Pumpkin Banana Muffins with Spiced Honey Butter

My heart is full this morning as I sit down to share this recipe with you. My body is finally healing, I'm surrounded by beautiful people and weather, and have much to look forward to! I'll keep this short so I can go back to sharing these lovely muffins with friends.

Here's what you need to know : grain-free baking is much, much different than traditional, and really doesn't share any more similarities with gluten-free baking either. The product rarely meets your expectation, but for those of us with such restrictions, it is always a special, treasured treat. For those of you who don't know, grain-free typically only includes almond flour/meal or coconut flour. The community is in an uproar over the almond meal nowadays, which is a shame since we only had two solid "flours" to work with from the beginning! So, I've been gearing my test kitchen towards the coconut and I'm very pleased with the result. Coconut flour is far more dense and absorbent than ANY of the flours out there, which can be a challenge when experimenting, but every once in a while, you (perhaps accidentally) make a brilliant move and come to a lovely result. Try these muffins for a healthy twist to an otherwise unhealthy treat. And DON'T skip on making the butter. You want it, trust me. Full fats help us to digest proteins and carbohydrates. I know it's hard, but the low-fat craze is truly nonsense. Get that out of here and eat butter.

Grain-Free Pumpkin Banana Muffins
makes 12

3 eggs (pastured)
2 tbs butter (organic)
2 tbs milk (I used raw)
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbs honey
1.5 ripe bananas, mashed
1/3 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (if you don't have it, throw in a pinch of cloves, nutmeg and 1/4 tsp ginger)
1 tsp cinnamon

- preheat your oven to 375 and line 12 muffin tins with paper cups. Whisk your eggs in a medium sized bowl, incorporate the melted butter (be sure to temper if butter is hot), stir in the milk, honey, vanilla and bananas/pumpkin.
- In a small bowl, combine remaining dry ingredients. Add into wet ingredients and spoon heaping tablespoon-sized dollops into your muffin tin. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. While the muffins are cooling for a few minutes, mix up the butter and serve!

Spiced Honey Butter

4 tbs butter
4 tbs honey
1 tsp cinnamon (other pumpkin pie spices as well, if you prefer!)

- Make sure the butter is at room temperature before stirring all together! Store in the fridge!

GAPS Banana Pancakes with Almond Extract

So, the two ingredient banana pancakes are super for every day eating. But, on those special days when you need something a little more filling or you just want a special treat that is still guilt-free, this recipe is the one for you.

You see, I still crave donuts and other baked goods that I just can't have. My love for food hasn't waned one bit, which is sometimes a problem. Staying on track and focused, especially when I feel better most days, is extra hard. It's funny how just one pain-free moment can make you feel like you have the right to be "normal" again and return to "normal eating." Still dealing with all of these things, but recipes like this really help. They taste like a delicious, non-GAPS baked good. Give them a try!!

Banana Pancakes with Almond Extract
serves two, eight small pancakes total

2 ripe bananas, smashed
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
3 tbs coconut flour
honey for drizzling

- Combine the mashed bananas and whisk in the eggs and extracts. Sprinkle salt, soda, and coconut flour over the mixture, whisk until smooth and allow to sit for five minutes. Pan fry over medium low heat in butter, ghee, or oil. Allow a few bubbles to form before flipping, being cautious as they can burn pretty easily! Drizzle with honey and enjoy!!

Two-Ingredient Pancakes!

The opportunity for change presents itself anew each morning. And one of the first choices you will make during your day is what to eat for breakfast. So, make it a good one. Make a change. You can have pancakes without any kind of flour! How do you like that?

I start every morning of the GAPS diet that I can with these pancakes. I can't get enough of them!

Banana Egg Pancakes
makes eight small pancakes, all for one person!

1 banana
2 eggs
and Ok fine I'll admit it, I add:
1/2 tsp cinnamon
chopped walnuts
but I did just the first two ingredients for a LONG time before branching out. All ways are delicious!

- Mash the banana, whisk in the eggs (and other two ingredients if you like) and pan fry in ghee, butter or coconut oil. Drizzle with a little honey and serve!

Grain-free Zucchini Muffins

Well, friends. After three weeks of bed rest and some of the worst days of my life, I am happy to say that I am now finally coming into a place of healing. My body still has a long way to go, but I at least have a doctor who knows a ton about my condition and the GAPS diet, and I am functional for most of the day! Now, to just get my evenings back and the rest of the symptoms to subside... Natural healing takes a long time, just like spiritual healing. It's an interesting parallel and one that I have been marveling over for the last few days. But anything worth having never happens overnight, and my health is worth it to me. The long road continues, but it's looking like there's a little sunshine on my path for now!

I've always wanted to make drastic changes in my eating habits. I carry around a lot of conviction about and love for food, but I would have never made these changes if I hadn't been thrown into it out of necessity. I'm pretty sure we all have goals health-wise we want to achieve, but knowing where to start is the real struggle.

