Coconut Raspberry Cheesecake (AIP-friendly!) — Recipe by Mickey Trescott

May 4, 2013 in Cakes and Cupcakes, Decadent Desserts, Treats

There aren’t many desserts that are autoimmune protocol friendly. But, even if you’re following this super strict modification of the paleo diet, there are still reasons to celebrate with food and times when a decadent dessert is appropriate! This is why I am so thrilled to share this recipe preview from Mickey Trescott’s new cookbook The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook

Because who doesn’t need raspberry cheesecake from time to time!?

Have you been wondering if this cookbook is worth it? You can read my full review here. If you’ve been humming and hawing, I think this recipe will convince you that yes, yes this book is worth every penny! And this isn’t the only decadent dessert in The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook, which contains 110 tantalizing recipes that completely comply with the autoimmune protocol!

Buy The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook Now!

Coconut-Raspberry “Cheesecake”

Crust Ingredients:

3 cups dates, pitted and soaked for 5 minutes in warm water
1 cup coconut oil, melted
1/3 cup coconut flour
1/3 cup shredded coconut
1/8 teaspoon salt

Filling ingredients:

1 1/2 cups raw honey
1 1/2 cups coconut butter (a.k.a. coconut cream concentrate–Mickey has a recipe for homemade coconut butter in her book!)
1 cup coconut oil
5 cups frozen raspberries
6 tablespoons tapioca starch
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
fresh raspberries for garnish
thick coconut flakes for garnish

1. Place the jars of coconut oil, coconut butter and raw honey in a pan with very hot water in order to let them soften.

2. To prepare the crust, preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Strain the dates and place in a food processor or high-powered blender with the melted coconut oil. Blend for 30 seconds or so until a chunky paste forms. Be warned you may have to stop and scrape the sides if you are using a blender, and the oil will not completely mix with the dates, but the crust will still turn out fine. Combine the coconut flour, shredded coconut and salt in a bowl. Add the date paste and mix thoroughly. Place the mixture into the bottom of an 8″ spring-form pan, pressing the mixture down evenly. Use a small spatula to clean up the top edge around the sides of the pan, where the filling will meet the crust. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the crust browns and hardens a little bit. The texture will still be soft until it finishes cooling. Set aside while you make the filling.

3. To make the filling, combine the raw honey, coconut butter, coconut oil, and frozen raspberries in a saucepan on low heat. Stir until the raspberries are no longer frozen and the mixture is warm, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a blender and add the tapioca starch, vanilla extract, and salt. Blend on high for about a minute, until completely mixed. Pour carefully into the spring-form pan on top of the crust.

4. Set in the refrigerator undisturbed for at least 12 hours to allow the cake to cool and completely harden. When it is solid, carefully remove the spring-form pan. Decorate the top of the cake with thick flake coconut chips and fresh raspberries.

Buy The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook Now!

Tags: autoimmune, autoimmune paleo cookbook, book, cake, cheese, cheesecake, cookbook, Dairy-free, dessert, disease, egg-free, Gluten-Free, Grain-free, illness, mickey trescott, nut-free, paleo, protocol, Recipe, refined sugar free, teaser, treat
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Decadent Double Chocolate Cookies (Nut-free, Coconut-free, Egg-free)

November 10, 2012 in Cookies, Nut-Free Baking

The inspiration for this cookie came from a double chocolate brownie cookie that I used to make for special treats in the “olden days”. It used to be a hit at potlucks or parties because it was very intensely chocolaty and had a nice chew to it. I was thinking about Christmas cookies for this year and it’s been quite a while since I’ve worked on a cookie recipe, so I just felt that this was one I had to adapt.

Given that there wasn’t that much flour in the recipe to begin with, I thought it would relatively easy to adapt to paleo baking. Boy, was I wrong! This recipe is right up there with some of trickiest I’ve worked on (and therefore most rewarding to perfect). I’ve actually been working on this recipe for about 2 months (during which time I learned that I’m sensitive to chocolate, which made it much trickier and tortuous to work on). I think I tried 8 or 9 variations before this cookie met my expectations. I wanted this cookie to be chewy (the first few attempts were almost like shortbreads) and hold together for fairly large cookies. And I wanted the cookie to be not too sweet but potently chocolaty. Like super chocolaty. Not a cookie that looks vaguely chocolaty but one that tastes better than eating a square of chocolate. Well, I did it. This is for all you chocolate lovers out there!

I wanted this cookie to be not too sweet. My kids loved it, so it’s not like it’s that bitter. But, if you find it isn’t sweet enough for you, you could substitute 1-3 ounces of the 100% baking chocolate with semi-sweet chocolate.

