Tigernut Flour Apple Crisp (grain-free, nut-free, paleo, vegan)

I'm excited to be sharing this amazing apple crisp recipe with you today. It's made with prebiotic-rich tigernut flour, which is a grain-free, nut-free, healthy gluten-free flour. Going on an elimination diet can be challenging sometimes, especially during the holidays and family gatherings where food plays such an integral role in the celebration. Having alternatives that are just as tasty as your old favorites can make it much easier to stick to your new diet.

Have you tried an Elimination Diet yet? Usually within 2 to 4 weeks of removing foods like gluten, dairy, and sugar from your diet, skin conditions clear up, back and joint pain goes away, chronic fatigue disappears, and intestinal issues calm down. On top of that, most people lose around 7 to 10 pounds of unwanted weight.

Why? Because food can be the most common source of irritation to your immune system. How will you know if foods are causing your brain fog, fatigue, pain, or skin issues? Do an Elimination Diet and find out. It's really an enlightening process. I wrote about the process last year in my Green Kale Detox Soup post.

This Elimination Diet apple crisp recipe can be enjoyed by your whole family. My children really love it! In fact, one of my 10-year old twin boys made a double batch of this recipe the other night, using part blueberries and part apples in the filling. It was so good! I posted some photos on my Instagram account of the process, as well as of the finished product that you can view here.

Tigernut flour can sometimes be tricky to find in your local health food store. I suggest ordering it online here. You can also learn more about Tiger Nuts here if you are interested!

Cherry Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream (dairy-free, paleo)

It's summer! Time to break out the ice cream maker and whip up some dairy-free ice cream. Plus it's cherry season right now. This coconut milk-based ice cream is a perfect way to indulge in both antioxidant-rich cherries and dark chocolate. Serve it as a sweet treat after dinner, or a healthy mid-afternoon snack for your kids. This cherry chocolate chunk ice cream comes from my Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook.

Be sure to use full fat coconut milk in this recipe. The hemp seeds give it some extra creaminess, healthy fats, and amino acids. You can easily omit the chocolate if you are on Phase 2 of the Elimination Diet. You can also replace the cherries with blueberries, strawberries, or diced mango. All variations are delicious!

Carrot Cake Muffins (gluten-free, egg-free, nut-free, vegan)

Yay for gluten-free carrot cake muffins! I call these healthy little treats muffins, but once frosted they sure seem like cupcakes to me. They are packed full of carrot-goodness, as well as being very moist and light, even without the eggs. What a perfect treat for Mother's day or a Springtime gathering!

I've frosted them here using a Honey-Cream Cheese Frosting (recipe below) but if you are dairy-free or vegan then use my Sweet Potato Buttercream Frosting recipe. Just be sure to use white-fleshed sweet potatoes (they have a light-tan skin), and stir in some finely grated orange zest at the end. This recipe is a perfect dairy-free, whole foods replacement for cream cheese frosting (and it looks like it too as long as you use the white sweet potatoes).

The trick to making these egg-free muffins light and fluffy is to add the carrots on top of the whisked dry ingredients, immediately then pour in the blended wet ingredients, and then mix them all together at once. If you stir in the carrots at the end, after your batter has been mixed up, then you will lose some of the trapped air that is formed from the reactions of the baking powder, baking soda, and acid ingredients (applesauce and orange juice). Then you must bake them right away in your preheated oven. Starting the baking process immediately after mixing the batter together helps to trap air and create lift! Both of these steps will help give the muffins the rise and lightness you normally get with eggs.

If you want to add other ingredients such as chopped walnuts and raisins, go ahead. A half cup of each should work well. Also....did I mention that these muffins are Elimination Diet friendly for Phase 2 and beyond (without the cream cheese frosting and citrus of course)! Enjoy!

Raw Cranberry Sauce ~ So Easy! (vegan, sugar-free)

If you are looking for an extremely easy and super nutritious cranberry sauce recipe then I have just the thing! I've been making this raw cranberry sauce recipe for a few years and have shared it on Instagram and Facebook but never seem to get around to getting it up on my blog....until now!

