Gluten-Free Banana Nut Bread Recipe

Warm from the oven gluten-free banana nut bread. Just a fad?

I hope you all enjoyed a safe and nourishing Thanksgiving holiday, stuffed with all good things- familial affection and laughter, kindness, acceptance and generosity of spirit. Food for the soul as well as food for the body. I hope your table was inviting, inclusive and beautiful- and untarnished by condescension, resentment, or the snorting ridicule of your Uncle Stu (whose politics alone are enough to give any thinking person a spike of schpilkis).

Because out there in the cold cruel world, Darling, some folks apparently (still) view our gluten-free lifestyle through a jaded foodie lens, believing, first of all, that gluten-free anything is never going to taste anything but awful, and second, that this whole gluten-free trend (their word not mine) is a fad not worthy of serious consideration and compassion. Apart from the standard (and always brief) lip service that non-afflicted food writers, non-GF bloggers and journalists pay to celiac disease, adhering to the medical treatment that is a gluten-free diet is degraded- for that sexy topical hook- to a bandwagon. An eating disorder. A diet by choice.

They dub it a controversy. 

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Meatless Mondays with Martha Stewart - Vegan Chanterelle Cream Soup

This is my first official soup of the season - a most luxurious cream of chanterelle without the cream. How is this possible? You'll have to check out the recipe to discover my sneaky little secret.

If your palette needs pleasing and your belly needs warming, this is the dish for you. Perfect after a weekend of Thanksgiving indulgences!

Happy days,
Sarah B

Guest Post: Eat Yourself Fertile!

For those of you that have never been to Copenhagen, I will tell you right now that it is the city of babies. Babies absolutely everywhere. Prams, buggies, strollers, snugglies – you can’t go for a walk around the block without running into a least one cool mom and her perfect little progeny.
Then my friends caught the bug. My friends? Is it really that time already? Aren’t we still 18? I guess not. I guess it’s time I actually start thinking about the not-so-distant possibility of starting a family (mom, dad - STOP freaking out. I am not trying to tell you anything…). This is a very exciting prospect of course, but there are so many questions swirling around in my head about where to begin.

A while back a very cool lady named Natalie wrote to me.  Natalie is a doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine and a natural fertility specialist living in Australia. As we got to emailing back and forth I realized that this connection could not have been made at a better time. I enlisted her help to write a post for all those ladies out there who have baby-on-the-brain, and perhaps are looking for a little advice on how to prepare the body for just such an undertaking. Natalie believes that the diet is the best place to begin, naturally.

Eat yourself fertile – my top five fertile foods
Enhancing fertility can be confusing – there are so many different do’s and don’ts to deal with, you would be forgiven for popping it in the all “too hard” basket.  I believe it is important to begin with the basics and to pare things down – so I am sharing with you my top five fertile foods. These are not just a great boost to your health but also to reproductive function – after all, food is the best medicine!

The recipe for good health and healthy fertility is really simple. It is simplicity. It is about keeping it basic.  Basic works.

Avocado
Fats are high on the list for fertile eating.  Be aware here, we are talking good fats found from plants and fish (and eggs), certainly not the variety you find in refined and fried foods are your local donut stand.  Never be afraid of good fats in your diet.  There are many essential properties found in foods such as avocado, olive oil and nuts. Remember – low fat is out – it’s nutritionally ‘empty’. This means all that “low fat” achieves is you wanting something ‘more’ to fill the gap because it is filled with sugar to make up for the fat taken out.  Avocados are brilliant sources of good fats.  Today's research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers.  And how profound is this fact? It takes exactly nine months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit – not just a pretty fruit, but a lovely symbol of fertility and gestation.
For a My New Roots recipe using avocados, click here.

Eggs
Protein is a key element when it comes to pumping up fertility. For this reason, I’m a huge fan of the egg.  They are the complete fertile food; high in omega 3’s, folic acid, B vitamins, iron, calcium, potassium – the list goes on.  Like many foods, quality is super important and free range organic is my first choice where possible.  Need a vegan option?  Pack in the protein from every source possible – nuts, grains (such as millet), and legumes are all great sources and contain some protein.  For boosting fertility, the protein game is all about adding up the numbers.  90gms of protein per day is recommended for optimal fertility.
For a My New Roots recipe using eggs, click here.



Figs
Figs are also full of fertile goodness.  They are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow – just like… you guessed it, testicles.  Figs increase the mobility of male sperm and increase the numbers too. This means this magic; luscious fruit helps to overcome male sterility.  Figs are historically known as an aphrodisiac too – and feeling like lovin’ does just as much for fertility levels as all the eating well in the world!
For a My New Roots recipe using figs, click here.

