Ramble On

Raisin Filling
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup honey

when it looks like this, you're done! Turn off the stove!

Combine in a sauce pan and cook over low heat stirring occasionally until the raisins plump and most of the liquid is gone.

While your raisin filling is going prepare the cookie dough:

1/2 cup honey
4 eggs
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup coconut flour + 2 tbs
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp sea salt

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or use a silicone baking sheet. Combine the honey, eggs, olive oil, and vanilla in a bowl and mix with an electric mixer (I use my kitchen aid stand mixer for this) until well combined. Whisk the coconut flour, baking soda and salt together in a small bowl. Add the dry to the wet ingredients and mix until a dough forms.

Scoop the cookie dough onto your prepared baking sheet (I use a 1 1/2 tsp cookie scoop). Get yourself a little bit of olive oil in a little dish, now press your thumb into the oil and then into the cookie making a small indentation. Don't push all the way to the bottom of the cookie! Fill your indentation with some of the raisin filling. I did not use all the filling (I just allowed it to harden all the way and ate it, it was delicious).

Bake for 15 minutes.

I've been thinking a lot about direction lately, like with this blog. Should I start a new blog with just recipes and leave this one for knitting and rambling or what? I thought about that for a while and decided that no, I'm not going to try to do that. I know myself and I know that my having two personal blogs will just not work out at this point, I wouldn't keep up with both of them.

I go through phases in my life, I get obsessed with things, do those things for a while then I sorta quit. The stuff I really love seems to come back in cycles (like baking, and knitting). Right now I'm into baking (though I'm still knitting) because I feel that there is purpose and urgency in it right now. I want to provide an alternative to nut flour baking for other people that are on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. I feel like it's important, and, I've always wanted to open a bakery. I know that is not realistic due to the fact that in a few months our family is going to turn nomadic for the next 16 years (husband is rejoining the military) but maybe, at some point, it will happen. I'm not ruling it out, I've decided I'm not limiting myself anymore. You never know.

My goal right now would be to try to reach as many people as I can about Crohn's and spreading a positive message of dealing and living with the disease. That is what I'm focusing my energy on at this time and I guess this blog is reflective of that. I'm not sure how this is going to play out but I have to follow my happy and right now, this is it. 

So I will continue to post my recipes here and probably some other random stuff. I know it's kind of a mess right now, but I'm working on that, in every aspect of my life.

You remember those stands at the mall? The ones with the orange drink? Well they had banana too, which was my absolute favorite. This is a knock off that is actually good for you!

Sweet Vanilla Banana Smoothie
makes 2  servings 

2 med frozen bananas
4 tbs honey
1 cup plain yogurt
1 tsp vanilla

Combine everything into a blender and puree until smooth.

I had a conversation the other day with another mom who told me that she loves to eat baked goodies for breakfast. As I thought about I realized that I use to do the same, there's something really comforting about having something you can eat with a fork along with your cup of morning tea. So I decided to make something that wasn't overly sweet but would satisfy that craving. This isn't as heavy as a coffee cake, will fill you up, and won't make you feel guilty about eating cake for breakfast.




Apple Raisin Breakfast Cake

4 eggs
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbs cinnamon
1 cup chopped, peeled, apples
1/4 cup raisins


Grease an 8in square pan or line with parchment paper. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl combine coconut flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. In a large bowl combine eggs, olive oil, vanilla, and honey.With an electric mixer blend the dry ingredients into the wet beating until there are no lumps. Fold in the chopped apples and raisins. Spread the batter into your prepared pan.  Bake for 20 minutes, allow to cool completely before eating!

The only thing I can liken these to is cheesecake. The texture is very light yet filling. The coconut flavor does come through on them, then lemon, and just a hint of ginger in the after taste. My husband ate half the batch (I ate the other half) they were gone within two days, just because we tried to pace ourselves.







 
Coconut Lemon-Ginger Cakes (gluten free, nut free, SCD legal) 
makes 12 regular-sized muffins


1/2 cup coconut flour
1/4 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp sea salt
4 eggs
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup coconut oil melted and slightly cooled
1/2 cup honey

Line a regular sized muffin tin with papers. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine the coconut flour, ginger, baking soda, and sea salt together in a small bowl, whisk together well. In a large bowl combine the eggs, lemon juice, honey, and coconut oil, blend together. Add the dry ingredients into the wet and mix well with an electric hand mixer until all the lumps all gone. Pour the batter into the prepared muffin tins dividing evenly into each cup. Bake for 23 minutes. Allow to cool completely and then refrigerate for at least four hours before eating to allow the flavors to fully develop.

