Naturally Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins

Sorry for my silence these days. I'm still running, still cooking, still fermenting, and still eating :) I'll share a quick recipe with you.

These peanut butter chocolate chip muffins are dairy free, gluten free, and have the potential to be grain free.



Naturally Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon vinegar (raw apple cider is my preference)
1/4 cup sweetener (honey, maple syrup, or cane sugar work)
1 cup creamy peanut butter (I prefer Valencia peanut butter with sea salt)
1/4 cup Jarrow brown rice protein powder (optional)
1/4 cup or more water
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips

Beat the eggs with the baking soda, vinegar, and sugar. Add the peanut butter and beat. Slowly add water. Then beat in protein powder, if you choose to use it. Fold in chocolate chips with a rubber spatula.

Divide into 12 muffin tins.

These muffins have 10 grams of protein each if you use the protein powder. My kids love them. They each ate 3! I knew I should have made a double batch.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Bread

Why don't I ever remember to take the picture before I eat some?

I'm always looking for uses for the almond pulp that occurs after straining my almond milk. Almond milk is super easy to make. Soak 1/2 cup of truly raw almonds overnight. Drain and rinse. Put them in a blender with about 3 1/2 cups of water. Blend on the highest speed for close to 1 minute. Strain (I use a metal mesh strainer that I got at IKEA. You can also use cheese cloth). You'll have about 1 cup of wet almond pulp afterwards.

I discovered after soaking some almonds that my dehydrator is not working! So I needed to use this pulp pronto. I had a pumpkin sitting around, so I decided to roast it and make pumpkin bread.

This bread is a combination of this recipe & this recipe. I meant to half both, but didn't do it correctly! So this is what I came up with.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Bread
1 1/4 cup roasted pumpkin (or canned)
5 eggs
1 cup wet almond pulp
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup coconut sugar or honey
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 tablespoon pumpkin spice*
1/4 cup coconut oil

Blend the roasted pumpkin with the eggs and the almond pulp. If you are using canned pumpkin, beating it would likely suffice. Dump the blended mixture into a bowl and stir in the rest of the ingredients. Melt the honey and/or oil if it's solid.

Dump into an oiled round cake pan. Bake at 350°F for about 35-40 minutes until you stick a knife into the middle and it comes out clean. Yum!

*If you have pumpkin pie spice or pumpkin spice from the store, check to see if it has sulfites in it. They use sulfites to keep the ground ginger a pretty color. I mix my own pumpkin pie spice using several recipes from the internet.

Poor Man's Pancakes

I made this up because I had nothing planned for dinner and I have a ton of overripe bananas in the fridge. I am desperate to find uses for them.

So I made up a pancake.

I'm not sure why I chose the name for the pancakes. Forgive me.

Poor Man's Pancakes
1 overripe banana
1 egg
1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Blend the banana & egg in your blender. Pour into a bowl. Mix in flour, baking powder & baking soda.

I quadrupled the recipe, used peanut flour, buckwheat flour, almond flour & brown rice protein powder for "flour" to give them a protein boost.

Spoon about 1/4 cup of batter at a time onto a hot griddle or pan. Flip when bubble. Eat with or without syrup (I put almond butter on mine).

This made 16 pancakes. We ate them all.

Banana Bread: Dairy-free, Grain-free

And Weight Watchers-friendly :)

I joined Weight Watchers again as I have a little bit of weight to lose and I wanted to try their new program. More on that in another post :)

Meanwhile, I'm still eating a low-grain diet and am working on making some of my favorites Weight Watchers-friendly. This is a variation on a Spunky Coconut recipe.

Banana Bread: Dairy-free, Grain-free

Add to blender:
2 bananas
4 eggs
1/8 tsp Vanilla Creme liquid stevia
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp grain-free baking powder

Blend.