Olives
We’ve already beaten the drum of how great fats are for fertility – and olives provide this and then some.   They are a great remedy for inflammation, are high in anti-oxidants and help prevent cancer.  They truly are wonderful.  How is this good for fertility?  Cells are changed by stress – and so adding olives to your plate is useful to assist in maintaining a healthy reproductive environment and nourishing the reproductive organs.  You’re body is super clever – stress will absolutely lower fertility, and so adding foods to help our body work well and cope better with stress is essential in our busy lives.   When we fail to do this, the body simply shuts down and becomes infertile.
For a My New Roots recipe using olives, click here.

Water
Good quality filtered water is a must.  By increasing fluid intake, you are not only flushing toxins through your body everyday, but by keeping your body well hydrated, you are also helping to create more cervical mucus essential for fertilization.  Without fertile mucus, the sperm will not be nourished and fed, nor will they reach the egg.  This is equally important when it comes for men creating great seminal fluid.

A balanced and wholesome diet is essential for great health.  This includes a great range of colourful fruit and veggies, whole-grains, legumes and protein.  There are specific qualities that certain veggies contain, that can help to treat menstrual irregularities and hormone imbalances.  By increasing your intake and variety of fresh produce, you will do your health and fertility big favors.  By being aware of what you’re nourishing your body with, you are setting yourself up for a happy and healthy pregnancy.

*    *    *    *    *    *

The one thing that surprised me in Natalie’s article was the high amount of protein that she suggested was optimal for increasing fertility. 90 grams?! I get about half that a day, which is right on the money for a woman of my weight. I can’t imagine doubling that amount every day – I’d have to eat…double the food? Never one to shy away from another bowl of lentil soup, Natalie says that if you break it down into meals and snacks, it’s really do-able. Aim for 20 grams of protein at each meal, and 10 grams for snacks.
What does that look like? Well, a cup of cooked lentils runs about 18 grams, plus a cup of cooked quinoa is 8 – right there is 26 grams in one meal. Not bad! Throw in a hemp protein smoothie for breakfast, a handful of almonds for a snack, some broccoli and spinach salad…it adds up pretty quickly. I suppose the hard part is being aware and making that much more of an effort.
Natalie says if you can’t get up to 90 grams a day, “even if you are getting 1/2 - 3/4 this amount you are looking after all things fertile.  Some patients find this great and others hate it.  I get that. So you need to work within what your body is also telling you is acceptable.”

If any of you have other questions for Natalie regarding her guidelines, ask in the comment section and she will answer them there.

Thank you Natalie for the wonderful advice!

Doctor of Chinese Medicine and Acupuncturist, Natalie Kringoudis is a Natural Fertility Specialist.  Her website 'Fertile Body Heart and Soul' (www.melbournenaturalfertility.com.au) provides interesting, enjoyable and honest information on fertility and natural medicine .  Although based in Melbourne, Australia, Natalie is committed to ensuring that information about health and fertility care is accessible to couples world wide.  
Natalie is the owner of The Pagoda Tree (www.thepagodatree.com.au) - Melbourne's home of Women's Health, Traditional Chinese Medicine and Alternative Therapies. She provides care with a positive, carling attitude and wholesome approach. Natalie supports couples through their fertility challenges, including natural fertility as well as assisted conception and IVF. She is currently pregnant with her second child, and understand the importance of an integrated approach to health. She advocates food as  a wonderful therapeutic tool.  Natalie is a lover of natural health and living.

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Streusel Muffins

My new pumpkin muffin recipe- with streusel topping.

This isn't a Thanksgiving post, exactly. Though Thanksgiving is just a stone's throw away- if you could somehow conjure a metaphorical stone to metaphorically hurl into the time-space continuum, piercing the veil of forty-eight hours that blows by in a singular exhale, surely faster than light. And this exhale, it was only following a previous breath- a breath I took yesterday- which turns out to be one year ago. A year since that Pumpkin Praline Pie I baked. I have a hard time wrapping my brain around this.

This is more a post about time.

Some days I feel as if I am slave to the calendar, an unwitting cog in the wheel of the year with Sundays and holidays appointed by proxy, designated by some superior force that rules my random wandering nature with an unforgiving fist, demanding obedience. Charting the course of my life.

Then I remember the truth.

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UltraISO 9.5.2.2836 Multilingual

Handle CD and DVD Images with Ease without installation.

