A Little Mid-Week Update, and Grain-free Pumpkin Bread

Yesterday I felt well, but so hungry! I had my little pumpkin bread* with butter and a hardboiled egg for breakfast with coffee and milk. For lunch I ate my too-small  but very nutrient-dense salad then went on about a crazy-busy day. By the end of my workday I was famished. By the time I finished my 6pm dance class I was ready to eat the house. I settled for some grain-free bouef bourguingon over cauliflower and called it a night.

Today I packed extra raw almonds and a banana to get through the day, but it brings up a useful question to me: What is the difference between buying nuts and packing them in my lunch and stopping at the store to buy a bag of nuts when I'm hungry? The answer is that I'm just not stopping in to buy anything this month. This is radical dining-in and that means If I Dont Pack It I Don't Eat It. My shopping and prep are on Sunday and that's all there is unless I realize I've run out of something crucial. So I am reminded that I need to start making kombucha again, because O! how I miss my daily fix of it from the GNC next to my office. (That commercial kombucha and two ostrich meat sticks have made a thrown-together lunch more often than I care to think about, and at $7+ for something so silly there is really no excuse for me not making my own at home. Easy-peasy. A recipe and tutorial are coming soon.)


*So. Pumpkin "Bread". . .

. . . is more like a bread-with-pie-center and maybe something that you eat if you are hankering for a baked good and unable to allow yourself one, even if it is Girl Scout cookie month and, come on, now- don't raisins and spices make everything just a teeny bit better? I make mine very loosely.  Since they're never perfect like a real baked good I feel like you can be a bit loose with the ratios and play around until you hit on something you like. The main idea is that they are heavy on the eggs so they're full of protein and a little piece can therefore function as an actual breakfast. Plus you only have to bake one once and you're set for a week. I add a tiny bit of stevia (an herbal-derived sweetener that doesn't seem to raise blood sugar levels) but you can use raw honey or maple syrup to add sunshine to the morning. Seriously, this recipe and its variations have been a work in progress I have been tinkering with for the past year. If you have a better method won't you send it my way? I will keep tinkering and post an update when I've figured it out. Here's how I did it this time.

Grain-free Pumpkin Bread

5 eggs

2/3 a cup of organic pumpkin puree
1 cup coconut flour (I also have used almond flour, which may work better for you)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon molasses
nutmeg, cinnamon, and stevia to taste
some raisins

some almonds

I preheated the over to 350 and oiled a square Pyrex sheet (8 x 8") with coconut oil.  I mixed everything well in a large bowl, and poured it into the baking sheet. Letting it turn very nice and brown on the outside will mitigate some of the "mushy center" issues so common in grain-free baking. Adding more almond flour as you go can also help, but don't add too much or you end up with that chalky, dry texture that is also so common in grain-free baking. You're looking for a raw texture that is more like cookie dough, less like pancake batter.

Bake until brown and toast up in squares. Add butter and your morning beverage of choice and you've started the day with a powerhouse of protein, beta carotenes, and good fats.

And you've staved off the Girl Scouts for another day.

Day One

For my part, the goal of this month is to break sugar addiction and get back into a cooking rhythm that is grain-free and unprocessed.

Though a great number of my clients with persistent acne find that it clears up to some extent when they eliminate dairy, my jury is out about the effects of dairy on my own body. Other than our usual Sunday visit to the ice cream place, when our house eats dairy we eat organic and raw. I don't seem to have any negative effects from it, though I am carrying somewhere near 20 pounds more of me than I would like to be and if low-dairy or dairy-free helps the healthy weight cause then I will say good-bye to that too. (And of course, our weekly ice cream date will be on hold for this month of home cooking.)

This week is all about getting back in the swing. In preparation for a busy week, I've made a meal plan, shopped for the week, and gotten a jump on a few of the tasks that could be done ahead. So far I have:

• Boiled a dozen eggs


• Washed, chopped, and stored a metric ton of vegetables


• Baked a small sweetish pumpkin and raisin "bread" (made with molasses and coconut flour)


• Pre-baked enough nitrate- and nitrite-free organic bacon for adding a bit of flavor to our packed lunches


• Started a beautiful boeuf bourguignon (kind of like this one, but grain-free and in the slow cooker)


• Pre-made a delicious mashed cauliflower for dinner tonight and to serve as the boeuf's base


• Started a GIANT pot of bone broth to freeze and use throughout the week (because I have come to understand from years of research both personal and academic, that "good broth can resurrect the dead.") We use it as a base for soups and sauces, and if we were eating grains we would use it for cooking water for that too.

• Made all three of our lunches (salad with hard boiled egg, avocado, a bit of bacon, olive oil and balsamic vinegar for the adults, and leftover chicken and cauliflower plus olives, raw cheese, pepitas, yogurt and apple for the kiddo)

Wahoo, bring it on. I feel good. It's empowering to get a reign on things, even if I will miss my evening chocolate and glass (or two) of wine.

(Edit: Today was a day running around with my kiddo, with a lot of cooking for the week and a lot of eating. The menu was: Breakfast: 2 pastured eggs and 2 pieces of organic bacon; coffee with raw milk. Elevensies snack: a small piece of pumpkin "bread," an apple and a hard boiled egg. Lunch: tinned sardines in olive oil with broccoli. Late afternoon snack: a small cup of hot cocoa made with raw milk, molasses, a touch of cocoa powder and a touch of stevia. Dinner: Mary's chicken, dredged in almond flour and cooked with coconut oil. Served on a bed of cauliflower mash and wilted spinach. I didn't have enough water and I was too busy with projects and cooking to keep up with my usual supplements. I drank some herbal tea infusions for general health, and a cup of Irish Breakfast tea for a mild caffeine pick-me-up in the afternoon. Tomorrow will likely look very different from today.)