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soaked gluten-free bread (Deep breaths)

This recipe is heavily adapted from The Wheat-Free Cook , which I found at the library and is really a delightful little gem (it's totally GF, not just WF), full of chestnuts and wine sauces and fennel and coffee cake and lovely things. I changed the flours, the liquid, and the preparation method - but I am very grateful to the book for being an awesome springboard.


In the evening, combine:

1/2 c each buckwheat flour, ground flax, rice flour and corn flour (you can sub the corn and rice flours for other light flours like potato, possibly quinoa, etc. but I recommend keeping the buckwheat or at least the flax; don't attempt this with no flax)
1 c yogurt (full-fat, strongly fermented if possible, definitely with live cultures)

(Why do we do an overnight soak? For an intro to soaking to reduce phytic acid, you might read some of Katie of Kitchen Stewardship's posts on the subject - Exploring Soaking Grains: What are Phytates and Phytic Acid?, or see her entire list of posts on the topic, Soaking Grains: An Exploration. You can also get the pioneer research paper that started the whole internet soaking/phytic acid awareness phenomenon from Amanda Rose's website, here, which I have purchased, printed, and recommend.)

In the morning, preheat the oven to 400 F, then stir in:

1 tbsp coconut oil, melted (or butter)

Mixture will be wet (if you are not familiar with the texture of wet dough, like in the AB5 method, you may think your dough has gone horribly wrong and that you have some kind of thick pancake batter - FEAR NOT! You have it exactly right!). Prepare a cookie sheet with parchment paper. With wet hands, split dough in half and form into two rounds on the cookie sheet, flattening and evening them to about 3/4 inch tall or so (work calmly but quickly, as it is very wet and will slip through your hands if you dilly-dally). Sprinkle some extra rice flour on top.

Bake 30 minutes on the parchment paper, then move directly onto your baking stone and continue for another 15-20 minutes (or if you have no baking stone, of course just keep them on the sheet, or try putting them directly on the wire racks of the oven), until the crust is a deep golden brown.

Let cool on wire racks.

For a sweet version, include 1 c raisins or dates in the evening soak, and stir in 1/2 tbsp cinnamon and 2-3 tbsp honey in the morning, to taste.

Update: There is now a follow-up video post in which you can see me forming the loaves, so if the texture seems impossible to you, watch this first before trying to fix it or throwing it out! Check it out!
Posted by Amy at 10:15 AM 4 comments: 


eating well for babies - bargain alert!

Kristen at Food Renegade has had an (expensive) ecourse on eating for conception, birth & breastfeeding for awhile - I'd heard of it originally through a blog I read, Mommypotamus. It sounded awesome but it was way too expensive. Now Kristen's making it available for FREE if you preorder her new book! All the details are here. I've ordered it from Amazon.ca, here, for $18.15, and am currently doing the course. So far it's great! It's a mix of course sheets, videos, readings, and discussions. And of course, I'll get a book out of it! Basically I think every woman should buy it, but especially para-reproductive women who are already food renegades in some way will eat it up! Offer expires March 18th, though once you sign up you have access for life (basically, just preorder the book even if you don't have time for the coursework right now!).

I'm enjoying it so far in part because I've wondered whether Ambrose's dental issues have something to do with what he was exposed to when I was pregnant. My diet was better than the SAD on average, but it wasn't nearly as wholesome as it is now - and moreover, I was of course exposed daily to all kinds of stuff at the pharmacy prior to conception, and even though I was more careful to not count the obviously dangerous stuff and make sure trays were cleaned, etc. it's doubtless that it was still in my environment, be absorbed through my skin and lungs. Maybe that's why his teeth have decayed, maybe at some crucial point of his development, some toxic synergy prevented proper tooth formation? Anyway, I'm hoping this course will empower me to integrate a lot of what I've learned since we conceived Ambrose, and all the new info I'll get, to optimize my next baby's chances for vibrant wellness! I'll keep y'all posted!

And now for some snapshoots of our food lately:

Posted by Amy at 11:15 AM 2 comments: Labels: books, dental health, whole foods


Baked Vegan French Toast

I dont own a non-stick frying pan. Mostly because I think heating a plastic-chemicaly teflon surface and then making food on it just sounds like a sure fire way to poison yourself slowly. Its cast-iron for me, with metal utensils, and a generous amount of oil. However when I went to make vegan french toast the other night it was terrible, the pieces burnt and stuck, and fell apart in a soggy gross way, all on top of taking forever!
Solution: baking! Worked out great! I preheated the oven to 400 F and baked each side for 10 minutes. Gave it a little broil at the end, mostly because I like things burnt.

I've been using a loose version of Dreena Burtin's recipe in Vive le Vegan!