Download Portable UltraISO from RapidShare (2.5 MB)

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Language set by launcher according Windows localisation (if you don't want: write SystemLang=false in UltraISOPortable.ini): English, French, Bulgarian, Catalan, TradChinese, Czech, Danish, German, Greek, Spanish, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, PortugueseBR, Romanian, Russian, Croatian, Slovak, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Slovenian, Estonian, Latvian, Farsi, Macedonian, Portuguese.

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Black Bean Chocolate Chili Cherry Cookies

So I’ve seen all the black bean brownies making their merry way around the food blogs, but I still haven’t come across a recipe that, despite the use of legumes, is all that virtuous. Yeah, throw some veggies into a batter of processed sugar and white flour! Hows about I deep-fry an apple? Or bacon-wrap some alfalfa sprouts? Um, no. This is precisely why I have not boarded that train.

If you’ve been around the My New Roots block, you’ll see I am a fan of baking with beans, as seen here and here. But never have I trumped myself to such an extent. I mean, these cookies take the cake, for sure.

Chocolate Chili Cherry Cookies are moist, rich, fudgy and filling, with just a tickle of spice that is oh-so unexpected and palette-warming-ly welcomed.  

I added dried cherries to one batch because I had some on hand. This was also incredible. Optional, yet incredible. If you’re a purist, I’d stick with the giant, dark chunks of bitter chocolate heaven. Those who like sweet-sour burst will dig the fruit addition. Walnuts would also be amazing. 

Basically, add whatever the heck you have in that pantry and you can’t lose. Maybe even deep-fried apple. 

Black beans – a superfood? Really?

Although they may appear humble, black beans are holding a major secret – they are loaded with a rare combination of both protein and fiber. Unheard of! 

Did you know that a one-cup serving of black beans contains 14 grams of protein – the same amount as a 2 oz. serving of a meat like chicken or a fish like salmon? And the 15 grams of fiber from that same one-cup serving is the equivalent of eating 3 cups of broccoli, 4 cups of Brussels sprouts, or 15 plums? 

You won't find this magical protein-fiber combination in fruit, vegetables, grains, meats, dairy products, nuts and seeds, or seafood. Not even close. And this explains why black beans are so incredibly good for your digestive tract, the blood sugar regulatory system and the cardiovascular system. 

And if that weren’t enough, the skin of black beans contains a high amount of phytonutrients, called anthocyanins. To refresh your memory, anthocyanins are responsible for the deep reds, blues, purples, and magenta colours also found in blueberries, grapes and açaí, all of which we know to be powerful antioxidant-rich foods. These compounds decrease the risk of heart disease and cancer. They may also aid in the prevention of macular degeneration by protecting the eyes from free radical damage, increasing circulation and stabilizing collagen structures (which hold tissues together).

Talk about your underestimated legume! Protein, fiber, and powerful antioxidants – all wrapped up into a tasty little nugget for you to make dessert with. I mean, does it get any better? I think not. 

You seriously will not believe how tasty these are. I am still in shock. Every time I take a bite I run around my kitchen in tiny circles, like a short-circuiting robot on flavour overdrive. It is a sight. 

The fact that there are black beans in these cookies will completely fade from memory upon the first bite, which literally melts in your mouth. Children will be fooled, friends and relatives baffled. The bottom line is, they taste incredible in their own right. Then you mention they are made with beans and you become a healthy-cookie magician.  

And did I mention how easy they are to make?! You just put everything in the food processor – not even a bowl to clean. 

This recipe only makes about nine large cookies, which judging by their unbelievable richness should be plenty to satisfy your cocoa cravings for a couple days. However, if you’ve got a crowd on your hands, double up the ingredients for a bigger batch. Or be foolish, eat the whole first round in a sitting (Sarah B….) and be forced to make more first thing the next morning because you were too gluttonous to even photograph them. Ahem. 

Moving on.

Black Bean Chocolate Chili Cherry Cookies

Makes nine 3” cookies

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups black beans, very soft (or one 15 oz. can)

2 Tbsp. coconut oil (or ghee)

1/3 cup organic cocoa powder

1/4 tsp. coarse sea salt, plus more for sprinkling

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

1/3 cup maple syrup (or honey, agave)

2 Tbsp. chia seeds (or use 2 Tbsp. ground flax seeds OR 2 eggs)

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/3 cup chopped dark chocolate (80% or higher)

1/4 cup chopped dried cherries (optional, or use dried cranberries)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Mix chia seeds, maple syrup, and vanilla in a bowl and set aside. If using eggs, skip this step.

