Asparagus, Leek, and Mushroom Frittata

Frittatas are just about one of the easiest, nutrient-dense meals you can make....and they can be whipped up in minutes! Serve a frittata for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I frequently make frittatas to use up the odd bits of leftovers or random veggies in the fridge. I love using leftover salmon and roasted potatoes in a frittata. Green onions, chives, sausages, red bell peppers, yellow or red onions, olives, zucchini, basil, and broccoli are also wonderful ingredients to add to your frittata!

A frittata is made by first sautéing some vegetables in a little butter or olive oil in a 10-inch cast iron skillet, then you add 8 to 10 whisked eggs (sometimes grated cheese too) and pop the whole pan in a preheated 375 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes. It will puff up as it bakes, then fall as it cools. Cut your frittata into wedges and serve with a salad. So easy!

This frittata recipe uses some in-season spring vegetables, plus fresh tarragon to create a complex-flavored meal that will remind you of French cuisine! Asparagus and tarragon pair so well together! Yum! Serve it for Mother's day brunch with a salad and some sparkling mineral water.

If you or a family member cannot tolerate eggs then I would suggest baking a salmon fillet and serving it with a salad for Mother's day brunch. Salmon for brunch is a great egg-free option!

Gluten-Free Bagel Recipe (vegan, xanthan gum-free)

I have a very fun recipe for you today. One that your children will love to participate in making......gluten-free bagels! I've been making these ever since my oldest daughter asked me to create a gluten-free bagel recipe about four years ago. I had just published the first edition of Nourishing Meals, which contained plenty of amazing gluten-free, vegan bread recipes, but no bagel recipe! She encouraged me to test out my breadstick and bread recipes in bagel form and they worked great. We've had fun making these together to send on her school camping trips throughout the years.

The big difference between bagels and a roll or a breadstick is that the dough is boiled after rising. This creates the chewy bagel texture that we all know and love. I've created a photo tutorial for you below to help make the bagel-making process very easy to understand.

There are so many variations to this recipe! Cinnamon-Raisin (my Buckwheat Cinnamon-Raisin variation will be posted soon), Garlic-Herb, Sesame, Poppy Seed-Sea Salt (pictured here), and more! Please let me know in the comments what types of flavor variations you created using my recipe.

This gluten-free bagel recipe is nearly identical to the Rosemary-Sea Salt Breadstick recipe on page 121 in my Nourishing Meals book. I've just changed the way in which they are made, and switched out one of the flours for another. I hope you enjoy!

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).

Plantain Crepes (grain-free, nut-free)

I created this simple plantain crepe recipe one morning on a whim, out of a need to feed my family. The kids were starving, begging for something quick. I had a bunch of plantains on my counter and plenty of pastured eggs in my fridge so I just tossed ingredients into the Vitamix and came up with a very easy gluten-free and grain-free crepe recipe. Everyone loved them, and a few minutes later all of the crepes had disappeared! The kids were hungry for more, so I made another batch, measured everything carefully, and jotted the recipe down so we could make them again. These simple whole food crepes have now become a breakfast staple! Use this recipe to test eggs during Phase 3 of The Elimination Diet.

This recipe can also be found in my new Nourishing Meals cookbook and guidebook for raising healthy children!

There are so many ways you can serve them. Here are our favorite sweet and savory ideas. Just add the fillings to one side of the crepe, then roll it up and enjoy! Please share below in the comments your favorite fillings!

Sweet:
long strips of bananas and dollops of raw almond butter
a sprinkling of cinnamon and coconut sugar
homemade berry jam and a dollop of coconut sour cream
mashed fresh strawberries and a dollop of organic Greek yogurt

Savory:
smoked wild salmon, baby arugula, chives, and organic cream cheese
cashew cream cheese, organic turkey slices, fresh dill, butter lettuce
hummus, avocado, red onion slices, and broccoli leaves
cabbage sautéed with cumin seeds, leftover cooked chicken, and sliced avocado or guacamole

Date-Glazed Banana Donuts (grain-free, gluten-free, refined sugar-free)

I have to tell you that it's been over a decade since I've had any kind of donut but lately my kids were asking about them. I think they tried a gluten-free donut at a party years ago but that's been their only exposure. So I decided to invest in some safe non-stick donut pans and try making baked grain-free donuts. I don't by any means think grains are bad, I just love to use alternative flours. The combination of almond flour and arrowroot creates a very good texture, in fact, most people would never guess these donuts were gluten-free.