I think this cookie would be amazing with a large pinch of cayenne pepper added, and maybe a generous pinch of cinnamon too.

If you need this recipe to be completely coconut free, you can substitute palm shortening, palm oil, or butter (maybe even lard) for the coconut oil.

You can also make these more reminiscent of brownies by adding chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts would be my first choice—and I would suggest toasting them first). You can either add these in addition to the chocolate chips or instead of them.

This is another recipe using green plantain (also called raw banana). The flavor does not work so well if you use ripe plantain, but it’s okay if it’s not super green. The ¾ cup green plantain puree is the equivalent of 1 average size plantain (the super large plantains usually yield closer to 1 cup of plantain). I have actually taken to buying a bunch of green plantains when I see them in the store, pureeing them all and then freezing the puree in 1 cup portions for future baking. It works very well!

This recipe makes 11-12 large cookies. They will keep a couple of days in an airtight container on the counter, but they are best fresh (they tend to soften as the days go buy due to the honey in them). If you aren’t going to eat them all right away (sharing them with your friends and family, of course), then I’d suggest freezing any leftovers.

Oh yeah. And this is a picture using my new camera! Given that chocolate cookies can be very challenging to photograph, I’m pretty pleased with this photo.

Ingredients:

¾ cup pureed green plantain (about 1 average sized plantain)
3 Tbsp molasses
2 Tbsp honey
6 oz 100% unsweetened baking chocolate
2 Tbsp extra virgin coconut oil (you can substitute palm shortening, butter or lard)
¼ cup cocoa powder
¼ cup tapioca flour/starch
2 tsp vanilla (or substitute espresso)
Pinch salt
1/8 tsp baking soda
½ cup semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips or chunks

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Puree plantain in a food processor or blender with molasses and honey for 2-3 minutes, until very smooth.
Melt chocolate and coconut oil together (you can do this in the microwave or on the stovetop, up to you), being careful not to burn it.
Add melted chocolate to the food processor. Add vanilla and process to combine.
Combine cocoa, tapioca, salt, and baking soda. Add to food processor (if you’re using a blender, you probably want to pour this out into a bowl and mix in the dry ingredients by hand). Pulse to form a uniform dough.
Remove from the food processor and fold in chocolate chips. The dough should be cool enough to handle (but still slightly warm).
Take large spoonfuls of batter and drop onto the prepared baking sheet. Flatten and smooth out with your hands, a spatula or the back of a spoon (think of this like making cookie patties). You are completely shaping the finished cookie since these cookies don’t spread while baking. Form 11 or 12 large cookies–about 3” in diameter and 3/8” thick. You can change the size if you want, but then you’ll have to adjust the baking time.
Bake for 9-10 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool at least a few minutes on the baking sheet (you can let these cool completely on the baking sheet if you want).
Enjoy!

Tags: chocolate, Christmas, coconut-free, cookie, Dairy-free, dark, decadent, Diet, double, egg-free, extra, Gluten-Free, Grain-free, Holiday, nut-free, paleo, Paleolithic, refined sugar free, super, treat
25 Comments »

Plantain Crackers (Nut-free, Egg-free)

September 10, 2012 in Appetizers, Crackers, Lunchbox Foods, Nut-Free Baking, Snack Foods, Snacks, Snacks

One of the things that many people miss when they adopt a paleo diet is crunch, especially the slightly salty crunch of crackers. There are a number of grain-free cracker recipes around (see www.elenaspantry.com for a great variety of cracker recipes), but of the ones I’ve tried, none really replicate that cracker crunch completely. Well, until now! The inspiration for these crackers came from this plantain tortilla chip recipe from www.kateshealthycupboard.com. The idea to use green plantains as a chip base was inspired! To create something more like a cracker than a chip required extensive experimentation with fat content and cooking temperature (I also played with adding various paleo flours but abandoned that idea when they just didn’t taste as good as straight plantains).

These crackers are perfectly crunchy, sturdy, taste amazing, and even keep for a few days without going soft (as many other cracker recipes tend to do). They are super easy to make and require only three ingredients! My whole family is addicted to these crackers. The secret is to use very green plantains. When you find green plantains in the store (most grocery stores carry them close to the bananas; even my local Walmart has them!), you can take them home and pop them into the fridge, where they will ripen much more slowly (they might even yellow slightly but won’t really be as ripe as that same color would indicate if they were ripening at room temperature). Once they start to yellow substantially, plantains change in taste and get sweeter. For sweet plantain recipes, you really have to wait until they are completely black (which means they are ripe). If your plantains are in the fridge, just let them warm to room temperature for an hour or two before you start making these crackers.

