Sunday, August 4, 2013

Raising the Bar - Go Ahead Honey It's Gluten-Free (Grain-Free, Refined Sugar-Free)

Raising the Bar - Grain-Free and Refined Sugar-Free Bars is the theme for this round-up of Go Ahead Honey It's Gluten-Free. Cookie bars are perfect for picnics and summer get togethers, they usually travel well and hold up to the summer heat better than an iced cake. So why not have a variety of grain-free and refined sugar-free ones to choose from? Sounds like bliss to me.
 
(Sorry to post so late, I was going to try to post before vacation but did not get a chance.)
 
 
 
 
Victoria of Gluten-Free SCD and Veggie brings her Apricot Slice. The perfect take along to any BBQ.  They are SCD and Paleo friendly. Her blog is also full of veggie dishes as well, one of my favorite blogs.
 

These Berry and Coconut Slices are also SCD and Paleo friendly.  Debbie of An Aussie with Crohn's,  has many other grain-free goodies, well worth a peek. 


 Mmm..Grain-Free, Vegan Carob Chunk Cookie Bars. Madison's Eating 4 Balance has a fun mix of recipes, life, and health topics.


These gorgeous morsels come from Lisa of Real Food Kosher. Her Cranberry Crumb Bars with Pecans and Rosemary look amazing.
 

 Summer is here and I wanted to have a no bake recipe: No Bake Macadamia Apricot Coconut Snack Bars.

I also have Coconut Lime Bars. They have a crispy shortbread crust with a lime curd filling.

I hope you enjoyed this round-up!

Be sure to check out For the Love of Food. Nooshin is hosting for August and the theme is fruit.
Last month was Primal Travel Food from Sunny of And Love it Too.

No Bake Macadamia Apricot Coconut Bars (SCD, Paleo)

You don't have to heat up the house for these.

No Bake Macadamia Apricot Coconut Bars (SCD, Paleo)


6 oz Dried Apricots
1/4 cup boiling Water
1/4 cup Honey
2 cups Macadamia Nuts, raw and unsalted
2 cups finely shredded Unsweetened Coconut

Line a 7" x 11" dish with wax paper, allowing some to hand over the edge for "handles".

In a small bowl, soak apricots in boiling water for about 10 minutes to soften. Place apricots with liquid, and honey in food processor. Pulse until mixture is a puree. Add macadamia nuts and pulse to desired consistency. Scape into a large mixing bowl and mix in coconut. Pat mixture into dish and refrigerate. Makes 15 bars.

This is one of my submissions for Go Ahead Honey It's Gluten Free.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Go Ahead Honey Deadline Moved Up

Due to an unexpected busy week, I will be posting Go Ahead Honey It's Gluten-Free on Sunday. So there is still time to get in your recipes!!

Send me the link to your entry and a photo of it by this Saturday. My email address is innerterrain@gmail.com Label it "Go Ahead Honey" in the subject bar

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Coconut Lime Bars (SCD)

These bars have a crunchy shortbread crust, a tart lime curd filling, and a crunchy coconut topping. This is also my submission for this months "Go Ahead Honey It's Gluten-Free".  I'm the host for July and the theme is "Raising the Bar - Grain-Free and Refined Sugar-Free Bars". So check back here at the end of the month for more great bar recipes, and submit a recipe of your own.

Coconut Lime Bars (SCD)


Shortbread Crust:

1 1/2 cups Almond Flour
1 cup Unsweetened Coconut, finely shredded
4 TBSP Butter, melted
2 TBSP Honey

Lime Curd Filling:

4 TBSP Butter
1/3 cup Honey
1/2 cup Lime Juice
4 large Egg Yolks

Topping:

1 1/2 cups Unsweetened Coconut, finely shredded
1/2 cup Almond Flour
2 TBSP Butter, melted
1/4 cup Honey

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter or grease a 7" x 11" baking dish (I used a Pyrex dish).

For the Shortbread Crust: In a large mixing bowl, combine the almond flour and the coconut. Mix honey into melted butter and then pour into flour mixture. Stir until combined. Press into prepared pan and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven.

For the Lime Curd Filling: In a medium saucepan, whisk together filling ingredients. Then place over a medium heat and stir constantly until mixture thickens and coats the spoon. Do not overcook. Remove pan from heat.

