When we first decided to go on a gluten free / casein free diet last July in hopes of finally curing my son of his constantly runny nose and bumpy red arms, I checked out every recipe book I could find in the library that might be of help. I also bought several from Amazon. I also did a lot of research online. Somewhere in the midst of all of my study, I came across mention of cauliflower "rice." So unfortunately, I can't give any credit to where the idea originally came from, but since the first time I made it, it's become a family favorite.

Though I've found recipes online, I don't get nearly as fancy as most of them when I'm cooking this dish. When I make it, I include three ingredients: ghee, cauliflower, and salt.

Step One: Melt a huge wallop of ghee in a fry pan. Because we're doing the GAPS diet, healthy fats are strongly encouraged, so I have no qualms about using a lot. But even when I made this dish before we were on the GAPS diet, I went heavy on the butter... mostly because I just love butter.

Ghee is clarified butter and it's approved for stage two of the GAPS intro diet, so that's what I used. I'm not one for getting all fancy about measuring stuff. So throw in as much ghee or butter as you feel comfortable using. You could also use coconut oil for a coconutty flavor. According to Dr. Natasha, cooking vegetable oils past a certain temperature do more harm than good. So stick to animal fats, butter/ghee, or coconut oil.

Melt the ghee/butter/whatever on medium heat.

Step Two: Grate the cauliflower using a grater or food processor with a grating disk. The goal is just to get little pieces of cauliflower. Don't feel like every single piece needs to pass through the grater. When I'm grating, it's normal to have little bitty florets pop off before I get them near the grater. That's fine, as long as they're small.  Throw the bitty bits of cauliflower in with the melted oil. Stir it around to spread the oil evening. Now you can move on to other things for a bit, stirring occasionally to make sure the cauliflower gets a little browned here and there, but nothing darker than that. 

You can see in the above photo I was also making homemade yogurt (see the milk in the pan to the right with the thermometer) and on the far right I was making poached eggs to go with our cauliflower "rice."

Step Three: I'm guessing the cooking takes between 5 - 10 minutes. I don't really pay attention since I'm dealing with other stuff at the same time. If there's a wee bit of browned up bits, that's just about where I like the "rice" to be. 

You can see the poaching eggs on the right in this next photo. Note the milk has been moved off to cool and the kids lunch is heating up in the center now so I can pack it away for them to take to school. 

Step Four: Sprinkle salt on top and serve.  You can eat this on its own or add it to any dish that you might consider putting with rice. It won't soak up sauces like rice does, but it still works surprisingly well in terms of getting along with the same kinds of foods. One of my girls told me this morning that she likes when the poached eggs are gooey enough to mix in the runny yolk with the "rice."

This morning I discovered a GAPS Diet FAQ! Woo hoo! There are times when the kids will ask, "But mom, will we be able to eat ______?" and I can't find it anywhere in the book. So I'll look online and sometimes I find an answer, but sometimes I don't. Hopefully this FAQ will help fill in some of the gaps. In fact, it's already answered a couple of questions. We were devastated to learn that black tea and cocoa are verboten in GAPS, but it turns out that's only in the intro diet (which is what we're in now). (I'm assuming black tea is OK once we're into the full diet because a mug of coffee a day is allowed.)

Today was a yogurt full day. The kids took a batch to school and I made another the moment they were out the door and that was mostly eaten by the time they all returned. (I ate some. Rob ate some. Then they came home like a swarm of locusts and had a bunch.) I'm not a yogurt fan, having OD'd on it in 10th grade. (Lunch every day was a container of Dannon yogurt and a piece of pita bread which I used to eat the yogurt with. My homeroom was also our lunch room in that school... which in my case meant I ate in the biology room - the same room where we dissected pigs. That may also have had some affect upon my lack of desire for yogurt.) But this homemade yogurt is so frickin' good that I've had to curb myself. We were going through the stuff so quickly that I finally went to the store and bought a second yogurt maker. I've got the new one running now and the old one is finally getting a chance to run through the dishwasher to get sanitized.

I should add that we're not adding fruit to our yogurt yet. We're still a few stages away from that. But I am putting a wee bit of honey in. Mmmmm!

