SCD Creamy Garlic and Dill Salad Dressing

Salad dressing! I can't really, truly empathize, but after months of making Alex salads dressed with olive oil and apple cider or red wine vinegar (you know, for variety), I can only imagine what it's like not to have access to salad dressing for, potentially, ever. Well, not anymore!

Alex tried this tonight and said: "It tastes like real salad dressing!" I know you SCD readers understand what a great compliment that was.

Ingredients

1/4 cup homemade SCD mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon SCD mustard (the condiment, not the powder)
1 large clove of garlic, grated
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 tbsp chopped fresh dill
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
water to achieve desired consistency (for me, it was about 1 tbsp)

Directions
Mix all of these together. That's it.
Making the mayonnaise the hardest part of this recipe, and only because I lack upper body strength.

SCD Lentil, Tomato, and Chicken Soup

Soup! Gotta love it. Alex wanted me to use the lentils he bought for dinner, and I wanted to start basic. I didn't look up a recipe or anything, figuring that it'd be a simple little journey to make a tomatoey, lentil soup. And it was! Super easy. Alex wanted chicken in the soup, as he's always trying to get more calories in (he really can't keep weight on even though he eats 3000+ calories per day), but it would be easy to make it vegetarian or vegan by leaving the chicken out. And we all know lentils are a great source of protein and fiber!

This makes a lot of soup (two big tupperwares full), so feel free to half this recipe, or you could even quarter it if you wanted to make this into one single meal.

Ingredients:
1 package boneless, skinless chicken breasts (probably about 1.25-1.75lbs)
10oz dried lentils, by weight, which is a little more than half of a 16oz package
4 cups SCD broth (We use Trader Joe's Hearty Vegetable broth, which is SCD legal according to the ingredients. A lot of organic vegetable broths are SCD legal, but you can always make your own, too.)
2 tbsp butter or olive oil
10 medium tomatoes, blanched and diced
3 stalks of celery, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 large onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 tsp rosemary
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Directions
1. Soak the lentils for at least 12 hours. I soaked mine for over 24 hours because that's how my schedule wound up and I think, apart from expanding them, it also reduced the cooking time. Drain the lentils, set aside.
2. Add butter to the bottom of your big soup pot and turn the heat on medium low to medium. Once the butter is foamy, add the diced onion, carrot, and celery.

3.Cook until tender, then add the garlic, chicken, salt, and pepper. Stir occasionally until the chicken is cooked through.
4. Meanwhile, we're going to blanch some tomatoes to get the skins off. Boil water in a pot large enough to submerge a tomato. Grab a big bowl and fill it with ice water. Submerge each tomato in the pot of boiling water for about 30 seconds, or until the skin cracks. Then, take it out and shock it by putting it in the ice bath. Do this with all 10 tomatoes and, after, peel the skins and dice them up.

5. Once the chicken is cooked through, add the vegetable broth, the lentils, the (large quantity of) diced tomatoes, and the remaining spices. Stir until it's all mixed together.

Not done!

6. Lower the heat to a simmer and cover, leaving a little crack for steam to escape. Simmer for at least an hour, stirring occasionally. The soup is done when the lentils are soft, but remember that soup gets better the longer it simmers.

Done!

SCD Black Bean and Avocado Turkey Burgers

Alex tends to default to turkey burgers for lunch. When he's feeling sick, that means I'm down to the basics: salt, pepper, rosemary, shredded carrot, and diced onion. He doesn't want a bun with it, or anything else. It's a sad little lunch and, in spite of packing peanut butter cookies, trail mix, and an apple with it, I still feel a little guilty about how often he winds up eating a regular old burger. But! I had some soaked/cooked beans, a ripe avocado, and a batch of homemade mayo, so I decided to get creative. They turned out delish. The texture reminds me a little of a crab cake or meatloaf (where you can tell it's mostly meat, but it's creamier and softer).