Serve this tart and tangy cranberry sauce with your holiday turkey, baked salmon, or winter squash and bean casserole. It's also delicious on top of pumpkin pie! I know, I know. Try it and you'll see!

Did you know that cranberries are one of the most concentrated sources of ellagic acid, a potent anti-oxidant and anti-cancer compound? Ellagic Acid is a phytochemical that is found in significant amounts in cranberries, raspberries, wild strawberries, blackberries, pomegranates, pecans, walnuts, and other plant foods. For the most part, think bright red plant foods that make your mouth pucker! Ellagic acid is destroyed by cooking, so eating cranberries in a raw recipe like this is most beneficial!

Findings from a 2016 study "cast a beam of light on the potential therapeutic use of ellagic acid in obesity-related colon carcinogenesis" (colon cancer). A 2015 study found that ellagic acid inhibits the proliferation of MCF-7 breast cancer cells and that its use could be a "novel therapeutic approach for the treatment of patients with breast cancer." Another 2015 study found that ellagic acid from pomegranates suppressed prostate cancer cells!

Food is medicine! You can use this to your advantage during the holidays and enjoy medicinal recipes like this raw cranberry sauce.

Autumn Detox Salad with Creamy Ginger-Cilantro Dressing (vegan)

Sometimes when the weather cools it is easy to get into the habit of eating more dense, cooked foods. For some people this is just what they need. But for others, a balance between raw and cooked (or even predominantly raw) is best. We each are unique, and so should be our diets. This colorful and nutrient-dense salad provides some key ingredients to support healthy detoxification. The dressing is delicious and can be used as a dip for raw veggies or used to top your favorite salads! I've even used it to top steamed vegetables! 

What is detoxification? In functional medicine, detoxification is often considered "biotransformation" because our bodies will transform harmful substances into less harmful substance and then excrete them from the body. This process can vary in effectiveness in different people depending on the nutrients we ingest, our genetics, and what types of toxins we are exposed to. For example, if we are exposed to persistent organic pollutants, which are so complex that they recirculate over and over in our body's detoxification process, they can slow everything down, not allowing a person to properly detox the everyday exposures like mercury from dental fillings or alcohol. Persistent organic pollutants include things like dioxins, DDT, and PCBs. DDT is an insecticide that was banned from the US in 1972. My mom has told me many stories of how she and her friends and siblings used to run behind the trucks that were spraying DDT when she was growing up in the 60's because they all liked the smell of it! Unfortunately they just had no idea back then how toxic it was. DDT has a half life of 50 years, which means that she passed down this stuff to me in utero and through breastfeeding. As a result of this (and other factors), I always need to take extra care in supporting my detoxification pathways.

Toxins come in through our air, food, water, and skin. Once they are in our bodies we need to change their shape to make them less toxic and get them safely out of our systems. Toxins go though two phases of detox: Phase 1 and Phase 2. Phase 1 adds a chemical handle onto the toxin (usually a hydroxyl group). Phase 2 then grabs the handle and pulls the toxin out of the body (commonly this is glutathione that attaches to the hydroxyl group). Now the toxin needs to safely exit out of the body. This happens through the sweat, urine, and feces. However, if you are consuming a diet low in plant foods, while consuming a diet high in salt and acidifying foods like processed foods, meats, and dairy, then you will not be able to excrete the glutathione-bound toxins in the urine and therefore they will get reabsorbed back into the body! Same with the gut. Without enough soluble fiber from plant foods, the toxins will stick around and get reabsorbed back into the system. This is another reason why a plant-rich diet is so important.

Detox Benefits of this Salad

Dairy-Free Sweet Potato Buttercream Frosting (refined sugar-free, vegan)

It's not easy coming up with a whole food-based frosting that is as nutritious as it is tasty, but way back in 2010 I came up a sweet potato icing recipe based off of the ingredients I was using in the liquids for this Buckwheat Cinnamon Roll Recipe. I've made a number of different variations on this theme and included some in my cookbooks. I have even made this into a chocolate sweet potato frosting! Below you will find a delicious dairy-free sweet potato buttercream that you can use to frost your cakes or cookies.

