Friday, December 31, 2010

No-egg cauliflower breadsticks



Kona keeping her feet mud free with her new Christmas booties.

First attempt cauliflower breadsticks with no egg.





This past year has brought me several health victories. I have candida and sinus issues under control, not that it's not an on-going battle to maintain the delicate equilibrium of good and bad bacteria. I know I still am susceptible. One of the most telltale signs is my winter problem with athlete's foot. I have to disinfect my yoga mat frequently, keep my shower clean as a whistle and put baby powder in my shocks daily to keep my tootsies free of this problem.

Even as New Year's approaches, I'm not planning to go whole hog and abandon my low-carb, low-glycemic diet. I guess it's something I will have to do for my lifetime. One health issue that I continue to tackle is chronic muscle pain that hasn't disappeared with the candida diet. My pain is somewhat arthritic-like but confined to only muscles, not joints.

I recently did some research on nightshade allergy/intolerance to help a friend who potentially has rheumatoid arthritis. As I read the symptoms, I began to see myself and decided to eliminate my lovely peppers and tomatoes from my diet. Nightshade vegetables can cause or contribute to arthritis symptoms in sensitive individuals. I have already eliminated potatoes and eggplants, also nightshade, so I thought what the heck. It's worth a try. In some studies, 70-80 percent of participants found relief from their pain by strictly eliminating nightshade foods. I've gone three days so far; too soon to tell.

New Year's Eve has me planning what to cook. But Kona, my 12-year-old pup, has been out frolicking in her new booties she got for Christmas. We decided to purchase some for her because she looks forlorn every time we have to leave her in the garage to let her muddy feet dry out before coming indoors. The booties solve the problem. She's so docile she doesn't care a bit when I put them on her or when she's running around in them.

I decided to try out some appetizer recipes for New Year's. The cauliflower breadsticks came out of seeing a post numerous places for cauliflower pizza. Unfortunately, the recipe uses egg and cheese. I am allergic to eggs and cheese is off limits for candida. My first attempt yielded tasty but somewhat flimsy breadsticks. That egg would be a great addition so if it's not a problem go for it.

Cauliflower Breadsticks
Ingredients:
1 cup riced cauliflower
1/4 cup garbanzo bean flour
salt and pepper
1 T. olive oil
herbs such as basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary
Optional: one egg

Directions:

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Spray and lightly oil a baking sheet.

To rice cauliflower, steam 1/2 head of cauliflower cut into florettes just until fork tender. Drain the cauliflower and place in your food processor. Pulse until the cauliflower becomes pearl-sized.

Mix 1/4 cup garbanzo bean flour with 3/4-1 cup water. Stir to blend. Let set until it thickens. It should be the thickness of thin pudding. Add olive oil, herbs, salt and pepper, and cauliflower. Stir to blend.

Preheat the baking sheet slightly in the oven to distribute the oil evenly on the pan. Spoon and spread the batter on the pan. The batter should  be thick enough to shape into a rectangle about 1/4-inch thick.

Bake for 12 minutes or longer until batter is cooked and set. Remove the pan from the oven. Allow the cooked batter to cool slightly. Then, cut into breadsticks with a pizza cutter.

Turn the oven up to broil. Place the breadsticks back in the oven until they are crispy but watch them carefully to prevent burning.

Allow the breadsticks to cool slightly again. They will be somewhat fragile until fairly cool.

I thought they were pretty tasty but next time I will add more herbs and try adding some chia slurry or flax slurry to get them to bind together better. If anyone has success with this, let me know.

Friday, December 24, 2010

Anti-Candida Christmas dessert recipe

What's Christmas dinner without dessert, even for us candida folks? My dessert uses some of the trail mix I talked about in my first post about by Christmas dinner menu at http://catsinthekitchen.blogspot.com/2010/12/anti-candida-christmas-dinner.html. It also makes use of my favorite vanilla tea smoothie recipe at http://catsinthekitchen.blogspot.com/2010/09/sleepytime-vanilla-tea-smoothie-acd.html.

I simply whipped up some of this smoothie in the morning and poured it into a freezer-safe container. I stored it in the freezer all day and took it out in the evening. After thawing it out slightly, I spooned it into my food processor and blended it on high into an soft-serve ice cream consistency. It really does resemble soft-serve ice cream.

