Mail's Here!!

Today all my orders came in from Amazon and I cannot wait to get cooking with them!!

2lbs - Grass-fed beef gelatin (kosher)
2lbs - Raw organic cacao power
2lbs - Cold-pressed organic cocoa butter

Oh I'm so excited to try these new products out! The gelatin you've seen in the Honey-Marshmallow recipe, but the others I haven't tried before. I'm looking forward to seeing how the tastes compare to the processed stuff that most of us grew up with.

And yes... I know that many of my recipes are chocolate right now. They won't be for long... it's a phase... bare with me!

With these new kickin' ingredients, you're going to have to "suffer" through just a couple more chocolate posts... then we'll try something else for a while... I suppose :-)

Chocolate Caramel Candy - G.A.P.S. Tootsie Roll Copy-cat

Made with full-fat butter and local honey, these candies really hit the spot when you're having a craving for something you shouldn't eat!

Guilt free, I keep a few of these in my purse and haven't really even been tempted to eat non-G.A.P.S. at all!

Recipe -

Yields 150 (+/-20)

1/2 cup butter
1 cup honey
1 1/2 cup organic cocoa powder
2 tbsp vanilla extract
Dash of salt

1. Melt butter and add honey.

2. Bring honey/butter mixture to a boil and boil for 3 full minutes.

3. Add vanilla carefully, will splatter in hot liquid.

4. Remove from heat and add cocoa powder and salt. Use a wooden or metal spoon to work the powder into a dough. Make sure it is as smooth as possible.

5. Spread between two layers of parchment paper and smooth with rolling pin (or whatever you have at hand) while still hot. ** I make mine about 1/4" thick, but you could make them thicker without a problem. You would get fewer pieces and since they are so rich, I find that a little piece is more than enough to satisfy!

6. Allow to cool. Use pizza cutter/knife to cut into 1"x1/2" pieces. Wrap in pieces of parchment paper/wax paper.

7. Eat and enjoy!!

 

Sprouted Almond Flour

Most recipes that call for almond flour use blanched almond flour. You can buy this at the store or in bulk online. However, you can make it yourself at home for a fraction of the cost and at the same time, you can soak them so that you get all those lovely benefits!

Recipe -

1. Place almonds in a bowl with twice the room needed for the almonds. They will grow in size when soaked, just like beans.

2. Fill bowl to top with water. You can use tap or filtered, whichever you are more comfortable with!

3. Soak for at least 8 hours and a max of 12 hours.

4. Rinse almonds thoroughly! You will be amazed at how much dirt comes off those little guys!

5. Place on dehydrator trays and dry on 145 for 24 hours and then check for crispness. They should be completely crisp all the way through with no chewiness at all. This has taken up to 4 days for me before. It all depends of the humidity in your home and the time of year.

6. Allow to cool in the dehydrator (so just leave it off) for about 8 - 10 hours. Then you can store them in an air tight container without condensation building inside the container. That would cause the almonds to get soggy and allow for mold growth!

7. Place a handful of almonds into a coffee grinder (not one that you grind coffee in. Use a dedicated nut/flax/coconut grinder!). Grind until as fine as possible, but be careful because it will turn to butter quickly and that's just a mess. Scrap powder into a sieve to catch any big pieces and then separate the two.

Big pieces in one bowl, flour in another. You will regrind the big pieces again once you've done all the flour you need. repeat until you have enough flour for your project.

You may need to take breaks if your grinder starts getting warm. It may overheat and shut down for awhile, but it will come back on if that happens... it will just need to cool down! Try to avoid that by being sensitive to how much you can grind before it even starts to overheat.

8. Use them all up and start again!

There is a lot of time involved with this process, but only about 30 minutes of active work. The rest of the time is just waiting for the dehydrator.

I may try an oven version of this process to see if that works faster without roasting the nuts.

Cinnamon Raisin Muffins

Breakfast was a really hard thing for me to deal with when starting G.A.P.S. - I don't like eggs, so I just didn't know what to do!

I tried a few bread/muffin recipes and they all came out really soggy. I mean, really soggy. 6 eggs and 1/2 cup of coconut flour does not magically turn into bread!

So I set out to find something to have with bacon and butter in the morning. I know, it's a rough life!

Part of the challenge was leaving out all fruit as it's not supposed to be eaten with anything else on the G.A.P.S. - I did add a half cup of raisins to the batch, but with a yield of 24 muffins per, you're only getting about 5 raisins in each muffin... I didn't think that was too bad! But you can leave them out if you want, I'd just up the honey a bit, since the raisin add to the sweetness of the muffin.

