Low Carb Gluten Free Bread (banana bread version too!)

I debated about putting both these recipes here since I rarely post recipes but why not.  I am too excited not to share.  Anyone who low carbs know how hard it is to get a good bread, especially those not filled with fakey things.  I like my food real, thank you!


There are good recipes out there to be sure but many are filled with things I am trying to avoid.  Vital wheat gluten comes to mind.  A variety of low carb mixes with things I can't pronounce nor get without an expensive order over the internet.  Why can't there be a recipe with ingredients I can get at the store?  Is that so hard?

Apparently not because here we have an easy bread recipe that is low carb, gluten free and has simple healthy ingredients I can get at the local health food store, grocery and/or bulk food store.  Bread!  See:

Slices of nice warm bread, very good with butter.  Not only that, I was able to adapt it to make banana bread for the kids.  That isn't so pretty in pictures but sometimes very ugly things are very, very good.  This isn't as low carb but low enough that I feel comfortable eating it (just so you know, there were 6 muffins when I made them and I am home along. Just saying).

So where did I find this great recipe?  Well, I was cruising blogs having to do with paleo and primal blueprint diets and recipes and came across one called "Primal Journey" where she had a recipe for Grain Free Bread. She got it from a blog called "Joyful Abode " (found here) and now I'm sharing it :).  Recipes sure can travel around the internet and I'm sure its been seen in other places too.

Low Carb, Gluten Free Bread

• 1 cup coconut flour, sifted
• 1 cup flax seeds, ground and sifted 
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 11 eggs 
• 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
• 1/3 cup plain full-fat yogurt
• 1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.  Mix together dry ingredients.  In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, coconut oil, yogurt, and vinegar.  Pour  the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in small amounts to incorporate well, mixing after each addition.  Let sit for about 10 minutes to allow the coconut flour to soak up the wet ingredients.  Turn into a greased loaf pan or a silicone pan.  I used a silicone bundt pan for the bread.   Bake until a toothpick comes clean (this depends on what kind of pan you are using.  It took about an hour and a half for mine to come out)  Cool 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a plate, wire rack or a cutting board. Allow to cool completely before slicing.

For the banana bread, the biggest difference is I used one less egg and I added 5 mashed very ripe bananas, 1 tbsp vanilla and 1/3 cup of honey to the wet ingredients.  I also used 1/2 cup of lard left over from when I recently made donuts instead of the coconut oil since I'm being frugal with it (the fat still had a donut flavor and scent to it).


It could of used more sweetening and possible more bananas if you like a strong banana taste.  I found even with 5, the banana taste didn't carry as well as I had expected.  With the chocolate chips, it was delicious!   I will probably only make them as muffins for the kids from now on.  Oh and I baked this in a silicone loaf pan and used a silicone muffin pan.  I love silicone as you do not have to grease it and things pop right out.


I really recommend giving these recipes a try.  I look forward to seeing how my kids like them since I can put them in their lunches.  So many low carb recipes call for nuts as a base and their school is rigidly nut free.  


Part of Kelly The Kitchen Kop's Real Food Wednesday!

Bread, muffins and granola, oh my!

I mentioned the soaked bread I was attempting in the bread machine. Despite losing a lot of liquid, it was a sucess! It rose well, has a wonderful consistency and is yummy. The kids aren't so crazy about it, but they'll live ;). It is good and slices easily for sandwiches.

I made some banana chocolate chip muffins out of the Pharoh's mix I mentioned the other day. Yummers! I actually followed the coffee cake recipe but added an extra egg, 2 cups of mushed banana (there were big chunks of banana in the muffins adding to the yumminess) and a cup of chocolate chips. I put the batter in my heart shaped silicone muffin liners (it made 14) and baked for about a half an hour. So good!! They are moist, tasty and are a definate must make again :). Pretty good for a spelt and kamut muffin! Actually, I was telling DH they are more like a cup cake, but healthier :)

Granola. It is my first attempt at making soaked granola. It has been in the dehydrator for a few hours and I am just now realizing all the things I did wrong, lol! To backtrack, I loosely was following a recipe online. I soaked 3 cups of organic "New found" oats, 1 cup steel cup oats, 1 cup spelt flakes and a cup of spelt flour with 5 cups of water and 6 tablespoons of kefir. I also added a cup of raw sunflower seeds. I let it soak nearly 24 hours then I added 1/2 cup of honey, 1/4 cup dark brown sugar, 1 cup of chocolate chips (need to wean the kids into homemade goodies again with some chocolate) and some vanilla. I mixed well, loaded up the dehydrator and realized, I forgot salt, coconut oil and some other things I meant to put in. At least I will know for next time. It was very soupy. Next time I will follow a recipe properly. I won't post what I used for embarrassment of messing up so badly. It may still turn out good so I won't discount it yet. I want to make granola for the kids that don't have nuts since they can't have any nuts at all at school, except coconut.