Most non-stick bakeware contains PFOA's. These toxic compounds are beginning to get phased out, but are still present in much of the bakeware used. PFOA's affect thyroid function, blood sugar regulation, body weight, and are endocrine disruptors (which means that you can increase your risk for hormone-related cancers like breast cancer). We highly recommend getting rid of all non-stick bakeware and replacing it with safe alternatives like stone or stainless steel. I use these donut pans made from recycled steel. They have a silicone coating which creates a non-stick barrier without all of the chemicals.

To make these donuts you will need at least 4 very ripe bananas. I posted some photos of my 2-year old mashing bananas to my Instagram page as well as to our Facebook page! If you already "like" our Facebook page but are not receiving our posts in your feed then be sure to stop by our page and leave a comment under some of the posts. This will help to get our posts in your feed!

Green Cleansing Juice

Happy New Year! Cheers! This is our favorite green juice recipe, in fact, our children think it's the bomb! They love it. Serve it in a pretty glass with a stainless steel or glass straw. I think you'll find that this green juice is very mild tasting and quite enjoyable to drink. This recipe is part of our new Elimination Diet Program and Book! We've been receiving so many emails asking about the Elimination Diet and where to find it. Our Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook (where the old program was) is out of print now. We spent our summer completely updating the book with 100 new recipes and plenty of new up-to-date science! It will be available this spring, published through Grand Central Life & Style. We also removed the elimination diet from the book because it deserved its own book. We have a brand-spanking new elimination diet program coming for you soon online. We can't wait to share this powerful healing tool with you, complete with new recipes, menu plans, and more!

If you are setting new year's intentions that revolve around eating well (I like intentions far better than resolutions) then this juice recipe is a great one to add to your repertoire! Through our research we've found that it's quite important for all of us, children included, to add some sort of raw cruciferous vegetable to our daily diets. You can make raw salads, green smoothies, or fresh juices. Cruciferous vegetables include kale, collard greens, mustard greens, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage, arugula, bok choy, daikon radish, horseradish, radish, turnips, rutabaga, watercress, and bittercress (a common weed).

Banana Almond Butter Muffins (gluten-free, grain-free, dairy-free)

I like to make this healthy grain-free muffin recipe after my children go to sleep at night so they have something nourishing to eat for breakfast—especially helpful on really busy mornings! The other day my daughter wanted to know how much protein each muffin had so she worked out how many grams of protein each ingredient contained and then divided the total number by 12. She came up with 6.3 grams per muffin, not bad.

I generally use roasted almond butter in my baking recipes, including the recipes in my new Nourishing Meals cookbook. The brand I like to use for these recipes is Zinke Orchards. Although this almond butter is not certified organic it does come from spray-free almonds, and at a very good price. For eating or raw recipes, we like to use raw organic or raw sprouted almond butter.

Gluten-Free Cinnamon Rolls (egg-free, vegan, refined sugar-free)

Happy Holidays! I created this yummy gluten-free, vegan cinnamon roll recipe about a month ago and have been looking forward to posting it here for you all! It makes a fun treat to share with family and friends around the holidays. This recipe uses a mix of a few gluten-free whole grain flours along with ground golden flax seeds to add structure and tenderness. It's actually a version of the gluten-free breadstick recipe in my new cookbook.

If you follow me on Instagram I am sure you've seen a few cinnamon roll photos already. So as promised, here it is...finally!

Beyond Breakfast Cereal: Healthy Options to Start your Day!

