Greek Yogurt Dip

     We eat so many carrots that I start to feel bad for my kids.  Today I gave them some carrot sticks while they waited for lunch to be ready.  They did not complain, but I could tell they were less than enthused.

     I love ranch.  Before we went gluten free and dairy free five years ago, we always had a bottle of Hidden Valley Ranch in the fridge.  When we found out we had food allergies, it was the first thing to go.  Before we started GAPS I had found a really good recipe for ranch that put all others to shame!  I was so excited!  Here is the recipe I adapted four years ago, but I can not find the source for the original recipe.  (Note, this was before I learned of the "evils" of soy).

RANCH!

1 cup Mayo

1/3 cup soy milk

1 ½  TBSP lemon juice

Fresh Chives

Fresh Basil

Fresh Parsley

Fresh Dill

Fresh Garlic

Fresh Onion

Dash of Salt and Pepper

Put all ingredients into a food processor or blender and blend until everything is smooth and creamy.  Will have a slight green tint to it from all the fresh herbs.  It also will taste a bit strong on it’s own, but tastes AMAZING on salad!

     When we started GAPS we did not use soy milk anymore.  I have seen ranch recipes that use coconut milk instead, but I have never really explored coconut milk much.  If you do end up trying coconut milk, I think it could work really well.  The above recipe is really tasty.  All the herbs together would cancel out any coconut flavor in the final product, I think.

     Back to the children being less than enthused about the carrot sticks.  I have a ton of fresh herbs in my fridge right now from my garden.  I decided to try to make a dip for the kids.  It turned out so well!  We were having fried eggs for lunch, and I put some on my eggs (with runny yolks) and it was REALLY good.

     So here is the recipe for my Greek Yogurt Dip.  I have to confess that I did not measure anything while I was making the dip.  After I tasted it and it was so yummy, I tried to guess how much of everything I used.  Feel free to tweak this.  

Greek Yogurt Dip

Things you will need:

food processor or blender

1/2 large onion

8 fresh chive scapes or stems

1 tbsp fresh oregano leaves

1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves

1 tbsp fresh dill

1 tsp natural sea salt

1 tsp pepper corns

2 tbsp olive oil

4 cloves of garlic

1 1/2 cups greek yogurt

Directions:

Place everything in food processor or blender and blend until creamy.

     I did not put any parsley or basil in it because I was in a hurry, but in the future I might add some of that.  Also, it would be really easy to make mayo first, and then add these ingredients to it to make ranch dressing.  I will try that next time.

     The kids loved the dip, and were so happy to have something to dip for once.  We miss chips and salsa so much.  Finding something crunchy to dip is a personal mission of mine.  I would love to hear your ideas!

Lots More BANANAS!

     A wonderful friend of mine told me about this wonderful idea.  Banana pancakes made with eggs and bananas.  Does it sound as gross to you as it did to me?  I think I may have gave her the wrinkled up nose look when she told me because she tried really hard to convince me that they were tasty.  That was nearly two years ago, maybe even three.  I avoided trying them, they just sounded gross.

     My mother sent me a recipe for them a few months ago.  I kind of rolled my eyes, I must admit.  (Something she is quite use to, I am sure.)  I clicked the link and the picture of the pancakes looked amazing!  I could not believe it.  They looked like they had grain in them.  I decided I had to try them, just to see if I could get mine to look like the ones in the picture. (This is not the original link my mother sent me, but it is close, and the pancakes look just as gorgeous- http://www.ourbestbites.com/2014/02/2-ingredient-pancakes/ )

GAPS Banana Pancakes

Things you will need:

Skillet

Mixing bowl or stand mixer

Butter

Cast iron skillet

6 bananas (I did one for each person eating)

12 eggs

Directions:

1. Start skillet heating, so it is nice and hot when the batter (for lack of a better word) is ready.  (I usually turn the burner to high to start, so they are hot and ready more quickly.)

2. Peel bananas and put them in the mixing bowl.  Mash them well.

3. Crack eggs into bowl.

4. Mix bananas and eggs together, really well.

5. Grease the skillet with some butter.  (I turn the burner down right before I do this, medium seems to work pretty well.)

6. Pour some batter into the skillet.  I notice that the smaller the pancakes the easier they are to flip.  My batter was a bit runny so it was important that the skillet was nice and hot so they did not run everywhere.

7. Flip the pancake when you see bubbles in the batter.  It will not take much time to cook the other side.

     I got varying degrees of color in my pancakes.  I had all five burners going on my stove so I could make them more quickly.  They are quite filling, my kids only had four.  The plate in the bottom picture is a small salad plate.