Ingredients:

2 large green plantains (equivalent to about 2 cups pureed)
½ cup extra virgin coconut oil, melted (I also tried palm shortening, which worked but didn’t taste quite as good as the evco)
½ tsp salt, to taste

Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper (I use a 13”x18” “half sheet”-sized jelly roll pan but a small difference in size won’t make a big difference in your crackers). Make sure your parchment goes right up to each edge of the pan. Preheat oven to 300F.
Place all ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until a completely smooth puree is formed, about 2-4 minutes (it doesn’t matter if you don’t have exactly 2 cups of plantain puree as long as you are fairly close, say within ¼ cup). This blends easier if your plantains are at room temperature and your coconut oil is melted.
Pour batter (it should look very much like hummus) onto the prepared baking sheet. Use a rubber spatula to smooth it out and cover the entire sheet uniformly (this might take a couple of minutes, but it doesn’t need to be perfect). The batter should be about 1/8” thick.
Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and score the cracker batter with a pastry wheel, pizza cutter, or pastry scraper (which is what I used). You can make whatever size cracker you like. The crackers will pull away from each other slightly while cooking and shrink up a bit, but not much. I like fairly small crackers, about 1½” squares, but these will work even for quite big crackers.
Place back in the oven and bake for 50-55 minutes, until golden brown (if you have slightly thicker crackers, this may take longer… I’ve occasionally had batches that took 70 minutes before being done). Remove from oven and let cool slightly on the pan. Move to a cooling rack (you will probably be moving fairly big pieces of several crackers stuck together). Once completely cool, you can break apart any crackers that are stuck together.
Store in an airtight container at room temperature. Enjoy!

RECIPE UPDATE: I want to throw a quick note into this recipe. When I first made this recipe, I had a cheap and not very powerful food processor. I got a REAL food processor for Christmas this year and wow! what a difference! It’s so much faster and easier to get a good puree. Even with very green plantains, it only takes about 2 minutes. So, food processor power seems very helpful with these. The other thing I’ve noticed is that the cooking time varies quite a a bit with both exactly how much volume of plantain you have in the recipe and how green the plantains are. Greener ones take longer to cook (and typically taste better too) as do batches made with slightly larger plantains, so the range of cooking times after cutting the crackers is really anywhere form 50 minutes to 80 minutes. Keep an eye on them and don’t pull them out the oven until they are a nice medium shade of brown (you can always taste one to see if it’s crisp enough, until you get the hang of this recipe).

Tags: cracker, crunchy, Dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free, plantain, Recipe, snack
66 Comments »

TPM Tidbit: What I Eat for Breakfast on the AIP

August 24, 2012 in Sarah's Personal AI Struggles, TPM Tidbits

I get asked this question very frequently, especially from people who worry about finding time to prepare an egg-free, nut-free meal in the morning. The foods that we are used to associating with breakfast tend to be fairly quick to prepare. Many paleo enthusiasts eat eggs and veggies as a breakfast staple, with the occasional nut-based treat like pancakes or muffins. These are off limits for me and my body really needs protein in the morning.

My staple breakfast protein is sausage, usually homemade. I mix seasonings with ground pasture pork, ground grass-fed beef, or ground grass-fed beef heart (which I grind myself in a food processor), form patties (typically about 6oz each) and then bake in the oven at 400F for 18-20 minutes (less work than minding a pan on the stovetop). I don’t have a lot of time to prepare breakfast in the mornings, so I make 5-6 patties at once and reheat the leftovers on subsequent mornings. I often even make and cook my sausage in the evening (while I’m making supper and in the kitchen anyway) to make my mornings easier. I also keep some nightshade-free grass-fed beef/pastured pork farmer’s sausage that I buy from a local farmer in my freezer for mornings where I forgot to make homemade sausage. I occasionally also enjoy kipper for breakfast, but find this more time consuming to eat (because of all those little bones) so I reserve it for morning where I have more time.

My most common breakfast veggie is homemade sauerkraut (it’s fast and tastes great with sausage). I also enjoy leftover vegetables from supper the night before, raw spinach or kale, and homemade vegetable juices (which I also make in advance to save time in the morning). My two favorite vegetable juice combinations are 1) beet, carrot, kale and lemon; and 2) cucumber, lemon, kale, and a little bit of apple (often made into a smoothie with fresh spinach). I find the sugar content of the juices can hit me fairly quickly (without the fiber to slow down the glucose absorption) so I keep my glasses small and typically don’t eat fruit on the same mornings I have vegetable juice.

It’s taken a while to get used to these foods as breakfast foods; but now, I really enjoy my breakfast. Here are four recent breakfasts.