Use this frosting to make sandwich cookies using my Gluten-Free Shortbread Cookie Recipe, or use it to frost your favorite cupcakes. Using orange-fleshed sweet potatoes will create a beautiful orange frosting (perfect for fall holidays), while using white-fleshed sweet potatoes will create a gorgeous white frosting (to replace those sugary vanilla frostings).

Buckwheat Cinnamon Raisin Bread (gluten-free, vegan, nut-free, xanthan gum-free)

Today I wanted to share a recipe from my Nourishing Meals cookbook with you—another kneadable gluten-free bread! Creating a recipe for kneadable gluten-free (and xanthan gum-free) bread took me years and years to develop.

I still remember walking into my oldest daughter’s first week of preschool. The smell of freshly baked spelt rolls wafting throughout the house like a sweet perfume pervades my memory. My daughter took great care in carefully kneading each ball of dough into the shapes of her desire. The warm rolls were always served with raw honey and butter. All week she looked forward to bread day.

A few years later my second daughter was entering preschool. We found out she was sensitive to gluten during her toddler years, so she could not participate in the process of bread baking in preschool or kindergarten. I was at a loss for what to do. Yes, I was able to replace the gluten with gluten-free options, but none she could knead. None where she could be part of the process of grinding the grain into flour. None that connected her to the meaningful work that the whole process of bread baking imbued.

Inspired by the very real fact that my daughter could not participate in the entire experience of bread baking, I started down a path that was years in the making. I was almost there in the spring of 2010 when I posted this gluten-free baguette and Garlic-Rosemary White Bean Dip. I had been using chia and flax already for a while to help mimic the texture of gluten, but something was still missing. Still determined to create a kneadable gluten-free bread without xanthan gum, I had a flash of inspiration one day. What would happen if I added psyllium husk to the mix? I already knew how it worked to absorb liquid and create a gel, and so I had a pretty good feeling that it might help to mimic gluten in baking recipes. And that was it. I had finally cracked the gluten-free bread code! I eventually shared my Farmhouse Seed Bread recipe here with you in 2011. After many failures and triumphs (and partially edible loaves of gluten-free bread), I finally created a recipe that actually needs to be kneaded—a delicious, chewy round loaf of bread made from whole food ingredients! That recipe eventually morphed into many more gluten-free bread recipes using the basic framework I had developed, including this Buckwheat Cinnamon Raisin Bread and more, which can all be found in my Nourishing Meals book.

Years later, my twin boys entered kindergarten. By then there were so many children who were sensitive to gluten that the class was designated a gluten-free classroom, and their teacher only used my recipes for bread baking day. They ground their own buckwheat flour using a hand crank grinder. Different combinations of teff flour, brown rice flour, buckwheat flour, and arrowroot powder were used to form the dough. My boys would come home with rolls that they had carefully crafted into different shapes, tucked inside of little napkins. “Mom do you want to try my bread?” they called out to me after pick-up. Smiling, I said "yes."

Baking gluten-free bread is quite simple, though it requires a few extra ingredients compared to wheat-based bread recipes. To replace the gluten—the protein that gives bread it’s chewy texture and what helps it to rise by allowing gas bubbles to get trapped—I use a combination of ground chia seeds and psyllium husk. These ingredients form a gel that acts like gluten, allowing gas bubbles from the yeast fermentation to get trapped so the dough can rise. They also help to hold moisture and bind everything together.

Any gluten-free flour or blend of flours can be used in this recipe, but by using raw buckwheat groats, which can be ground into a soft flour using a hand or electric grain grinder, children get to experience the whole process of bread making, from grain to loaf—connecting head, heart, and hands.

Fire-Roasted Tomato Salsa Recipe

It's tomato season and I bet many of you are searching for more ways to preserve the tomato harvest! Last year I had a bumper crop of roma tomatoes so I created this really easy fire-roasted tomato salsa recipe as a way to preserve the harvest. I had my freezer stocked full of salsa in various sized jars that we enjoyed through the winter months. I'm really happy to finally be sharing my recipe with you. It's a mix of roasted tomatoes and other raw ingredients, creating a nutrient-packed condiment!

Roasting tomatoes under the broiler brings out a stunning, sweet caramelized flavor, which adds depth and complexity to your salsa. It also releases some of the liquid in the tomatoes so your salsa does't end up too watery.

