play games, and make it fun without changing the food. My daughter will be hunting for pennies in her eggs, and was just thrilled with some new books to read. She doesn't mind when others around her are having fancy desserts, just a few little things make her day.

Be ok with being low-key
Sometimes, with all the stress of living on a special diet, the best thing to do is to let go of Holidays being a big affair. Relax, let them be low key, and treasure the blessings you have.

How do you handle special occasions?

Eating the Easter Bunny - Baked Meringue, also known as Pavlova

Doesn't everyone eat the Easter bunny on Easter?

This was my DD's special treat last year called Pavlova. It is basically just meringue, though standard recipes have cream of tarter.

Ingredients:
Egg whites (without a speck of yolk!) I usually wait until I have about 2 cups worth.
sweetness - such as a pinch of stevia, or honey.
salt and vanilla if desired.

Just beat egg whites until soft peaks form, and then pour on parchment paper and bake at 250 for an hour, and cool completely in the oven for a few hours or overnight. Yum!  Don't crack the oven after you turn it off, as it needs to continue cooking some.

If you keep it in a sealed container, it will become more soft and sticky, but if it has air, it will be very dry and crispy and make an wonderful mess when you crunch a bite of it.

I'm not sure how long it keeps, though I've had it on the counter for as long as a week, but usually we inhale it still warm. You can make it really fancy by topping with whip cream and berries, or chocolate pudding and bananas.... the list goes on. What doesn't go well with sweet crispy air?

For more treat ideas that don't involve mountains of sugar, check out this link: Easter without the Junk!

Belated Birthday Post

 Perhaps I should label this an "un-birthday" post - every day is your un-birthday, so you are never late!

However late this post is, we did celebrate my daughter's birthday on time, and it was great fun. We had a beautiful butterfly theme decorating the house.

 

She loves butterflies.

She tolerates oranges, lemons, and limes fairly well, so we transformed those into a delicious birthday "cake" for her.  The lemon juice gave the jello great color too.

 

And did you know you can turn oranges into butterflies?

They looked really cute around her cake.

We dressed up the cucumbers as well.









And before you think I'm super talented, just do a little googling. It's easy to have fun with a few foods.

Real Food Room Temp Fudge

I have to admit I've really suffered trying to perfect this recipe for you ;) It did take quite a few iterations to perfect it.

Now, there are tons of real food recipes for fudge out there. And while incredibly delicious, they soften a lot at room temperature, and don't hold their shape if left out too long. Your fingers require a lot of licking too, which isn't a bad thing... but doesn't bode well for putting in little wrappers and serving at high class parties.  I also felt they didn't have quite the right chewey-ness that fudge excites in one's mind. The ones that do hold their shape and texture use lots of sugar and well-cooked milk too, but I wanted one that left the dairy more raw, and kept the texture without the sugar content.

So I'll let you in on my discovery....

Gelatin!

I've been incorporating gelatin into my diet in many ways these days, and having a lot of fun with it (as you can see from past posts!) Only recently however did I consider that it might be just the remedy that real food fudge needs to brave the test of sitting out all during a long dinner until the guests saunter over to the dessert table.

So without further ado, here is my recipe:


4 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 c cream (heavy whipping cream would be fine, I used what we skim off our milk. You can use thinner "milk" too, I used plain milk instead of cream, and it came out ok, though not as rich, so I'm sure dairy-free subs such as coconut cream will work fine!)
1/8 tsp stevia &   (I'm using NuNaturals extract powder, you sugar sub may be different)
2 TBS honey      .... equiv. to approximately 1.5 C sugar or 3/4 c honey
pinch salt
swig vanilla
 2 TBS gelatin (I used Great Lakes brand, if using packets, then you need 2, Bernard Jensen brand was too chunky)

Before you get started, you will need a small pot, and two stainless steel bowls that fit over it to make a double boiler. If you don’t have two bowls that size, then you can do the cream mixture in a small pot. Just use very low heat! Put the gelatin into a small dish so it is ready for the critical moment.

In a double boiler, melt chocolate over low heat.

Meanwhile, in another stainless bowl (or small pot), mix cream, sweeteners, salt, and vanilla. Whisk really well to get it as smooth as possible.