Many of of grew up on cold breakfast cereal with cow's milk. I did a little research and learned how this tradition began, because you see, humans have only recently begun to rely on these processed foods. Our ancestors always consumed real whole foods. Cold breakfast cereals started to become popular in the late 1800's, when Keith Kellogg discovered a pot of wheat that had been overcooked and then dried into separate flakes. He soon thereafter created Cornflakes and later Rice Krispies. Breakfast cereals are made by a process of extrusion in which ingredients, often starchy foods, are processed at high temperatures and forced through an extruder to create a specific shape. Starchy foods processed at high temperatures create a lot of browning and something called Advanced Glycated End Products, or AGES. Eating these types of foods every morning can wreak havoc on your body.

Breakfast cereals have more things against them as well. They often add a high amount of refined sugars, colorings, flavorings, contaminated low quality vitamins and minerals, and GMO ingredients. Laboratory testing of low quality nutritional supplements shows they may contain contaminants such as chemical solvents, heavy metals, and preservatives such as sodium benzoate, BHA, BHT, etc. Many people are irate that the cereal companies they trusted and fed to their families contain GMO ingredients. You can go read the Facebook pages for Kelloggs, Cheerios, and Nature Valley. They are all lit up right now with comments from concerned people calling them out on their use of toxic GMO ingredients.

The reality is that we shouldn't be consuming cold breakfast cereal at all, even the natural organic brands. There are far healthier options that will give you long lasting energy, help keep moods and behaviors balanced, and provide the right nutrients for brain function and growth. Try out a few of the options below and see what makes you feel best. This might change daily, weekly, or even seasonally. There isn't one right way as long as you are sticking with whole organic foods.

Morning Winter Fruit Bowls with Hemp Seeds and Cacao Nibs

My mother-in-law was visiting earlier this month and she likes to make fruit bowls every morning along with a green smoothie right after her her morning "blissipline" routine. She's almost 70 and is in much better shape than me! Our children love to watch her do the splits and headstands. When Tom was 10 years old she transitioned the family to a vegan diet with the help of their family doctor at the time, Dr. John McDougall. Tom remained a vegan for about 30 years until last year when he began to eat a small amount of wild fish and pastured meats. My mother-in-law is still predominately vegan with a heavy emphasis on raw plant foods. And you can tell by her glowing skin. You can't beat nature's most perfect food.....plants! These fruit bowls are so packed with disease-preventing, life-enhancing phytochemicals.....your body will thank you.

Every morning she had the kids make a list of what they wanted in their fruit bowls. The boys made large spirals because they can't write letters yet. The girls worked on their lists every day to have ready for her. Then she set each bowl out and filled their orders. Pomegranates, apples, pears, oranges, avocados, cashews, brazil nuts, and chopped fresh ginger (for my oldest ginger-loving daughter). Eating a large bowl of fruit and nuts in the morning is actually quite filling and very energizing.

Harvest Green Smoothie

It is harvest time and we are working on ways to not only preserve the harvest but also to use up nature's bounty while it is nice and fresh. Green smoothies are a great way to use up fresh produce. Plus, they are the perfect vehicle to deliver raw, digestible green vegetables to your children! We began giving green smoothies to our children when they were around nine months old. We always made them without lemon until they were at least twelve months old because citrus can sometimes be harsh on a baby's digestive system.

Offering smoothies when they are young primes their taste buds and other sensory organs, such as the eyes, to like and beg for these drinks. Children who don't get them when they are very young sometimes have a harder time adapting to drinking something bright green when first introduced. Our 3 year old twins love green smoothies. You can watch them help prepare a smoothie with Tom in this video when they were two years old. The other day, I told them that I was going to make a green smoothie but I was still busy in the kitchen with another project. One of my twins said...."mommy when are you going to make the green moothie......momMY, PLEASE make the moothie NOW!" After I made it they each gulped down about 12 ounces. If your child isn't fond of green smoothies, try making them with mostly fruit and maybe only one kale leaf, then, over the days and weeks that you make them, slowly add more greens to let your child's taste buds adapt. Keep trying! Sometimes it takes 15 times of tasting something new for your child to accept it. A straw can also make smoothie time fun! I don't buy plastic straws, but if I were ever to buy some I would purchase either stainless steel or glass drinking straws.