3. Place drained and well-rinsed beans, coconut oil, cocoa, salt and cayenne in a food processor and blend until well combined. Add maple syrup and chia mixture (or eggs) and pulse to incorporate. The batter will be quite liquid-y, but still hold together.  Remove blade from the food processor and add chopped chocolate and cherries. Fold to incorporate. 

4. Spoon cookie batter onto lined baking sheet. Using the back of the spoon, flatten top of cookies slightly, as they will not spread when baking. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt (important!). Bake for 15 minutes until the edges are browning. Cool and eat. Store in the fridge.

Update: The armless wonder-husband is doing much better. These cookies definitely boosted morale around the house. Dare I even say motivated him to awkwardly lift a hand to his mouth? 

VMware ThinApp 4.7.0-519532

Make your own portable applications.

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AbiWord 2.9.2 Dev & 2.8.6 Multilingual

Free word processing program similar to Microsoft® Word without installation.

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Extract and run AbiWordPortable.

Only en-US dictionary for spell checking, download for your language, open with 7-Zip and extract *.hash file in App\AbiWord\dictionary\ispell\.

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Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Recipes & Tips 2011

Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Recipes and Tips

The Big T. Thanksgiving. Nothing sends shivers of trepidation up a gluten-free or dairy-free girl's spine like the mental image of Grandma's sage pungent white bread dressing or shimmying slabs of Aunt Ida's pumpkin pie. It's a butter and wheat flour gorge fest with danger at every turn. The gruesome gut-twisting threat of thirty-six hours chugging Pepto Bismol is poised to strike on every holiday decorated plate- jovial forkfuls of tradition and conviviality aside.

It can be a nightmare.

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EasyBoot 6.5.2.695 Multilingual

Easily Make Your Bootable CDs and DVDs without installation.

Download Portable EasyBoot from RapidShare (2.5 MB)

Extract and run EasyBootPortable.

Language set by launcher according UserDefaultLang (if you don't want: write UserDefaultLang=false in EasyBootPortable.ini): English, Arabic, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Czech, Norwegian, Romanian, Russian, Turkish.

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Poppy Seed-Crusted Butternut Squash with Kale and Pomegranates

 
First of all, I need to send out a huge thank you to everyone for your support these past couple weeks. Your emails and messages have meant so much and really kept me up. Yes, it has been an ‘interesting’ time in our lives, but we’re getting used to a new routine and doing things a bit differently…slower. I can imagine that this is very much the shock new mothers experience when suddenly they have a completely dependent person on their hands (good practice, Mikkel says). However, he is getting better and spirits are high. We are both looking forward to the day when he can feed himself and tie his shoes! See? It is like having a baby, albeit a very big one.

So I’ve been coping by going for walks. Long walks. As the man can now move his fingers and send text messages, I’ve been able to leave the house for periods of time and he calls me back if he needs something. This is progress.
My walks are glorious, and I have been experiencing autumn on an entirely new level this year, since I am normally racing past it on my bicycle. We had a couple weeks straight of bright, low, blinding sun, which has now been replaced with storybook fog. Thick, soupy mist clinging to every golden leaf and moody canal reflection, turning the world into a giant watercolour painting. Guh. Stunning.
 I’ve been so moved by the riot of tones and textures on the forest floor and cobblestone streets, I made a dish to echo them all. Poppy Seed-Crusted Butternut Squash with Kale and Pomegranates, with a Maple Mustard Dressing is indeed autumn on a plate.

This dish combines some serious fall power-players when it comes to nutrition, and not coincidentally, are excellent choices for preparing the body as we head into a long winter. Another good reason for eating seasonally.

Butternut Squash – one of the best plant food sources of beta-carotene, a powerful antioxidant, which is converted to vitamin A in the body. This helps preserve normal eyesight and may help to minimize the risk of cataracts. Butternut squash can help ward off those pesky cold-weather infections, but can also protect against cancer, stroke, and heart disease. [1]

Kale – the richest source of carotenoids in the leafy-green vegetable family, making it a top cancer-fighter. Kale helps to regulate estrogen, protects against heart disease, and regulates blood pressure. The calcium in kale is more absorbable by the body than milk (and ounce for ounce, contains more calcium than milk)! This makes it an excellent choice for both prevention and treatment of osteoporosis, arthritis and bone loss. [1]

Pomegranate – Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will have heard time and time again how antioxidant-rich this fruit is. But you may not know that the jewel-like seeds also contain iron, calcium, vitamin C, magnesium, and a good dose of fiber. [1]


 
There is something to be said for living in a city that truly embraces eating seasonally. You just can’t get asparagus here in February. No peaches in May. Kale comes and goes in a matter of weeks in Copenhagen, so I am eating it up like a greens-starved maniac. And that goes for the rest of the ingredients: butternut squash and pomegranate are around from now until the New Year and then we bid farewell until next time. But what I discover every year that keeps me intrigued, are all the combinations of those seasonal foods that seem to mingle so effortlessly.