If you are looking for other ways to preserve your tomato harvest then you might want to try my Homemade Tomato Basil Marinara Sauce recipe, or simply freeze your tomatoes whole (stems removed). I like to take whole frozen roma tomatoes and soak them in hot water for a few minutes. This allows their skins to slip right off. Then I chop them up and add them to soups and stews in the wintertime.

Enjoy this flavorful salsa recipe with homemade gluten-free Brown Rice Flour Tortillas, cooked beans or meat, guacamole, and thinly sliced fresh greens.

Homemade Sriracha Hot Sauce Recipe (sugar-free)

After a long blogging break, I'm back with an amazing hot sauce recipe for you to make and enjoy for many months. I grew a lot of hot peppers in my garden this year, in fact my garden has been extremely bountiful this year! Up until recently, I've sort of taken my garden for granted. I had no idea how healing gardening could be….until it was all I could do. You see, on June 2nd, just after returning from a functional medicine conference and after two years of non-stop work, I suffered an adrenal crash. Taking care of five young children, updating and publishing a book, developing an online program, co-authoring a new book, and being in charge of the development of a new website and book launch proved to be too much.

Two things that have helped tremendously with the healing process (other than totally slowing down, going to bed early, taking certain supplements, diet, and Epsom salt baths) are gardening and staying off the computer. Being in the fresh air, having the sun beat down on my skin, feeling my bare feet in the soil, and eating nutrient-dense raw vegetables and fruits everyday straight from the garden (your adrenals need a lot of vitamin C to function properly) has been extremely therapeutic for me. In fact, it would be wonderful therapy for anyone suffering from adrenal fatigue or adrenal burnout. The little bit of energy I put in, I got back tenfold in edible bounty. Gardening has helped to reset my cortisol rhythm and nourish me, whereas too much computer time (especially at night) along with too many stressors has led to a dysfunctional cortisol-melatonin cycle. To help heal and regain balance, I’ve also spent a lot of time with my children outside all summer …at the lake, river, ocean, and mountain. Nature is powerful medicine. I encourage those of you who are dealing with a chronic illness to get outside for a walk in the woods, spend time at a beach every week, and take some time to be in your garden everyday (you can start a garden this fall if you don’t have one already).

I just love going into my garden and harvesting the abundance of vegetables growing there, and then preserving them so we can enjoy their flavors, colors, and nutrients all winter long. If you have too many hot peppers, then consider making this hot sauce recipe. It's a perfect way to preserve them! If you don't grow your own hot peppers, then check out your local Farmer's Market; they are usually brimming with all kinds of peppers this time of year!

According to this resource, sriracha sauce is named after the coastal city, Si Racha, in eastern Thailand. Sriracha is used as a dipping sauce in Thai cuisine, and is also used frequently in Vietnamese cuisine as a condiment for pho, noodle dishes, and spring rolls. Of course, we use it on everything! Traditional sriracha sauce uses sugar in its ingredients. Instead, I use sweet red peppers to cut the spiciness of the hot peppers. The sweet peppers also add body and flavor to the sauce.

Blueberry Lemon Scones (gluten-free, nut-free, vegan)

I finally have the recipe many of you have been waiting for....the gluten-free, berry scone recipe you've seen me post about on Instagram over the last few weeks. Although I used raspberries once, they are out of season right now and just too darn expensive to keep using. Instead, I've been making these with the frozen blueberries we have in our freezer from last summer's harvest. You could use any berry in this scone recipe. Try blackberry, chopped strawberries, marionberry, or blueberries. I've also tested this recipe using diced (very small) Granny Smith apples with added cinnamon, which were quite delicious as well. Oh...and this recipe is xanthan-gum free of course!

If you haven't seen our brand new Whole Life Nutrition website already then you might want to check it out: www.WholeLifeNutrition.net. We've begun to add articles and videos, and will be adding a lot more content and features in the coming weeks so stay tuned. You can sign up for our newsletter there and get our Free Clean Eating Cookbook and Grocery Shopping Guide if you would like (all new gluten-free, whole foods recipes).