Rice Breakfast Porridge

We have a newborn baby in the house now and that means that our meals have changed a little. A few weeks ago our sweet new baby girl, Camille Rose Malterre, arrived peacefully in our home by candlelight.....a successful VBAC at home! Our children were all there to witness her birth, though we couldn't really wake our 3-year old twin boys to be fully present. I put myself on a mildly restrictive breastfeeding elimination diet once she was born to help ease the transition into life outside the womb.

Newborn babies have such delicate digestive systems up until around three months of age. Compounds in certain foods can cause fussiness and crying, excess gas, and even skin rashes in the breastfeeding baby. Luckily it is really simple to just remove the most common offending foods from your diet at birth or before to keep baby calm and happy. I actually removed any dairy I was eating a few weeks before she was born as it can take up to a month for dairy to clear your system. Dairy, specifically the casein protein, is often the cause of a lot of digestive and skin issues in newborns. Our sweet baby girl has been sleeping through the night since she was a few days old and is a very peaceful, happy baby.....just like our first daughter, Lily. She has had a few bouts of fussiness, you know the kind where they are really uncomfortable and want to nurse and then cry and then nurse and then cry and so on. I realized those were the days that I had eaten citrus. Testing it one more time to make sure, we found that this is the one food that I simply cannot eat. I have not tested them all, such as dairy, cruciferous vegetables, or raw garlic, and in fact, I would suggest not testing these three foods for many months. I can eat cooked onions, a little cooked garlic, and tomatoes....oh we have been enjoying tomatoes in all sorts of recipes lately, thank goodness!

Baby Camille, 3 weeks, with big sister Grace

I did a great post a year or so ago on Nourishing the New Mom with a list of foods to eat and not to eat in the postpartum period. You can refer to that for more information. Below is a short list on the most common foods breastfeeding babies can react to. I would suggest to avoid them all at the time of birth and then if you are feeling up for it, slowly challenge each food in every 4 days, similar to our Elimination Diet. Please note that some babies require mom to go on a much stricter elimination diet, usually eliminating most foods and sticking with only with rice, millet, quinoa, chicken, turkey, yams, squash, salad greens, olive oil, and sea salt for 2 weeks and then slowly adding back in foods like nuts and seeds, other mild fruits and vegetables, and lastly, those listed below to determine the source of baby's upset.

Foods that most often cause issues in the breastfeeding baby:

• dairy (including goat and sheep)
• eggs
• raw onions and garlic (sometimes cooked can also aggravate babies) 
• citrus
• tomatoes
• a lot of acidic fruit
• peanuts/peanut butter
• chocolate
• soy
• wheat/gluten
• beef
• caffeine 

Rice Breakfast Porridge

After all of my babies have been born I have craved rice porridge for breakfast and sometimes even as a bedtime snack. It is easy to digest and easy on baby's newly functioning digestive system. Rice porridge can be made out of any brown rice but our favorite is Brown Jasmine Rice. You can try sweet brown rice, short grain, or even black rice if you desire. I like to top my bowl with a little coconut sugar, ground raw almonds, and lately, fresh nectarines or peaches. We have been buying boxes of fresh, organic fruit every week from Smallwood Farms (delivered to Bellingham once a week). They have the most delicious fruit imaginable, plus we save a lot of money buying it by the case! I have been working to freeze and dehydrate most of it to store for the winter.

2 cups uncooked long grain brown rice
6 to 8 cups water
¼ teaspoon sea salt


Optional Toppings:
ground raw almonds
coconut sugar or maple syrup
cinnamon
frozen blueberries 

diced apples

chopped peaches or nectarines
raisins

Place the rice into a coffee grinder or high-powered blender and grind into a very fine meal, not as fine as flour, but not too coarse either. We use the dry container of our Vita-Mix to grind the rice and then the almonds for the topping.

Place the water into a 3-quart saucepan and heat over medium heat until warm. Pour in the ground rice, whisk together immediately. Turn heat up and bring cereal to a boil, stirring constantly.

