09.18.2012

Homemade Pumpkin Puree

          FALL!!

4 more day still till the actual date (September 22).

Do you know what that means?

PUMPKINS!

Fresh is best!

There is no doubt about it, that pumpkin tastes better in the fall. Do you know why this is? That is because it is fresh and the nutrients are overflowing! When a food is in season, the nutrients are higher. That explains why food always looks brighter and plumper in season. To savor this special food, preserving it is the best way to go! I do not like to buy canned pumpkin throughout the year because 1. it is not GAPS legal  2. Cans leach bad stuff   3. and it just tastes well..dull.

.

Pumpkin or squash

Here is my favorite way to preserve pumpkin and squash. I think I buy about 1/2 pumpkin and 1/2 butternut squash (so good and creamy!). They are very similar, but pumpkin tastes a little more “pumpkiny” and the butternut squash turns out little creamier and lighter colored. The recipe below can be used to cook either pumpkin or butternut squash (these are the only two squashes I have tried this recipe with).

 

What about the rind and the seeds?

Pumpkin seeds (recipe below) are absolute amazing and chock-full of magnesium! Squash seeds turn out a little drier but still good! You can also season them in a million different ways (cinnamon, chili, onion…).

Sometimes I blend the rinds of pumpkin and squash. I always believed that there is some nutritional value in the bright orange rind too. (If you are on GAPS intro, do not blend the rind because it can be too high in fiber). I don’t think the taste is not much different. Though, I would only suggest using the skin if your squash is organic. If not, just scoop out the creamy orange pumpkin/squash from its rind.

.

GAPS

Is you are going to start GAPS or are on GAPS, pumpkin and squash can be a life saver (especially during intro). It is filling, satisfying and helps to keep you from going too low carb! Try my GAPS pancakes!

Now is the time to store up on this wonderful fall specialty, because you cannot buy the canned stuff on GAPS! Preparing squash and pumpkin is super easy and you will be so happy you have it done, next time you need food! If you are planning on starting GAPS read this book, its super helpful and full of very yummy recipes!

.

Save it for the year

To keep enough pumpkin around for the whole year I usually have to cook and puree several pumpkins. I tried dehydrating pumpkin, but I am still working on the recipe. I don’t like to buy pumpkin fresh in the summer or winter or spring, it’s just not as good.

I just bought a chest freezer, so I am super excited to finally have enough room to stock up on pumpkin for the year! I puree the pumpkin and them pour it in an ice-cube tray. Once it is frozen I store the cubes in a plastic bag. Maybe I will try to can the pumpkin puree too…ohh just so many things I could do. For now here is my super simple recipe!

.

.

Ingredients:

1 pumpkin or butternut squash

*use this recipe for either pumpkin or squash. (pumpkin will yield more seeds).

few Tbsp filtered water (to help blend)

 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1. Wash the outside of your pumpkin or squash.

2. Cut off the stem, chop in half (be careful!), and scrape out the seeds (save to roast, recipe below).

4. Put pumpkin halves face down on a cookie sheet and bake for 60-90 minutes (depending on size of pumpkin). The outside should be a nice deep orange and soft to the touch.

5. Let it cool down for 20+ minutes (so you don’t burn yourself!). Roughly cut up pumpkin in wedges that will fit in your blender/Cuisinart or scoop out the pumpkin meat from the shell. (I just blended the rind and all because my pumpkin was organic).

6. Blend the pumpkin (do it in batches so you don’t overwork your blender or Cuisinart). I had to add a few Tbsp of water to each batch of pumpkin to “get it moving” through the blender.

7. DONE! Now you have nice smooth pumpkin puree. This stuff is the “real deal”- not from a can! Store in a glass ball jar in the fridge for 1 week. Or freeze in ice-cube trays for long-term storage.

 

  .

.

Now What?…

 

How to freeze pumpkin puree:  

1. Scoop out homemade pumpkin puree (recipe above) into an ice-cube tray.

2. Freeze for 8 hours or overnight.

3. Run hot water over bottom of ice-cube tray  to release pumpkin cubes.

4. Store in a plastic bag in your freezer for several months (or until next year!)

*To defrost: take out how-ever-many cubes you want and place them a glass jar overnight (8 hours). Separation of the pumpkin is normal. Just blend the defrosted cubes to form the original smooth consistency.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

..

.

.

.hkj

Pumpkin seeds!

* I repeat, do not throw away your pumpkin seeds! (squash ones are good too, but have a different texture- you will never know if you like them until you try them!)