I also put some beef stew in the kids lunch (as seen in the above photo). They all seemed to love it. In fact, lunch went much better than I had anticipated. And it's a bit easier packing everyone's lunch with what I know they're allowed to eat at this point (which is still fairly limited not only by our diet but by what I've made and have available within the diet). It's easier than running from room to room asking the kids what they'd like to eat that day. I'm sure as our choices widen out, I'll have to go back to running around finding out what everyone wants for lunch. But for now, it's the one time saver in an otherwise very time intensive program.

I've also gotten a chance to experience some die off symptoms. On the one hand that sucks. On the other it means that something's going right with the diet.

I feel like which symptoms you get is sort of a crap shoot. Nathan had a headache over the weekend as well as fatigue and dizziness. I, on the other hand, woke up at 4am this morning, and then couldn't go back to sleep because my heart was pounding. After looking through the FAQ (mentioned above), I've pieced together that it has something to do with some bad bacteria guys in my gut that produce histamines.  (Which kinda makes sense since one of the reasons I wanted to join Nathan in this diet is that I'm sick of allergies and having an itchy nose.) As the bad guys die off they release extra histamines. I don't know if it's a last ditch effort to freak me out into going back to my old diet or it's just something they like to do when they die, but it's making my heart go kalunk, kalunk way more than I'd like it to. I never was able to get back to sleep, so I ended up taking a nap later in the day and I've feeling a bit better since then... except for the burps.

I've been burping so much that when I walked the dogs this morning I deliberately picked a route where I wouldn't run into people. I was like a burp train chugging down back alleys and out to the ponds behind Lincoln Middle School. Someone in my tummy is having hissy fits about this new diet. (The photo on the left was taken near the ponds.)

I tried to make kefir yesterday that should have been done today, but I added the starter when the milk was too hot and inadvertently killed all the little good guys in there. So I ended up with rancid, coagulated milk instead of kefir. But I did find some at the store that seems to be GAPS-friendly. Redwood Hill Farm Plain Cultured Goat Milk Kefir is made without any sugars or thickeners. I'm hoping to try again to make my own kefir, but in the meantime, this is a great alternative. 

This morning I was despairing. Naomi had refused to eat dinner and Anna had said that she was just going to keep filling up on camomile tea until we were out of the soup phase of the diet. :-P I encouraged everyone to try to hang on just a little longer, but by lunch I gave in and moved us to stage 2, which allows for casseroles and stews. Though I had more fish soup for lunch, I made chili con carne for the rest of the fam. (That's kind of stew-ish, isn't it?) OK, so I probably cheated by using cumin and chili, but at least everyone ate!

Then for a little snack, later in the afternoon, I made cauliflower "rice" and a poached egg (which was a heavenly combination). OK, OK. So I guess I cheated again by not boiling the cauliflower, but I did use lots of ghee. :-}

I'm sure die hard GAPS fans are groaning in agony as they read this, but I figure the key is keeping to the GAPS theme as much as possible, while not starving my family.

I also made yogurt last night which has been entirely eaten up already. So we're on our second batch and I've started what I hope will turn into kefir by tomorrow some time.

For dinner we had chicken chili verde from the Joy of Cooking. I included homemade chicken broth and chicken from the bone, but I made it a wee bit too spicy. We had to use the yogurt to help cool it down.

Everyone ended up eating much better today than they did yesterday, so my worries about us all losing weight aren't as great any more.

The photo here is totally stolen off of Google, but it shows the same kind of yogurt machine that we're using. And while zipping around the internet looking for "can we eat this?" kind of help, I found this page from a GAPS Q&A session that's really helpful.

As I've been reading through Dr. Natasha's book on GAPS, I've tried to share, here and there, little details with my family about how the diet works, why I think we should try it, what it would look like, etc. I told the kids we wouldn't be eating any grains (which, with the exception of rice, we'd already kinda been doing ever since we tried a gluten free / casein free diet), but I kind forgot to mention that there'd be no potatoes either. As Naomi was stirring the chicken soup I made last night, she noticed the glaring lack of potato-eyness. It was at that moment that the lights flicked on and she realized, "Not just no grains, but no starches at all. And that means no potatoes!" I kind of expected a lot of whining at that point, but after about 5 minutes of withdrawal symptoms, she calmed down and seemed to do OK. She didn't like the cauliflower I added to the soup in place of potatoes, but she likes chicken soup in general so she was still alright with it all.