In the bullet (hand blender or other mixer would work too):

1tbsp flax

blend til flour-y, then add:

1/2 cup nondairy milk
3 tbsp silken (soft) tofu
1/2 tsp oil (canola, coconut...)

blend again, then pour into a flat dish and soak pieces of bread on both sides until all liquid is absorbed. (makes about 6 slices). Place in the oven on an oiled cookie sheet. Fry up some apple slices too. Its great.
Posted by Frances Moss at 7:07 AM 1 comment: 


pancake studies & a recipe

Confession: Since Ana's pancake post, I've been kind of absorbed by pancakes. Before our Saturday waffle tradition, we had a pancake tradition (Sam will remember those days!). It started as a baby step toward getting soaked grains in our diet, a la Nourishing Traditions. In my wheat days, this was okay, they were good! Shit gets more complicated when you deviate from wheat bases, son!

Like, look at this article's pictures. I had googled "pancakes raw in the middle" and found this. See that thick fluffy white perfection? That does not happen with thicker, rougher, gluten-free flours yo! (Plus, did you see the recipe for fake maple syrup? Ewww.)

But even before I started dabbling with multiple grains, I'd had issues; they'd sometimes burn on the outside and be yucky in the middle, things like that.

The Smitten Kitchen Pancake 101 helped a lot. I now use a pastry brush to coat the pan with the thinnest quantity of butter, having realized that a) too much butter makes them fry in a way that is not true to the ideal pancake, and b) butter smokes!. I also stick to a lower heat, as she recommends. I am still amazed that they take sooo freakin long, and they never get perfect and fluffy in the middle, but I think I've just realized that gluten-free pancakes cannot and will not do that. White wheat flour is a mysterious and wonderful substance, and it refuses imitation.

This post was also helpful, if only on the level of sympathy with pancake frustration (and wow, sour cream with maple syrup, why has this previously been absent from my life?).

So that all having been said, here is my present recipe, with which I am satisfied. You can use other flours in place of millet, but keep the flax - gluten-free pancakes are agonizing without flax because they break no matter how gentle you are, how evenly you turn them, how small they are, etc. Flax is very gluey and holds it all together; I didn't have a single crack-through having made two batches of these. Don't even attempt GF pancakes without flax. Really.


Amy's GF Flax & Millet Pancakes

The night before, combine:

1 c warm milk/water/kefir/mix
1 tsp dry active yeast
1 1/2 tbsp butter, melted
1/2 c ground flax*
1/2 c ground millet*

* I make these both in my Magic Bullet, but you could use a proper grain mill (yes, it's on my wishlist, thanks for asking, my birthday is only 4 months away!!) or commercially ground flours, whatever floats your boat!

Stir well, cover, leave out on the counter.

In the morning, preheat your skillet (I do one notch below medium), then beat in (I used an electronic hand soup blender):


Make your coffee or tea while you wait for the skillet to preheat. Get your pancake station organized. Now get ready to cook!

Yields 6-8 pancakes, depending on size; enough to feed 2 people straight or up to 4 if served with bacon or some other delice!

My next project is making sprouted flour for these quick types of things and increased digestibility (I know, I totally sound like I'm becoming a super crunchy homesteader lady! Or wait, do I already seem like that?); I have quinoa, millet and brown rice sprouting as we speak. Exciting! I'll let y'all know how that goes!
Posted by Amy at 1:34 PM 3 comments: Labels: breakfast, fermentation, gluten-free

we love cabbage Ambrose actually has been the instigator of my cabbage love from beginning to end. I know you're supposed to expand your kids' horizons and get them into veggies and whatnot, and we do try to do that, but in reality it's been him who's pushed me a few ways. PURPLE CABBAGE is one of them! Yes, he ate that entire plate, minus those scraps, I did not help him for the picture! He squeals for it cutely whenever he sees it at the store. So I now have purple cabbage in my life. Look at it! It's gorgeous! Like stained glass!

My favourite ways to eat cabbage are simple and twofold: one, red cabbage simmered with a bit of water in a cast iron skillet, then fried with bacon fat (and meat if you're feeling festive!), and apple pieces, and a bit of red wine vinegar, and salt and pepper, OH GOSH, I got that recipe from The Catholic Cookbook - some saint day, heaven help us but I can't recall which. Anyway, the second way is roasted. Oh be still my heart. So simple. See it done here.

So what you see above is roasted, Ambrose has it straight, with oil, salt, pepper & garlic powder; I cut out the triangle-shaped cores from those wedges, leaving the lovely long strips (like paleo noodles!). Mine is served with Jamie Oliver's cowboy meatballs, leftover and having been frozen from our last party (but without cheese or breadcrumbs). Basically omnomnomnomnomnomnom.