..and in the morning, I'm making waffles!

I'm so excited to share this recipe! For quite a while I've been experimenting with a waffle recipes. There were a lot of duds but this one, this one is pretty dang near perfect. Even my husband likes them and he's honest to a fault.These have no coconut flavor what-so-ever and use very little coconut flour, which is a great way to really stretch out the ingredients.







Cinnamon Ginger Waffles (scd legal, nut-free, gluten free)
makes 3 waffles


2 tbs coconut flour
1/2 tsp gigner
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbs honey
2 tbs olive oil
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat your waffle iron. Combine all the dry ingredients in a small bowl, whisk  together well. Combine the wet ingredients and with an electric mixer beat until well combined. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and blend until all the lumps are gone. Pour into your prepared waffle iron being careful not to overflow. Sometimes these take a little longer than normal waffles, just keep an eye on them and remove them when they are well browned. While these are cooking go ahead and make your Vanilla Peach Topping.

Vanilla Peach Honey Topping (SCD legal, nut free, gluten free)

1/4 cup of honey
3 slices frozen peaches
1/4 tsp vanilla

Combine the honey and peach slices into a microwave safe dish with tall sides honey likes to climb out of the container so make sure the sides are tall enough to contain it (I usually use a 2 C glass measuring cup). Microwave on high for 1.5 minutes. Allow to cool for about two minutes and stir in vanilla. At this point I usually cut up the peaches with the edge of the spoon I'm stirring it with. Pour over your waffles and enjoy! It's very important to you allow it to cool slightly because honey retains heat and it will burn you if you try to eat it too quickly after it's taken out of the microwave.

I'm taking the weekend off from posting new recipes but I'll be back to that on Monday with something I'm really excited about: Cinnamon Ginger Waffles with Vanilla Peach Honey Topping. It's gluten free, nut free, and of course, SCD legal. Yum. I'm getting hungry thinking about them.

Now I'm going to bore you with some knitting. That's me and my cheese face with the scarf I knitted for my Mama. I sort of wanted to keep it for myself but since she bought the yarn specifically for me to make her this scarf, well I sorta have to give it to her. Very simple pattern. Cast on 30 stitches on size 8 needles and knit in K2 P2 ribbing switching colors every two rows, until it's long enough, cast off.

Have a great rest of the weekend!

Lunch here has to be quick, especially on the weekdays when I'm trying to navigate house work, a 2 year old, and trying to steal a few moments each day to write. Maybe that doesn't sound like much but I don't want to get into the whole "what to stay-at-home moms actually do all day" just trust me when I say, I'm very busy. So back to lunch, I have to eat, and I have to make something quick that is hearty enough to get me through until dinner.





Tuna Burgers (makes 2 patties)

1 can tuna in water  (be sure there are no additives like vegetable brother, which contains soy)
approx 2oz rosemary garlic bread, crumbled
1 egg
pepper to taste

Open and drain the tuna. Combine tuna, bread, egg, and pepper in a bowl. With a fork mash it all together and shape into a patty with your hands.

Heat a pan over medium heat and cook the patties for about 2 mins per side until well browned. Serve them topped with cheese, lettuce, onion, anything you can tolerate.

covered in cheese!

My two year old's favorite food is chicken, she'll eat it for every single meal if we let her. We have it at least once a week and we use to just roast it with a bit of olive oil sprinkled with salt and pepper, which is delicious but gets bit boring week after week. So I've started marinating it and now my 9-year-old can not get enough. He loves the lemony flavor and the crispy skin. I usually double this and make 4lbs of chicken thighs since we like to have left overs. If you're going to double it go ahead and double everything except for the olive oil!


Lemon Marinated Oven Roasted Chicken

2lbs of bone-in chicken thighs
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp honey
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper

Combine marinade in a large freezer bag, add the chicken and seal the bag. Mush it around a bit and place the sealed bag into a bowl just in case it leaks. Place the chicken it in the fridge for at least 3 hours, turning the bag over half way through.