For the Topping: Combine the coconut and almond flour in a large mixing bowl. Stir honey into melted butter to mix. Pour into flour mixture and stir until combined.

Pour lime curd filling over the crust. Then evenly sprinkle coconut topping over it. Bake about 15 minutes. Cool before serving.

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Go Ahead Honey It's Gluten Free - Raising the Bar (Grain Free, Refined Sugar Free)

I am hosting Go Ahead Honey It's Gluten Free this month! It's my third time (see here and here). It is a gluten-free blog carnival started by the fabulous Naomi Devlin of Straight Into Bed Cakefree and Dried.

Nowadays, Grain Free is becoming more popular, appealing not only to the GF crowd, but also many health conscious folks as well. So what better than to have a Gluten-Free and Grain-Free theme? This months theme is Raising the Bar - Grain-Free and Refined Sugar Free Bars. So if you have a great brownie or bar that's Paleo, SCD/GAPS, Primal, Low Carb, or just simply Grain-Free (and Gluten-Free of course), join in.

Post a gluten-free recipe for a brownie or bar and link it to this carnival. Your recipe will need to be gluten-free and grain-free, but your blog does not have to be. If you do not have a blog you can email me your recipe with photo. Grain-Free ingredient possibilities may include almond flour, coconut flour, vegetables, starches, amaranth, quinoa, etc. Possible sweeteners may include honey, maple syrup, coconut sugar, dates, fruit, etc.

-Send me the link to your entry and a photo of it by July 28, 2013. My email address is innerterrain@gmail.com Label it "Go Ahead Honey" in the subject bar.

-Check back for the recipe round-up. I will try to get the recipes posted by July 30.

You can check out June's Go Ahead Honey at And Love It Too, the theme is Primal Travel Food.

Here are some Grain-Free and Refined Sugar-Free bars from around the web to inspire you:

Grain-Free Fig Bars  (SCD legal) from yours truly

Luscious Lemon Bars (Nut-Free and SCD legal) from Against All Grain

Coffee Brownies (SCD legal) from Gluten-Free SCD and Veggie

Berry Honey Bars (SCD Legal) from Heal Balance Live

Sweet Coconut Curry Grain Free Granola Bars (SCD legal) from the Urban Poser

Almond or Peanut Nut Butter Bars from Heal Balance Live

Pecan Pie Bars from Without Adornment

Brownies- using coconut flour from Comfy Belly

Strawberries and Cream Almond Bars from Eat the Cookie

Coconut Butter Blondies from The Food Lovers Kitchen

Orange Almond Squares from the Spunky Coconut

Flourless Brownies from the Spunky Coconut

Chocolate Pumpkin Brownies from The Tasty Alternative





Sunday, June 30, 2013

Banana Praline Snack Cake (SCD)

I'm baack! This blog has been a bit deserted for awhile, but I have some good things lined up for July. One is that I am hosting Go Ahead Honey It's Gluten-Free. I'll have more details later this week. For now here is a moist cake with some caramel/praline gooey stuff on top.

Banana Praline Snack Cake (SCD)

Praline Topping:

3 TBSP. Butter
1 cup chopped Pecans
1/3 cup Honey

Cake:

2 Very Ripe Bananas, mashed
2 1/2 cups Almond Flour
1/2 teas. Sea Salt
1/2 teas. Baking Soda
1 teas. Cinnamon
1/4 cup Butter
1/3 cup Honey
2 eggs
1 teas. Vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 7" x 11" casserole dish (I use my Pyrex dish).

Make the pralines by heating butter and pecans in a skillet over medium heat. Stir often and cook until pecans are lightly toasted and fragrant. Add honey and boil for 4 minutes while stirring, and then boil one minute without stirring. Keep a close watch to insure mixture does not burn. Remove pan from heat and set aside.

