My Heart Healthy and Lectin Free Kitchen

For Christmas I made a Gluten Free, Sugar Free Apple Pie.  My guests wanted the recipe for the crust, so here it is for you as well.  The only time it didn't turn out for me was when I forgot to add the water to it and forgot to spray the pie pan with spray oil. 🙁   So I made those instructions in red so you wouldn't make the same mistake yourselves.

My refrigerator magnets spell out, "The Cold is Here!"  What is better on a cold day than homemade soup.   Keeping with my goal to be as lectin-free as possible I embarked on a goal to make something that would be warm and spicy without any beans. (I have issues eating too many beans too often)  I know, a tall order.  But then I came up with this Green Salsa Taco Style Soup.  If you don't have a problem with eating corn, you can substitute the Chayote squash and/or mushrooms for a large can of hominy.  But since I am no longer eating corn I went on the hunt for something else for my particular crock pot of soup. Give it a try.  We loved it enough to eat it two days in a row!  If you like it spicier, then add more Sriracha sauce to it.

One of the things I love to eat for breakfast during late fall and winter is hot cereal.  Most of us think 'Oatmeal' or 'Cream of Wheat' or something similar.  As a kid I really loved Malt-O-Meal.  This morning was cold (we got our first snow last night) and I needed ( NEEDED ) Hot Cereal for breakfast, so last night I put together my mini  size crock pot with Sorghum and Millet grain.  It turned out OH SO GOOD!   Give it a try and let me know what you think. 

Before my gluten-free days I loved using the recipes that King Arthur Flour (KAF) had on their website.  Since then not so much.  So earlier this year I asked them if their kitchen would work up some truly gluten free recipes that would also taste good.  This week in their catalogue I saw they had a Chocolate Torte recipe that had absolutely no wheat, rice, oat or barley flour in it.   Of course, I also don't use sugar or sugary products like honey in my baking since I am also diabetic, and I don't use cow milk products. . . so. . . .you guessed it, I adapted KAF's awesome recipe to fit my other needs and IT WAS SO GOOD!  It met my need for a chocolaty dessert on so many levels.   Thanks King Arthur!

That's right, gluten free, sugar free, lactose free and probably the best tasting quick bread I've made in a long time! My friend Tammy came to me with this recipe a couple of months ago and asked me if I could rewrite it to be friendly for diabetics.  Of course I said yes, and now she and I have another great tasting fall and winter type bread we can enjoy without feeling guilty. Thanks for believing in me Tammy.  I'm bringing it to Bible study tomorrow. 😊

When I was growing up we ate all kinds of crackers with all kinds of food; something my husband and I continued doing after we got married (28 years ago! 😊)  Then last year I started eating lectin free which means striving to be wheat free.  I scoured the internet for something that I could use (they also can't have any rice or potato flour in them) to meet my cracker addiction.  Nothing. My next thought was, if I can make bread that is compliant, why can't I also make crackers?  A lot of other cooks must have thought the same thing because I began seeing different kinds of "gluten-free" and "paleo" cracker recipes pop up in blogs and Facebook groups.   Some of them tasted okay, most just tasted nasty and bland.  So . . .You guessed it, I started experimenting until I came up with one that I liked the taste of, but more important, that my dog and husband also liked.  My recipe calls for two XL eggs .  If you only have large eggs on hand, then use

Potatoes on a lectin free diet?!?  Per Dr. Gundry yes if you pressure cook them (I used my steam vegetables setting), but only do it occasionally.  They are still heavy in carbs and if you are diabetic like me, they will make your blood sugar go up some.   With that being said, I went about creating a yummy, creamy potato soup like the ones my husband used to make for us, only more compliant with the Plant Paradox way of eating.

I was at a craft show over the weekend and bought a small jar of Pumpkin-Apple Butter from one of the vendors.  Not at all on my diet and chalked full of those lectins I have give up.  Well, I bought it for some muffins I made to take to my Bible study and everyone loved it so I decided I had to find a way to manipulate the recipe so I could enjoy it too.  It was so simple of a conversion I didn't even finish a cup of tea while doing it!  It is full of all those traditional fall flavors so many of us love to eat.  Hope you enjoy it too.

I love my go-to muffins, but today I just needed something a little different.  Peaches, Pecans, and Nutmeg are the difference, plus I swapped out the sorghum flour for amaranth flour.  My homemade peach jam sweetened with stevia and erythritol is very good with them too! Have fun making and eating them!

Magic Cookie Bars were always a favorite of mine when I was growing up and then I made them for my own children.  Wanting to be able to experience the same awesome taste as a Lectin Free eater I went to town making it compliable.  Make sure you plan ahead, because they do need to sit in the refrigerator overnight before cutting into their chocolaty goodness. 