     They did not turn out as fluffy and nice looking as the pictures online.  But, I used cast iron pans.  I believe the pancakes from the link were cooked on a pancake griddle.  That is the only time I see pancakes turn out that perfect.  The GAPS diet is against Teflon pans, so I got rid of all of mine, and also inherited my mother's camping cast iron pans.  We have picked up a few more at good will too.  I really like them.  They are so easy to clean if you keep them seasoned.  They ARE heavy though.  The above picture may be a Teflon coated griddle, actually.  I am not sure.  It came with the stove.  I have not looked into it, because I am afraid I will have to get rid of it.

     We drizzled honey on them, and they were so good!  I was so surprised.  I should have tried them years ago.  Silly me.  For the first day of school I made them with blue berries in them.  Also very good, but quite tricky to flip.

   

Bananas for Banana Smoothies

     Here is a house hold favorite: Banana Smoothies.  Bananas are so amazing.  God is so awesome.  They grow on a tree in huge bunches, you can pick them when they are green and ship them across the world so that they do not spoil before they make into my kitchen.  On top of that, you can do all kinds of things with them.

     Our favorite thing to do with them use to be banana bread.  I have not gotten baking with nuts down yet, so I do not venture to try to give anyone advice in how to conquer the nut flour equation.   It is interesting to me that the difficulty of a thing can completely change your mind about it.  For example, my love of getting out of the house.  Come winter, this desire will completely disappear.  The amount of work (and I like work) required to dress four children in warm things, from head to toe, mount looming snow drifts and arrive at a destination in one piece does not bring joy.  Staying home, at that point, brings the joy.

     So!  Our new favorite thing to do with bananas is Banana Smoothies!  They are so easy it is ridiculous.  We buy bananas in huge quantities to keep up.  So many, in fact, that very frequently we are asked if we keep pet monkeys at home, to which I most definitely say, "Yes!"

     We let the bananas sit out on the counter until they have lots of little brown spots (that means they are sweeter).  Then we peel them and line them up on cutting boards and load them into the freezer.  Once they are frozen I condense them down to a Ziploc bag, and try to keep them on hand.  I am not always successful in this endeavor.

     When we have enough frozen bananas, I pull some out to make smoothies.  (I also have to have yogurt on hand to do this.  I will post that recipe next.)  We have a Magic Bullet, so I take one "cup" for each kid and I fill it with one inch chunks of banana.  I then pour home made yogurt on top, screw the lid on the "cup" and blended it with the Magic Bullet.  That is it.

     The most interesting thing about this recipe is how it is not too sour (from the plain home made yogurt) and yet how not too sweet it is either.  I am not one for really strong banana flavoring.  The yogurt and banana combo here makes for a really interesting texture and flavor.  It really tastes a lot like a plain vanilla milkshake or maybe more like a protein shake.  It is really quite tasty, and so easy.  And the kids love it, as you can see.

On No! What's For Dinner?

     August flew by.  I really cannot believe how quickly the summer went, despite my continued resolve to take advantage of every minute.  Cooking meals was one of the hardest parts.  I would stand at my kitchen sink, washing lettuce leaf after lettuce leaf and say to myself "I should really be outside right now".  With GAPS there is so much cooking.  When you have to make all your food from scratch, it is time consuming.  Time is priceless during the summer, at least up North.

     Many days this past summer I would glance up at the clock and literally gasp.  I try to be in the kitchen by 3:30 PM as a general rule.  I find this gives me plenty of time to get food ready by a reasonable time.  A lot of times I will start dinner (usually baking) and then be able to walk away until dinner time, but that takes planning ahead.  When I glance up and it is four or even five o'clock what do I do?  I make scrambled eggs.

     I actually like to call it "egg scramble" when I write it down on the menu board I keep on the fridge.  It sounds a little more substantial, and really it is more substantial.  In the above picture I am using my awesome cast iron skillet.  I have cracklins (actually called "crackLINGs", apparently), diced onion and shredded kale frying.  Basically I put butter (or lard) in the skillet and cook whatever vegetables I have on hand, or that sound good.  A lot of times I will use left over salad toppings.  Last night we had salad with shredded carrot, diced onion and chopped broccoli.  This morning I put lard in the skillet, added the onion and broccoli, and when it was cooked I added eggs and scrambled them.  If things are already chopped up it takes maybe fifteen minutes total.  If you have to chop things it will take additional time.

     With the above picture I added a dozen and a half eggs.  That is about what my family of six will eat.  The more vegetables I use the more food their is, but the less "eggy" it is.  If you have sausage or even hamburger on hand, you can cook that instead of cracklings.  Fry the vegetables and eggs in the fat from the meat.

     It is really nice to have a meal I do not have to spend so much time making.  I think we have consumed more eggs this summer than we have in the fall and winter months previously.  Thankfully my kids are not sick of it yet.  Harvest time is here, and with all the apple sauce making, kale freezing, green bean freezing, blueberry freezing, apple dehydrating and picking and gathering (in general) of food, we will probably be taking advantage of this simple meal for a few more weeks.