apple pear crisp, home made blender whip cream, twister jar

I am using a recipe from Ellana Amsterdam's cook book. I created an apple pear crisp, based on her apple crisp recipe.  We are NOT paleo people, but paleo recipes often work for our needs that we have for our meals.(this is what will allow us to change this up a bit too)   I ordered a huge lot of organic apples which turned out to be just $1+ per pound and apples have been a huge part of our meals lately.  This is the right thing to do as it is in season which is always a great way to eat anything.

I have been looking for alternative crisp topping recipes and will continue to do so, because this family cannot have wheat now that through my elimination testing, it is a trigger food for me and therefore assumed to be for my autoimmune daughter since children often follow our lead on these things.  I am testing her as well but it is harder to tell with a young person as their bodies are so resilient while having issues, but since all the research I have done has pointed to no gluten, then we are just going for it in the hopes of helping her body heal and to prevent any further issues.  We have noticed some of her symptoms improving overall. We also cannot have oats due to my boy being reactive to this. Blah!!!

Mmmmm....fresh out of the oven.  Smells great!  

General Recipe: (not giving exact since it is from her book)

apples of choice, I cut around core and did not peel

apple juice

lemon juice

salt

cinnamon

nutmeg

arrowroot

Topping:

almond flour

grapeseed oil

agava nector

vanilla

salt

baked for 45 mins then another 10 to crisp up the topping

Home made whip cream:

I pretty much never buy whip cream anymore, I simply buy cream from Aldi, the best price, I am not really able to get organic often.  

I use my Twister Jar blender which can make powdered sugar, isn't that cool?

I add my choice of sugar, natural something, then zoom that in my blender until powdery, then

I add a dash of vanilla and a pint of cream

put my Blendtec on 4 and in about 30+ seconds I have a finished product all ready to plop on all my treats!

YUM!

Verdict:

This crisp was very good but the topping did not crisp up enough for us and it was a bit bland, likely because there was no butter...so we will be using butter, coconut oil or both in the next batch, that should give us that extra edge we are looking for.

It was gone that night and I was thinking how much my little Braveheart would have loved eating this. 

powdered kale for thyroid

So...I came up with this fantastic idea over the weekend.....but I know I did not invent this idea of coarse, but it was a little like an invention to me...you see, I have a bundle of wonderful kale in my garden. It just keeps on producing like the energizer bunny. Usually I just juice it or make Kale chips, but I am not juicing as much during my elimination diet (plus it's raw) and one cannot store kale chips long term due to the oil,  and here is the kicker....we have thyroid issues over here..my dtr has thyroiditis, which has turned into hypothyroidism, so we are working on healing foods over here in this camp.  That means we have not been eating raw spinach, broccoli or even kale!!

Yes, it has been an adjustment.  These foods are called goitrogens. This is a quick read about what that is.  I can cook them to cut back on the goitrogen effects, which works wonderfully for broccoli but kale is just not as appealing to the kiddos. Frankly, I do NOT like sauteed kale either, I have discovered and there is not  much that I dislike.
 Here are some pics of my weekend spent preparing our POWDERED KALE. I am so excited about this.

First you go out to your garden to pick some fresh kale.

Then you bring it in to wash all of the dirt and grime off.

Then you lay the leaves out to dry. One can also rip the leaves off the stem if your stems are super thick or if you want them to dry faster. I have done both, whole leaves and torn, but be sure to turn on your ceiling fan, it helps things dry faster.

Turn your oven to 275 degrees after leaves are mostly dry, too wet and you will steam your kale.  They will take anywhere from 45 minutes to more than an hour, depending on how thick and moist your kale is.

Next, you want to take them out of the oven to cool.

Beautiful!

Now put them in your blender. This is the fun part....oh that crunch, crunch...of the dried kale...it's so psychologically satisfying.....it's better than squeezing that bubble wrap.

Now it's all in there. Ready to zoom....

Now we have to make it into powder. I have learned that I love using my Blendtec for this. I use the 'batter' mode which is perfect for stirring it up and powderize the kale.

Now you can put it in a pretty jar and store it for a long time for use in salads, soups, smoothies, stir-fries, and anything else you can imagine up in your mind.

I actually discovered after my first batch, that I prefer the 'batter' mode on my blender and the rest of my powdered kale came out much finer.  I am so excited about this. I love using my fun mason jars and the screw on lids I bought for them through Amazon.  

I also experimented with this with my parsley which I have a ton of as well and so far it has turned out very well.

Happy fall harvesting to you.