Once boiling, reduce heat to medium or medium-low. Cover and simmer for about 10 minutes. Remove lid and whisk cereal occasionally, adding more water if necessary depending on desired thickness. Cook for a few more minutes then remove from heat. Cereal will thicken as it cools.

Scoop into serving bowls and top with your favorite toppings. Source: www.NourishingMeals.com

Baby and I in the kitchen of course! 

More Breakfast Ideas:

Teff Banana Pancakes

Strawberry Almond Smoothie

Apple-Cinnamon Quinoa

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Rhubarb Scones (gluten-free + egg-free)

Rhubarb is in season here! It is almost like the first fruit of the season. There are so many creative ways to use rhubarb, such as in compotes, pies, jams, sauces, crisps, scones, and ice cream! If you have any more ideas please share. These gluten-free, vegan rhubarb scones make a tasty breakfast treat or afternoon snack with tea.

This is another recipe of mine that doesn't require any starches or xanthan gum. The binding action comes from the chia seeds and sweet rice flour. If you are looking for a good source of chia seeds that are a little less expensive than buying them at your local health food store, I found them on sale today at Nutiva.com. I usually buy a ten pound bag from Azure Standard but forgot to include it in my recent order. Be sure to store them in your refrigerator. I usually grind about a cup in my Vitamix to use during the week. I store the ground seeds in a tightly sealed glass jar in my refrigerator.

Buckwheat Hazelnut Pancakes

If you have been following my blog for a while you'll know that I am a big fan of buckwheat. I buy the raw groats and then grind them myself in the dry container of my Vitamix. Raw Buckwheat Groats are soft and can also be easily ground in a coffee grinder if you don't happen to have a Vitamix. The resulting flour is very mild, creating tender, flavorful pancakes or baked goods. The buckwheat flour you find in the stores is made from roasted buckwheat groats, creating a very strong flavor, which most people don't like. Another thing about raw buckwheat is that it has its own binding power. You'll notice as you mix the batter together it becomes rather "stringy" much like a gluten flour. For this reason, it doesn't require any gums, although pancakes never do.

Buckwheat is not a grain, but rather a seed. It actually has compounds in it that help regulate blood sugar. For this reason it is a great flour to use if you are diabetic.

One of our children's favorite breakfast recipes is the Buckwheat Pancake recipe in my first book, The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook. A few months ago I began adding Hazelnut Meal to the batter to add extra protein and flavor (for this pregnant mama). I never measure, because if the first pancake doesn't turn out quite right you can easily adjust the batter. I finally nailed down the recipe to share with you, just in time for Mother's Day!

Almond Flour Scones

Today I am excited to share with you a wonderful cookbook using almond flour. The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook, by Elana Amsterdam. I have one signed copy to give away, see details below.

Have any of you baked with almond flour before? If not, it is a luscious gluten-free flour made from blanched almonds, also called blanched almond flour. It is a high-protein, low glycemic flour that creates rich, moist, and tender gluten-free baked goods. Blanched almond flour is not the same as Bob's Red Mill almond meal/flour. So be sure not to interchange the two in Elana's recipes.

You can purchase almond flour online at Lucy's Kitchen Shop or Honeyville or Benefit your Life. I feel lucky that Lucy's is right here in Bellingham, Washington! I call and place my order and then go pick it up...no shipping charges!



These scones are out of Elana's cookbook and are entitled, Orange Apricot Scones. I love that they are predominately sweetened with pureed dried apricots and orange juice. I was busy working on my new cookbook when these scones were baking and forgot about them. They were supposed to bake for only 10 to 15 minutes but I baked them for over 30 minutes! Every timing device I have purchased has been dismembered or dunked in the toilet by one of my toddler twin boys so I go by the clock and my sense of smell. This time I was distracted and you'll notice the burned bottoms and golden color of the scones. Totally my fault, not the recipe's.

The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook is filled with healthy grain-free recipes from cakes and cupcakes to salmon burgers and quiche. The Olive Rosemary Bread and Pancakes are next on my list to make. The photos in the book are so enticing! A good portion of the recipes use eggs but there are also many vegan recipes. If you are egg-sensitive, please still consider this book, you'll find many outstanding, nutritious recipes to choose from.