Ingredients

1 lb. lean ground turkey
1 cup cooked SCD black beans (aka soak dry beans for at least 12 hours, then cook until soft)
1 egg
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup onion
1/4 avocado
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp SCD mayonnaise (optional)
1 tbsp olive oil for cooking

Directions

1. Put beans, onion, garlic, avocado, egg, and spices into a food processor and pulse a couple of times until they're mostly blended.
2. Add the turkey to the food processor and blend until everything is mixed thoroughly, like so:

3. Preheat a non-stick pan to medium heat and add the olive oil once it's hot. Form turkey mixture into burger shapes and stick 'em on in. Flip them only once, after about 7 minutes, or when the sides are set and the top still appears raw. Make sure you get both sides nice and brown. Eat them plain, or on a bun, or however else you like.

Review: SCD Legal Mayonnaise Recipe

Who doesn't like looking at large amounts of mayo?

I was watching Good Eats today, and the urge to emulsify overtook me after I watched Alton Brown make mayonnaise. So, I made some. I'm not sure what to do with it, exactly, as it has a shelf life of one to two weeks and Alex doesn't like mayonnaise very much. But I figure the world of salad dressings, aiolis, and vinaigrettes has opened through this. I did it by hand and boy was it an arm workout. As for the result? It tastes like mayo to me. I hear a lot of 'once you try homemade mayo, you'll never go back to the store bought stuff, it's awful,' and well - maybe you just need to like mayo more? Or maybe you need to put it on something because so far I just tasted a tiny dab of it. This recipe belongs to Alton Brown (assuming he can get credit for it.. It's been around for centuries and this recipe is super basic, so he probably didn't invent it - but that's where I got it). I left out the sugar during the whole emulsifying process and I added a little honey once it was done.

Ingredients

1 egg yolk*
1/2 tsp honey
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 teaspoon mustard powder
2 teaspoons fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon vinegar (white wine preferred - I used distilled white vinegar)
1 cup oil (safflower, corn, peanut, olive, coconut .. it can be done with any, just be prepared for an aftertaste of what oil you choose. Safflower and corn are more neutral tasting. I used 1/2 peanut and 1/2 olive and it does taste like olive oil, but that's okay with me.)

*Standard raw egg warning. Alton Brown said that if you leave the mayo in room temperature for a few hours, the vinegar/lemon juice kills any germs that might be there.

Directions
1. To prepare: add salt and mustard powder to the bowl you're going to be whisking in, add the lemon juice and vinegar to a small separate receptacle, and add the cup of oil to a squirt bottle or a container with a spout. You need to be able to drip it very very very slowly.
2. Add the egg yolk to the dry ingredients and whisk it together. Then, add 1/2 the vinegar/lemon mixture and whisk vigorously. You want it to start bubbling up and forming an emulsion already. Then, start adding oil drops at a time, literally. Adding too much will require you to start over. Once it thickens and lightens a little, you can start adding oil in a very thin stream instead of by drops at a time. Keep whisking and whisking. When you've added half the oil, you can add the remainder of the vinegar/lemon solution. Then add the rest of the oil very very very slowly and continue to whisk it all continuously. When all the oil has been incorporated, you're done! Add the 1/2 tsp of honey and stir it in until it's incorporated.
3. Store at room temperature for 2-8 hours and then put it in the fridge, where it will last for one to two weeks.

Quasi-Review: SCD Vanilla Pound Cake with Raspberry Glaze

This is mostly a review. This cake is a combination of the "Vanilla Pound Cake" from Raman Prasad's Recipes for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet and the raspberry sauce from Gluten Free SCD and Veggie's "Raspberry Ripple Cake," with several alterations in both ingredients and method (detailed below). The vanilla cake is, quite frankly, standard. It's sweet, mild, vanilla-y, and (let's face it) almondy. The raspberry glaze is tart with some sweetness and a little creamy coconut flavor lurking there from a small addition of coconut milk. Overall, I think this cake is a good combination, as the vanilla pound cake needs something more exciting than honey once in a while.

