Ruby Juice

Hello Everyone!

This morning Matt made us some delicious juice on our Breville Juicer. You can check it out here, if you’re in the market for a juicer. Anyways this combo of vegetables is our favorite for juice. It tastes sweet and earthy and the color is beautiful. We made enough for a few cups to last us a couple of days.

Here’s the Recipe

1 Apple

1 inch of ginger root (an essential part in my opinion)

8-10 carrots (we use the large bags of organic carrots from Costco)

1 Cucumber

1 Handful of Broccoli

1 Handful of Parsley (for detox)

2 Red Beets

Just throw everything in the juicer. Sometimes I cut off the fibrous peel of the ginger root before adding it but it’s not a necessary step. Enjoy!

Gluten Free Challenge: End of Week 1

So Ash and I embarked on a gluten free diet recently and really had no idea what to expect. We’ve never had any gluten intolerances that we are aware of, but after reading Wheat Belly last week we couldn’t resist trying it out. The first day was a little difficult for me, bread and wheat have always been my go to indulgences. I’ve always thought (or have been taught) that whole grains were good for you, so therefore, I would always eat them, and lots of them. I don’t have an issue with weight at all, in fact, I can’t gain any. Which is why I always eat my fair share of wheat, pancakes and other carb loaded items. The last couple of days I have personally noticed some significant changes in my mood, body and overall feel. Usually when I wake up in the morning my whole body is really tight and achy but today I woke up at 8, went to yoga with Ash, and barely felt any of the usual tightness and aches that come with my morning Bikram yoga workouts. It really has been blowing my mind! Generally I hate doing yoga in the morning and try to avoid it like the PLAGUE!  (only because of how stiff I feel) But lately I feel more open, physically and mentally, than I ever can remember. I do have my doubts though, still. Sometimes I look at the salad, or greens,  in front of me and my mind says “no way this is going to do the trick”, and bam! I finish the meal full and satisfied?! I guess more importantly we are up for the challenge too. Our diets have been a little stagnant lately and I feel like it’s time to evolve. I don’t know how long this will last but for those out there contemplating a gluten free/wheat free diet do not hesitate. So far the yay’s have significantly outweighed the nay’s.

AMAZING Oatmeal Raisin Gluten Free, Vegan Cookies!!

So I think you all have read about our Epic fail making chocolate chip cookies with coconut flour. It was truly a disaster and depressing because our sweet tooth was left unsatisfied that night. It made us wonder if we could have yummy baked goods while avoiding gluten. Then I found the recipe for these AMAZING cookies! The dough is good, the cookies are fantastic and you don’t feel sick after eating them like you do with regular cookies.

Yum! I was very happy with this plate of cookies.

This recipe was adapted only slightly from here. I basically only switched the flours and combined a couple of the steps.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 C toasted walnuts (if you don’t know how to toast walnuts you can google it)

2 cups regular oats divided in half

3/4 cup Gluten free all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp. (not quite full) guar gum

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup of maple syrup

2 tbsp almond milk or soy or rice

3 1/2 tbsp coconut oil (warmed so it’s in liquid form)

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup raisins

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350F. After toasting the walnuts combine them in a food processor along with 1 cup of the oats, flour, guar gum, baking soda, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Give that processor a whirl until everything looks like a meal. If you only have a small food processor you can do the walnuts and oats and then add them to the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl warm the coconut oil (in a microwave or on the stove) until it is liquified and add this to the maple syrup, almond milk, and vanilla extract. Then, mix both the wet and the dry ingredients together in the processor, add them to a separate bowl and add in the remaining cup of whole oats and raisins. Mix by hand and then place spoonfuls of the dough on parchment papered cookie sheets. Feel free to eat the dough as you work. We found that eating this cookie dough didn’t make us feel sick the way traditional cookie dough does and I’d like to adapt this recipe into a raw cookie recipe at some point because the dough really is delicious. Also, I know…parchment paper is wasteful. I’d like to get some silicone sheets at some point. If you don’t have or want to use parchment paper, you could just oil the sheets prior as well. Bake at 350F for approx 10-12 minutes (10 if you like them on the chewier side and 12 if you want them a little browner/toasty on the outside). Enjoy!

Pics of the Process. Seriously try these. You won’t be disappointed!

The end result is something like THIS:

Matt was a very happy camper.

As two self-proclaimed foodies with an overactive sweet tooth, we can say that these cookies are as good as any oatmeal raisin recipe we’ve tried. You won’t miss the egg, butter, or gluten. I promise.