Butternut squash soup before it's blenderized.

Butternut squash soup after it's blenderized.

And that's kind of how it's been so far. The kids have a momentary hiccup as they realize a new aspect of the diet, then they realign their diet paradigm and move on. That said, I don't think anyone's too thrilled about the fish heads.

I'd love to try making this Fish Head Soup, but it calls for cream and we're not there yet in the diet. (I think we can do cream at some point. I know you can do butter and what's butter but beaten cream?) So instead I'm going to try Erin's fish soup recipe from Plan to Eat. (Ghee isn't listed as being a stage one ingredient... it's not supposed to come in until stage two. But I think I'm going to go for it and add some in. Our soups need something to jazz them up a little and ghee might help.)

Fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads.

So far I think everyone feels just plain hungry on this diet. I've had two different soups (chicken and butternut squash) available all day long and once the kids had a bowl of each, they were done. I've got the fish soup almost ready for tonight and a beef broth simmering for tomorrow, but the kids keep asking when they can have something other than soup. ... We've only been doing this for 24 hours at this point and already everyone's ready to move on to the next stage. One of my girls was asking me when we can have eggs. I told her that we were going to do egg drop soup tomorrow night and she said, "No, mom. Just plain eggs."

------------------------------------------------------------

So we had the fish soup for dinner and it appears to have been a hit. I was the only one that got seconds, but everyone said it was tasty.  I've got some salmon fillets that I didn't use so I threw all the fish bones and squooshy bits back into a pot with fresh water and I'll make more fish broth for a second round of fish soup. I would certainly prefer that to the cow soup we'll have on hand tomorrow.

Keeping enough soups available that everyone has something that tastes good to them has been the hardest part so far. For dinner they have to eat what's served. But for breakfast and lunch they can choose. Probably the biggest problem is me. The chickeny-ness of the chicken broth came through even in the butternut squash soup. The fish soup was better, but still I miss good old veggie broth. 

We decided to start the diet over a weekend just in case any of us experiences die off symptoms. We're hoping to be right as rain by Monday when school starts up again. My sister suggested that we start with Friday night's dinner. So when the kids came home from school today I told them they could eat anything they want until 5. It's their last hurrah (though really the last hurrah was when I let the girls eat through a half dozen donuts yesterday. We're not a donut eating family, but when one of my daughters found out that one of her classes was going to do "a donut a day" for a week and she wouldn't be able to participate, she begged to be able to do hers in advance. Why a class is doing a donut a day is beyond me.)

I boiled a whole chicken yesterday. The kids had some of the meat with dinner. I enjoyed my last meat free dinner in awhile. The broth and remaining meat are becoming tonight's dinner. The kids love homemade chicken soup, so starting with something familiar should get us off to a good start. I think the real problems are going to come around breakfast time. (I've already warned them that they'll be getting soup for breakfast. They seemed to take the news in stride. We'll see how the reality hits them.)

I also stopped by Whole Foods and asked if they had any fish bones. I'd much rather eat fish than mammal, so I'm hoping to have regular fish options available for myself. They didn't have bones, but they did have fish heads. (Which explains all the fish art.) Unfortunately not only are they frozen, but I've got today's chicken soup boiling in one of my soup pots (with yesterday's broth) and new broth being made (with the bones from yesterday's broth's chicken) in the other pot. And I only have two soup pots. So until I start working on crock pot soups (which I've never done before, so I'll probably have to find a recipe to follow on that for the first time) I'll have to wait till we actually eat up some of this soup before I can start in on the next one.

I'm hoping to make a butternut squash soup later tonight so that we can eat that for breakfast. We'll probably either have leftover chicken or butternut squash soup for lunch. And then the fish head soup will be for dinner. (I bought some salmon fillets to add to the soup, so we won't be eating the eyeballs. ... Unless, of course, the eyeballs liquify and melt into the broth. I don't really know what happens when you cook a fish head.)