1. Scrape out seeds from pumpkin and toss the “goop + seeds” into a bowl.

2. Fill bowl up with cool water.

3. The seeds will tend to float to the top to make the “sorting” easier.

4. Swish and rub the seeds around with your hands to release the pumpkin “goop” from the seeds.

5. Toss the “goop away”.

6. Eventually you will get all the seeds separated and have a nice bowl of floating pumpkin seeds. (You don’t have to be perfect and get every strand out!)

7. Roast the seeds on a cookie sheet with coconut oil or palm oil and sea salt in the oven (350) for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Give them a quick toss in the middle of baking. Or use this recipe.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

…

.

.

~Stay Gutsy, Caroline

disclosure 3
Posted By 23 Comments
08.05.2012

GAPS Snickerdoodles

GAPS Snickerdoodle story..

So once again my sweet tooth sister was my inspiration for these GAPS snicker doodle cookies, I shouldn’t be surprised! She was my inspiration to make the GAPS lemon bars, and those were a huge hit! It all started with a simple craving for a cookie, but we like to make our desserts “healthy” in our house. These GAPS Snickerdoodle cookies are still a “treat”. Though, I bet you could get away with eating one with your breakfast!

GAPS Snickerdoodles are by far one of my family’s favorite cookies. These snickerdoodles are perfect, chewy, gooey, scrumptious delicious…should I keep going?  Of course they are rolled in cinnamon sugar to give them their trademark snickerdoodle taste and look. Not like you need anymore convincing, but if you do, GAPS snickerdoodles are the easiest cookie I have ever made.

snickerdoodles22

What makes these GAPS Snickerdoodles the best?

Well, I am glad you asked! First off, these cookies are grain free and egg free (they can even be dairy free if you choose)! Best of all, they are GAPS friendly! A little treat here and there on the GAPS diet won’t hurt if your gut can tolerate it. They are the perfect little cookie for anytime and any occasion. They have that crackle look from smashing the cinnamon coated balls of dough onto the pan. Ooo they are just so cute!

GAPS Snickerdoodle nutrition:

Almond flour is very nutrient dense and packed with vitamin E, magnesium, and potassium. Yeah! I love magnesium 🙂 Of course cinnamon is filled with fiber, along with manganese and calcium. If you didn’t know, high manganese foods can help keep your blood sugar levels balanced as well as help your body use key nutrients to help it function. For me, cinnamon is just one of those immediate yum scents when I bake with it, so it makes me feel relaxed. Honey is a great sweetener if you are on the GAPS diet because it is easy for your gut to break down. If you cannot have coconut crystals, just skip it and use cinnamon alone for the coating!

Get ready, get set, bake!

So what are you waiting for? These are super fast to make too. I really timed it, they take about 5 minute to pull all the ingredients out, 5 minutes to mix everything together, and if you have 1 set of hands to roll into balls, then roll into the cinnamon and the other set to smash..it takes no time at all! Total it took my sister and I, 20 minutes from start to finish! Now that is one easy cookie.

 

INGREDIENTS:

dry:

2 cups almond flour (I use Honeyville)

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

 

wet:

5 Tbsp ghee/butter Melted (coconut oil works too, but they will taste more coconutty)

1/4 cup honey or vanilla honey (omit vanilla extract if you use vanilla honey) **

1 1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract

** low sugar option: 2 TBS honey + 40 drops of stevia (2 squirt droppers full)

 

coating:

3 TBS coconut crystals (omit if you are on GAPS)

3 TBS cinnamon

 

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Line 2 cookie sheets with bleach free parchment paper.

3. Mix dry ingredients together.

4. Melt ghee/butter or coconut oil in a sauce pan over low heat.

5. Mix wet ingredients together in a separate bowl.

6. Mix wet into dry bowl and stir until all incorporated.

7. Mix the cinnamon and coconut sugar for the coating in a separate bowl.

8. Scoop 1 Tbsp of dough and roll it in a ball. **

9. Roll your ball of dough into the coating mixture an coat all the way.

10. Place your coated dough onto the cookie sheet and use a ball jar (grease the bottom with coconut oil/butter) and press down until your cookie is about 1/4 in thick. Lift up the jar and voila! (Thanks Urban Poser for the tip!)

11. Repeat for all of the dough. (We made about 20 cookies). Keep the smashed cookie dough  2-3 inches apart from each other, because they expand some.

12. Bake for 8 minutes. If you like them a little chewier-crunchy bake them for 10 minutes.

13. Let the cookies cool on the pan for 10 minutes (if you don’t they will fall a part when you try to pick them up!).

14. Carefully lift the soft cookies onto a plate. They will still be gooey and soft but over a few hours they will be a PERFECT texture!