Garrapata Hike

We went hiking yesterday at Garrapata Beach. This hike is located between Carmel and Big Sur and while it’s beautiful, be prepared for an intense climb, lots of wind and a 2-3 hour hike dependent upon your speed. However. The payoff at the top is an AMAZING view as well as the climb down which faces the ocean and provides you with beauty the whole way down. Because the climb is so steep I would not recommend this hike for children.

This is a hike I feel like we can only do once/year because it is such a commitment. As we were reaching the top Matt turned to me and said “I never want to do this again”. We’ll see how we feel in a year though after we’ve forgotten how the trip up the mountain was : ).

P.S. My butt is pretty sore today which I guess is a good thing. We’ll see how it feels in yoga.

Breakfast Oatmeal

There’s gluten in oatmeal? What! Yes. Apparently if you don’t look for the gluten free oats, there’s gluten in oatmeal. Thus, we returned our gluten filled oats to Trader Joe’s (they will gladly take anything back without so much as a question) and bought some gluten free oats from Whole Foods (sorry TJ’s but get some gluten free oats). We have basically been throwing our money at Bob’s Red Mill products because this brand provides a gluten free assurance that their products have not been made on any equipment that could be contaminated with gluten.

Bob’s Red Mill oats with whole ground flaxseed meal and peanut butter.

Anyways, we bought some oats and have been eating more oatmeal than usual. We have been sprinkling whole ground flaxseed meal on top with a spoonful of peanut butter for flavor. You could also use almond butter and add blueberries, etc. Delicious.

A Lesson in Gluten Free Baking

Okay so we had an EPIC FAIL baking cookies the other night. Being the newbies that we are to the gluten free lifestyle we thought you could just substitute a gluten free flour for wheat flour. Not the case. We tried substituting coconut flour for regular flour in our favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe and ended up with crumbly, dry cookies that were not delicious. Flavor in a meal is connected to the smell, taste, texture and appearance and these cookies just fell apart.

So the other day we were staring at the flour aisle in Whole Foods wondering what the hell we were doing when I glanced over at a woman picking up a variety of flours. Figuring she had to know more about this whole process than us we asked her if she had any tips for buying flour and for gluten free baking. She directed us to all-purpose gluten free flour (pictured above) and kindly informed us that gluten free baking works best if you mix the flours. Luckily Red Mills sells this bag that already has a variety of flours combined for you. Also, you need to add a binding agent to gluten free flour xantham gum or guar gum work well. We chose the later, it being the least expensive. The bag provides directions but basically you need to use 1/4 teaspoon of the binding agent to every 1 cup of gluten free flour that you use.

We found a WONDERFUL vegan, gluten free oatmeal raisin cookie recipe on the web and armed with our new knowledge of these products we made some AMAZING cookies. We will post the full recipe at a later date.

This brings me to one more tip. Talk to people. We have been using this technique at the grocery store for the past week. Hang out at the aisle that confuses you (for us it was the flour aisle) and when someone comes by that looks like they know what they are doing, ask them for advice. Most people are happy to help and often you can benefit from their experience. Chances are these people have had a lot of successes and failures and can tell you about them to save you the trouble of making the same mistakes they have.

Sweet Snack

After turning down delicious gluten-filled foods today I was craving something familiar. This raisin bread toasted with a little earth balance was just what the doctor ordered!

We found this at Whole Foods and popped it into our freezer so we can always have it on hand : )

Culinary Adventure

So my boyfriend recently caught an episode of Dr. Oz while resting on the couch after work. It happened to be about this new book called ” Wheat Belly” by William Davis, a well known cardiologist. He explains how wheat has been genetically modified over the decades having undergone hundreds if not thousands of genetic mutations in the process. He coined the term “Frankenwheat” to describe this new wheat that we eat today and explains how this wheat is making us fat Then on Valentine’s Day we talked to a couple sitting next to us at the restaurant who had gone gluten-free and LOVED it. The things they told us about their own weight loss and health benefits blew our minds. Figuring it must be kismet we decided to take the plunge. We will keep you updated on our failures, successes, and tips we learn along the journey. To our knowledge we are not gluten intolerant so we will let you know if we feel there are any advantages to this new way of life for those who choose to go gluten-free of their own free will : ) we will also post a full review of “Wheat Belly” available here after we’ve given it a thorough reading.