For the cake batter: Mash bananas in a small bowl and set aside. Place dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and combine. Melt butter in a small saucepan (or micro in a bowl). When it is melted, remove from heat. Stir in honey. Blend in eggs and vanilla. Pour mixture into dry ingredients and combine. Stir in mashed bananas. Scrape batter into prepared dish and sprinkle the top with praline topping. Bake 30 to 40 minutes until cake tests done with a toothpick.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

When You Swallow A Grenade (Link to Great Article)

Here is a link to a great article titled "When You Swallow a Grenade" by Carl Zimmer and published on the National Geographic web page. It gives a brief history of anitbiotics and their role in changing gut flora.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Replacing Saturated Fat with Heart Healthy Oils

If you are a Gary Taubes fan you may like this one. A link to this fascinating little study was posted by blogger David Evans on his "Healthy Diets and Science" (a very fun blog to dig around in). The name of the study is: "Use of dietary linoleic acid for secondary prevention of coronary heart disease and death: evaluation of recovered data from the Sydney Diet Heart Study and updated meta-analysis" and it was published this month in BMJ. The Sydney Diet Heart Study was conducted in 1966-1973 with 458 males, aged 30-59 years, who already received care for coronary issues .  The study was to measure the effectiveness of replacing dietary saturated fat with omega 6 linoleic acid (safflower oil).  The researchers assumed that the safflower oil would decrease total serum cholesterol and thereby increase health benefits. And yes, the cholesterol levels did decrease.  However, death rates for all causes of mortality rose for those on the "heart healthy" oils.  We all know the extent of dietary advice given that we should replace saturated fat with omega-6 rich vegetable oils such as safflower, soybean, and corn oil, and yet most of us are unfamiliar with the lack of evidence to conclusively back this up. Here are some eerie comments from the study:

"Advice to substitute vegetable oils rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) for animal fats rich in saturated fatty acids (SFAs) has been a cornerstone of worldwide dietary guidelines for the past half century. When this advice originated in the 1960s, PUFAs were regarded as a uniform molecular category with one relevant biological mechanism—the reduction in blood cholesterol. Omega 6 (n-6) linoleic acid (LA) was the best known dietary PUFA at the time. Therefore, the terms “PUFA” and “LA” were often used interchangeably when interpreting clinical trial results and delivering dietary advice...
However, there is currently no clinical trial evidence indicating that replacing SFAs with n-6 LA, without a concurrent increase in n-3 PUFAs, lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease or death. Thus, benefits attributed to PUFAs as a general category might be due to n-3 PUFAs specifically, particularly eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid. Such benefits are not necessarily generalizable to n-6 LA or other PUFA species. Since n-6 LA is the most abundant dietary PUFA, and edible oil sources with markedly different contents of fatty acids are commercially available it is important to ascertain the benefits and risks specific to n-6 LA."

"Oxidation products of n-6 LA have been implicated in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease,  and alcohol use and cigarette smoking are major sources of free radical mediated oxidation.Therefore, we hypothesized that alcohol use or smoking at baseline modified the association between longitudinal change in PUFA intake and mortality using likelihood ratio tests (α=0.15). The original SDHS investigators posited that the LA intervention would reduce serum cholesterol as an intermediate for the prevention of cardiovascular death. Thus, to examine whether the magnitude of postrandomization changes in total blood cholesterol were associated with mortality, we calculated hazard ratios for each mortality outcome as a function of time varying change from baseline in total blood cholesterol."

"Among intervention patients (in whom the PUFA increase was n-6 LA from safflower oil), an increase of 5% of food energy from n-6 LA predicted 35% and 29% higher risk of cardiovascular death and all cause mortality, respectively (models adjusted for age, dietary cholesterol, body mass index at baseline, smoking, alcohol use, and marital status)."

"Conclusions Advice to substitute polyunsaturated fats for saturated fats is a key component of worldwide dietary guidelines for coronary heart disease risk reduction. However, clinical benefits of the most abundant polyunsaturated fatty acid, omega 6 linoleic acid, have not been established. In this cohort, substituting dietary linoleic acid in place of saturated fats increased the rates of death from all causes, coronary heart disease, and cardiovascular disease. An updated meta-analysis of linoleic acid intervention trials showed no evidence of cardiovascular benefit. These findings could have important implications for worldwide dietary advice to substitute omega 6 linoleic acid, or polyunsaturated fats in general, for saturated fats."


Sunday, February 3, 2013

American Sweet Tooth

Nursing Your Sweet Tooth
Created by: www.OnlineNursingPrograms.com

The gals at FlipCookbook had this posted on their site. I love it. Sonia and Raj host a Sunday blog carnival called "Sugar Free Sunday".