The way I see it, replacement is everything. And so is prioritization. We can say that eating organic is far too difficult due to expense, but if you do your research and wise meal planning, it's totally possible. When you run out of commercial mayonnaise, make your own - it's cheaper that way anyway! When you run out of deodorant, make your own - definitely cheaper! And as for training your body to not want crap anymore, well that's a long process, but it's much easier to go through with real food recipes like this one! Although I think the primal community totally overdoes it with almond flour, almond meal has a ton of nutritional properties and is only 2.99 at Trader Joe's! Give recipes like this one a try and see if switching to a healthier lifestyle is right for your family!

GAPS Legal Zucchini Muffins
makes 12

2 c almond meal
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 medium organic eggs
1/4 c butter or ghee, melted
1 c packed, shredded zucchini
2/3 c walnuts, chopped
2 tbs honey
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon

- Preheat oven to 350 and lightly olive-oil a muffin tin with a pastry brush. In a small bowl, combine first three ingredients. In a larger bowl, whisk eggs, add in zucchini, walnuts, butter to combine then stir in the final three ingredients. Spoon into the muffin tin and bake for 12-15 minutes. Check right at 12 with a cake tester to see if it comes out clean. If you are concerned about the bottoms burning, use muffin liners! Otherwise, pull out of the oven as soon as they are cooked through, only cool for a minute or two before gently running a knife around the edges of each muffin and popping out to cool on a wire rack. Drizzle with honey for a little more sweetness!

Starting Over

All diseases begin in the gut - Hippocrates

KeepitLuce is about to become a health and wellness blog. So, if you can handle my crazy discoveries, keep reading. Otherwise, it's about to get real in here health-wise, so be prepared!

The last two weeks have been an insane roller coaster of sickness and education for me. I reached my lowest point with ulcerative colitis, mostly due to the fact that I was instructed to take a medication incorrectly. However, for months, I have wanted to truly understand why my gut is the way it is, why MOST of us in America struggle from illness of some description and what helpful effects the drugs that are handed to us so freely actually provide.

I don't have to tell you that we're a society of instant gratification. We put bandaids on relationships and avoid seeking counsel. We work on a surface level, few of us ever achieving dreams because to admit them would be too scary God forbid we fail. And we eat to make ourselves comfortable, or uncomfortable depending on whether or not you feel you exercise enough. We believe in fast fixes and live on the edge of insecurity and breakdown.

I am more than willing to admit that some of you reading this don't live that way but, as a culture, that's what I see. I've been fighting it for a long time, but the ease of comfort food, half-hearted excercise, getting by work-wise and somehow trying to manage a house and relationships take over so much of the time. And I don't think it is ironic that this disease has brought me to my lowest point as a human to really get a hold on why I'm here and what I'm doing.

Whether you consider yourself a spiritual person or not, I think we are all aware of the pull in ourselves to be better, to live for more and in the vein of my spiritual convictions, to treat our bodies as a temple. I've been reminded of that constantly and let me tell you, I don't know about yours, but my temple is in need of some renovations.

When I was first diagnosed with this disease, I was young, couldn't fathom giving up delicious food as I was just beginning to enter the world of foodies, I was in an unhealthy relationship and for goodness sake, I was in my first year of college and my Dad had just survived a really close call with a brain tumor. Just getting through that first year of medications was enough for me. I weaned off of the meds, felt great, ate normally and was in remission for four years, attempting the Maker's Diet once or twice more along the way until this past October. Then it hit me like an eighteen wheeler heading down a Texas highway and the doctors said it was my fault for not being on a maintenance medication. Well, they were right, but I knew that if I would have stuck to a consistent diet and a more stress reduced lifestyle, I could have possibly avoided it on my own. I felt that guilt, dealt with it, started taking medications (paying for them out of pocket thanks to an Rx coverage mixup) and didn't see true healing or results.

When I sat down in my GI's office last week and he explained to me that I would get my life back if I started Remicade, I blinked twice, filled out the paperwork and went home. I didn't think I was that close to losing one of my intestines. I didn't want to start on what some call the chemo-drug, lose my hair after overuse and possibly develop heart failure or lymphoma. I sat with that information for two days by myself, hoping and praying for a different answer and went to my next appointment with a naturopath. He was more encouraging, accepting the severity of my situation and the damages prednisone has been doing to my body, but was hopeful and began me on a regimen of something like 20,000 IUs of vitamin D, a soluble vitamin B and enzymes to increase my immune system's strength, restore my adrenal glands that have been working overtime and penetrate through the bacteria that lives in my body. As I began to understand that although conventional medicine is sometimes brilliant, necessary to save lives in some situations, and the easiest fix for our ailments, I began to truly realize that all of the antibiotics and painkillers and immuno-suppressors that we throw into our bodies are just a cover up. They don't heal, they reduce the symptoms and leave our bodies starving for a real cure. They are a quick fix and they provide long lasting harmful effects. It is kind of a beautiful picture of our lives as beings, too. We have a choice as people to cover up our outward ailments OR we can truly treat them with Love and Hope and Peace. After that appointment, I resolved then to get off of the meds and made a somewhat hasty and foolish decision to do so right away, resulting in a huge flare two days later.