I found this cinnamon raisin bread recipe at Simply Living Healthy and converted it to a muffin recipe with a few changes.

Recipe - 

Yield - 24 muffins

3 cup almond flour - I sprout, dehydrate and grind my own which you can read about here.

1/4 cup coconut flour

1/2 cup flax meal

3 teaspoons baking soda

7 eggs, room temperature

1/2 cup coconut oil UPDATE: 1/2 cup butter, softened

2 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup raisins

3 Tablespoon cinnamon

1. Pre-heat oven to 350.

2. Mix all together and allow to sit for 10 minutes. This allows the liquid to soak into the flour a bit as the flax activates over time. 

3.  Spoon batter into muffin liners. I filled mine about 3/4 of the way full and they turned out perfectly! I did have to use two spoons to spread the batter all the way to the sides of the liners, since it is so think.

4. Bake for 18 minutes or until toothpick comes out of center clean.

 

These freeze well and will last in the fridge for at least a week (that's as long as I can keep them "in stock" before they disappear! So they may last longer!)

Enjoy!

Marshmallows

 

 

One of my favorite things to make is homemade marshmallows... They are so ridiculously easy and SO delicious! Pre G.A.P.S. I made all of my recipes with cane syrup and sugar!

I really loved a cup of hot chocolate on a cold night with homemade marshmallows turning into gooey goodness on top... BUT when I made the decision to "go G.A.P.S." I had to let that little slice of heaven go.

Knox gelatin, cane syrup, white sugar and a dash of water made up the original recipe, but then I had the idea to just try substituting honey for the sugar syrup! Here are the results...

Recipe -

3 tbsp grass fed beef gelatin
1/2 cup cold water

1 cup honey
1/2 cup water
dash salt

2 tsp Vanilla extract*

1. Combine gelatin and 1/2 cup of water in a mixer bowl and let bloom while cooking honey syrup.

2. Combine honey, 1/4 cup water, and salt in medium sauce pan. Bring to a boil and allow to remain and a rolling boil for 3 minutes.

3. Turn mixer onto low with just the gelatin in the bowl. Pour boiling syrup over gelatin** and slowly raise the speed over about 2 minutes to avoid splatter. It's HOT!

4. Add vanilla at this point and continue to beat the heck out of the mix until it is the consistency of marshmallow cream. This usually takes about 5 -10 minutes depending on the temperature of your kitchen and speed of your machine.

5. Pour mix into a greased 9 x 13 pan and wait!

6. After about 4 hours, use a greased pizza cutter to slice and dice those bad boys into individual marshmallows!

These will keep in the fridge indefinitely. They are best to eat alone within 3-5 days, but will melt into raw milk hot chocolate perfectly forever!

I know this seems like a lot all written out, but after you do it once and see how easy it is, you'll be making them for everything! I want to try a chocolate variation of this for 3 Musketeer copy cat candy bars!! Will post that when I try it.

Enjoy!

*A note regarding extract: I make my own with Mexican vanilla beans and vodka. Be careful when you are using extract that there is no added corn syrup or other things that are not allowed on G.A.P.S.

** Many people say this step needs to be very slow, but I've never done it that way. Dump that syrup in there and turn the mixer up!

Urban Poser has a recipe that is just like this in the ingredients, but the directions are a bit different. She coats hers in something (cocoa, coconut, arrowroot starch...) to keep them from being sticky, but I haven't found this to be a problem with mine.

About Me

Hello all!

My name is Victoria and I am starting out on my G.A.P.S. diet journey. I'm in my first month on the full diet and am having a great time going through all these recipes that I'm finding everywhere, in addition to making up my own!

I have been making homemade/handmade everything since I was a little girl which you can read about on my Rediscovering Heirlooms blog here. Because of this love of doing everything myself, I'm really getting into testing new recipes every week!

So, I thought I would share them here.

Seeing so many people know that they need to be on the G.A.P.S. diet but just can't seem to make it stick really makes me sad. I have been fighting candida for 4 years now and finally just found G.A.P.S. - only 1 month in and my symptoms are 85% GONE!

This diet works miracles and I am SO thankful to have found it... thanks to my dad and husband who read everything they can get their hands on!

If you don't know about the G.A.P.S. diet, read about it here.

Anyway, through this blog I want to show that you can stay on G.A.P.S. and still have cookies and hot chocolate (with homemade marshmallows... seriously, I have the recipe... Marsh. Mallows. O.O).

Buckle up... this test kitchen just took off!

-V