Melt in a pan:
1/4 cup honey (I use solid raw honey - if your honey is liquid, no need to melt)
2 tbs coconut oil

Add melted stuff to:
1/4 cup tapioca flour
1/2 cup coconut flour, sifted

This makes sure the melted stuff doesn't cook your eggs.

Dump flours & melted stuff into your blender. Blend again.

Dump into a loaf pan or round cake pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes for round pan & 55 for loaf pan.

Cut into 12 pieces. 3 points each.



Not the best picture, but hey :) You get the idea :)

Grain-free Dairy-free Biscuits

Hi, friends! My blog may not be super-active, but I find myself here often, refering to my own recipes :) I often send people here as well.

Lately, I'm experimenting with eating a low-grain diet, and have been searching for a good biscuit recipe. I found a bunch of options on the internet and came up with this.

Grain-free Dairy-free Biscuits
3 eggs
1/4 cup coconut oil, butter, or grain-free margarine, melted
1/3 cup coconut flour
2/3 cup almond flour
2 tablespoons flax seed meal
1 teaspoon grain-free baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons honey or agave, optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix all ingredients. You may need a little more flour. The batter will not be quite as sticky as normal biscuit batter, but it shouldn't be soupy either. Drop biscuits onto a cookie sheet - no need to grease.

Bakes for about 17 minutes. Makes about 9 biscuits.

I didn't use sweetener in mine, but I think I should have. I've been topping them with honey or a no-pectin, lemony plum sauce my sister made.

Banana Cake Torte: GFDFSF & Grain-free

I've recently started experimenting with low/no-grain & low/no-sugar cooking. I decided to make a reduced-sugar, low/no-grain version of this banana cake, a family favorite. It came out yummy and quite dense; my husband said it's more like a torte than a cake.

(the pumpkin pulp is what is strained from pumpkin seed milk, but I've included possible alternatives)

Gluten-free Dairy-free Banana Torte
1/3 c. oil
3/4 c. sugar
15 drops Vanilla Crème Stevia (they have it at iHerb, too - get $5 off!) - measure over a spoon, not the bowl, in case it spills
3 large eggs
1 1/2 c. mashed banana
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 c. mayonnaise
about 3/4 cup pumpkin pulp OR use 1/4 cup non-dairy milk & 1/2 cup nut meal or flour
1 tsp. xanthan gum
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup garbanzo bean flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour
1/4 cup potato starch flour
1 cup almond flour
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients except flours & chocolate chips. Add flours & mix again. Stir in chocolate chips.

Pour into a greased 9 x 13 inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 – 35 minutes. Enjoy :)

Herbed Cheesy Gluten-free Dairy-free Biscuits

Last Monday, I wanted to make some biscuits to accompany a lentil soup I was defrosting, so I created a variation on my biscuits. I'm also experimenting with using less grains in my recipes, so I tried using garbanzo bean flour with good results.

Herbed Cheesy Biscuits
Ingredients:
2/3 cup liquid (I used half rice milk, half water)
1/3 cup soy-free margarine or oil
2 eggs or egg replacer
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
2 ½ teaspoons gluten-free baking powder
About 2 tablespoons dried parsley (big surprise, I didn't measure)
1/2 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup garbanzo bean flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/3 cup potato starch flour
1/6 cup tapioca starch (just use the 1/3 cup measure and only fill it halfway)
About 1/4-1/2 cup Daiya gluten-free dairy-free soy-free cheese (or use regular cheese)

Directions:
I do this trick: Put the 2/3 cup liquid in a glass measuring cup, and add chunks of margarine until it gets to the 1 cup point. Dump into the mixing bowl and add 2 eggs or egg replacer, and all the other ingredients except cheese and flour/starch. Beat with electric mixer. Then add flour. Beat again. Take out your beaters, and add cheese, mixing in with rubber spatula.

Use a greased 1/4 cup measure to drop dough by the cupful on a slightly greased cookie sheet (makes about 9-12). Bake at 400F for about 12-15 minutes.

These were very good and I've made them again since last Monday :)