So, there you have it, the beginnings of our foray into the GAPS diet.

As far as the fish heads go, all of the fish head art that's posted here is from from Inspire Fusion. There's even more photos there, so click through if you've enjoyed the fishiness. And for those that don't mind losing almost 5 minutes of their life to the Fish Heads song, here's an ancient video. (This song always makes me think of my college days. *sigh*)

Fish heads fish heads,
Roly poly fish heads,
Fish heads fish heads,
Eat them up yum

Fish heads fish heads,
Roly poly fish heads,
Fish heads fish heads,
Eat them up yum

In the morning,
Laughing happy fish heads,
In the evening,
Floating in the soup,

Fish heads fish heads,
Roly poly fish heads,
Fish heads fish heads,
Eat them up yum

Ask a fish head,
Anything you want to,
They won't answer,
They can't talk

Fish heads fish heads,
Roly poly fish heads,
Fish heads fish heads,
Eat them up yum

I took a fish head,
Out to see a movie,
Didn't have to pay 
To get it in

Fish heads fish heads,
Roly poly fish heads,
Fish heads fish heads,
Eat them up yum

They cant play baseball,
They dont wear sweaters,
There not good dancers,
They dont play drums

Fish heads fish heads,
Roly poly fish heads,
Fish heads fish heads,
Eat them up yum

Roly poly fish heads are never seen
Drinking cappucino in Italian resturants,
With oriental women, yeah

Fish heads fish heads,
Roly poly fish heads,
Fish heads fish heads,
Eat them up yum

Fish heads fish heads,
Roly poly fish heads,
Fish heads fish heads,
Eat them up yum, (yum!)

Fish heads fish heads,
Roly poly fish heads,
Fish heads fish heads,
Eat them up yum

Fish heads fish heads,
Roly poly fish heads,
Fish heads fish heads,
Eat them up yum,

Yea..

We're one week out from starting the GAPS intro diet. I still haven't explained to the kids exactly what it means. I've told them a lot about the full diet, but I've only hinted at the limitations in the intro diet.

In preparation, I want to have a list of recipes available so that I can focus on making the food and not on finding good ways to prepare it. I want to maximize the variety that will be available to the kids as soon as possible. (My son may move slower through these stages than the rest of us. But he knows that the goal is to heal his body so that his arms are no longer bumpy and red and his nose is no longer running like a freight train. I'm also hoping the diet will help keep his head clear and his moods level. The gluten free / casein free diet he's been on has helped a lot with that, but I can see there's still room for improvement.)

Disclaimer: I'm kind of guessing where these recipes fit within the stages. If you disagree, feel free to explain why in the comments section. You very well could be right. I might move stuff around as we get into the diet and I start to grok it a little better. Just because I put something in a particular place doesn't mean that's absolutely positively where it belongs.

All of the links for these recipes will lead off to other blogs. I'll only rewrite recipes here to this blog if I've changed them up a bit to better suit our family (or my cooking style). So if you click away to another site, I'd encourage you to look around a bit while you're there. You'll likely find something yummy or interesting in the process.

While looking for recipes, I also found this list of die-off symptoms that might be experienced when starting the diet. My son has been complaining about some of these things and now I think it makes sense. We've gradually been GAPS-ifying our diet. So while we're not on either the intro or the full diet, we're still doing replacing more of our regular meals with GAPS-ified meals and it's possible that's having an effect on my son's digestion already.

Stage One - The beginning of the broth

Fish soup - by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog
Mushroom soup - by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog
Summer Garden Soup with Turkey Meatballs - This is probably fancier than most stage one soups, but I don't see anything in it that's not allowed at this point. This recipe is by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog.
Creme Fraiche - by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog
Yogurt, Kefir, etc. starter culture from Cultures for Health - local health food stores often carry these cultures as well.
Fall Pumpkin Soup - by Cheese Slave
Roasted Pumpkin Soup - by Nurture My Gut
Creamy Zucchini Leek Soup - by Lauren of Empowered Sustenance

Cheats (Premade stuff you can buy at the store that's legal.)