Purple cabbage is definitely one of God's most beautiful works of art as far as I'm concerned right now.
Posted by Amy at 12:37 PM No comments: Labels: gluten-free, main meals, meat, toddlers, vegetables


Coconut-Eggplant Sauté because I just invented a new comfort food. 
-1 small-medium eggplant, sliced

-1.5 cups minced beef

-1 cup light coconut milk

-1 large red onion, sliced lengthwise

-2 handfuls or more baby spinach, roughly chopped


You're Ready Now To...

6) Serve over rice or small shell pasta. Posted by Sam at 7:15 PM 2 comments: 


getting kids to take cod liver oil

The answer, of course, is: ice cream.

1 banana, 1-2 tbsp cocoa powder, maybe 1/2 - 1 c milk, 2 tbsp peanut butter, blended in the magic bullet. Xylitol could also be smart if your baby tolerates it (I used to use it a lot, then it started hurting my tummy; we have a fair-sized bag - maybe I should start that again?) Freeze open with a spoon for 2 hours, stirring to break down ice crystals ever 20-30 m, as per usual ice cream making protocols. Remove from freezer, divide into 12 silicone cups, mix in one dose of cod liver oil per serving (in fact I did a half dose to minimize the flavour, and so that if he demanded seconds I wouldn't worry about killing him). Sorry the light is so bad - I was doing this at night as Ambrose was getting his teeth brushed with dad so he wouldn't see what as going on - which didn't work of course, he came to see where I was, demanded to try, and then demanded a second! Yessss! I figured it out! Mix it into ice cream, folks. Freeze cups and you're done.

Read my family's dental health saga here and here. (The only update worth adding is that I now have a close, in-real-life friend going through the exact same thing, which is really a relief, though we both obviously wish the other wasn't also going through it; thank God nonetheless for the support!)

Read about cod liver oil on the WAPF here.

Summarizing why we go to the trouble, the book Cure Tooth Decay describes various theories, mainstream and alternative, regarding why tooth decay happens or doesn't happen in various theories, across various cultures, drawing on the research of dentist-ethnographer Weston Price, going on to make recommendations for curing tooth decay nutritionally. The cod live oil fits in because our diets tend to be deficient in fish, and their omega-3 fatty acids, and their high levels of vitamins A and D. If you're not familiar with Price you can read the Weston A Price Foundation's basic guidelines in my favourite article, Characteristics of Traditional Diets, or access his book online for free here.

How do you get your kids to take cod liver oil? And what do you think of the W. A. P. Foundation?

Posted by Amy at 6:11 PM No comments: Labels: dental health, sweets, toddlers

gluten tortillas 

There you are, Heather! Sooo much cheaper than buying them! ;)
Posted by Amy at 5:17 PM 2 comments: 


mardi gras cookies (grain & dairy-free) 

So basically: 

Pancakes, England-style!

Today is Shrove Tuesday, the last day before Lent starts. In England, it is called "Pancake Day" even though most people don't recognise Lent. The funny thing is, because people don't follow a religious calendar, everyone forgets about this day until the Sunday or Monday or even the Tuesday itself. Then Facebook erupts with posts about pancakes and at 9:00 this morning I even got invited to a last minutes pancake dinner. Now, Simon and I are not the type of people to forget about pancakes or Lent, and we had invited our friend Rachel and our neighbours to pancake dinner tonight. It's becoming a family tradition. We had Rachel over last year, too.

I went shopping yesterday for ingredients. Note that the supermarket had erected a helpful floating frying pan to remind us all about the day. I waited for these people to move but they spent forever looking at the display! From left to right, the display shows pancake mix, cooking spray (not a common product in the UK), vanilla sugar, pouring syrup (just corn syrup. Maple syrup is available but expensive), pancakes (English pancakes are what I would call crepes), and lemon juice. The most traditional way to eat pancakes in the UK is with lemon juice and a dusting of icing sugar. As you can see, you can also use vanilla sugar or syrup.

