Grain and Bean Salads To GO!

Today I have a very simple grain and bean salad recipe for you. Something you can easily whip up if you have leftover grains and beans. My children love this salad. Today I made it for Tom and packed it up for him to take on a two day trip to Seattle.

If you have been following my last few posts, you'll know that I have been totally consumed taking care of all four of my children whom have had the chicken pox. Luckily now they will have lifetime immunity! The end of this week marks 5 whole continuous weeks of dealing with this. Now we are on the home stretch. My last child, 16 month old Ben, has them this week. He had a 105.3 fever the other night, the highest I have ever seen a fever before.

Thank goodness for breast milk, which was his only food for almost 2 days. He was not interested in food or water and I would imagine would have been very dehydrated if it weren't for mama's milk. Now today, he is beginning to get his little Benny spunk back and has been busily playing outside for most of the day.

Spring Green Smoothie

Spring is here, hurray! Spring is a time of change, a time to detox, and a time for greens. How fitting that after a long season of warming dense foods one of the only fresh things available at this time (if we just reverted back to the pre-industrial era) are bitter greens.

Bitter greens contain compounds that help the liver with its multitude of functions. If you are curious, the liver is the second largest organ in the human body and performs over 500 different jobs! We need to take care of our livers. We breathe, ingest, and absorb toxic compounds daily. In addition, our bodies produce poisonous compounds during normal biochemical reactions. It is the liver who is responsible for filtering the blood to remove these toxins and excess hormones. The liver then changes the chemical structure of those toxins to make them water soluble so that they can be excreted in the urine.

Did you know that many of the most dangerous toxins are fat soluble? Unless these compounds are detoxified they are more likely to lodge in your cells and remain there causing damage. This is why a diet high in animal products, organic or not, dramatically increases your intake of toxic compounds. (Organic and sustainably raised animal products have less toxic compounds stored in their bodies, but it isn't possible to get away from them completely). By supporting your liver with certain foods, you can detoxify and dramatically increase your energy and quality of life!

Now, what foods support the liver? We are looking for foods that contain nutrients to produce and activate enzymes involved in the various phases of detoxification. So what are they?

• Sulfur-containing foods such as onions, garlic, and legumes are a good start.
• Cabbage family vegetables such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale, and cabbage are very important.
• Foods high in water-soluble fiber such as pears, apples, and oatmeal are fairly easy to consume on a regular basis.


• Certain spices even help such as turmeric, cinnamon, and licorice root. Hmmm, you see why we eat a lot of curry!
• And lastly, greens, glorious greens! All green foods are particularly important in liver health.

Curried Carrot Cauliflower Soup

I created this soup today for lunch basically out of a craving for something healing and nourishing, while being warming and spicy all at the same time.

It is fairly easy to make and comes together rather quickly. We served it with cooked quinoa. A very simple lunch. Though Tom's response was, "Wow Al (his nickname for me) this soup is amazing (as he was coming back into the kitchen for seconds), there is so much depth of flavor here, thanks for making this."

All of our children loved it too, as you can see by the empty bowls in the photos below!

We only have a small portion leftover, but I'll bet this soup would freeze well for those of you with smaller families. :)

Vegan, Grain-Free, Sugar-Free Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes

You are in for a real treat today! The other night I had an early morning dream of these cupcakes with the recipe clearly spelled out for me. I was in sort of a lucid dream-like state and knew I needed to write it down. But alas, I have been exhausted caring for my children who have the chicken pox (and Tom who apparently did not have them as a child). So I fell back asleep with them playing on the bed. The next time I awoke I had the recipe in the forefront of my now awake mind. I asked my seven year old, Lily, to run and get me a pen and paper. I quickly wrote it down before it disappeared into my daily routine.

I don't know if it was because I was reading Shirley's GFE blog the other night and looking at her delectable chocolate cake or what - but this type of recipe is not the norm for me. I have never made anything completely from almond flour and vegan nonetheless!

But here it was, so I thought I should at least try it out. Since the only almond flour I had was Bob's Red Mill (a rather coarse blanched almond flour) this is what I used. The result was very tasty and brownie-like but too chunky. I knew there were finer ground almond flours out there, so I googled it. Lucy's Kitchen Shop popped up. I had heard of Lucy before because she is local and has written a Specific Carbohydrate Diet cookbook that was displayed next to our cookbook at our local Co-op when it first came out.

Naturally, I called her up to see how soon I could get some of this very finely ground flour. She was lovely to speak with and I paid over the phone and stopped by her house a few hours later to pick it up!

Today I tried them with my new flour and they are oh so delicious! Simple ingredients but the end result is rich and delicious with a full-bodied chocolate flavor. This cupcake is not for the faint at heart! I had planned on posting my Lemon Poppy Seed Tea Bread for Easter but since this recipe came to me I thought I would share this one.

Now, if you are willing, I would love to know what interests you the most as far as gluten-free baking goes. Vegan? Sugar-Free? Grain-Free? Nut-Free? Everything-Free? Just Gluten-Free? Your feedback will help me with the next book (hint, hint) I have been working on. I would love to hear from you! There is a "Comment" section you can click on at the bottom of each post where you can leave a little something for me to read. You can also email me but your note may get lost in the sea of emails I receive. (If I have not responded to an email you sent, I am very sorry, just busy, please send it again!)

Yellow Split Pea Dal

Well, we have been very busy lately. Hence the two week gap in posting to the blog. Tom has been working for months now round the clock on a research paper entitled "Nutritional Deficiencies in Celiac Disease, is Supplementation Necessary?" He is just about done with it, and I am looking forward to reading it! I will let you know when it is published and provide a link to it.

And here on the home front we have been dealing with the infamous Chicken Pox running through all of four of our children. Our seven year old got it first, two weeks ago, and now our four year old and one of our twin boys has it. The other twin has yet to get it but I imagine we are just around the corner from it. Better to just get it all done at once I guess!

Did you know that Olive Leaf extract helps with chicken pox? I give it to the girls in a capsule and we also break open the capsules and make a paste with water and coconut oil to spread on their skin. It helps to stop the virus from replicating. Just thought I would share this little piece of invaluable information.

On to food now...

The other night I was craving some sort of spicy red lentil dal, but when I went into the pantry to get out the lentils I realized we were out. I had a container of yellow split peas so I thought I would try those out. I just dumped everything into the pot without measuring and out came a fabulous, comforting, spicy dal (Indian stew) that we served over quinoa. So tonight I set off to recreate my "masterpiece" by measuring everything as I added it to the pot.

We served it tonight over cooked quinoa again with Roasted Cauliflower on the side. I tossed the cauliflower with olive oil, sea salt, and cumin seeds. I roasted it in the oven at 425 for about 10 to 15 minutes. Mmm, my 15 month old twins love roasted cauliflower!

Did you know that Costco now sells organic, gluten-free, pre-washed quinoa? A friend of mine bought 2 bags for me, I think it was $10 per 4 pound bag. This is a great price for quinoa! TruRoots is the brand name if you are curious.