When you're ready to cook the chicken preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Retrieve your chicken from the fridge, remove the chicken from the marinade and put it into a large baking dish skin side up. Discard the marinade. 

Bake the chicken uncovered at 425 degrees for 20 minutes then lower the oven to 350 degrees and bake for another 45 minutes until the internal temp reaches 180 degrees in the thickest part of the thigh. I usually go ahead a serve it with pureed cauliflower, my rosemary & garlic bread, and another steamed veg.

Sometimes, I just want some ice cream, specifically, a milk shake. I have an ice cream maker somewhere (it's still packed up from the last time we moved...three years ago) but I can fake a shake with my blender and yummy SCD legal ingredients. This shake is full of things that are good for you and won't make you feel all bloated and gross after you drink it (or maybe that's just how I felt after drinking a traditional milk shake).

SCD Legal Banana Peach Shake

1/2 cup SCD legal yogurt, or regular plain yogurt if you're not doing SCD
1/2 cup coconut milk (or another milk you tolerate)
1 frozen banana
1/2 cup frozen peaches
3 teaspoons of honey (add more if you like it sweeter)

In a blender combine yogurt, banana, peaches, coconut milk and honey in that order. If your blender has an "ice crush" button I recommend using that. Some blenders just can't handle frozen fruit, if that is the case try to use a food processor. Blend until free of lumps and enjoy. This makes approx 16oz of cool yummy goodness (yield will depend on the size of the fruit, if you think it's too thick, add some more liquid, too thin, add some more fruit).

Here's what I had for dinner last night: Zucchini pasta with fresh parm and a piece of roasted garlic and rosemary bread. Zucchini pasta is really quick and easy it's become one of my favorite meals as of late. I bought a jullieann peeler so it makes the process a whole lot quicker, I recommend getting one! Now the Garlic & Rosemary bread takes a little advanced planning but it really doesn't take long to put together.  I wanted to try to make a savory bread, and I happen to have a rosemary bush in my kitchen at the moment. I love garlic and can tolerate it so I added that as well. It's perfect with the zucchini pasta and I imagine it would be great with SCD legal spaghetti sauce, I wouldn't know that for a fact yet because I have not tried tomatoes (I'm nervous!).  Why did I bake it in a cake pan? Well I thought a nice round loaf would be a fun. It doesn't rise very much but it's still yummy and light!



Zucchini Pasta (SCD legal, nut free)

Ingredients:
1 fresh zucchini per person
1/2 tsp sea salt
water
fresh parm cheese

Directions:
On the stove top boil a small pot of water. In the mean time peel the skin off the zucchini and then jullieann it into thin ribbons. I only scrape down to the seeds since I'm avoiding seeds right now.
When the water comes to a boil sprinkle with sea salt and add the zucchini. Boil for approx 2 minutes. Strain the noodles, throw into a bowl, and sprinkle with fresh parm.

Grain Free Garlic & Rosemary Bread (SCD legal and nut free)




4 large eggs
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup coconut flour
1 tsp baking soda
3 cloves of fresh garlic, minced
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, chopped

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottom of a metal pie plate with parchment paper, greasing the sides with olive oil. Combine coconut flour, baking soda, garlic, and rosemary together into a bowl and combine well, set aside. In a blender, a food processor, or another bowl combine the remaining ingredients. Mix well. Add the dry to the wet ingredients and combine until the batter is thick and lump free. Spread the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes. Allow to cool before serving, it's good right out of the oven but if you allow it to come to room temp the flavors are just awesome.



Just pulled from the oven



I think one of my favorite things in the world is mini muffins, cause I can eat four of them at once and that's okay in my mind because they are mini muffins. I also like small things, like tiny pumpkin printed cupcake liners that I had left over from baking my daughter's class corn muffins for Thanksgiving. Use what you have!

Grain Free, SCD Legal, Nut Free Winter Squash Muffins (yes that's a mouth full!)

Ingredients:
4 eggs
1/4 SCD legal yogurt
1/2 cup winter squash puree (i used butternut but pumpkin will work too)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup honey
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/4 tsp sea salt

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line a mini muffin pan with your little mini muffin liners.  Combine the coconut flour, sea salt, baking soda, and cinnamon in a small bowl mixing well to combine. Combine the remaining ingredients in another bowl, mixing well. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until they are no more lumps with an electric mixer. You can also use a blender or a food processor to do this, add the liquid first and then the dry or it just won't mix. Pour into your prepared muffin tin filling 3/4 of the way full. Bake for 15 minutes.



