Coconut, GAPS-legal Eggnog!

The presents were wrapped, the tree sprayed and watered against the incredibly dryness we've been having, music was playing...and I couldn't settle down. So I came up with this recipe for eggnog.

Why, do you ask, did I not make it with the lovely raw egg yolks and raw milk, as the WAP'ers prefer? The reason for that is that in this part of California at this time of year we don't get pastured eggs. I could, if I wasn't thinking about the incredible number of food miles on them, buy pastured eggs from Texas. Every other week we get pastured eggs from Montana, and even that makes me feel guilty (and honestly, I see the color on them and kind of wonder what those chickens are eating since they look  and taste just about like our local organic eggs). We happen to be out of them just now.

We can have raw goat milk, but that also appears to be on hiatus for winter, not to mention that the goatiness would be wrong for nog.

Not to mention that coconut milk is SOOO good for you, and when you can't get pastured eggs, that organic egg yolks do suffice. I don't feel quite right eating non-pastured eggs raw, so...

So this recipe does call for gentle heating, coconut cream and milk. (I recommend Wilderness Family Naturals, but any kind that doesn't add stuff and is BPA-free is good.) I thought I'd made a huge amount, but it appears to be half gone and we haven't even started the day yet!

I can't have honey, and I won't use sugar, hence...dates, and a blender. You could, though, substitute raw honey to taste added at the very end. You could, if you have raw cream and milk that you digest well, raw honey and beautiful pastured eggs, simply warm the spices in a bit of the milk gently for a while, then toss it all in a blender and whip it up. Seriously, it's the best of all worlds. Meanwhile, here's what we had this morning...

Coconut Milk/Cream Eggnog

Ingredients:
2 cups coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg plus more for garnish
5 or 6 whole cloves
1/2 vanilla bean
1 cup coconut cream
5 egg yolks
3 dates
4 drops stevia

In a saucepan, combine the coconut milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and stevia. Carefully split the vanilla bean, scrape out the caviar and add both caviar and bean to the mixture. Gently warm the mixture until warmed through. While stirring, heat to medium, so that it steams and bubbles a tiny bit. Avoid a rolling boil. Heat for 3-5 minutes.

In a blender put the dates, yolks and coconut cream. Blend well, until the dates are liquified.

To temper the eggs, add the hot coconut milk to it by the spoonful, stirring or whisking well so as not to cook the eggs. When it's yellow and warmed, slowly add the egg/cream mixture to the milk/spice mixture on the stove and stir or whisk until slightly thickened and warm. Remove from heat. Strain out the spices. Transfer to a mason jar. Seal well and chill, or drink warm. Warm or cold, it can be garnished with a bit of nutmeg.

More on Apple Pie

After wondering how I should post this recipe, I thought that I should, first, discuss the recipes I used to make this pie...both are questionable, in my opinion, although each has some good points, too. Then after tomorrow's event when the pies are cut and eaten, I'll get responses and will then post the recipe if the responses are good. Otherwise, it's back to the drawing board!

The first apple pie recipe is the one I learned from a friend as a teenager. It's a classic apple pie that's full of sugar, corn starch and spiced well with cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg. We'd spend the first half of a day peeling, coring and slicing apples to make two or three pies. It was a recipe that made the best of the sudden bounty of apples in the fall on the East Coast. It was my friend who taught me that a few pears give the pie a lot of depth, and also that the number of apples used in most recipes is never enough. Unfortunately, if I removed all the sugar and the corn starch, there's not much left to it.

The second recipe is Bruce Fife's from his Cooking With Coconut Flour, which you might have noticed has been my go-to cookbook for a while. I made a double basic crust. I added pears. I used more raisins than he called for and substituted a smaller amount of maple syrup with his called-for 1/4 teaspoon of liquid stevia for sweetness. This is a pie that will be shared, and will be eaten by a group that has some kids and adults with gluten intolerance and Celiac's Disease. There are some who are vegetarians and a few who are dairy-free because of ideology, not medical necessity. A very few of the families also cook with Weston A. Price in mind. For those reasons, I chose to use ghee. I could have tried some gelatin in the apples, but I decided that it was both more work than necessary and also would have meant that an awful lot of the people at this event tomorrow would refuse to eat it.