15. Eat 1 or 2 or 3! Enjoy with a glass of homemade coconut milk!

 

**We made another batch for some friends and made baby GAPS snicker doodles. For the “mini” size use 1 tsp in step 8.

.

 hmm..I wonder what happened to the GAPS Snickerdoodle?

PicMonkey Collage

~Stay Gutsy, Caroline

disclosure 3
Posted By 92 Comments
07.08.2012

GAPS chocolate drops

Finally a GAPS chocolate chip. Though I like to call them chocolate drops 🙂

honey c

Remember in the GAPS chocolate vanilla cookies there were those yummy chocolate drops..and the were GAPS friendly? Well, hopefully I didn’t keep you waiting too long….but it was totally worth it! Honestly I usually just make recipes up and a lot of times I forget to write them down, so I have to remake them and write down the measurements. I am getting better at this, but I had to recreate this recipe for you. Don’t worry it turned out the same. Actually my sister says they are better than before!

GAPS chocolate drops!

I cannot eat chocolate yet, but my family can and I wanted to make sure we had GAPS friendly chocolate chips around so they would not have to “cheat” on store-bought dark chocolate that has sugar in it. (If you don’t know by now, even though I cannot eat everything I make, I love to cook GAPS/traditional food for my family. They are my testers and i am very thankful for their taste buds!)

Is your chocolate craving really magnesium?

This chocolate can also be used as a spread for whatever you want: banana’s, crepes, pancakes, or even stir a little in some coconut milk! When I made these GAPS chocolate drops I wanted to give the body what it is really asking for when you want chocolate. Your body is really craving magnesium! So why don’t you satisfy your chocolate cravings and your body cravings at the same time?

I don’t like the name magnesium chocolate, but you can sure call it that if you want to. I don’t have cocoa butter , but I always have coconut oil around, and I am sure many of you are also that way. I have to warn you these do melt fast, so when you put these in recipes stir them in at the last-minute or place directly on top of pancakes/cookies so they don’t melt and turn he batter brown! I will give you step by step interactions to make it an easy little task!

Have fun!

 

 

INGREDIENTS:

3 oz Baker’s Unsweetened Chocolate

2 tsp vanilla extract or 1 vanilla bean

1/8 tsp sea salt or 4 ml (4 full squirts) Mega-Mag Liquid

1/2 – 3/4 cup raw honey (depends on how sweet you like it –just taste test it!)

1/2 cup Raw Coconut Oil

 

DIRECTIONS:

1. Melt your chocolate in a double boiler (or make your own and put a heat proof bowl over boiling water)

2. Let your chocolate cool a little (you don’t want to kill the good raw enzymes of the coconut oil and honey!)

 

mmmm

3. Stir in your coconut oil, honey, vanilla, magnesium/salt

DSC_0132

4. Your mixture will be very liquidy. You want the constancy just right. It needs to resemble peanut butter/Nutella. Either put it in the fridge for 1-3 hours (keep checking it because you don’t want it to turn solid!) Or you could leave it in a dark cool cabinet for many hours until it solidifies a little. (This is what I do because I like to forget about it and do something while I am waiting)

5. To Prepare your cookie sheet, line it with Unbleached Parchment Paper. Freeze your cookie sheet to keep it cold (this helps hold the shape of the chocolate point)

DSC_0113

6. Once your chocolate mix resembles Nutella/peanut butter constancy, spoon it into a plastic bag ( I roll my plastic bag over a cup to make it easier to spoon into). See how the chocolate consistent changed from step 4 to step 6?

 

DSC_0114

 

DSC_0115

7. Cut off a very little corner off the tip of the plastic bag and pipe little chocolate chips. Since the consistency is stable you will be able to create the little point at the top! If it is too liquidy then they will end up like flat drops (The picture below was my first batch–I was a little impatient and did not let it set enough so they are flat–woops!) You have to work quickly or pipe small batches at once so they don’t melt on the tray too!

8. Return the cookie sheet to the freezer until hard (this is a very short time)

DSC_0104-1024x680

9. Scrape off the chocolate chips into a container and put directly in the freezer.

10. Repeat until chocolate mix is gone!

12. Store the GAPS chocolate drops in the freezer until you use them.

DSC_0090

DSC_0089

 

13. ENJOY!

savew

~Stay Gutsy, Caroline Lunger

 

disclosure 3
Posted By 65 Comments