Winter Salad with Fennel and a Blood Orange Vinaigrette

Even though it may be winter, you can still eat the colors of the rainbow and give yourself a hearty dose of powerful phytochemicals! Consuming the deep reds, magentas, and oranges you see in this salad means that you are flooding your body with plant chemicals that prevent DNA damage, stimulate the immune system, reduce inflammation, block substances we ingest from becoming carcinogens, and of course mop up free radicals. In fact, I should rename this salad to The Anti-Cancer Salad! My children even love this salad (minus the red onions). I came downstairs yesterday morning to find that they had all packed a container of it their school lunches (along with chicken-vegetable soup or turkey black bean chili)!

If you haven't worked with fennel before then you are in for a treat. This delicious vegetable adds complex flavors to this salad. I love eating it raw but it's also delicious braised or roasted! We like to added it to fresh juices, in fact, since this recipe only uses the bulb, you can save the stalks to make green juice (combine green apple, parsley, kale, lemons, and fennel stalks for a delicious elixir). If you need some visual assistance in cutting up fennel then check out the tutorial I prepared for you at the bottom of this post.

One more note on the ingredients here….this recipe calls for either chopped or segmented blood oranges. To chop them you just peel, slice, and then chop into pieces. To segment, you need to peel them and then cut into wedges around the membranes. I like to use a small serrate knife to do this. It's really very easy but if you've never done it before it can seem daunting. Food52 has a great, short video on doing this that I suggest watching for guidance if you need it. You can view it here.

Post-Holiday Detox Salad (vegan)

Indulge a little too much during the holidays? Feeling the need to cleanse and reset? Drinking too much alcohol, eating a lot of sugary foods, and just eating too much food in general can tax your detoxification pathways. If you are not detoxing properly, you can end up with lowered energy, increased pain in the body, poor circulation, and sluggish digestion.

By consuming this salad, which is rich in plant-based chemicals that promote detoxification, you can relieve some of the unwanted symptoms of a holiday hangover and begin to regain balance. In fact, if you include raw plant foods such as kale, cabbage, arugula, broccoli, collards, ginger, pomegranates, lemons and limes, blueberries, cranberries, black currants, and raspberries in your daily diet (try green smoothies, fresh juices, and big salads), you will find that indulging in (healthy) holiday treats once in a while will be easier for your body to handle. Hint, hint….try serving this salad at your next holiday gathering!

Green Smoothie Recipe for Babies and Toddlers

If you have a baby or toddler and are ready to introduce them to the lovely world of green smoothies then keep reading. If you are an adult who's curious about green smoothies or have a child who has never tasted one before, then keep reading. This post is for you too!

By about 8 months of age, most babies are ready for green smoothies. We like to avoid plastic sippy cups and instead use small glass or ceramic cups (I just go to the thrift store for these) for introducing green smoothies and other liquids. This gives babies and toddlers the opportunity to learn how to properly drink from a real cup right from the beginning. And, as an added bonus, they lessen their exposure to very toxic substances found in plastic: BPA and BPS!


                        Tom's TED talk on cruciferous vegetables

Why introduce green smoothies to a baby? This is the perfect time! Children's taste buds develop in the first 3 years of life so it's best to take advantage of this time and offer a wide variety of healthy food choices. This helps to establish a taste bud-brain connection to different flavors and textures! Kale and other dark leafy green vegetables can have a strong flavor but are also a powerhouse of nutrients. The amazing chemicals in kale and other raw cruciferous vegetables assist in detoxification. In fact, sulforophane in these dark leafy greens ramps up phase 2 detoxification in the liver, providing over 72 hours of protection from both environmentally and internally produced toxins. Considering that cancer is the leading cause of death by disease for children in the US today, I think it's very important to make sure that older babies and toddlers are receiving at least one small serving of raw cruciferous vegetables every one to two days. Green smoothies are a perfect way to get them in!

Blackberry-Apricot Cobbler (gluten-free, nut-free, vegan)

I love a good cobbler, especially in the summer when our kitchen is brimming with fresh fruit! I created this gluten-free cobbler recipe after our first blackberry harvest. For those of you not living in the pacific northwest, you should know that blackberries grow everywhere here....a great food to wild harvest and freeze! We recently picked 12 more quarts of berries, made two more cobblers, and froze the rest (and of course enjoyed as many as we could straight from the vines).

