07.14.2012

GAPS Chocolate Pudding

The (secret ingredient) healthy pudding!

Sorry for leaving you guys hanging when I mentioned the chocolate pudding in the Frozen Avocado post. Today I will show you how to make it!

pudd

 Shhh. The secret ingredient is avocados. Don’t tell anyone who wouldn’t like it if they knew!

A GAPS treat

When my older sister came home from college this summer, my mom and I put her on the GAPS diet. She is doing pretty well on it, but the food can get boring. She tries adding new things into her diet, but reactions are still frequent for her. This is a sign she might be introducing foods too fast. To help with the variety of food that she can tolerate, I decided to add something very tasty into her diet. It wasn’t long after I made this pudding that she would constantly ask for it! Thats how good it is!

It tastes  so “normal”

I also served this pudding in little cups at my graduation party. No one knew that these were healthy. Better yet, one of my friends who tried this hates avocado’s and she LOVED the pudding. I never told her that it had avocados in it ;). Sometimes it is better not to say anything about the ingredients in food around here!

This is GAPS friendly, assuming that you can have chocolate. If you cannot have chocolate, carob would work (powder or squares, just taste as you go) or even just some cinnamon (it might look a little wired because it is avocados, and they are green. But who really cares if it tastes good! Right?)

I hope you like this recipe as much as my family does. It has become a staple in my house! This chocolate pudding is rich though, so don’t over do it. It is sure easy to, because it tastes so delicious!!

 

 

INGREDIENTS:

3 cups smashed (fresh of frozen) avocados 

1/2 cup raw coconut oil (melted)

4 (1 oz) squares of bakers unsweetned chocolate or 3/4 cup cocoa powder

3/4 cup raw honey

2 Tbsp vanilla or 1 vanilla bean (learn how to scrape out seeds here)

1/2 tsp sea salt

 

*This recipe makes about 6 cups of chocolate pudding. It lasts for 1-2 weeks in your fridge. It might even last longer, but mine has not lasted that long without being eaten! You can always make half a batch if you want.

DIRECTIONS:

1. Peal and smash avocados

DSC_0052

2. Put smashed  avocado’s in a big bowl.

DSC_0057

DSC_0059

 

DSC_0077

3. ** If you are using the bakers unsweetned chocolate…Unwrap and melt the chocolate in a double boiler (or a heat proof bowl over boiling water). If you cut up the pieces of chocolate, it will melt faster and easier.

DSC_0063

DSC_0069

4. Add the coconut oil (melted), honey, salt, melted chocolate or cocoa powder, and vanilla to the bowl. Roughly stir to incorporate all ingredients.

DSC_0070

5. Put half the mix into the the blender <– I use this one or Cuisinart. (I have learned that the Vitamix blender makes the pudding the best texture. Sometimes the Cuisinart or a regular blender will leave the pudding a little less silky, but still GREAT!)

6. Blend all together. I actually had to blend in 2 batches because it seems to put less stress on the blender and it runs smoother.

7. Scrape out the blended pudding into a container or a ball jar (I like to use a small spatula).

8. Blend the other half of the pudding. If you have a Vitamix, it is helpful to use the black plunger to keep the blade running, because this pudding is thick! If you don’t, you might have to stop the blender or Cuisinart to stir it a few times.

9. Scrape the other half of the pudding out of the blender.

DSC_0081

10. Serve just as is! Refrigerate leftovers (I always make a big batch of GAPS foods because it is easier to make a big batch of one recipe, than remaking it over and over again. I like to save time).

* It will be hard when you take it out of the fridge (the coconut oil turns hard when cold). If you like a softer texture, just keep it on the counter for 15 min and stir before you eat. Cold tastes just as good though.

11. Yum!

gogo3

~Stay Gutsy, Caroline

 

disclosure 3
07.12.2012

Frozen Avocado’s

Who likes Avocado?

I hope you all enjoyed my guest post at GNOWFGLINS. It is a story about me, and  how I learned to accept myself and the GAPS diet!