How do you get you minis out of their tins? I usually use a spoon to sort of scoop them out, you know after I burn my fingers a couple of times trying to lift them out.

Striping two colors of self-striping yarn. It's fun on a dark, cold, winter day. This is also how I'm avoiding writing the grocery list even though hubby has volunteered to go for me.

Since I started SCD I always had some issues with nut flours which, I've recently discovered, was an allergic reaction. The doctor took my complaints very seriously and I am now a proud epi-pen carrying member of the nut-free club. However, now I had to go figure out how to bake again with a new flour. I chose coconut flour because, well, really, what is there other than nut flours that are allowed on this diet? Good thing coconut flour is yummy and I've found it to be cheaper than the almond flour that I was using. Don't worry, this doesn't actually taste like coconuts. It's moist, filling, and everything you'd ever want from a banana bread. 

Ingredients:
2 mashed bananas
6 large eggs
1/2 cup honey
3 tbs coconut oil melted
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup coconut flour, sifted
1 tsp baking soda

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. What I usually do is throw all this into a blender going in order of the ingredients (if you put the flour on the bottom it just won’t blend) as let it blend until all the lumps are gone. If you don't want to do that, combine all the wet ingredients together, mixing well. Set aside. Mix the coconut flour and baking soda together. Add the dry to the wet ingredients and really mix it well. Coconut flour tends to clump so really keep on it or use an electric hand mixer. After everything is mixed pour it into a parchment lined bread pan and bake for 50 minutes.

right out of the oven

yum

Today I did housework and hung out with my little one. When hubs got home we watched a movie, GrownUps, perhaps not the best moive to watch as a family but it was funny and we all enjoyed just being together.

Tummy-wise I felt good today although I think I am a little dehydrated so more water tomorrow and some knitting because I did exactly none of that today.

Time for bed!

Today I have a stomach ache and I feel funny. I don't know if it's because I've been eating a lot lately or the fact that I did not get enough sleep last night. The weather here is cold, and snowy. My little one is taking a nap on the couch, she woke up at 6AM screaming because she could not find her blankie. I took her downstairs and we looked around everywhere, of course the blanket was tucked into the corner of her crib and since she had been down stairs with lights on she was not ready to go back to bed. I put her in bed with us hoping that I could sleep for the 40 minutes before I had to get the kids up for school. She did not. She spent the time wrapping my hair around her fist and saying "Hi Mommy". She's a doll, but I'm tired.

I guess I could try to take a nap but doing that always throws me off so I'll just hope to get to bed earlier tonight. For now I'm going to watch my DVR'd episode of Parenthood from last night.

but I can’t seem to slow down long enough to type things out. It’s here one second and gone the next. The past couple of days I’ve felt good so I’ve been keeping myself very busy because as I’ve learned very quickly when dealing with an autoimmune disease, you never know how long “feeling good” will last.

I also got a nook, which has been awesome and in the short time that I’ve had it I’ve read several books via borrowing from the public library. I haven’t bought a thing yet and I couldn’t be happier. I have to admit that I usually never reread a book so I’m glad I chose an e-reader that can support the epub document format. I think that’s all I have to say about that, about the e-reader at least.

This week I finished Ape House and I am Number Four. They were both good, I really enjoyed Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants, and unfortunately, Ape House wasn't as good. I am interested in reading her other novel, Riding Lessons, but it's not available via e-loan yet so I'll be waiting.

I am Number Four is a differnt story, first of all I was thrown by the 1st person point of view and I didn't really feel like it hooked me until about page 100 (out of 277 pages). Thinking about it now it's probably because it was written from the point of view of a 15-year-old boy, not a head space I'm familiar with. I am glad I finished it though, it was a good "opening" for the series, which is also about to be a movie.

I just borrowed the first book in the Outlander series, I've been hearing good things about it so we'll see how it goes! 

I don’t like making these mostly because if it’s something really important to me I should just want to do it anyway not because I’m self-imposing crap on to myself, with no real consequences, in the spirit of celebrating a new year. So these aren’t resolutions per say. This is stuff I’m doing, stuff I’m trying to do, and stuff I hope to make a habit of.