Simon and I tend to have some form of savoury crepe/pancake because it just makes more sense to have it for dinner in a weeknight. I use the recipe from the Be-Ro cookbook, which is published by a flour company. You obtain one by sending a cheque for £1.50 to the company. Simon's grandmother gave this one to me shortly after I got married. The proportions in their batter recipe are exactly the same as the ones in other cookbooks I have: 100 g plain flour, pinch of salt, 1 medium egg, and 300 ml milk or milk/water mixture. I doubled the recipe today and had about 18 smallish, thin crepes. I remember when i moved here I was amazed that you could get cartons of medium eggs or mixed size eggs (usually cheaper) and that the standard UK egg is brown but they sell special cartons of white eggs. I'm really proud of how well the pancakes turned out this year. I fried them early which was really helpful. I hate spending the whole time in the kitchen when we have people over! I also hate how the smell of frying pancakes clings to everything, and getting the frying done early means time to shower and air out the apartment before guests arrived. For the savoury filling, I roughly chopped portobello, chestnut, and button mushrooms, and sautéed them with red onion and thyme. Then I added walnut pieces and "Greek-style salad cheese," which tasted better than it sounds, but not as good as feta. I will not buy it again. I put a few tablespoons of the filling in each pancake and rolled it, and arranged them in a baking pan, and put them under the broiler to heat up. Then I went in the other room to talk to my guests, allowing the top of all the pancakes to burn. So no pictures. They still tasted good, and the filling was delicious. We had enough pancakes left over for everyone to have a pancake with Nutella for dessert.

Do you ladies have Shrove Tuesday traditions?

Posted by Ana at 2:45 PM 6 comments: Labels: cookbooks, eggs, feasts, main meals, UK, vegetarian




A whole. Fish. Head, everything intact.

Sam's Club. (AKA Costco)

No, seriously.


I was headed to a new members' meeting for the National Speech, Language, and Hearing Association yesterday. It was my first time going to the SLP building after hours at 7:30.

I go to open the door, and I find it locked. I swipe my student ID card. Not working despite my grad student status. I can see the students, TONS of undergrads (HOW did they get in?) pooled in the lobby about 20 feet away through glass front door. I bang on the door, ring the doorbell, wave, dance, and finally get it that I'm just not supposed to be at this meeting for some reason.

So I run errands instead. I head to the giant strip mall (lol) near my house, walk into Sam's Club, and find these babies.

Rainbow trout. They came loosely wrapped in packets of twos, but they looked amazing. All for $5. I was swooning. My grandmother always told me to check for two things: bright eyes (never cloudy) tinged with red; and firm flesh. In hindsight, I should have tried to find an employee to bring me to the back so I could pick some out that they hadn't wrapped yet, touched them, and given them a sniff (I have weirded out many a teenaged employee stuck working at the fish counter at random grocery stores by asking if I can smell the fresh seafood to check for freshness lol), but dude, I was SO EXCITED I ran off to the cash and the man in front of me remarked with a chuckle "Hey, whaddaya know-she found REAL FISH, hehehehhe."

Within 15 minutes, these babies were rinsed, marinated in olive oil, salt, pepper, minced fresh ginger, the juice of 1 lime, sliced fresh garlic, and lots of green onions, and in my oven on broil.

The fish were each about half a pound. I don't think my oven is as hot as it should be, because it took a good 10 minutes for the fish to be ready to be turned over to the other side (for a 1 pound fish, it should start to get charred and skin bubbly in 5 minutes, then you know it's ready to turn).

The fish turned out pretty nicely! I'm sure if I had marinated it for at least 2-4 hours, or even better, overnight, it would have turned out differently. I made more fish later in the week for Matt--this time, the fish was even JUICIER! Huzzah! Posted by Sam at 5:59 PM 3 comments: Labels: american food, fish, mediterranean food


harvest, treats, & a gluten update

My gluten update has no picture, but basically the flare-ups have started again. In case you're new to the whole saga, I'd been off gluten since before Christmas, and then about two weeks ago I decided to indulge in a bit of pizza and see how long it took for the flare-up to occur (when I was eating gluten more regularly, I could tell within an hour or two if something had gluten in it based on my skin and tummy aches). But no reaction! Anyway nothing happened, it was exciting. Slowly though my skin started to get tingly, then I got a distinctly painful tummy ache after making non-organic pasta on Tuesday (prior to that all my ingestion had been organic stuff made at home), and it's been downhill since then. Yesterday we had a lovely pizza (since we're going out tonight, our usual pizza night) with mushrooms and onions which was made sort of like a foccacia, rolled, topped, and risen for a few hours before baking, and to be honest it was amazing, but by the end of the evening I was quite red and had cuts on the backs of my hands. Sucks! So it's been interesting - the gluten fasting seemed to cleanse me, as my body was able to deal with it better than before, judging by the slow response time, but it's back on the GF train I go. Sad! I might cheat with pizza once a week though. I've not yet decided what to do on that front.

Another random little update that has no picture is that I've been precooking Sunday food on Saturdays. So far that's meant making a quiche and preparing a roast the day before. It really is so much nicer to know we can come home from Mass, enjoy instant quality food, and spend the day lazing - with a clean kitchen!

Happy weekending!
Posted by Amy at 12:10 PM No comments: Labels: baking, breakfast, gluten-free, photos, vegetables

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