Elana also has a gluten-free, whole foods blog: www.ElanasPantry.com. You'll find simple, healthy, grain-free recipes there that are all family-friendly.

To be entered in this giveaway to win a signed copy of The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook, please leave a comment below. Be sure to include your name or initials. Anonymous comments with no name attached will not be counted. Also, be sure to check back later this week to see if you have won! I have no way of contacting you, unless you have an email address in your Blogger profile (if you have one). The giveaway will be open until this coming Thursday, March 3rd, 2011 at 9pm PST.

Please Note: all blog comments go into moderation which means once you add your comment below it won't appear until I publish it. I do this to avoid the gazillion spam comments that come through every day from appearing on the blog. Thanks for understanding! :)

Update: This contest is now closed. We have a winner! Joy Gilraine can you please email me with your mailing address so I can get this wonderful cookbook sent to you? Thanks everyone for entering! Here is the winning comment: Goldwood Gardens said...Thanks for always leading me to great new cookbooks! I would love to win this book! Joy Gilraine


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Grain-Free, Dairy-Free Coffee Cake

This scrumptious gluten-free, grain-free, sugar-free, and dairy-free coffee cake recipe comes from Kelly Brozyna's new cookbook, Grain-Free Baked Goods and Desserts! It is one of those recipes that is nutritious enough to stand alone at breakfast time, though I prefer to serve it with a Green Smoothie! It is filled with cooked white beans, coconut flour, eggs, and a little honey and stevia! My children love this recipe and as the neighbor girl who was visiting today said, "I can't believe this is gluten-free, it is so good!"

As a kick-off to the giving season, I have one signed copy of her book that I am giving away today! In fact, every post in the next three weeks will have a book or product being given away to one of you! All you need to do is leave a comment below to enter.

Last year I reviewed Kelly's first book, The Spunky Coconut Cookbook. A year later, I am back with more praise for her second book! I love how nutritious and kid-friendly all of Kelly's recipes are. As the title describes, this book is grain-free, but also completely casein-free, soy-free, and refined sugar-free. Many of the recipes are also egg-free. If you are vegan or are sensitive to eating eggs then you will still find plenty of recipes in this book to suit your needs. This book also works well for diabetics and others with blood sugar metabolism issues.

Both of Kelly's books are filled with beautiful, color photos. My children like to sit down with the new book and page through it picking out all of the recipes they want me to make! They also think it's pretty neat that I wrote the foreword for her book. Below is one of our favorite recipes from her book, enjoy!

Gluten-Free, Egg-Free Biscuit Recipe

We like to make biscuits around here. I grew up making biscuits with my mother and on occasion with my grandmother who never measured a single ingredient. She went by the way the dough looked and felt between her fingertips. That's the way to make biscuits. The art of making biscuits may take some practice but the results are worth it! The following recipe is one of a few I have created. This one is a spin-off of a recipe in my cookbook using sorghum flour in place of the brown rice flour with a few other minor changes.

Tips for making Gluten-Free Biscuits:

• Be sure your butter, palm shortening, or coconut oil is cold!
• Real butter gives the best flavor and texture and is what I used in the gluten-free biscuits pictured here. Be sure to use organic butter! :)
• I always make sure the milk I am using has been chilled for at least 2-3 hours.
• Handle the dough as little as possible! Even though there is no gluten in the dough to over-develop, working with the dough too much causes it to become dense.
• If your kitchen is too hot and your fat begins to melt as you work it into the flour, place the whole bowl into the fridge to chill and reconvene when the fat has chilled.
• Instead of cutting the dough into circles, simply form dough into a rectangle and cut into 16 squares with a large knife. This creates much less handling of the dough.

Strawberry-Almond Smoothie (dairy-free)

Back to the blog at last! I am sharing with you today one of our favorite high protein smoothies, without protein powder! Soaked raw almonds: one of nature's most digestible vegan protein sources. We've probably made every variation under the sun when it comes to a soaked almond smoothie, but since it is spring, it is time for the Strawberry Almond Smoothie to make an appearance on this blog.