In those two days, I recalled a friend's suggestion to consider the GAPS lifestyle. I looked at it again, resolved to do it and continued with research. I have spent the last week in complete disarray, looking up every possible testimonial for drugs and diet and surgery, fighting depression over the state my body is in and what it will take to get it better, considering ways to taper off of my current drugs, getting G to purchase a blendtec for us, talking to friends, updating family, and trying to get my head to stop spinning from all of it. Luckily, I was able to cancel the week and be home in Delaware while G is away and my trusty Mother has been by my side the whole time helping me to unwind the confusion and make a solid plan.

Now here's what I want you to know. Good bacteria and bad bacteria live in the world, and to acquire some of the good, we usually have to deal with some of the bad. But that delicate balance we require in our gut, is crucial to our entire body. And the more I study GAPS, the more I understand the gut and brain connection and how restarting and restoring your gut can not only cure diseases like mine, it also has the ability to completely remove allergies, to aid in depression and to even help children with autism (as it was created for.)

Back to our society : we believe in low-fat, carbohydrate free living and now some are beginning to get on board with diets like Paleo/Primal as they have begun to see the value in eating whole, sustainable foods accompanied with full fat, well -sourced dairy, oils, and butters that actually aid in digesting proteins and other more complex foods, creating the healthy lining of our intestines that we need. The science of this is fascinating and I can spout off a ton of reasons why you should consider diet change even as a healthy person, but I'm going to let you do that research on your own.

However, if you feel like your brain and your gut need recharging and you are willing to take time NOW to repair the damage that has been done, let's be friends. Let's hold each other accountable. My journey with GAPS starts now. Join me if you like and if you'd rather not, keep reading my posts! They will still contain healthy, everyday recipes for a traditional American diet and may spark an interest in you to eat more whole foods, as they were intended to be.

As this post is mostly for my friends and family, thanks so much for your support. I'll love any of you who still consume white flour and you know you'll find me making cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning because I still believe there is nothing better than kneading bread for those you love. I hope to make it through this introduction diet and grow into a new, healthy lifestyle that we can all share in! Love you all.

Grain-Free Cauliflower Pizza Crust

 Well, this was pretty tasty! I was surprised at the taste and consistency of this alternative to traditional dough. Some substitutes are disappointing at best, but this is surprisingly easy to assemble and delicious to eat! Give it a try, grain-free or not!

Back to a very random week of appointments, meetings, teaching, and rehearsals! Ta-ta!

Grain-Free Cauliflower Pizza Crust
makes 2 pizzas the size of large plates

4 c riced caulfilower (best accomplished in a food processor or with experienced knife skills!)
3 eggs
1 c almond meal
2 tbs olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp kosher sea salt
(depending on your toppings, other savory spice blends!)

- Preheat your oven to 425. Combine all ingredients above in a large bowl until incorporated. Split "dough" into two groupings. Line a large baking sheet *or two small with parchment paper or a silpat and brush with oil or coat with nonstick spray. Plop the mixture onto your coated and lined baking sheets and shape into an oblong shape or oval, patting down to achieve an even height, rounding out edges. Don't thin out so much that it creates holes in the dough! Refer to the picture above.
- Bake for 20 minutes, rotate and bake for another 5-10 or until pretty golden and very set looking. Allow to cool a few minutes before topping (with for example; mozzarella and chicken.) At this point, hold off on any sauces you may be using since this type of crust quickly gets soggy. (If using traditional sauce, warm on the stove and drizzle before serving to avoid crust fail.) Bake toppings for an additional ten minutes or until cheese is melted. (For this pizza, I added a strawberry balsamic reduction as in the picture above - cook down 1 cup chopped strawberries with 4 tbs balsamic and water, simmer until reduced in half, add in 3 tbs honey, reduce again!!)

Grain-Free Cinnamon Rolls

Two posts in two days? What is this? I have two more lined up for the next two days as well, so hold onto your seats!

I usually wouldn't be in such a hurry but these seem to be some popular recipes with my friends, so here you are! The following recipe from a Paleo website endured some minor tweaking from yours truly. But I must say, although not quite like the real thing, to someone who isn't eating many grains, this is quite a treat for weekend brunch and is also quite easy to throw together with little hassle and mess!

For the Rolls 
makes 8

1 and 3/4 c almond meal, fine
1/4 coconut flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 tbs honey
1tbs cinnamon

For the Glaze

4 tbs melted butter
2 tbs honey
dash of vanilla

- If making right away, preheat oven to 325. If making next day, ignore that step. Combine the dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl then add in the 2 eggs. The dough should form a large, wet ball. It should be manageable and not gloopy!
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and lightly brush with oil. Lightly brush oil onto another piece of parchment and place the dough in between. Squish into a rectangle shape about 1/4 inch thick overall. Drizzle with the honey and coat with cinnamon. With the assistance of the parchment, roll into a log carefully, piecing together inevitable cracks in the dough as you go!

- After a tight log is formed, take a fresh piece of parchment and gently wrap around the log, place in a ziplog bag and refrigerate for 30 minutes or until the next morning. Remove the log from the fridge, cut into eight pieces with a greased knife. Place all pieces on a parchment or silpat-lined baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes at 325 or until golden brown.
- Mix the Glaze ingredients together and allow to sit and make a paste. Place dollops onto each roll and serve while warm!