Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Blueberry Flax Muffins (sugar free • gluten free • low carb • dairy free • gaps)

I finally have my flax muffin recipe just where I want it. After many trials and errors, I finally come out with a muffin that is moist, fluffy, sweet and delicous! You wouldn't even know it was low carb and sugar free! Not to mention extremely nutritious. I have also since omitted the use of any fake or chemical sugars in my diet as well, so this one uses erythritol (a sugar alcohol) and stevia (a natural sweetener from the stevia plant). I have had a few requests for the recipe lately after being told how yummy they were, so I am finally ready to share it again. It's come a long way from the original recipe and it is definitely much better now. Enjoy it plain, warmed up with some butter or add some jam.

If you aren't concerned about having your muffins sugar free and would just like to incorporate the healthy flax into your diet, just omit the erythrital and stevia and use 1/2 C of sugar in it's place. Also, I am not strictly a gluten free, but much of the food I eat happens to be so naturally.

Sometimes I add 1 C almond meal and omit 1 C flax meal to change it up a bit. I usually double the recipe and freeze some so I don't have to make them again for a while. Some of the ingredients may seem expensive at first, but once purchased, they last a long time and can make many things.


Blueberry Flax Muffins
Gluten Free, Sugar Free, Dairy Free Options
Ingredients:

  • 1/2 C Erythritol (powdered)
  • 1/3 C filtered Water
  • 2 C Organic Golden Flax seed Meal
  • 2-3 Tb Cinnamon
  • 2 tsp baking powder (made from 2 parts cream of tartar to 1 parts baking soda)
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp unrefined sea salt
  • 1/8 tsp pure stevia extract powder
  • 4 Organic Cage Free Eggs
  • 1/2 C (1 stick) unsalted organic butter, melted (could sub ghee or coconut oil for dairy free option)
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 C blueberries

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease muffin pan with butter (I like to use the silicone muffin pans, which are very easy to clean and also good for the environment).
  2. Mix together erythritol and water. Set aside.
  3. In separate bowl, mix together flax meal, cinnamon, baking powder, salt and stevia with a large whisk.
  4. In another bowl, beat eggs and add melted butter and vanilla with whisk.
  5. Mix erythritol and water with the wet ingredients, then combine wet ingredients with the dry ingredients using the whisk. Fold in blueberries.
  6. Pour into greased muffin pan filling each one almost to the top.
  7. Bake for 28 - 30 minutes. Makes 12 muffins.
  8. Store in the fridge in an airtight container or you can freeze them.
This recipe is part of the Pennywise Platter at the Nourishing Gourmet

A Missing Post?

I just realized that I had uploaded all of these pics back in December after Thanksgiving and after we bought the munchkin her new table for her christmas present. They are a little late, but I am going to to ahead and post them anyway :)

This was the old (atleast 10 yrs) pottery barn table that I found on Craig's list for the Munchkin's christmas present. It's the sturdiest table and so cute in her playroom.




I took these pics at Thanksgiving. The spread was amazing. It was the first time we ever tried to give the Munchkin mashed potatoes and she hated them! Joe says I ruined her with my caulitators (mashed cauliflower).



Here's my littlest sis Erin and her boyfriend.


My hubs passed out after dinner.


He wasn't the only one....


The girls playing in the ball pit.



Me and my sisters. I'm not sure what was up with the really awkward positioning here...

"A bachelorette party is a bachelor party...gone wild!" - Unknown

I fully intended on posting more about the bachelorette party by now and posting some pics, but we have been snowed in and I have been taking full advantage of the bonus time with the family. I will have to share the pics from the party later.

The party was a blast. I hope our bachelorette feels she went out with a bang, because I sure believe she did. According to her she was hurting for days, and I definitely felt bad for her. It was so much fun though to see her tear up the town and especially the dance floor. She was a woman on a mission!

The day started at 2:00pm with the couples shower. You can tell that this couple is dearly loved and for very good reason. They truly are fantastic. They played some funny games which had everyone laughing. After the shower, I followed my girl Julie and her hubs out to her loft to visit for a little while before heading back to the Bachelorette’s house for dinner/pre-drinks/getting ready for the night. I brought my own dinner (a cheeseburger and a salad), along with some snacks to share with everyone (a cheese ball, homemade crackers, cookies and brownies). I am posting an entire blog about this later, as it really incurred some interesting dialogue throughout the entire evening and apparently some awkwardness (although this was all unbeknownst to me until later).