How I did it: 

There are lots and lots of SCD plain/vanilla cakes out there, and I don't want to reproduce Prasad's recipe without permission, so if you want to make this, I'd direct you just to make the cake recipe from the Raspberry Ripple Cake, as well, as it is yummy. I just default to the Prasad vanilla pound cake recipe because Alex likes it, it agrees with him, I have it memorized, and there's no need to break out the food processor. I really relied on Recipes for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet a lot when I first started and some of the items in that book are still staples for me.  Also, with reference to my dark golden cake, I use Trader Joe's Almond Meal. I know that's unpopular, since the lovely varieties at Digestive Wellness are more finely ground and are made of blanched almonds. But TJ's is $4.00/pound. Deal with it.

Ingredients:

1 SCD vanilla cake (this recipe works very well)
1 cup frozen raspberries
3 tbsp honey
2 tbsp coconut milk
1/3 cup water
1 metal fine mesh strainer (which I don't have, and which I should have had to do this).

Directions:

1. Make the cake.

 2. Add raspberries, honey, and the water to a small saucepan and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer until the raspberries burst and the mixture thickens. For me, it was about 45 minutes. Then, strain it with a mesh strainer over a bowl. Or, if you're me, fashion together a collander with cheese cloth over it and spend 15 minutes trying to strain it before ultimately creating a raspberry sausage with cheese cloth wrapping and massaging out the rest of the raspberry goop.

Bad idea, even though it worked.

3. My strained raspberry sauce, at this point, was very runny.

So, this is where I deviated from Gluten Free SCD and Veggie's recipe. I put the strained sauce back on the burner for about 15 minutes, simmering, stirring frequently, and making sure it did not burn. Then, I added 2 tbsp of coconut milk for some creaminess. The sauce ended up much more glaze-y in the real sense of the word. 

4. Let the glaze and the cake cool, then add the glaze to the cake, spreading evenly.

Ta da!

Easy SCD Spinach and Feta Omelette

 

If you're like me, you successfully make an omelette that doesn't turn into a scramble midway about, well, half the time. One trick I've learned (that may be obvious to others) is to use a small pan. The really small pan. You know the one.

Anyway, I whipped this up this morning for Alex. I like my eggs a little golden brown and he seems to agree, but I believe they are overdone by the universal standards of egg cookery. So, don't brown yours if you prefer them the 'right' way. Also, we used 1 egg and 1 egg white to cut back on the cholesterol.

Ingredients
1 egg, whole
1 egg white
1/4 cup SCD legal feta, crumbled (it is best to eat this only if you've been on the diet for a few months and do not have symptoms)
1/4 cup chopped spinach
salt, pepper to taste
a splash of water
1 tbsp butter

Directions
(It's an omelette - you probably already know. But here goes!)

1. Add one egg and one egg white into a cup. Add a splash of water, a little salt and pepper, and mix it up until it's scrambly.
2. Preheat the little pan and add the butter. Once hot, dump in the eggs.

3. Chop up the spinach and feta.

4. Flip the omelette when it's ready to be turned. If you succeed, proceed with the omelette directions. If you fail, just throw everything in there and scramble it all up. It'll taste the same anyway.

5. Add the spinach and feta.

6. Fold over, serve.

SCD Curry Chicken and Veggies

It was my first time making curry chicken and veggies and the recipe came through several non-SCD ones that I adapted. It turned out very tasty and I'm proud of the results.

Ingredients

 3 tablespoons coconut oil or olive oil
 1 small onion, chopped
 2 cloves of garlic, minced
 1/2 green pepper, chopped
 1/4 red pepper, chopped
 1/4 orange pepper, chopped
 1 cup of broccoli, chopped
 3 tablespoons homemade SCD legal curry powder (see below)
 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
 1 teaspoon paprika
 1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger root
 1 tablespoon honey
 salt to taste
 1 package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
 3/4 cup SCD yogurt
 3/4 cup coconut milk
 1/2 lime, juiced

Curry Powder Ingredients

 (Always be sure your individual spices are SCD legal.)