Bubbies Sauerkraut - In stage one, you can only use the juice. If you take out juice and there's cabbage leaves exposed, add a little water until those leaves are covered up again. Otherwise they'll go bad.
Bubbies Kosher Dills - These are naturally fermented.
Single serving packets of Artisana Raw Coconut Butter - Handy when you're out and about.
Old Chatham Plain Sheep's Milk Yogurt - Old Chatham Sheepherding Company makes a plain yogurt without sweeteners of any sort and without pectin or other additives. All it contains is sheep milk and 4 types of probiotics.

Other Recipe Lists (I'm obviously not the only person who's thought of doing something like this.)

Afterthoughts Blog - Stage 1 recipes

Stage Two - The broth continues

Basic stew - by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog (scroll to the end of the post for the recipe)
Spaghetti Squash Bolognese with Fennel - Could this be called a casserole? OK, probably not, but it's close enough for me so I'm sticking it in stage two. All of the ingredients are allowed at this point.
Cauliflower Soup - by Grass Fed Girl
Paleo Potatoes - from the Real Food Forager. These "potatoes" are made from celeriac root.
How to Poach an Egg - a video by the Food Network. Granted, Dr. Natasha says "soft boiled" not poached, but they sure seem similar enough to me that I think this can be thrown down under stage two.

Other Recipe Lists

Afterthoughts Blog - Stage 2 recipes

Stage Three - Broth plus

Pumpkin pancakes - by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog (scroll to the end of the post for the recipe)
Fermented Salsa - by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog
Chicken and Veg with Dijon Herb Sauce - by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog
Butternut Pudding - posted by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog, from Rachel Ray Magazine
Diane's Beet Fennel Salad - by Vitamin Cottage. This might be OK in stage two, except that it seems like the stews should still be brothy whereas this is a salad and therefore broth-less. But you could pour lots of butter or olive oil on top.

Cheats (Premade stuff you can buy at the store that's legal.)

Bubbies Kosher Dill Relish - You wouldn't use this in an earlier stage just because it would be harder to pull out just the juice. But by stage three you want to start eating the veggies as well.
Coconut Water - This has become one of my favorite drinks. I buy it in bulk when it's on sale at the grocery store. I decided not to put it until day three to emphasize that broth is the drink of choice in the intro diet. But as a vegetarian that's not looking forward to the meatiness of all this GAPS stuff, I feel like the coconut water needs to get allowed by this point or I think I'll lose it.)

Other Recipe Lists

Afterthoughts Blog - Stage 3 recipes

Stage Four - Broth and stuff you can serve on a plate

Gluten Free Nuts from Nuts.com - Nuts don't contain gluten, but sometimes they're cross contaminated because of where they're packaged.
Baked Lemon Herb Chicken - by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog (scroll to the end of the post for the recipe)
Kim's Baked Chicken and Veggies with Cashew Artichoke Topping - from Vitamin Cottage. If you buy canned artichoke hearts, make sure there's nothing added that's not GAPS friendly.
Tim's Liver and Onions - by Vitamin Cottage
Carrot Pancakes - by Jolene of Yummy Inspirations. Scroll to about the middle of the post for the recipe.
Almond Squash Bread - by the Liberated Kitchen
Tuna Sandwich and Mayonnaise - by Healing Through GAPS

Cheats (Premade stuff you can buy at the store that's legal.)

Applegate Organic Turkey Burgers
Applegate Organic Beef Burgers
Whole Foods Smoked Salmon is apparently completely legal and makes a handy protein snack.
Canned Tuna - Just make sure the can is BPA free. My husband swears that Wild Planet is better than any other brand out there, but I usually buy Crown Prince brand.
Grass Fed Jerky Chews - grass fed, gluten free. It looks like the Chipotle Raisin varieties contain sugar, though, so avoid those.

Other Recipe Lists

GAPS in our Gut - stage 4 recipes
Afterthoughts Blog - stage 4 recipes

Stage Five - Broth and more stuff you can serve on a plate

Fall Vegetable and Sausage Stew - from Vitamin Cottage. You'll have to modify this recipe a little. Parsnips are a no-no in the GAPS diet, so leave those out. Make sure you use sausages that are GAPS-friendly, such as the Applegate Chicken & Apple Sausages listed below in the cheats section. And don't forget to use your own homemade chicken stock.
Hazelnut Pancakes with Sautéed Apples - by Vitamin Cottage

Cheats (Premade stuff you can buy at the store that's legal.)