In other news, we are going to the valley tomorrow, yay! I plan to come home with about 200lbs or more of fresh fall produce. Carrots and turnip/rutabagas to put up in sawdust, squash, pumpkins, kale to dry, another gallon of honey, a big bag of organic sugar and more. I imagine our trunk will be FULL!! I want to go to the place that has pork. I couldn't decide between a side of pork or a quarter beef first, but I think I will go with the beef since we have a ton of pork in the freezer. I will pick up some of their natural bacon and maybe some sausage. I will have to bring a cooler! It's just a day trip, but it will be productive.

As well, I plan on taking part in The Nourished Kitchen's Real Food For Real Families series. It is a low cost approach to real food on a budget. I look forward to it! Our budget is shrinking while our food needs keep growing.

Well, my Monday Market Report should be a little bigger than usual, but it will feed us a good long time!

A Hearty Lunch

One thing I like about the kids being in school is I can experiment with meals for lunch. I had the idea in my head for today's lunch since last week but I wanted to wait for a day that Mark would be home for lunch. He suggested we go to KFC for lunch. I thought about it, but realized that once again, something made at home would be better. In case you're wondering why every Tuesday we think about KFC, well, it's because it's "Toonie Tuesday" which means a two piece meal is only $2.79 or so (It used to be $2, which is a Canadian "toonie" but the price keeps going up). I really want to stop eating junk food and find healthy fast home alternative meals instead :)

This took hardly any time to make, about half an hour start to finish. What is it?, you may be wondering. It is Potato Leek Soup served with onion cheese cornmeal muffins. This meal is 100% local-ish (within 100 miles) and 90% organic!

I started by making the muffins. I used a Speerville "Cornucopia" mix. These are $4.49 at Sobeys, all organic, no GMO's, stone ground and local. I used the basic recipe on the side, 2 1/2 cups of mix, 1.5 cups of milk, a glug of oil (my usual method), I used two eggs instead of one and mixed without over mixing. I added in a half cup of grated cheese (could of used more) and about a quarter cup of salted green onions. I poured into heart shaped silicone muffin liners and baked about 20 minutes while I prepared the rest of lunch. (I also have "Pharoh's Favorite" mix which I hope to use soon. This was more expensive at $5.49 a box).

For the soup, I thinly sliced 4 peeled and washed potatoes. This went into a large pot then covered with cold water and 2 sliced onions. While this came to a boil, I thoroughly washed then sliced a big bunch of leeks (about 6). When the potatoes were tender, I added the leeks, a hunk of butter, a couple pinches of salt then let it simmer for about 10 minutes. Before serving I added about a cup of milk. It would be better with cream but I didn't have any. I sprinked with dried herbs before serving (it is a salad mix with garlic, onion, shallots, red onions and parsley). Add a pat of butter on top and serve!

I asked Mark if it was better than KFC and he said it kind of was. The soup was very light but delightful and satisfying to eat. It would be very rich and yummy with cream. The muffins were moist and very tasty. They were very hearty and satisfying. I'm glad we stayed home for lunch :)

As an aside, we have one more store egg before we start eating only free range, farmers market eggs. I know the season for them isn't long so we will enjoy it while we can. The funny thing is that many of the store eggs have much darker yolks than the farmers eggs. Hmmmm.

This post is part of Twister Tuesday at http://gnowfglins.com!!

Donut Muffins? Yum!

I was looking around for recipes that I thought would be good to make for the kids lunches and came across this recipe . Sure sounded like a winner to me! Note to self, learn to take better food pictures!

It took a while for me to get around to making it. When the kids saw it, they knew they would love it. So last night while making supper, I whipped up a batch. They are very easy to make. Shaylee did a lot of the work. They were done by the time we finished supper. I finished them up and tried them. MMmmmmmm!! Very good! Yummy, donut texture, sweet but not too sweet but it had a different taste that I could not put my finger on....kind of spicy but I thought it was just the nutmeg and cinnamon.