The crust is very challenging. Coconut flour does not hold together well, so, as you can see from the picture, it's pretty rocky near the edges. It also browns very quickly, so I'm a bit concerned about the state of the crust inside. On the other hand, it bakes up so fast that it's probably fine. I nearly prebaked it, but the recipe called for it to be raw going in. So that's what I did.

Fife only calls for four apples. I'm wondering what size pie shell he has. Twice that barely filled this deep-dish version. Also, I left off all thickeners - I discovered that while stirring the filling that it thickened just fine on it's own. I also added a few teaspoonfuls of ghee which will make it thicken a bit when chilled. Then, as a compromise towards aesthetics (coconut flour crusts are not that pretty) and for a bit more sweet, I did sprinkle a bit of unprocessed sugar on the top - barely 1/4 teaspoon.

So that's the story of this pie. Please send both it and me some good thoughts for tomorrow!

And now...pumpkin pie.

Bleh. Babycakes NYC frosting, er, sauce.

It doesn't seem to matter how I make it, or what I substitute. It just NEVER turns out to be more than some kind of sauce. Which is what it is...and like many foods made for vegan eaters it's waaaaay too sweet, not to mention it has rice milk and rice milk powder (yuck and more yuck!) in it. So the cake was au naturel, double decker with banana slices between, but with the sauce on each piece and fancy birthday candles, it went fine. As usual, I don't get to taste it, but I had reports that it was good.

So, a good, nutrient-dense, not too sugary frosting anyone? I used to make an amazing frosting from blended dates and coconut oil, but this year Little Moo wanted pink. So pink, she got.

I have a feeling that I'll have to figure out a real buttercream thing for next year, assuming that she can eat it by then...I wonder if you can make buttercream icing out of ghee...?

Sorry - the party was completely crazy and I didn't get any pictures. :(

I'll post the images I took of them cooling last night...

Actual Pizza!

Okay, so the pictures aren't so perfect. They're a bit blurry, but I just had to post them to show how happy we all were with the pizza crust I baked tonight! In order to make it completely GAPS-friendly, just leave off the leavening, or try baking soda.

Here's a link to the recipe I tried.

One minor thing is that the batter needs to have a consistency like toothpaste and it took nearly 3/4 cup of coconut flour to make it so, instead of 1/2. I'd make it according to the recipe, though, then add until it's the right consistency. I used goat monterey jack cheese and fermented "ketchup" as sauce. It would be super-tasty with some sauteed onions, or greens, or mushrooms and olives. Tonight we trapped pieces of one of my veggie/beef burgers under the cheese.

In the oven, before flipping.

I tried to get a shot of the whole pie, and failed! 

Enjoying their pizza and cream of rutabaga soup.

We ate it all...

Another way to eat it...

"Cherry Smash Sandwich" (Named by Little Moo)

Cultured Coconut Cream Cheese! Seriously.

NO dairy-free person can be without this stuff. If you like to ferment things, then you must try it!

I discovered "cream cheese" accidentally when I ran out of coconut milk for kefir. I had some coconut cream and just used that. Initially it made a lovely, crisp, tangy kefir the texture of clotted cream. Then, a few days later, I noticed that it had separated somewhat. The liquid at the bottom was about the consistency of coconut milk, while the cream lined the sides of the jar. On a whim, I stuck a knife in and spread some of the cream on my strawberry coconut bread. It's just like cream cheese - rich, tangy, creamy and just slightly sweet. It was like strawberry shortcake.

One quick disclaimer is that I have been using the coconut milk and cream in the little boxes from Wilderness Family Naturals. The taste is much better than the cans you get in the store, the products are organic and BPA-free. I also used Yogourmet's kefir starter.

Lest you say that my tastebuds are skewed from more than a decade without gluten and about 2 years without cow's milk, I gave my kid and my husband slices of strawberry-studded coconut bread slathered with this stuff and they ate it so quickly I thought I'd forgotten to give it to them.

Sorry. I'll have to shoot a picture next time. I ate it already. :-)

Coconut Cream Cheese

6 boxes WFN coconut cream
1 packet Yogourmet kefir starter

Warm the cream in a pot until it's between 150 and 180 degrees F for 3 minutes. Allow to cool to 110 degrees or below. Dissolve the starter in a small amount of the cream, then add the cream/starter mixture back into the cooled cream. Blend well. Pour into a large mason jar. Screw on top lightly without a seal. Allow to sit out for about 24 hours, then refrigerate.