Spoon this frozen dessert into a ice-cream dish and top off with a tablespoon of trail mix and voila: dessert for anti-candida me!

Merry Christmas everyone! 

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Anti-candida Christmas dinner continued

The mock mashed potatoes came out oh so yummy. I'd say better than real mashed potatoes. The combination of rutabagas and cauliflower had a almost sweet taste which made the lack of butter unnoticeable.

I will serve this side dish as part of my candida Christmas dinner. Get the full menu in my previous post at
http://catsinthekitchen.blogspot.com/2010/12/anti-candida-christmas-dinner.html.


Here's the recipe I created for Mock Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients:
• 1 head of cauliflower, washed, trimmed and chopped into pieces.

• 3-4 medium rutabagas, washed, peeled and cut into one-inch pieces.

• Chicken broth

• Hemp milk or other alternative dairy beverage

• Salt and pepper

Directions:

• Bring water to a boil in two large saucepans. You will need to cook the two veggies separately since the rutabagas will take longer to cook.

• Add a sprinkle of salt to each pot.

• Put the rutabagas in one pot and the cauliflower in the other.

• Cook until each is fork tender.

• Drain both cauliflower and rutabagas.

• Combine the two veggies in a large pot.

• Add a bit of chicken broth, milk of your choice, salt and pepper.

• Start the mashing process with a potato masher.

• Add more liquids if needed.

• Finish whipping with a hand mixer.

• Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed.

There's one more recipe to practice: the mock vanilla ice cream topped with trail mix. That will be tomorrow.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Anti-candida Christmas dinner

The anti-candida diet has become so much a part of me that it seldom bothers me to sit across from someone eating desserts or bread or other carb-loaded foods. That is until the holidays roll around. Then, it starts to bother me again. All the traditional Christmas foods are paraded in front of me via advertising, parties, etc.

It's hard to not feel a bit resentful but this year, I've planned a counterattack because I want to stay as mellow as my cat, Pumpkin, sleeping under the Christmas tree in the photo above. I've carefully planned and even tried the recipes for my anti-candida Christmas dinner. Here's what I have planned for dinner:

  1. Appetizer: cucumber slices, red pepper triangles and other raw veggies with chickpea dip.
  2. Salad: mixed greens or spinach with dried cranberries and avocado.
  3. Entree: roasted free-range turkey. 
  4. Sides: mashed rutabaga/cauliflower blend; roasted brussel sprouts; green beans.
  5. Dessert: ACD-safe vanilla frozen dessert topped with trail mix (cacao bits, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, dried cranberries).
I started my counterattack several days ago by making the dried cranberries. The ones you buy in the store are soaked in sugar which will not work for low-glycemic folks. I'm planning to use the dried cranberries in the salad and as an ingredient in the trail mix.

If you like cranberries a lot, it's a good idea right now to grab a few extra packages while they are cheaper and available, and stow them in the freezer. Here's the procedure/recipe I followed for drying cranberries.

Drying cranberries

  1. Place one bag of fresh or frozen cranberries into a pot with water. Bring the cranberries and water to boil.
  2. Allow the cranberries to sit in the water long enough to burst. Drain the water from the cranberries. Add stevia (either liquid or powder) and toss to coat the cranberries.
  3. Spread the cranberries on a baking sheet. Place in the freezer for at least two hours. The instructions I followed indicated that cranberries dehydrate faster when frozen first. It still took a long, long, long time.
  4. Place the cranberries onto a sheet in a food dehydrator. Allow to dehyrate for 12+ hours. Begin checking after 10 hours to remove the ones that are dry. Note: You could dry the cranberries in your oven as well at 250 degrees.
  5. Store the dried cranberries in a container in the freezer until ready to use.
Well, that completes round one. Next up, making the trail mix which I will use as a topping for the vanilla frozen dessert.

This is super easy. Just toast some pumpkin and sunflower seeds either in a heavy skillet on the stovetop, or in the oven on a baking sheet at 325 degrees. I prefer the stovetop because I can monitor them more carefully. I start by spraying the pan with pan spray and dumping in one cup of each type of seeds. Spread the seeds around; spray with additional pan spray to coat; and salt to taste. Toast the seeds on medium heat until they begin to pop.