This vegan, gluten-free cobbler recipe uses sprouted brown rice flour, which I've used in other recipes, such as my Sprouted Brown Rice Bread and my Brown Rice Flour Tortillas. You can purchase sprouted flour here or here. This satisfying dessert recipe can also be used during our Elimination Diet in phases 2 and 3. Be sure to use my Homemade Corn-Free Baking Powder here to make it Elimination Diet friendly! That recipe can be found in both of my cookbooks and here on Instagram.

Zippy Kale Salad with Fennel, Sweet Onion, and Goji Berries

My garden is going nuts this year. I've never had so much kale! Everything is so lush and beautiful. I planted rows of sweet onions amongst the kale and other vegetables. Little did I know last spring, but allium vegetables are great at deterring aphids. Almost all of my kale this year is aphid-free. We've been making kale sautés, kale and egg frittatas, creamed kale, kale in soup, kale salads…..kale everything!

This raw kale salad has a zippy grapefruit dressing that counteracts the bitter of the kale. Although the amount of chopped kale called for in this recipe seems like a lot, keep in mind that after it's massaged with the dressing it looks like a small salad for about 6 people! I've been using siberian kale from my garden in my kale salads because it is so tender and mild, however any variety of kale will work. 

Kale is a vegetable powerhouse! It's high in sulforaphane, a compound that stimulates your body's own production of powerful antioxidant and detoxification proteins, which help to safely remove environmental toxins from your body and protect your cells. If you want to learn more about detoxification and how you can protect yourself from environmental toxins….as they relate to blood sugar dysregulation, diabetes, obesity, infertility, and just about every chronic disease……you can register for the FREE online Detox Summit going on now through August 11th. Each day's talks will only be available for 24 hours so be sure to register today. I listened to them yesterday on my iPhone plugged into some speakers while pitting 20 pounds of organic cherries!

Nasturtium and Kohlrabi Salad with Creamy Lemon-Dill Dressing

I love making big salads in the summertime with the abundance of fresh, organic vegetables we have growing in our garden. Each day it's a different salad. Sometimes I get on a kick and will use the same vegetables and dressing for days in a row. Lately I've been making this amazing Creamy Lemon-Dill Dressing. It's so good, I usually double the recipe below so I can have leftovers for the next day!

I've been posting photographs and the occasional recipe (or at least the ingredients) to my Instagram account. So be sure to go there to get the scoop on how I live this organic, gluten-free, whole foods lifestyle daily with five children.

If you are not familiar with nasturtium or kohlrabi….let me explain. First off, it's great for our bodies and our taste buds to experience new flavors and new plant chemicals. Remember, your genetics have less to do with your health than the environment that they are exposed to. Research has discovered over tens of thousands of miraculous plant chemicals in the last few decades, and it appears that each plant has it's own powerful array of these compounds.

The nasturtium plant is an annual that produces beautiful bright orange edible flowers and tender green leaves, both of which have a delicate peppery flavor. They are great companion plants for your garden, attracting beneficial predatory insects.  Kohlrabi is a cruciferous vegetable, sometimes known as a German turnip, that is delicious either raw or cooked. I prefer eating it raw in salads, or as an alternative to chips for homemade dips. We use the tender, mild tasting greens as wraps in place of tortillas.

Mustard Green-Lime Pesto (dairy-free, vegan)

If you've been shopping at your local Farmer's Market lately you might have noticed some beautiful purplish-green leafy vegetables for sale called mustard greens. My bet is that you've also wondered what you could do with them if you were to purchase them! Mustard greens are spicy and slightly bitter. I like to add them to soups and stir-fries. They are part of the lovely cruciferous vegetable family—the types of vegetables we highly recommend getting into your diet everyday in order to boost your body's own detoxification abilities. Read more about that in this post.

