Today was our first full day on the Full GAPS Diet. Which means that as long as food is agreeing with us, we have a much wider variety of options to choose from than we had on the intro diet. So what do I cook today? Pretty much all the same kind of stuff I've been cooking for two weeks... with one notable exception.
Breakfast: I made a two egg omelette with half a medium sized onion for me. I don't know what the kids had. They were on their own. I put a sign up in the kitchen giving them breakfast suggestions. I'm guessing they all went for the yogurt because that's easiest... plus they love the homemade yogurt.
Lunch: Again, I have no idea what the kids ate. It's a Saturday, for heaven's sake! They're on their own. After my morning walk I came home and ate yogurt and had a very tall glass of homemade coconut milk. Then my stomach hurt for the next two hours and I didn't feel like eating anything else for lunch. I think I need to back off the coconut until it settles better in my stomach. Bummer!
Dinner: I made a Celery Root and Leek soup that my sister had recommended to me. It was good, though a teeny bit plain. So I spiced it up with some Kimchi. The kids were fine with it as it. The celery root was very potato like. I think I need to start using it more often.
And then we headed off to the Harvest Farm Corn Maze. We got there, parked, and were walking up to the ticket booth to pay when I saw the maze. Well, I thought I saw the maze. I saw the bridge that they usually put in the middle of the maze that someone stands on to help people who are lost. But all around it was only waist high (if that) corn stalk bits. So I asked the gal at the ticket booth if that was the maze and she confessed that snow last week (She said last week. I think she means two weeks ago.) squashed the maze. What a bummer! I wasn't about to have my teens try to get lost in a maze they could look right over the top of. So we turned around and headed for home.
To try and cheer everyone up, I suggested that we stop by Tasty Harmony and see if they had any cashew ice cream. I was hoping that might be a GAPS friendly treat we could try out. So I popped in while Rob circled the block, since there's not really any parking out front. I talked with the chef (or baker? or owner?) and not only were they out of cashew ice cream, but all of their desserts had flour of some sort or other except for the bananas with caramel. But the caramel is made with agave since many of their customers are vegan. And agave is GAPS verboten. So we gave up on the Tasty Harmony idea and headed over to Beavers Market to pick up some bananas. Thankfully, though they had lots and lots of green bananas, they had a whole shelf full of bananas with black spots, which is the requirement in GAPS. (I have no clue why. Anyone else know? I'm all ears.) So I grabbed two bunches and split.
At home I made fried bananas with honey caramel and homemade sour cream. It was Delicious!!! (especially with the cream). We ate it while watching the first episode of Grimm (Season 3).
Here's how I made the dessert:
Ingredients
whipping cream (I can't get unpasteurized, so I look for pasteurized as opposed to ultra-pasteurized. Get as much whipping cream as you want to make sour cream. I used a pint.)
1 package yogurt starter
----
honey (between 1/2 cup and a cup)
1 stick butter
----
bananas
more butter
Directions
Sour Cream: Several hours before, mix the yogurt starter into your whipping cream and pour the cream into your yogurt maker. I didn't head my cream up first. I wonder if I should have because it came out pretty runny in the end. I let mine yogurtize for 24 hours, mostly because I get waiting for it to solidify. Since it never did, I suspect 9 hours would have been plenty of time.
Honey Caramel: Put butter and honey into a small sauce pan on medium low heat. Stir occasionally. I used a candy thermometer to watch that I didn't heat it too high. I tried to keep it at 240°F or below because I didn't want it to get too hard. Because we used it while it was still warm for cooking, it was nice and pourable. While we watched Grimm it hardened up to a chewy consistency, like a soft candy. I probably should have kept the temp a little lower.
Fried Bananas: I put 1/4 cup of butter into the pan, but it was almost entirely gone by the time I got to the last of the bananas. An important tip I learned is not to cut the bananas too thin. They just get ooey and gooey as they cook and before you know it they won't turn over because they're just a spot of mush in the butter. It's better to cut the banana in half crosswise (because it's going to break there anyway so you might as well just get it over with) then cut it in half lengthwise so it's a little skinnier. Then fry it up in the butter till it's golden or just starting to brown up a bit.
Fried Bananas with Caramel and Cream: After the bananas are slightly browned, pile them up on the plate, put a nice size dollop (or dribble) of sour cream off to the side, and then drizzle caramel over the top. Yum!
I think everyone went back to get more cream for their bananas, but I didn't see anyone go back for more caramel, which I take as a good sign. We're not craving the sugars so much as the contrast of the sour cream with the naturally sweet bananas.