Now onto another GAPS recipe! Well, i guess this really isn’t a recipe. I would consider this GAPS prep work! There is a lot of preparation on the GAPS diet, as some of you may already know. My role is to help your transition be as smooth as possible, so your whole life doesn’t revolve around food (shopping, cooking, cleaning). Yes I LOVE to cook and go to my farmers market, but sometimes I don’t want to be cooking! If i am not creating recipes I usually am soaking up the sun and swimming in my lake 🙂

So, to save time, here is an easy step to help your GAPS life. What sparked me to do this was actually the GREAT price ( $0.70 a piece I live in Minnesota, so avocados don’t get much better priced than that!) I found on these avocados at my local grocery store. No they are not organic. I don’t bother to buy organic avocado’s because they have a shell that protects them.

Now you are probably wondering..can you really freeze avocados? The answer is Yes! I use the frozen smashed avocados for guacamole, blending into smoothies, making chocolate pudding, baked goods, and spooning into soups. You can pretty much use it any way you would a fresh, smashed avocado. I don’t think it changes the consistency much, but if you are worried use it when you incorporate it into a recipe.

So here you go. Easy pictures for you to follow exactly what I did.

 

INGREDIENTS:

Ripe avocados

1 TBS lemon juice for 3 avocado’s (this keeps it from turning brown. You cannot even taste the lemon when you put it into recipes)

 

DIRECTIONS:

1. Wash your avocado’s and take off the stickers and the little knobs (stems) at the top.

2. Slice open your avocado length-wise. Cut around the pit and twist the two halts apart.

3. Carefully stab your pit with your knife…very carefully!

 

4. Twist out your pit with your knife. This is really easy if you have a ripe avocado.

5. Take a big spoon and soup around the edges of the skin to release the avocado flesh. Again, this should be easy if the  avocado is ripe. Otherwise you will have to really dig it out.

6. This is my shell after taking 1 big scoop of the flesh. I almost got the whole thing in 1 scoop 🙂 I love doing that!

7. Repeat steps 2-6 for all your avocado’s. I did about 20 of them 🙂

8. See the little brown spots? That is most likely going to happen, so just scoop the little bad spots out. You don’t have to get them perfect, just do the best you can.

9. Place the scooped avocado’s  in a big bowl.

10. SMOOSH! You can use a potato smasher, a fork, a Cuisinart, or your hands (That is what I did. But I cleaned them very well before).

11. Use lemon juice to keep your avocado’s from turning too brown. Discoloration is normal, but you want to reduce it as much as possible. 1 TBS for 3 avocados.

12. This is my little trick for putting things in plastic bags with NO mess. You might have your own way, but here is mine. Set up your cups and stick a plastic bag ( sandwich size) into the cup. Roll the top zippy part over the rim of the cup. (Honestly I really don’t like plastic, but I have not found a better way to freeze things yet. I break too many glass jars when I attempt to freeze things in them)

13. Spoon a few big scoops into the set up plastic bag. I don’ t like to fill them too much, because I usually want them to defrost quickly!

14. Without getting avocado mush on the edges, carefully flip the zippy part back over the cup. Take the bag out (don’t spill the avocados) and gently squeeze the air out and zip it up!

15. Repeat steps 13 and 14 until all your smashed avocado’s are in bags. I only set up 4 cups and just kept replacing the bags into them as  I went along.

16. Flatten your avocado bags to make them easy to store in your freezer.

17. Place the bags in your freezer. Try to place them on a flat surface, or better yet lay a cutting board in your freezer and lay the avocado bags on it for a nice flat freezing.

18. Now You have smashed avocado ready to use at your convenience! Frozen avocados taste really good in smoothies. The reason why we do this is because, we like to get food when it is in either in season or at a good price! Above, is my defrosted smashed avocado’s that I am using in a recipe which will share with you soon! I have a little brown coloring, but really it doesn’t matter!

 

 

~Stay Gutsy, Caroline

 

disclosure 3