 1 tablespoon ground cumin

 1 tablespoon ground coriander

 1 teaspoon ground tumeric

 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

 1/4 teaspoon mustard seed

 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Directions

1. Heat oil in a pan (perhaps one that is a bit bigger than the one I chose!) and add the garlic and onion, sauteeing until they are tender, on medium heat.

2. Add the spices to the onions and stir. Then add the chopped chicken breasts and mix it up. Next, add the yogurt,  coconut milk, and lime juice. Mix until blended.

3. Simmer until the chicken is entirely cooked through and then add the veggies. 

4. Question whether the pan you chose was too small, then resolve that it is too late. Stir it up until all the veggies are coated in curry sauce, grabbing pieces of pepper that fall out of the pan and shamelessly throwing them back in. Cover the pan and simmer until the veggies are cooked, about five minutes on medium low heat.

SCD Romaine Lettuce Tacos

This recipe is simple but tasty. I didn't try to create a tortilla for these tacos (though I'm interested in trying this tortilla recipe) and decided to just enjoy the romaine wraps. You can put whatever you like in here. I made the tacos with black beans, ground turkey (with homemade "taco seasoning"), salsa, and avocado. Here's how I did it:

Ingredients: 
1 pound ground turkey
1 package black beans
1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
homemade taco seasoning
pack of romaine leaves (I recommend 2 leaves per person)
1 avocado
1 jar of SCD-compliant salsa, or homemade salsa

Seasoning mixture:
1 tablespoon chili powder (SCD compliant or homemade)
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon black pepper

Directions:
1. Soak the beans at least overnight, or up to 24 hours. Once soaked, drain, and refill with water twice as high as the beans and throw in 2 cloves of garlic (peeled and whole). Bring to a boil and then simmer until the beans are soft (for me, it was about 1 hour and 15 minutes).
2. Chop the onion and the remaining 2 cloves of garlic. Add 1 tbsp of olive oil to your pan and sautee 1/2 of the onion and 2 cloves of garlic for 5 minutes on medium heat, until the onions are tender. Add the ground turkey and cook until brown.

3. At some point, make the taco seasoning!

4. Add the taco seasoning and 1 cup of water to the turkey. Stir well, set heat on low, and simmer until the water evaporates.

5. Meanwhile, when the beans are tender, drain them with a collander. Put them back into the pot and add the other tablespoon of olive oil and the other half of the chopped onion. Add 1/4 cup of water to the beans. Cook until the onions are tender (unless you prefer them raw) and be sure the beans stay moist enough that they don't burn.

6. Slice up the avocado. Grab the romaine lettuce and and salsa. Assemble the tacos! Add a spoon full of beans, a spoonful of turkey, a spoon full of salsa, and a slice of avocado.

Of course, you can put anything you want into your tacos (cheese? jalapeños? a dollop of SCD dripped yogurt cheese? Check out the image below, which leaves out the avocado in favor of some diced bell peppers), but these came out well. Alex ate two of them and said they were good, though messy. Maybe next time we'll try for a tortilla too!

SCD Crock Pot Turkey and Bean Chili

Comfort food.

Alex just started eating beans. They're SCD legal and he's been largely symptom free for a while, but we just started making beans a week ago. Since then, he's eaten a big batch of chili and I'm making more beans tomorrow. Remember to soak your beans for at least 12 hours before cooking them, so plan ahead.

Before we begin, BIG note here: Store bought chili powder may or may not be SCD compliant. You can inquire with a specific brand, or you can make your own here or here. We used McCormick brand. We're honestly not sure whether this is SCD compliant. The ingredients list "spices," which is vague. Silicon dioxide is SCD compliant. But we did not call them to ask about how they made it. Alex ate a batch of chili and felt fine, so we'll keep using it cautiously. But I can't vouch for it.

Ingredients:
1 pound ground turkey (be sure it doesn't have additives)
1 package black beans, dry*
1 package kidney beans, dry*
3 cans of Campbell's tomato juice
1 tomato
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
1 red pepper
*Those packages of dry  beans yield a TON of beans, you will have way more than you need if you soak two bags of beans. Be ready. 

