Gluten Free Zucchini Bread

This is what I made last night. It's from http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2010/08/zucchini-bread.html. The kids LOVED it!

Gluten-Free Zucchini Bread Recipe

You can make this lovely gluten-free zucchini bread with or without eggs. And it's dairy-free. Its delicate flavor comes from a secret ingredient. Coconut milk.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. (You know all about checking the oven's temperature, now, right?) Line the bottom of a 9-inch loaf pan with a piece of parchment paper. Lightly oil it.

You'll need:

1 rounded cup of fresh, grated zucchini (I partially peel my zukes, in stripes)
1 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup tapioca starch (sometimes called tapioca flour)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup light olive oil or coconut oil
1 teaspoon fresh lemon or lime juice
2 free-range organic egg whites, beaten or egg replacer (1/4 cup liquid)
1/4 cup coconut milk

Option:

1/3 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Press the grated zucchini with a paper towel to remove as much moisture as you can. After pressing, fluff with a fork (I learned this tip from 101 Cookbooks). Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the sorghum flour, tapioca starch, baking powder, baking soda, xanthan gum, sea salt, and cinnamon. Add in the brown sugar.

Add the oil, lemon juice, egg whites or egg replacer, and the coconut milk. Beat to combine and continue to beat on medium high until the batter is smooth- about two minutes.

Add in almost all of the shredded zucchini (I save out a few shreds to decorate the top of the loaf) and stir by hand to combine. If you are adding nuts, stir them in to distribute.

Scoop and scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan and using a silicone spatula, even out the top.

Add a few shedded zucchini strands to the top.

Bake in the center of a preheated oven until the top is golden and firm, yet gives a bit when lightly touched. It should feel slightly springy. This may take anywhere from 50 to 60 minutes. It took 55 minutes for my zucchini bread to bake. Test with a thin sharp knife or a wooden pick- either should emerge with no crumbs or batter.
Cook time: 1 hour

Yield: 1 9-inch loaf

Read more: http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2010/08/zucchini-bread.html#ixzz1VJ5OzFfd

Wednesday's Menu

BREAKFAST
Kids: GFCF waffles, dairy free cream cheese, coconut butter, all natural turkey bacon (no nitrates!), strawberry banana almond milk spinach smoothie

Me: black tea, whey protein spinach almond milk smoothie

SNACKS
Kids: lar bar, mary's GFCF crackers

Me: all natural turkey bacon

LUNCH
Kids: turkey salami, Alex dairy free cheese, Josi goat cheese, carrots, GFCF home made zucchini bread, Josi apples

Me:

SNACKS
Kids: strawberries, plantain chips

Me:

DINNER
Kids:

Me:

Back to Blogging about Food

This has been an eventful year and I seemed to have found some time again to get back to cooking from scratch and using food to become as healthy as I (and us as a family) can be.

We are still eating clean, though now little Alex is also eating gluten (wheat) and dairy (casein) free. GFCF for short. We've had him on this before with great results and after seeing our naturopath again for allergies and hyperactivity, we are back on it and I am AMAZED at the results. He's always had GI problems, from his 3rd week of life starting with severe reflux. So it's no wonder he also has intolerances to foods like wheat and dairy. It's a little bit harder to "eat clean" when eating GFCF because a lot of packaged GFCF foods make up for the lack of taste with sugar. That's why we need to cook from scratch more! I can make great GFCF muffins and cookies, and it's way cheaper than buying them.

I've found my way to not only eating clean, but eating grain free. I've always known "low carb" works for me regarding weight loss, but didn't know about the health benefits and the ins and outs of eating raw or cooked vegetables in abundance.

So we are still on our food for health journey and I'm excited to blog about it again!

Today's Menu:

Breakfast:
Kids: GFCF pancakes from a bag mix with sunflower butter and sugar free honey (all natural), smoothie.

Me breakfast: Black tea, Chocolate Whey protein shake with spinach.

Snacks
Kids: Peach slices
Me: chicken sausage with provolone cheese, Kombucha drink

Lunch:
Kids: grass fed organic beef burger with no sugar ketchup, mixed veggies, grapes, toast with coconut butter

Me: Grilled chicken with avacado, black tea

Snacks
Kids: multigrain GFCF crackers
Me:

Dinner
Kids: GFCF macaroni with canola oil butter, grilled chicken, cucumber with ranch to dip! GFCF Zucchini bread

Me: organic grass fed burger, sugar free ketchup, herb mix lettuce salad, olive oil dressing, avacado

Hopefully cooking more today...

My Breakfast: Oatmeal, flax, frozen blueberries, protein drink, almond milk...this is my go to breakfast. It's so filling and easy to make and not boring at all.
Kids Breakfast: Smoothie and I'm not sure what else because I was at work and my husband is home with them today.

My Snack: The last enchilada. I will be making those again. They were SO good. I loved the veggie and chicken mix in the inside. That could be used in so many dishes.

I'm hoping to make the egg salad today and another dish. There's just always so much to do in a day!

One nice thing is since starting this diet, as of today I am able to fit into my pre-pregnancy (Josi) jeans! That was a nice accomplishment!