Applegate Chicken and Apple Breakfast Sausages (The other two kinds of breakfast sausage that they carry aren't GAPS legit because one contains maple syrup and the other cane syrup.) Their regular Chicken & Apple sausages look alright also (except for maybe the sodium lactate. But hey! It's from beets and beets are allowed, right?)  :-}
Beelers Italian Sausages - These are gluten free. Several of the other types of Beelers sausages contain Turbinado sugar, so you'll want to avoid those.

Other Recipe Lists

Afterthoughts Blog - stage 5 recipes

Stage Six - Still not done with the broth...
even when we move into the Full GAPS diet

Coconut Date Balls - by K Miller of K Miller Photographs (thanks to Erin from Plan to Eat for the link).
Banana "Ice Cream" with Coconut and Cacao - by Erin of Plan to Eat
Coconut Muffins - by KitchenStewardship.com. Although it seems to me like everything in this recipe is OK by stage four, I put it in the stage six category because that's where the bready things that you can make without throwing some squash in there get mentioned.
Coconut Milk - from the Real Food Forager. I don't know why this is stage six, but that's where I found it in another list.

Cheats (Premade stuff you can buy at the store that's legal)

Dried fruit - make sure it's organic with no added preservatives or sugars.

Full Diet - There are some recipes that might fit fine under one of the intro stages, but I can't decide where to put them. So I'm just gonna stick them here and let you decide. :-)

Karen's Sausage Breakfast Pie - from Vitamin Cottage. I don't think the Beelers breakfast sausage is GAPS friendly. It contains turbinado sugar. So use Applegate Chicken & breakfast sausages instead.
Sassy Water - by Vitamin Cottage. I don't know where in the stages citrus is allowed. But I see lemon on the allowed list for the full diet. So I'm putting this recipe here. You could probably make it in an earlier stage sans lemon.
Raw Carrot Cake - by Vitamin Cottage
Chai Peach Soufflé - by Vitamin Cottage. Switch out the maple syrup for honey.
Primal Hot Cereal - by Vitamin Cottage. I was wondering if it were possible to do something like this. I'm glad to see that someone else has already tried it. I wonder if you can eat it cold with almond milk. I'm in love with Udi's original granola. But it's full of oats. Maybe this will be a close second.
Pumpkin Soup - by Real Food Media. I'd like to think this soup would be fine at stage one, but the fact that it has curry and cayenne probably boots it right out of that stage. So I'd say fit this in when your tummy can handle it. Since we're doing the diet mostly to deal with moods and skin issues, I don't think spices are going to be a problem for us. But anyone with tummy issues will want to take care.

Other Recipe Lists

Afterthoughts Blog on Pinterest - full GAPS diet recipes
Afterthoughts Blog on Pinterest - full GAPS snacks

Supplements

Green Pasture Fermented Cod Liver Oil

An article by James Hamblin just came out in yesterday's Atlantic Monthly entitled What We Eat Affects Everything. In it, Hamblin interviews Robynne Chutkan M.D. Chutkan doesn't seem to espouse any particular diet, but she does recommend an 80/20 principal (that I've also seen mentioned by the Conscious Cleanse gals) in which 80% of the food you eat should be unprocessed and healthy. The other 20% can be splurge food.

Chutkan claims that for many people 80% of what they eat is highly processed, sugary foods that are low in nutritional value and the other 20% are meats, vegetables, whole grains, etc. By flipping that percentage around, we'll spend less time toxifying our bodies and more time detoxing.

One of the most interesting parts of the article, in my opinion, is Chutkan's answer to Hamblin's question, "What are some differences in the way you approach female patients as opposed to men? In my mind, at least, the digestive tract isn’t something commonly thought of as a gendered part of the body." The answers all make a lot of sense once you read them, though you might not have thought of them before now. I'd encourage you to read the article for yourself. If you're only interested in hearing the answer to the gender differences question, scroll down to just past the image of the virtual colonoscopy. (Woot! Now doesn't that get you excited to click through and read?!!)  ;-)