Spices:
1 tablespoon chili powder (see above)
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)

1. Put the dry  beans into a pot and fill with water. Water should be twice as high as the beans, which expand a lot. Soak at least overnight, preferably for 24 hours, and change the water once mid-soak.
--- At least 12 hours later ---
2. Dice the onion, garlic, and pepper. Saute in a large pan and add the ground turkey. Cook until the turkey is cooked through.
3. While the turkey and veggies are cooking, dice the tomato. Next, mix the spices together into a small bowl and put aside.
4. Add the turkey, onions, garlic, and pepper to the crock pot. Add about 2 cups of soaked beans (more or less if you'd like), the tomatoes, and the 3 cans of tomato juice. Add the spices. Stir well.
5. Cook on "low" setting for 8 hours in the crock pot. (If you don't have a crock pot, you can put it into a regular pot and simmer it on low heat, stirring occasionally, for 2 or more hours.)
6. Enjoy, perhaps with some SCD drained yogurt on top (ala sour cream) or with some grated cheese.

SCD Cherry Thumbprint Cookies

Hello! My name is Hannah. I've been cooking SCD-compliant food for my husband, Alex, for about four years. I've relied on lots of other recipes and blogs during that time and have decided to finally start my own. It will probably be an even mix of recipe reviews and original recipes.

To get started, here's a half-review, half-not review:

SCD Cherry Thumbprint Cookies

This recipe is very closely based on PB and Jelly Thumbprint Cookies from Digestive Wellness. The major change is that we're using almond butter instead of peanut butter. Alex is putting peanut butter on his banana bread for breakfast and eating it with baby carrots at dinner, everyday. He felt he should cut back a little and we had a jar of almond butter handy, so I used that instead. I also have deviated from the recipe directions a little bit and will write down here what I did.

For the cherry jam, I used this jam that I bought from DigestiveWellness.com. I can't praise that website/store enough. Try the granola. Whenever I buy it for my husband I end up eating a substantial portion of it.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup coconut oil (1/3 cup of peanut oil or 6 tablespoons of butter would also work)
1 cup almond butter
1/2 cup honey
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups almond flour
1/4 tsp salt
cherry jam (Digestive Wellness recommends 1/2 cup, but I did not measure.)

Yield: For me, it was 40 cookies. Next time, I will half this recipe because it's a lot of cookie.

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 325F.
2. Mix coconut oil, almond butter, and honey until smooth. Then, add the vanilla and eggs and mix again until smooth.
3. Mix the almond flour with baking soda and salt.
4. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and stir until smooth.
5. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.
It will be somewhat thick and sticky after it's been refrigerated.

Thicker and stickier than cake batter. 

6. Line a cookie tray with parchment paper (aluminum foil will do in a pinch) and put spoonfuls of cookie dough onto the tray.

These are actually just a little too close together. Put yours a little farther apart.

7. Using a spoon (and probably with the help of your finger) add jelly into the middle of each cookie. How much is up to you!

8. Bake at 325 for 20 minutes. 

9. Voila!

See, they were a little too close together. 

They came out nicely. I've made these with peanut butter before and I don't think there is a giant difference between the two recipes. The jelly gives the cookies a nice tartness that they really need. Alex frequently laments how baked goods made with almond flour 'taste like almonds' and the jelly definitely helps remedy that aspect of the cookies.  He ate three of these when they came out of the oven.

Nutritional Info:
Serving Size = 1 Cookie

Calories: 108

Fat: 8g

Saturated Fat: 2g

Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g

Monounsaturated Fat: 2g

Cholesterol: 9mg

Sodium: 21mg

Potassium: 54mg

Carbs: 8g

Fiber: 1g

Sugar: 6.5g

Protein: 2g

Tomorrow, I'm going to experiment and make some black bean papaya salsa that will ultimately be part of a romaine-tortilla-SCD-taco-night. Soaking the beans now! See you then.