Soaking raw almonds for about 8 hours in a small bowl of water causes them to soften considerably and plump up. Our kids take much delight in popping the almonds out of their skins and eating them. Basically, you take the amount of almonds you desire, place them into a bowl and cover with about and inch of pure water. If you are planning on making your own homemade raw almond milk, this is how you would begin. For this smoothie I simply drain and rinse the almonds after they have soaked overnight and blend with water until very smooth. If you are making almond milk you would strain the pulp through cheesecloth, but for this smoothie we leave all of the good fiber in the blender and add frozen fruit, blend again, and voila ~ a high protein, nutrient dense smoothie!

Apple-Cinnamon Teff Pancakes

I'm going to take another quick break from posting Elimination Diet recipes and share a favorite gluten-free, dairy-free pancake recipe with you. You all probably know how much I adore teff, right? I have many teff recipes on this blog that you can browse through. This lovely, warming pancake recipe is a spin off my vegan Teff Banana Pancakes. There are a few differences, mainly that I am using eggs in this recipe and replacing mashed banana with applesauce.

I buy my teff flour in 25 pound paper bags from Azure Standard. The company that makes the teff flour is called The Teff Company. 25 pounds costs me $38 ~ which is really a fantastic price if you compare the cost of one small bag of teff flour from the co-op.

For those of you who don't like to add any starch to gluten-free recipes you can make this recipe without tapioca flour, however, the end result is a bit crumbly. You can easily make gluten-free pancakes and waffles without xanthan gum, but leaving out the starch as well makes things a little tricky. My kids normally like this recipe, but when I replaced the tapioca flour with an extra 1/2 cup of teff flour they didn't really eat them stating that they couldn't use a fork and "they're too crumbly mom, what did you do to them!"

Apple-Cinnamon Teff Pancakes

This recipe makes about ten 6 to 7-inch pancakes, enough to feed my four hungry children in the morning with a few extras for leftovers. You can easily cut this recipe in half for smaller families. If you want to make these egg-free then follow the recipe for Teff Banana Pancakes and replace the banana with applesauce, remembering to add the cinnamon. I made a simple apple-cinnamon topping for these by simmering one sliced apple in a little water with a few dashes of maple syrup and ground cinnamon for about 10 minutes. You can follow an exact recipe for this topping here. Enjoy! :)

Dry Ingredients:

2 cups dark brown teff flour

1/2 cup tapioca flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 tablespoon cinnamon

Wet Ingredients:

2 cups non-dairy milk

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

2 large organic eggs

3 tablespoons melted virgin coconut oil

3 tablespoons pure maple syrup (Grade B)

Begin to heat a 10-inch skillet over medium heat. (You may need to adjust the temp for cooking). I melt the coconut oil in here while I mix the dry ingredients. Measure it after it as melted.

Whisk the dry ingredients together in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Add the wet ingredients. Whisk together well.

Make sure your pan still has a little coconut oil on the bottom (just a little). Use a 1/2 cup measure to pour the batter into the pan. Cook for 60 to 90 seconds on one side, then flip and cook for 30 to 60 seconds on the second side. Add about 1/2 teaspoon of oil in between pancakes. Adjust the cooking temp as needed. I cook mine just under medium. Source: www.NourishingMeals.com.

More Pancake & Waffle Recipes:

Pumpkin Pancakes

Whole Grain Waffles

Blueberry Syrup

You may also like:

Baking Powder Recipe from The Spunky Coconut

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Adzuki Bean & Yam Hash

Alright, an elimination diet breakfast recipe seems to be in order. We've been enjoying this recipe all week. I just don't think it gets any better than yams, beans, and collard greens! What a nutritious way to start your day! Use this recipe during Phase 2 of our Elimination Diet. 

Tom couldn't get enough of this recipe and kept going back for more each time I made it. In fact, I keep finding his empty bowls in the office! We have been serving this over cooked quinoa with sliced avocado on top. I bet it would also be great wrapped in Napa cabbage leaves as a "burrito."