This dish was a great example of that. Even though I was really trying to emulate that fall colours from a more artistic standpoint (‘cause I’m a big food dork), the flavours really complimented one another too. In therapy, I believe they call this the “ah-ha” moment. It’s why tomatoes and basil are best buds, or pumpkin and sage – the seasons blatantly present us with what tastes best together. All we need to do is open our eyes, get in the kitchen and experiment. No fear! I honestly was a bit worried about this mash-up, but happily, it’s delicious. Of course it is. Nature knows best.



Poppy Seed-Crusted Butternut Squash with Kale and Pomegranates
Serves 4
Ingredients:
1 medium butternut squash
4 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp. melted ghee or coconut oil
3 Tbsp. poppy seeds
couple pinches of sea salt

2 cups packed shredded kale
1 shallot
juice of ½ lemon
zest of 1 lemon
pinch of sea salt

Maple Mustard Dressing
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
pinch sea salt
1 tsp. pure Maple syrup
1 tsp. Dijon mustard

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Peel the squash, cut it in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Cut into cubes. Toss with oil, minced garlic, poppy seeds, and sprinkle with sea salt. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Roast until fork-tender, not mushy (approx. 30-40 minutes)
2. While the squash is roasting, shred the kale by slicing it in very thin strips. Add the juice of ½ lemon, a pinch of sea salt and massage into kale to wilt. Set aside.
3. Make dressing by whisking all ingredients together. Pour over kale, toss to coat.
4. Remove the pomegranate seeds. Fill a bowl with water, cut the fruit in half, then roughly pry out the seeds with your fingers and let them fall into the water. The seeds with white pith will float to the top – remove the pith as much as possible leaving the seeds, which will then sink.
5. When the butternut squash has finished roasting, remove from oven and let cool for 5 to 10 minutes. Add to kale and mix. Toss with sliced shallot, pomegranate seeds, and garnish with lemon zest. Season to taste. Serve.

So life is a bit slower these days, and I’m actually grateful for that. This experience has forced me to be quieter, gentler, and more observant, leading me to look at being with a fresh perspective. If none of this had happened perhaps I would have biked right past the beauty of autumn, missing the confetti leaves scattered at the foot of the church, the shocking green of damp grass, the semi-bare branch of the tree, shivering just so. The walks are good. And when I come home to feed my husband? Well, that is even better.   

Sources: [1] Balch, Phyllis A. Prescription for Dietary Wellness. New York, NY: Penguin, 2003. 

Gluten-Free Goddess eBook

My new ebook- best loved recipes

My blog anniversary is just around the corner. Yep. Number six. And I am trying to wrap my little gluten-free brain around it. Six years. Six. That is a long time in blog years. (Maybe blog years are kinda like dog years? Every twelve months of blogging seems equal to seven human years. What I think I'm trying to say is that GFG feels... more grown up somehow. She's no longer a lurching toddler- or as Johnny Depp likes to phrase it, "tiny drunk"). The bumble-puppy years are over.

We're respectable now. (But hopefully not too serious.)

I  began blogging and sharing my recipes in late fall of 2005. There are over 400 original gluten-free recipes now on Gluten-Free Goddess. This astonishes me!

Looking over my recipe index this past summer I began to imagine the beginnings of a cookbook- a collection of recipe favorites from Gluten-Free Goddess. (In full transparency there have been cookbook offers, and some tempting projects pitched to me this year. But none seemed like the perfect fit. In fact, most felt like a tight shoe that pinched and chafed and left me preferring to go barefoot, taking my own meandering solo path, focusing on blogging, my first love.)

But then you know what happened. I got an iPad. And soon discovered the convenience and pleasure of bringing my entire blog into the kitchen with me. And that led to ebooks...
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Gluten-Free Butternut Pecan Scones

Get sconed, Babycakes, with these fab gluten-free scones.

Let's get sconed. Butternut squash style. But let me warn you. I'm having an existential week. The kind of week where gushing about a gluten-free scone recipe just seems kind of silly. The kind of week where irony reigns supreme on her cold and shiny throne. Yeah, I know. I could shrug it off and stuff it out of sight and soldier on. I could kick it to the back of my closet, behind the pile of ratty sneakers. I could swallow the pill of denial like a good girl and use words like tender and buttery and melt in your mouth scone goodness.

Who would know the difference?

But this morning I'm just not interested.

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