Later when I was putting everything away, I realized I put CUMIN in instead of cinnamon, lol! Yeah, that would account for that spicy taste. I used my cinnamon sugar shaker to coat the tops so it still had that cinnamon taste but despite the mix up in spices, they were still good. It was a good reminder to relabel my spices as the letters were wearing off which resulted in the mix up and I was so harried making supper and helping Shaylee get the muffins put together that I didn't even think to smell or double check before tossing it in.

So I linked the site but here is a text copy of the recipe with a couple of my notes added in.

Muffins that Taste Like Donuts
from lemanda on Tasty Kitchen

for the muffins:

1 3/4 cup All-Purpose Flour
1 1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon (NOT cumin, lol!)
1/3 cup Oil (I used olive oil)
3/4 cup White Sugar
1 whole Egg
3/4 cup Milk

for the topping:

1/4 cup Butter
1/3 cup White Sugar
1 Tablespoon Cinnamon

Grease one standard size muffin pan.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. Combine oil, sugar, egg and milk. Add dry ingredients and stir only to combine. Fill standard sized muffin tin with the batter, using a scant 1/4 cup per muffin (note from Carla: I used a silicone muffin pan so they would pop right out after)

Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a bowl. Combine the white sugar with the cinnamon in another bowl. Shake muffins out while still hot. Dip muffins in butter, then into the sugar/cinnamon mix (note from Carla: I just spread the butter on top and sprinkled my cinnamon sugar on top). Let cool. Enjoy!

Makes 1 dozen.

Chocolate Muffins

Ok, this is a highly tweaked recipe so I wanted to make sure I had a copy of what I did since I was just kind of adjusting as I went along. The batter is super yummy!! Ethan has been asking for muffins since I made the first one. I didn't tweak it as much and it had pureed squash instead of pear, but I thought pear would be more subtle.

I'll update after they're done!

Edit: These were really, really good! They puffed up a lot in the oven but deflated a little when they came out but still a good muffin. They had a very cakey texture and smelled soo fudgey and taste delicious! Mmmmmmmm!! The lighter bits are just the oats, which add a nice texture (I added rolled oats to the ones I made before; steel cut definately have a different texture). Ethan even ate one without asking to put frosting on it, which is a big deal, lol! Shaylee is waiting for pie. I don't feel like making banana bread today anymore but will do it tomorrow.


Chocolate Muffins

Preheat oven to 350.

1 cup flour
1/3 cup ground flax
1/3 cup protein powder
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt

Mix these dry ingredients in a bowl. Stir in:

1 cup pear puree
1 cup vanilla soy milk
1/4 cup steel cut oats soaked in 1/2 cup hot water (add oats and water)
1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional; I only had 1/4 cup)

Stir until just moistened. Fill lined muffin cups and bake at 350 for 20 to 30 mins (my oven isn't heating right but this is from the original). Top with favorite toppings to eat!

Banana Bran Muffins

Ok, it's been a while since I posted anything here. I am trying (again) to get the family to eat healthfully and that means I have to find yummy things they will eat that have good nutritional benefits.

This muffin recipe is one I changed quite a bit. It may look intimidating but it is really quite easy and very healthy after the changes I made. It originally called for 2 cups of sugar but I wanted to cut that down some.

Banana Bran Muffins

3 eggs (or equal substitute)
1/3 cup molasses
1/2 cup sugar
Stevia equal to 3/4 to 1 cup, depending on sweetness desired
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup sour cream and 1 cup milk or water (or use 1 cup yogurt and 1/2 cup water)
5 ripe bananas, mashed
3 tsp. baking powder
3 tsp. baking soda
2 tbsp. vanilla

Mix these ingredients together. Beat well then add dry ingredients:

1 tsp. salt
2 cups natural bran
1 cup rolled oats
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup of add ins (raisins, chocolate chips, nuts, ect... *optional*)

Mix until blended. Fill 48 medium or 36 large muffin tin cups that are lined (silicone cups work great!) or make mini muffins or even a cake/bread (cooking time will vary). Let stand for 30 minutes before baking. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until done.

The kids loved the mini muffins. DS ate about 20 mini muffins the first day, lol! I really liked the cake. I just cut a slice off for breakfast and serve with jam or peanut butter. Next time I make it I think I will use 1 cup of flax meal to substitute for another cup of flour.