Breakfast: I made a two egg omelette with half a medium sized onion for me. I don't know what the kids had. They were on their own. I put a sign up in the kitchen giving them breakfast suggestions. I'm guessing they all went for the yogurt because that's easiest... plus they love the homemade yogurt.
Lunch: Again, I have no idea what the kids ate. It's a Saturday, for heaven's sake! They're on their own. After my morning walk I came home and ate yogurt and had a very tall glass of homemade coconut milk. Then my stomach hurt for the next two hours and I didn't feel like eating anything else for lunch. I think I need to back off the coconut until it settles better in my stomach. Bummer!
Dinner: I made a Celery Root and Leek soup that my sister had recommended to me. It was good, though a teeny bit plain. So I spiced it up with some Kimchi. The kids were fine with it as it. The celery root was very potato like. I think I need to start using it more often.
And then we headed off to the Harvest Farm Corn Maze. We got there, parked, and were walking up to the ticket booth to pay when I saw the maze. Well, I thought I saw the maze. I saw the bridge that they usually put in the middle of the maze that someone stands on to help people who are lost. But all around it was only waist high (if that) corn stalk bits. So I asked the gal at the ticket booth if that was the maze and she confessed that snow last week (She said last week. I think she means two weeks ago.) squashed the maze. What a bummer! I wasn't about to have my teens try to get lost in a maze they could look right over the top of. So we turned around and headed for home.
To try and cheer everyone up, I suggested that we stop by Tasty Harmony and see if they had any cashew ice cream. I was hoping that might be a GAPS friendly treat we could try out. So I popped in while Rob circled the block, since there's not really any parking out front. I talked with the chef (or baker? or owner?) and not only were they out of cashew ice cream, but all of their desserts had flour of some sort or other except for the bananas with caramel. But the caramel is made with agave since many of their customers are vegan. And agave is GAPS verboten. So we gave up on the Tasty Harmony idea and headed over to Beavers Market to pick up some bananas. Thankfully, though they had lots and lots of green bananas, they had a whole shelf full of bananas with black spots, which is the requirement in GAPS. (I have no clue why. Anyone else know? I'm all ears.) So I grabbed two bunches and split.
At home I made fried bananas with honey caramel and homemade sour cream. It was Delicious!!! (especially with the cream). We ate it while watching the first episode of Grimm (Season 3).
Here's how I made the dessert:
Ingredients
whipping cream (I can't get unpasteurized, so I look for pasteurized as opposed to ultra-pasteurized. Get as much whipping cream as you want to make sour cream. I used a pint.)
1 package yogurt starter
----
honey (between 1/2 cup and a cup)
1 stick butter
----
bananas
more butter
Directions
Sour Cream: Several hours before, mix the yogurt starter into your whipping cream and pour the cream into your yogurt maker. I didn't head my cream up first. I wonder if I should have because it came out pretty runny in the end. I let mine yogurtize for 24 hours, mostly because I get waiting for it to solidify. Since it never did, I suspect 9 hours would have been plenty of time.
Honey Caramel: Put butter and honey into a small sauce pan on medium low heat. Stir occasionally. I used a candy thermometer to watch that I didn't heat it too high. I tried to keep it at 240°F or below because I didn't want it to get too hard. Because we used it while it was still warm for cooking, it was nice and pourable. While we watched Grimm it hardened up to a chewy consistency, like a soft candy. I probably should have kept the temp a little lower.
Fried Bananas: I put 1/4 cup of butter into the pan, but it was almost entirely gone by the time I got to the last of the bananas. An important tip I learned is not to cut the bananas too thin. They just get ooey and gooey as they cook and before you know it they won't turn over because they're just a spot of mush in the butter. It's better to cut the banana in half crosswise (because it's going to break there anyway so you might as well just get it over with) then cut it in half lengthwise so it's a little skinnier. Then fry it up in the butter till it's golden or just starting to brown up a bit.
Fried Bananas with Caramel and Cream: After the bananas are slightly browned, pile them up on the plate, put a nice size dollop (or dribble) of sour cream off to the side, and then drizzle caramel over the top. Yum!
I think everyone went back to get more cream for their bananas, but I didn't see anyone go back for more caramel, which I take as a good sign. We're not craving the sugars so much as the contrast of the sour cream with the naturally sweet bananas.
This is the right amount of butter, but the bananas were cut up way too small.
This is the right size for the bananas, but it took me so long to figure this out, that by this time the butter was all used up. I should have added more.
This is the honey and butter early on. It's pretty much butter colored.
And this is the honey and butter as it was starting to caramelize.
It's starting to get a nutty brown color now.
And here's a picture from my walk this morning because it has cows and I don't think I've posted a picture of cows yet on this website. Every website needs at least one cow picture.
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