Check on the chocolate often to make sure it doesn’t melt too quickly, and gently stir occasionally. Once all the chocolate is completely melted and smooth, remove the bowl from heat. Do not turn the fire off under the pot.  Put the bowl with the cream mixture onto the pot of water, and whisk while it heats. (Or heat the cream mixture in the pot on very very low heat.)

During this time the chocolate has had a chance to cool a little bit. Do not try to save time by heating both mixtures at the same time! Adding liquids too quickly to melted chocolate will cause it to seize.

While the cream mixture is heating, whisk constantly, once completely smooth, immediately remove from heat and start mixing into the chocolate. You want it warm, but not so hot that you can't keep your finger in it for 10 seconds. Whisk the chocolate while pouring the cream mixture in slowly. It will thicken and act as though it won’t mix well, but don’t worry! Just keep stirring. You may need someone to either hold the bowl or pour the cream mixture for you!

Once mostly combined, get the gelatin. Sprinkly it around evenly while you incorporate it into the fudge, whisking. It will get a little bit chunky and not completely dissolve. Perfect! If it dissolves too much, then you have too chewey fudge, if it dissolves too little, then you have large chunks of gelatin. The slight warmth of the cream and chocolate dissolves the gelatin a little, and the careful addition of it (sprinkle in a circle motion while whisking) incorporates it magically.

Transfer to a dish to cool. No need to line with anything, it should come out pretty easily.

Should be completely cooled in the fridge in a few hours. And it actually tastes best at room temp!

After cooling, cut into squares, and try not to eat them all yourself!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Also, as far as I know, this is a completely original recipe. I haven't made the typical fudge recipes with sweetened condensed milk, but I realize now that this is what I'm emulating. So if you think my method is amazing, please don't copy it, give credit where it's due. Thanks!

Making Mayo

I had a lot of mayo fails in my journey learning how to make mayo... so now I can share my success!


Ingredients:
1 egg (can use only the yolk, or the whole egg)
not quite 1 cup *good* olive oil (or other fats.)
1 tsp dijon mustard (must be dijon.)
splash lemon juice or white vinegar
Whey, optional

So, first you bring your egg to room temp. This is important! Don't skip it! You can make half-way successful mayo if you warm up the egg by being whizzed in the blender a bit, but you will be much more successful if it is already at room temp. (Keeping extra eggs in the basement helps this be convenient!)

Then, add egg, mustard, and lemon juice or vinegar to blender. Give a quick whizz at high speed.

Then ready your oil. My blender has a removeable spot in the top of the lid, and I put a funnel in that to make an even smaller opening.

Then this is the next huge help - a peri bottle. You may have one of these leftover from having a baby, if not, they aren't too hard to find. It will help you have a very small sloooow stream. The slow stream is very important for making good mayo. I get be in too much of a hurry if I just use the cup measure.

Turn the blender on high, and start adding your oil (or other fat) slooooowly. Listen! After a minute or two, the sound will change, deepening. When the sound has changed a lot (more of a low sound) then you can start adding the oil a little faster.

Once you are done adding fat, turn off and transfer to dish. It will still seem fairly liquidy at this point.

Once transferred, it will quickly become thicker. If desired, add a tsp or two of whey, mixing in gently. Allow to sit on the counter for a day if you are fermenting with the whey, and then transfer to the fridge. If you think it will all be gone in a week, you can just put in the fridge right away. (Though this is a great place to add whey to your diet!)

Note: If using other oils (I use the late-harvest olive oil from Chaffin Family) be sure they are liquid - you can use bacon grease, palm oil, lard, coconut oil, or just about anything. If looking at peanut or safflower oil, be sure to read "The Skinny on Fats."

I've heard that you can also just put all your ingredients in a cup and use an immersion blender. I'm hoping to try that myself soon.

Cucumber Pops!

Summer is winding down here, but one of summer discoveries was the delight of cucumber pops!

I got these awesome silicone popsicle molds (that have lids for no spillage!) and because of their design, you can squeeze up the frozen goodness.

All you do is peel a cucumber, and put in the food processor. I suppose you could go through the effort to remove the seeds, but I didn't bother. Run the processor for a minute or so, it will all turn to liquid! Then pour into your mold (don't fill to the brim, they expand during freezing) and freeze until solid.

It would probably be even tastier with a pinch of salt, or maybe some fresh mint leaves. Mmm... But even plain, these were a great treat.