Allow the seeds to cool before mixing with 2 T. dried cranberries and 2 T. cacao bits. Store in the freezer to keep yourself from nibbling.

The mashed cauliflower/rutabaga mixture is my project for tonight. Post, directions and picture coming.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Low-carb cranberry salsa



I finally got a photo of my cat pal, Pumpkin, napping with his face down on his paw. It just makes me want to go love him to pieces but he'd never go for that. After all, he is a cat.

I've been trying to expand my fruit repertoire on my low-glycemic, ACD diet. I looked up the nutrition facts for cranberries and discovered if eaten without sugar, they are pretty low carb (6g of carbs with 2g of sugars and 2g of fiber in a 1/2 cup serving). Of course, cranberries without some sort of sweetener are pretty hard to swallow. But they taste delicious when added to a salsa blend or sweetened with stevia. Here's my recipe for Cranberry Salsa. It's tasty on grilled chicken or fish or as a topping on salad. It stores well in the fridge for several days.

Ingredients:
  1. 1 package fresh cranberries
  2. 1 pasilla pepper seeded and chopped roughly
  3. 1 green bell pepper seeded and chopped roughly
  4. 1 cup chopped cilantro
  5. salt and pepper to taste
  6. Optional: onion, hotter peppers
Directions:
  1. Put all the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until ingredients are finely chopped.


Saturday, December 11, 2010

Low-carb turkey with vegetable soup

I love soup all year round but especially during the colder months. The problem is I can never find any at a restaurant or at the market that is suitable for someone, like myself, who needs to follow a low-carb diet and has multiple food allergies (dairy, gluten, corn, eggs).

That's where the old soup pot comes in handy. I can cook up my own "safe-for-me" soup and enjoy it to my heart's content. Recently, I made use of the leftover turkey carcass from Thanksgiving to make a low-carb turkey-vegetable soup. I confess I had never used the carcass before but decided to give it a go after one of my Thanksgiving dinner guests suggested it. There is a considerable amount of time involved with this recipe if you use a turkey carcass but it also can be made with leftover chicken and purchased chicken broth.

Low-Carb Turkey with Vegetable Soup

Step 1: Make the broth
  1. Put the leftover bones and skin from either a turkey or chicken into a large stock pot. Cover with cold water by an inch. Add a quartered onion, chopped celery and tops, chopped carrot, parsley, thyme, a bay leaf and a few peppercorns.
  2. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to bring the stock to a simmer. Add salt and pepper.
  3. Cook for about four hours, uncovered so the stock reduces. Remove the bones and skin. Strain the broth if desired.

Step 2: Make the soup

  1. Add chopped veggies of your choice. I added the sturdier veggies (celery, onions, rutabagas and carrots) first. Skip adding grains or noodles if you want this to be low carb.
  2. Cook and simmer until the veggies are tender (approximately 30-45 minutes).
  3. In the final 10-15 minutes of cooking, add green beans. I also could have added greens, such as spinach, chard or kale, at this time.
  4. Serve with a salad.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Sunbutter dressing

Snow has wrapped my world in a beautiful white blanket. It's amazing how fluffy snow can transform an ordinary landscape and make it something extraordinary.

Sunbutter has a similar power when it comes to food. It can change a recipe into something delicious. One of my favorite uses for sunbutter is in my Sunbutter dressing. I eat a lot of salads and the dressing makes them most enjoyable.

Sunbutter dressing

Ingredients:

  1. 1/4 cup unsweetened, natural sunbutter
  2. 1/4 cup lime juice
  3. 1/8-1/4 cup water
  4. salt and pepper to taste
  5. 1-2 drops of liquid stevia
  6. 1/8 cup flaxseed oil
  7. 1 tsp. each chili powder and cumin
  8. 2 cloves garlic
  9. 1/4 cup fresh cilantro chopped

Directions:

  1. Place all ingredients in a blender or food processor. Reserve 1/8 cup of water to add if the mixture is too thick.
  2. Blend until smooth and creamy. Add additional water if you want it thinner.
  3. Serve over salads, slaws, etc.
  4. Dressing keeps well in refrigerator for a week.