This is the time of the year I have traditionally loved cooking with pumpkin.  Since I am eating Lectin Free I have had to look for a way to meet that need by tricking my taste buds into believing I am eating pumpkin. My friend Shelly, who is eating a Keto diet, gave me a cookie yesterday at the quilting group we belong to.  One bite and I said, "I MUST HAVE THAT RECIPE!"  She sent me a link this morning. I manipulated it for my specific eating needs, went immediately to the kitchen, and this cookie is what I came up with.   If you can afford to cook with Monk Fruit, do so.  It has an awesome sweet flavor.  If not, then like me, mix Stevia and Swerve together as indicated in the recipe.  It will still give you an awesome soft cookie with all the traditional fall tastes we have grown to love.

Earlier this week a friend came to me with a recipe for Caramel-Apple Bread and asked me if I could make it Gluten and Sugar Free.  Well of course I could!  So in honor of Tammy, here is a recipe that is just perfect for the Autumn Season.

I'm holding a cooking class at my home this weekend, and this is the main dish and vegetable that we will be fixing.

This recipe is so flexible.  As long as you use the same total amount of flour, 3 cups, you can mix a different flour in and out depending on what your taster likes.   You can add half as much vanilla and add something like coconut or almond extract.   If you're not a fan of cinnamon, then use something else (nutmeg, cloves, ginger or nothing).  Add-ins can be anything you like, but if you are diabetic like my husband and I try and stay away from dried fruits (like raisins) they are just little packets of sugar waiting to affect your glucose levels.   The xanthan gum, arrowroot starch/flour, and tapioca starch/flour are essential to the recipe.  Since there is no gluten in these muffins, other ingredients must be added to hold them together. Make sure the applesauce is made with no sugar added. That being said, go make a batch and tell the rest of us how they turned out.

Earlier this year two of my friends took a guided tour to Israel.  They saw and ate many things, but the food they remembered the most were the "Jerusalem Style Bagels" that they ate most mornings for breakfast.   I found the traditional recipe online, and reworked it to be Plant Paradox friendly.  They are always a big hit when I make them, like I did yesterday for my Sunday morning Bible class.   I eat them dipped in oil, oil & vinegar, spread with butter, or a soft goat cheese product.  The following recipe can also be modified to include sourdough starter (3/4 cup and reduce the flour by about the same amount.)  Enjoy making them, and please enjoy eating them! 😄

Eating as well or better at home as I do in a nice sit-down restaurant has always been my goal as a homemaker.  (Yes, even though I had a challenging career, I was still a "maker of a home" for my family; and proud of it too!) Now that it is only my husband and I (all the kids have flown the coop and have families of their own now)  We don't always eat a 3-4 course meal (protein, veggie, and carbs).  Sometimes it is all combined into one item.  Even if it is a one item meal, I still want it to look good and taste good - I don't want to feel like I have short changed myself with a mediocre meal when I have the skills to make it memorable.   A few weeks ago we created a Lectin-Free version of a veggie fritter we saw on Facebook.  They turned out really well.  I ate mine with some homemade sugar-free ketchup.  My husband chose worcestershire sauce.  I think a creamy tahini  sauce would also be good with them, but I was out of yogurt.  My husband said between a bun li

A few months back my husband found a recipe for a creamy soup with chicken on Facebook.  It did look good, so I rewrote it to be Lectin-Free compliant.  My husband made some for dinner tonight and I thought you might enjoy eating it too.   Let me know if you liked it or perhaps there is a step in the recipe itself that was confusing.  My goal is to make all my recipes understandable so you too can fix them.

     Lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins.  They have been around for thousands of years.       Through trial and error, any animal, including man, learned how to avoid the ones that made them feel bad, and eat the ones that didn't.  For a detailed discussion of lectins purchase the book, The Plant Paradox by Steven Gundry, MD.       There is a specific lectin that has gained a lot of attention these days, but is really just a minor player:  gluten .   Many people assume that manufactured foods that are called "gluten-free" are also grain free.  Not so.  Where wheat, barley, and rye are eliminated, when you look at ingredients, you will probably find they have been replaced with corn, rice, or teff; which all contain forms of lectins similar to gluten.  Other products often found in them may include soy or other bean flours, which of course also contain lectins.        This being said, the thing most people (including me) miss when eating a lectin free diet are g

A few years ago, I shut down my blog on "Tiny Homes".  I didn't think I would ever have another blog, but this week a Facebook friend suggested instead of having a private group, I should jump into the deep water and begin a blog for those trying to eat Lectin Free, Heart Healthy, Sugar Free, Keto, and Paleo Friendly.  (Did I cover just about everything!?! LOL) So Here I go . . .On October 13, 2017 after finishing the book, "The Plant Paradox" by Dr. Steven Gundry, I threw out everything I thought I knew about living  heart healthy and sugar free .  ("Heart Healthy and Sugar Free" was the name of a private FB group I started in 2016)   Almost a year later, having worn out my book, and having embraced the ideas he wrote about as my own "Normal" way of living, I find myself 40 pounds lighter, and more clear minded than I have been in decades.  I just want to scream out, where were the experts in 1984 when I first started experiencing diff