The limo bus picked us up around 10:00pm and we headed out to the bars. We started down on Main St. in old town St. Charles at a pretty nasty bar, but it was still fun and many of us had frequented it often in our younger days. The whole point of the evening was to hit up all of our bachelorette’s favorite spots from her younger single days. This is where my video from the previous post took place. One of our bridesmaids found the guy on the dance floor, stole his hat and started mimicking his moves. I missed the funnier parts, but caught what I could. Everyone in the crowd was laughing so hard... it was hilarious! The funniest part was how serious this guy was, he was definitely not laughing. The was serious business to him.

Our second attempt failed after the doorman told us he couldn’t serve our bachelorette because she was too intoxicated. Her response “Are you fucking serious?!” She repeated this several times and kept yelling at him as we pulled her away. The guy was definitely an ass and clearly our bachelorette was not drunk (okay maybe a little). We then headed to the next bar which had much better music (awesome guy playing the guitar and singing some great songs) and was much less smoky. After some initial confusement about the whereabouts of our bachelorette’s sister (they found her wandering down the street, pissed off that we had left her), we found her safe and sound and returned to the festivities. We headed to the next bar and found our way onto the 5’x 5’ dance floor and really broke it down with the live band playing some awesome 60’s and 70’s tunes. After a few songs, though, the regulars revolted (as Julie put it) and wedged their way back onto the dance floor, not so politely pushing us out of their way. We felt maybe we had overstayed our welcome and decided to leave (somewhat) gracefully.

After we left the bar, we called our bus driver to take us to our next destination. He was having a hard time finding us and we kept seeing him drive away in the wrong direction or down the wrong street. Next thing we knew we saw a cops cherry lights turned on and our bus pulling over. Apparently, our bus side swiped the cop car. Really. I am not sure how he did it, but he sure did. In his defence, he was trying to navigate cobblestone streets, filled with cars and drunk pedestrians, and also trying to keep in eye out for us. It didn’t take long though, and we were up and moving once again. We were headed downtown to our bachelorette’s favorite bar to end the evening.

We had quite a drive to get there though and made good use of our time with lots of dancing and drinks on the bus. We got stuck in some traffic and our driver got off the highway and headed down the service road. As we pulled up to all the lights, we saw (literally) about 30 cop cars sitting on the highway. As we drove past it all some of the girls started screaming and yelling and shouting “Don’t look, there’s dead bodies on the ground!” I was already looking, and really trying hard to see what was going on. I didn’t see any dead bodies on the ground, and after watching the news the whole next day, I don’t think they did either. Apparently, there had been some kind of high speed chase which did end in a shooting, but there wouldn’t have been dead bodies laying on the side of the road. Whew. After a pit stop at the gas station for supplies and water (thank god) we headed to our final destination.

The last bar was my favorite (aside from the blazing fireplace threatening to singe my hair and eyebrows (also not a good component for extreme dancing). We entered with our bachelorette falling flat on her ass at the entrance to the bar. We were initially afraid we weren’t going to be allowed to enter, but one of the girl’s assured the doorman that she was just “really excited” and he welcomed us in. We danced for a couple of hours (I think? My reference of time here is really skewed) and I seriously had a blast. I had made the (in my opinion) very wise decision to stick to my captain morgan and refrain from drinking anything else. Past incidents have led me to believe that the outcome of the evening will always be better and the morning much more tolerable. I’m so glad I did, because although quite tipsy at the end, I wasn’t feeling too terrible. I was also on a really tight budget and had brought a bottle with me on the bus and was just drinking from that (Thank you to my dear friend Julie for offering me a couple of drinks at the bars, you are such a sweetie!)

We arrived back at our bachelorette’s house around 3:00 am. After some snacking, water guzzling and some recapping of the evening’s events, I finally crawled into bed around 5:00am. I couldn’t believe that by 8:00am everyone was already up and moving around, making it impossible for me to sleep any longer. I finally rolled out of bed, brushed my teeth, washed my face and started gathering my things. I was thanking myself over and over again for bringing my coffee cup pre-filled with instant coffee and all the fixings to go with it. It was a huge help.

Sunday was a wash. Without much sleep and too many drinks, I wasn’t able to get much done. It took till Monday to recover completely and get back into the swing of things. Then came a big snow storm (or atleast that’s what the weatherman told us, it ended up not being that horribly bad... they even called in the national guard!) All of the authorities begged everyone to stay home. I was so grateful for the day off Tuesday to have the extra time to spend with the munchkin and to get some cleaning done around the house in preparation for our Superbowl party.

Stay tuned for some pics of Saturday night and my food blog follow-up....

Friday, January 28, 2011

Where have I been, you ask? Well, let me tell you....