Enjoy small amounts of the coconut cream for a while, until the cream separates and the cream cheese starts to congregate on the sides of the jar. Get a nice long butter knife and your favorite spreadables vehicle: coconut or nut bread, celery sticks, bowl of fruit, etc. Try to save some for the rest of your family. :)

Okay - here it is...

I apologize - the recipe isn't exact. I forgot to take notes while I made it, but the proportions are actually pretty clear and precision is not entirely necessary. The raisins are the sweetener, so start small and add to make it sweet enough. I found that little was necessary because the carrots were quite sweet as was the banana.

The best thing about this one is that it's a vegetable that masquerades as a dessert, and there's enough nut in it to make it an acceptable lunch for us if Little Moo has an adequately protein-laden breakfast, which she does these days. (Recently she's partial to hamburgers in the morning made into a burger and veg sandwich slathered with mustard or kraut. I kid you not. Then lunch is smaller and dinner is very light - not a bad way to live, actually.)

Carrot Nut Banana Pie

5 or 6 large fresh carrots

about 1/4 cup freshly roasted nuts (I used pecans and walnuts, but any kind would be tasty)

1 can coconut milk

about 1/4 cup shredded coconut meat

1 ripe banana

a few tablespoons full of raisins

about 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

3 tablespoons Bernard Jensen gelatin

boiling water

Peel and shred the carrots. Steam them until soft.

In blender put the raisins, banana, nuts, coconut, carrots, cinnamon, coconut milk. Blend well. Dissolve the gelatin in boiling water. Pour this mixture into the blender and mix well. Pour it into a pie pan, cover with a layer of waxed paper and then a sheet of foil. Chill overnight.

Next one: a savory quiche that is non-dairy and has no flour or eggs! We'll see how it turns out. It's baking now...

Did I really forget? Autumn Squash Crustless Pie

I've been making this for a long time now and Little Moo will gobble down firsts and seconds and eat it for breakfast the next day. As usual, I hid some solid nutrition inside, so it actually does make a great breakfast!

1 cup baked autumn squash (Kabocha, carnivale, butternut and delicata are the tastiest. Oddly enough, pumpkin is dry, bland and has very little character.)

1 can organic full-fat coconut milk
1/2 ripe banana
3 dates, pitted
a handful or so of raisins (to taste - this is the sweetener, and it all depends on the flavor of the squash)
1/2 cup crispy nuts (we prefer pecans or cashews, but if you'd prefer a bigger protein kick, try walnuts or even pumpkin seeds for thematic closure. :) )
between 1/4 and 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon to taste
1 tablespoon non-alcohol vanilla
3 tablespoons Bernard Jensen Gelatin
about 1/4 c boiling water

In a strong blender, blend the squash, coconut milk, banana, vanilla, nuts or seeds, cinnamon and dates. Taste it and add raisins until it's sweet enough.

Dissolve the gelatin in the boiling water, then add to the mixture. Blend thoroughly.

Pour into a glass or ceramic pie pan. Cover with a sheet of wax paper, then seal with a sheet of aluminum foil. Chill well for 24 hours or overnight.

Feeds 3 people for dessert one night and breakfast the next day with a bit leftover. I'd say that about 6-8 people could finish it off in one sitting.

Elderberry Coconut Kefir - It's a tasty drink...no, it's a flu preventative...no, it's a sports drink!

I had this idea to make a kefir drink that was also a flu remedy recently. The culturing process makes the elderberry syrup even more potent and all the good stuff in the coconut water even better. Get the syrup version that is as unadulterated as possible, sans alcohol. The unsweetened tincture generally contains citric acid and glycerin, but it's still pretty clean.

3 cups coconut water, warmed to room temperature
4-6 tsp elderberry tincture
1 package of kefir starter

Mix the coconut water with the tincture. Thoroughly mix the starter and pour into a jar. Screw on the top lightly and leave at room temperature overnight to 24 hours. Chill and drink.

My daughter couldn't get enough of it...but do remember that 1 or 2 teaspoons of elderberry tincture is what you're supposed to take 2 to 4 times per day, depending on how proactive you're being. So that's maybe a cup at most!

Farmers' Market Booty = Raspberry Banana Nut Pudding!