My Lunch: Romaine lettuce salad with cherry tomatoes, red onion, cucumber, olive oil based, no sugar dressing, natural turkey, egg and flax....and some strawberries
Alex had the same salad and Josi had some toast with turkey and cucumbers

Husband is sick today...

So not sure if my husband will be cooking today since he's a little under the weather. We shall see!

My Breakfast: Organic nonfat plan yogurt, muesli, frozen blueberries, coffee
Kids Breakfast: Smoothie

My Snack: natural turkey salami, almonds
Kids: natural turkey salami, whole grain goldfish (darn leftovers from soccer! Kids have been asking for them all day!)

Kids Lunch: OK I swear the last of the lasagna! My husband is sick today and didn't cook a lunch meal so last leftovers it was.
My Lunch: I had a protein drink with almond milk and a piece of Ezekiel bread with natural sugar free jelly.

My husband made protein bars but they didn't come out very well. We didn't have dark chocolate pieces as it called for so he used cocoa powder and it made them too dry. Next time we're out of chocolate I'd use frozen blueberries. Oh well hopefully I can freeze them in a couple bags and I'll eat them randomly as small snacks.

OK so Alex liked the protein bars. I told them they had chocolate and he liked it. Josi, not so much. She actually gagged. HAHA. She's my picky one! So they snacked on that and a banana and some other random stuff. Alex had a protein oatmeal pancake. It was a hectic night.

I snacked on some apple crisp I made. It was SO good. I had a huge bag of apples that I had to use so I made this recipe. I doubled it and froze half.

CLEAN APPLE CRISP
Apple Mix:
5 or 6 medium apples peeled and cut in small pieces
1/4 - 1/3 cup Agave Nectar
1/4 cup Brown rice flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 packets Stevia - plant based sweetener
Dash sea salt
Topping:
1/3 - 1/2 cup Coconut oil/butter
1/4 cup Evaporated cane juice
1/2 cup Brown rice flour
1 cup oats
1/4 cup Sucanat
2 Tablespoons cinnamon

Peel, core, and cut apples. Place in large mixing bowl. Add all other ingredients to the apple mix and stir completely. The mix is most sweet if refrigerated over night.
Make the topping just prior to baking. (If freezing for later use, add the topping before freezing.)

Topping: Place coconut oil/butter in mixing bowl. It should be in solid form, so if it is an oil, refrigerate to solidify first. Add cane juice, cinnamon, sucanat, and brown rice flour to the butter. Mix with handheld mixer until it is homogenous and sandy in texture. Finally, add the oats and stir well.

Place apple mix in baking dish and add topping. Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately 35 minutes. When topping starts to brown and juice from apples starts to bubble, the crisp is done. Let cool slightly, and serve.

Will be cooking tomorrow...

I think today is the last day of leftovers! Usually I will make a dish and then freeze half but we got so busy last week that I forgot to freeze so we had a lot of leftovers. The kids didn't really mind because there were a few different ways to eat them, but I'll be glad to cook something new tomorrow!

Breakfast Me: Oatmeal pancake, protein drink with almond milk, coffee
Breakfast Kids: Organic plain nonfat yogurt, high fiber cereal, banana

Kids Snack: Smoothie, natural turkey salami lunch meat (did I mention how much I LOVE this?!), low fat cheese stick
My Snack: natural turkey salami, strawberries

Kids Lunch: Last of the enchiladas! Josi had more pasta roll ups because she asked for mine when I was making my lunch.
My Lunch: Pasta roll ups leftovers...it was good but I'm done with it!

Kids Snack: Organic plain nonfat yogurt

Kids Dinner: Baked asparagus, natural fish sticks (whole wheat breading)
My Dinner: Baked asparagus, protein shake (natural protein powder, almond milk, tablespoon almond butter, banana, ice). This shake was amazing! So filling and tasty. Baby Alex liked it a lot too.

Kids Snack: whole grain goldfish, natural apple juice....they were at soccer practice and it was our turn to bring snacks so this is what we brought!

The scale is going down!

I'm seeing awesome results from Eating Clean and the food I'm eating is SO good! The thing that's really helping is the kitchen is closed 3 hours before bed (for me, the kids can of course eat whenever they want!) As long as I'm eating the 5-6 small meals per day at every 2-3 hours, I'm not hungry that 3 hours before bed. Another thing is to make sure you eat right when you wake up or at least within 30 minutes. This will keep your metabolism going since you haven't eaten before bed or while sleeping.

It's hard to blog on the weekends as weekends are so busy. We ate mostly leftovers and didn't eat out at all.

Today:

Breakfast for all: oatmeal with flax and frozen blueberries....I had a protein drink with almond milk and the kids had their typical smoothies!

My Snack: Leftover pasta roll ups (we made so much I'm trying to eat it so we don't toss anything!)
Kids Snack: Banana and Josi asked for some pasta roll up too! She loves it. And she's getting so much fresh spinach from it!

Kids Lunch: Chicken and peas
My Lunch: Leftover enchilada mix in a whole wheat tortilla

All of us Dinner: Leftover Enchiladas and strawberries

The kids could live on strawberries, I swear. We buy the large container and if I let them they'd just keep eating and eating them! At least they love fruit!

All of us Snack: Quinoa Health Bar

Still finishing up the leftovers!