I grow mustard greens in my garden, and this summer I've had more than we can eat! I pondered for a week or so how I could preserve them, other than lacto-fermentation (as in a mustard green kim chi), and came up with this pesto recipe (which can be frozen). While I was figuring out how to preserve them, they began to bolt. This means that they send up flowers so the plant can bear seeds. When a plant bolts, the greens start to become bitter. I did not want to waste them so I used them anyway. I would suggest looking for tender young mustard greens to use in this raw pesto recipe, though it's still delicious if your greens have begun to bolt!

Simple Strawberry Vinaigrette Recipe

We've been picking strawberries lately. A lot of strawberries. Organic of course. Perfectly sweet, juicy, and ripe. So naturally, we've been eating a lot of strawberries, the way fresh strawberries ought to be eaten….not shipped halfway across the country in little plastic cartons grown in massive mono-cropped fields. These berries were grown in nutrient-rich soil from a small organic farm not too far from our house. Our children count the days till strawberry picking time each year. It's one of their favorite activities. Undoubtedly, they are picking more per minute now than I do. Yes! We have a dream team of 5 little berry pickers (okay maybe just 4 as our toddler really likes to just graze instead of fill her bucket). I tell them if they want to eat frozen fruit and make smoothies, then they need to help in the harvesting. It's fun! They love it.

At home, seeing all of these boxes filled with fresh berries, my mind begins to spin into recipe creation mode. Raw strawberry pie, strawberry-cream popsicles, strawberry salsa, strawberry salmon, strawberry vinaigrette! Since our garden is brimming with fresh organic lettuce, arugula, and mustard greens right now I decided that the strawberry vinaigrette recipe would be a good place to start. We'll see how many more recipe ideas I can get to while the berry season lasts! I think you're really going to enjoy this simple, healthy salad dressing recipe! 

In other news....have you listened to Tom's interview on The Health Bridge Show yet? He talks about protecting your microbiome! Fascinating information on childbirth, breastfeeding, digestive issues, and more! You can download it for free on iTunes and listen to it (released 6/12/14). It's also available on YouTube!

How To Make Brown Rice Flour Tortillas (gluten-free, vegan)

Making your own gluten-free brown rice flour tortillas is so simple! With just a few ingredients you can make healthier tortillas at home. My recipe is egg-free and xanthan gum-free as well. I use a cast iron tortilla press to quickly press all of the tortillas, and then I cook them in a hot cast iron skillet on my stovetop. My children love to help with the entire process of making homemade tortillas too…otherwise I probably would not make them very often! Use this recipe during Phase 2 and Phase 3 of our Elimination Diet!

If you don't own a tortilla press you can roll the dough in between two pieces of parchment paper using a rolling pin. I've made so many versions of this recipe to try to figure out the best method for getting flexible tortillas. I've found that using boiling water works far better than cold or warm water. It makes a BIG difference in how pliable the tortillas are after cooking so don't skip this step! Beyond the boiling water, you can vary the amount of arrowroot powder to brown rice flour. More arrowroot equals really flexible tortillas, but they end up on the chewier side.

I'd love your feedback! So please let me know what ratio of brown rice flour to arrowroot you used and how they turned out for you in the comments section below. Thanks! :)

Vanilla Coconut Cream "Cheesecake" (dairy-free, gluten-free, vegan)

Hello dear readers! I have a special treat for you today....literally! A dairy-free, grain-free "cheesecake" made from my Soured Coconut Cream recipe. This no-bake recipe is so simple to make and will delight your friends and family. I've tested it many different ways to get the perfect ratio of ingredients, in fact maybe too much, because now I want nothing to do with coconut milk!

The secret little ingredient in this recipe that helps hold it together and lighten it up is....agar powder! Agar is a gelatinous substance derived from red algae. When it is mixed with a liquid and heated it forms a gel. You can actually make vegan "jell-o" with it using fruit juice. I use this brand of agar powder. Make sure you don't use agar flakes, as the amount needed is different as well as the fact that they need to be soaked in a liquid before using them. You may be able to substitute grass-fed gelatin but I'm not sure on the amount. You would need more than a teaspoon for sure, maybe 1 tablespoon?

If you don't want to use the raspberry topping, try drizzling each slice with warm chocolate sauce and topping with fresh berries. You can use the Chocolate Ganache recipe here if you like.