I have been neglecting my blog terribly! Whats new right? But this last dry spell has been worse then usual. I have been so busy lately and blogging just hasn't been in the cards.

So what has been keeping me away from blogging.... food! It's official, I am now becoming an extreme real foodie. The more I learn, the more I want to learn and its been keeping me in the kitchen from the time the munchkin goes to bed to the wee hours of the night. I spend all of my free time researching food and nutrition, then testing recipes and I have been so engrossed in it. It has become my passion and I really have been learning alot!

Last night I made brownies with coconut flour and cookies with coconut oil and almond flour (Gina these are gluten and dairy free!). I also made crackers with almond flour and fresh grated cheddar cheese. All were fantastic and I can't wait to share them at the bachelorette party I am going to on Saturday. I hope to start incorporating things into my blog more along with the recipes so anyone can try them if they are interested. The most exciting part of this week though... I made my own whey and cream cheese from yogurt, then used the whey to make my own mayo and then some of the mayo to make my own ranch dressing. All soy free! Yay!!!!!

I also wanted to share that I made it! On my journey to become more healthy and to keep my family more healthy, I have reached my goal and am now back down to my favorite healthy weight. It was a fabulous journey and I came out on the other end not only thinner, but much more educated about what is good for my body and what will help me to live a longer more healthy life. My very most favorite part of all, is that I now know how to feed my daughter to get her off to a healthy start in life and to give her a good base for her future!

In my search for info on cod liver oil, I came across this giveaway. I am sharing to enter a chance in the drawing. But you don't have to check it out... it just gives me a better chance to win if you don't. Ha!

Green Pastures Giveaway


The munchkin has been growing like a weed! She is such a big girl now! I will post some pics soon, but in the meantime friend me on facebook (if I know you through blogging already) and check out the latest pics there...

Laura's facebook

I miss my bloggy friends and will be checking in on you today to see whats going on. I started back up on twitter, but even that is hard for me to stick with. I have a very small stack of work to do today and I am going to take advantage of the extra free time to see what is going on with everyone. I am not promising anything, because I don't want to be a liar... but I am hoping to be back on blogger much more now. I have so much to catch up... and a ton I want to share!

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Munchkin Videos

We gave the Munchkin the spoon to try it out for the first time this past weekend. She was really good at it!



We blew up the bounce house in our living room. The munchkin and her little pal G had a blast! That's my husband Joe bouncing them around.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Where did November go?

I can't believe that November is almost over already. Figured I better throw up a few pics of the munchkin so everyone can see how big she is getting. How did this happen?!

We have been teaching her sign language and she has been picking it up really well. I can't believe how much she uses her signs for "eat" and "more" and "all done". It has really helped us to avoid some melt downs and to figure out what she needs much more quickly. She loves being able to communicate with us too. There has been numerous times that she has given me the sign for "eat" in times I would have never guessed she was hungry, and if she wasn't able to communicate it to me, and had to cry until I guessed, I might have just written it off as teething. I also can't believe how easy it is for her to pick it up and for her to use it. You don't need to spend lots of money on dvds or anything either, just buy a baby signs book, and show her how to use the signs, over and over until she gets it. The first one took a couple of months (she was just under a year old by the time it clicked), but once she learned one, the others were much quicker to pick up.

It just amazes me what little sponges they are! One of her favorite things to do now is read books. Whether she brings them to me or sits on her own and "reads" them herself. The other day, she sneaked out of the living room when I wasn't looking. I finally found her in her room. She had climbed up into the glider, grabbed a book off of the night stand, and was pretending to read it. It melted my heart. She's becoming so independent! I can't wait to take her to the library some day. I have the fondest memories of my mom taking us.



Her and her little cousin are so much fun together!


Sharing a book.



My friend Anna, along with her little boy met us up at the mall for some shopping/walking/eating/exploring. Here they are playing on some of the little coin operated rides.


Sitting in the backseat of the ice cream truck.


Learning how to drive from BBZ.


Uh oh! Looks like she's about to wreck... BBZ is jumping ship!


Not so impressed with the jeep I see...


Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and Saturday is my birthday... again. Didn't I just have a birthday? It sure feels like it. Although last year for my birthday I had a baby with severe acid reflux and a night out, painting the town, just wasn't an option. This year, however, I am looking forward to some fun! Me and some girlfriends are meeting up for a sushi dinner, then we are all going to head back to my house, joined by the boys, for a little house party.

But before that happens, I am really looking forward to seeing all of the family for Thanksgiving. My family gathering is on Thursday, and we will be seeing Joe's family on Friday.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!