Thanksgiving is over and our traditional post-holiday duck soup is simmering in the crock pot. We decided that it was time to buy some more produce today and stock up on meat again for the next week or two. We stopped at the Civic Center farmers' market and found, amazingly, 3 big boxes of raspberries for about $7. I mean, big. And they're organic! I couldn't resist. $7 is actually a chunk of change when it comes to produce, but that's some berry booty we're talking about. We also found some interesting lemons and limes. The lemons are called "sweet lemons" and are meant to be eaten like oranges. The limes were almost like lemons, sharp, bright and seedy, but somehow different tasting and very pleasant.

So I got it and all our other purchases home and set about thinking of a good use for 3 big boxes or raspberries. There's eating, of course, and I'm sure Little Moo could put away a box quite happily, but that still leaves two. Besides, it would be wimpy to let such a great creative moment go to waste.

We're also taking a break from dairy at the moment (again - time for a change) so the creaminess had to come from elsewhere. No flour, of course. I'd like to eat it, too.

Here's what happened:

Raspberry Banana Nut Pudding

Ingredients:

1 big box (probably a pint or so) raspberries

about 1/2 cup crispy cashews

1/4 cup raisins

3 tbs coconut milk kefir

1 ripe banana

2 rounded tbs coconut butter

juice of 1/4 lemon or sweet lime.

2 tbs gelatin

1/8 c hot water

Blend the raspberries, cashews, raisins, kefir, banana, lemon or lime juice and coconut butter well in a blender. In a small bowl, dissolve the gelatin in the hot water, then add this to the blender and also blend well.

Pour into custard cups or ramekins. Before serving, top with more raspberries and (Little Moo's request) a few raisins.

You will notice that the photo up top shows Little Moo shoveling it in. That's because, although I asked her to smile, she refused to be interrupted. I thought that spoke well of the pudding. :)

Persimmon Paradise Ice Cream (non-dairy!)

This is a coconut milk-based ice cream, made without eggs or dairy that's sort of a dress rehearsal for Thanksgiving. I couldn't believe just how good it was right out of the ice cream maker - we'll see what it's like set and frozen tomorrow. Little Moo licked the spoon for about 10 minutes when we scooped it out to put away. It's got lots of nice fall flavors and is a pretty orangey-tan color. It would be nice topped with seasonal fruits - more persimmons, 2 colors of sliced grapes, a slice of pear or apple, maybe. Nuts would be tasty and pretty, too.

The problem I was trying to solve was that grainy watery texture that coconut milk ice cream often has. The key to the texture and richness was adding raw virgin coconut oil to the mixture as well as coconut milk kefir and regular coconut milk. The oil, which is solid below about 76 degrees F, keeps it creamy. It would also be good with just kefir, I'd think. Tangier. For a milder version, maybe just the milk.

Persimmon Paradise Ice Cream

2 fuyu persimmons, quartered and peeled (hachiya would also be fine)

1 can coconut milk, preferably organic, definitely full-fat

2 heaping ts raw, unrefined coconut oil

2 ts non-alcohol vanilla extract

2 pinches ground nutmeg

about 1/8 ts ground cinnamon

about 1/3 c dark raisins

1 cup coconut milk kefir

optional: 3 drops liquid stevia if it's not sweet enough

Put everything in a blender. Blend well. Pour into ice cream maker. Process according to the instructions for your particular churn. Scoop...enjoy! Store leftovers in the freezer for later (if there's anything left!).

Amazingly Tasty Coconut Milk Custard

It was amazing on the cake from the last entry, but also good just as a pudding with fruit.

• 2 c whole coconut milk (not "light")
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/4 c sugar (we used turbinado here, but I think raw sugar like rapadura would be even better. White is fine if that's all you have)

Beat the yolks. Blend the yolks and sugar together in a small bowl. Scald the coconut milk. (Coconut milk scalds differently than dairy milk. It doesn't bubble at the edges the same way, but it does seem to bubble up in the center somewhat before it takes off on a rolling boil. I found that medium heat did well here.)

Turn down heat to low and SLOWLY add the yolks and sugar mixture, a bit at a time. Blend quickly and well to prevent yolks from setting before mixed in. When it's all mixed in, turn up the heat a bit and stir in a figure-eight until the custard starts to set. It might take a while. (Thanks to my mother for stirring endlessly while I moved on to cook another part of the dinner!)

Pour the custard into a nice dish and allow to cool to room temp. Then put into fridge to cool all the way.

SUPER yummy with fruit. This batch served six or so over cake with fruit.