Things I’ve started to do recently:

1. Floss consistently, ever single day. Oh Lord the stories I’ve read about people with Crohn’s and their nasty teeth.
2. Pray at least once a day. I pray a lot through out the day but especially at night, this really helps me get to sleep.

Things I need to start doing:

1. Spend less time online. I’m connected all the time now. I’ve got an Ipod that I pretty much carry around with me all day (use it for alarms) that I can check facebook and email on, which I do way too much. I will allow myself the ipod, however, I am on my laptop way to much. Most of the time I’m sitting on my laptop, with my ipod beside me, and the TV is on. What the heck?!
2. Knit the yarn I’ve already bought instead of just buying more ‘cause it’s pretty. That’s self explanatory I think.
3. Be more willing to screw up aka take chances. With my knitting, with my writing. I need to just do it. I’m wasting too much time.

Today I woke up feeling pretty good. No pain! Things were going on per usual until I got a phone call around 1 PM from a nurse working for my insurance company. Apparently they are now providing phone support for people with chronic conditions. Then it hit me, shit,  I have a chronic condition.

I sort of had forgotten about it this morning but talking to her got me really upset. It was was her tone of voice, she was nice, of course, but it was the tone that made it apparent that she was very very sorry for me which made me feel horrible. I hung up the phone and just cried. I’m not sure I even know how to articulate this. It seems like people just know all the bad stuff that can happen with the disease, they don’t want to talk about self care during times of relative good health, it’s like we’re always preparing for the next flare. I know the tone of voice was because she knew just what could happen to me and how bad it could get. Like it was a matter of when and not if it was going to happen and that scares the hell out of me. I know how bad this can get and I’m determined to do everything in my power to not let it happen. That doesn’t mean that it won’t and maybe I’m just buying myself some time (or maybe I’m not at all and my next flare is just around the corner).  Just once I want someone in the medical field to say, “you know, you’re going to alright”.

I woke up this morning in a lot of pain. My husband had turned off the heat in our bedroom while he was doing a workout (P90X) and never turned it back on. I didn’t check before I went to bed and here I am this morning, wearing three layers and a blanket. I might put a hat on as well. I just can’t get warm. I feel like getting too cold causes my body curl around my tender right side so this morning my entire body is feels cramped and tired. It’s not a good feeling.

It’s days like these when I want to just eat a cookie and say forget it to my diet. I’m obviously not going to do that, the Christmas cookies are nearly all gone, I’m so close to having all this temptation gone and I know it’s not worth it. I’ve been on this diet since August, I’m going to to give up now? One bad day can’t be end of it, what does that say about me then?

I need a transition here, how about, on to less depressing things? Does that work? Does anyone read this?

I’m thinking about getting a Nook since you can load PDF patterns on it and it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than the IPad with 3G. I almost choked when I realized they were almost 1k. I’m not sure though, I don’t like making large electronic purchases it makes me nervous so I like to think about it for a long time. Since I am apparently massive allergic to dust an books are “the worst thing” to have around I’m thinking switching to an e-reader would probably be good, you know, for books I don’t have yet. I’m not getting rid of my books, I’m not ready to do that and you all know that I have a lot of them. I have an English degree, that’s what I did for four years of my life. I can’t not have books, digital ones are just not the same to me. It makes me sad but books take up a lot of room, and they are hard to move due to the sheer weight of the boxes. It seems like in the future we’re going to be moving around a lot and it was be easier, if they books were all in one place and having them be digital also reduces the risk of loosing them since even if the e-reader is damaged they are still retained electronically somewhere. See how I’m talking myself into this?

I’m knitting myself a bright orange shawl. I feel like it will never get done, and frankly, I’m not sure I care. It’s relaxing to knit it. The pattern is very simple, the yarn is tiny.

PS I’m on Ravelry as Skiphop

Writing this entry from Microsoft live writer. We’ll see how this goes. I’m not really sure how to work it.

Back after a much needed blogging break. Christmas has been packed up, new years has passed and my family is gearing up for some big changes this year. I'm praying that we can meet them head on and with grace. I'm nervous and excitied at the same time. Trying to keep things in persective too, since we all know things change change so fast. Lord see us through this!