SCD Update- What I'm Makin' in the Kitchen

 Homemade sauerkraut, anyone? I never knew it was so easy. Just shredded cabbage and sea salt. That's it! I use the recipe and instructions on SCD Lifestyle. The first time I made it, I chopped the cabbage by hand, and this last time I used the shredding disc on my food processor. Either way works, and then you just pack it by handfuls into a mason jar, sprinkling sea salt and squeezing out the juice as you go. Let it sit on the counter for about a week, and then store it in the fridge and enjoy a little bit cold every day. Fermented foods are a great, natural way to get good probiotics into your body!

I seem to get a new Paleo cookbook from the library every time I go. I'm just fascinated by reading recipes, and I learn a lot each time I do. I'm not paleo...I'm following SCD because of my advanced troubles with digestion and autoimmune stuff goin on. But eventually I'd like to veer towards Paleo as I get healthier, and then maybe someday I'll be able to eat normally again. But maybe not. We'll just have to see how my body responds. I'd like to think that I'm not banned from chocolate and pizza forever!

That's a typical lunch or dinner for me. Some tilapia and a nice variety of veggies. For breakfast, I usually eat some bacon and veggies and maybe some crustless pumpkin pie. For lunch it's usually whatever is left over from dinner the night before. And dinners consist of some kind of meat and veggies. I have snacks of avocado mixed with banana and coconut oil, or a bowl of applesauce or pearsauce. My favorite snack is some crispy roasted carrot or squash fries.

I started drinking coconut water about a month ago, and I love it! The only other thing I drink is water, so it's a nice refreshing change. I then decided to introduce coconut milk into my diet, so I started with Trader Joe's light coconut milk, which just contains coconut and water. I have to stay away from canned coconut milks that contain guar gum, which is surprisingly most of them. I saw a young coconut in the refrigerated section at Sprouts for $2.50, and decided to take it home and make coconut milk out of it. A young coconut is white, in a cylinder shape with a pointed top. I'd never touched one, so I looked up instructions online on how to open it and scoop out the flesh. Here's mine after I finally figured out how to open it.

The white flesh is soft and gelatinous, and scoops out super easy with a spoon.

 I totally destroyed the top of the coconut, trying to hack it open. You basically hack a square shape into the top, and then dig the bottom of your chefs knife into the groove and pry the top off. It was tricky, but I got it. The whole thing is filled with coconut water.

 So I poured the water into my Blendtec, scooped the flesh in there too, and then blended it all up and came out with creamy coconut milk! It tasted sooo fresh and yummy. I don't know if I was supposed to have coconut flesh in the diet yet, but I did it, and it was good.

Here's a picture of my beloved carrot fries. I used to live off of sweet potato fries, but since they're not SCD legal because of the starch content, I switched to carrots. So easy! I just wash and peel a couple pounds of carrots, chop them into julienne strips, lay them flat on a tin foiled baking sheet, and dab with coconut oil and sea salt.

 Bake in preheated oven at 425 for about a half hour, and finish off at a broil to crisp them up for a minute. I make a bunch ahead of time, store them in an airtight container in the fridge, and then re-broil a bit at a time when I'm ready to snack. So yummy!

I follow the same procedure to make butternut squash and acorn squash fries. I've found that any vegetable in roasted form is deeeelicious!

Here's a couple of cornish hens that we enjoyed for dinner one night. I'm getting to really enjoy dark meat, which I never liked before. When I eat white chicken breast now, it seems so dry and tasteless compared to the juicy flavorful meat you can eat off the bones!

Almond butter is one of my new favorite treats! I decided to give it a try about 2.5 months into the diet,  partly because I need to gain weight, and partly because I desperately wanted to because I miss nuts and they taste so good! I really don't know how my body is handling it or if I should stay away from nuts all together right now, but I like to think the almond butter is ok. I found an awesome recipe/method for making homemade almond butter here on Gutsy. It's awesome- just two ingredients! Blanched almond flour, and coconut oil. I had a huge bag of Honeyville blanched almond flour that I'd ordered on Amazon awhile ago, and knew I could try to make almond butter with it. Then I found this girl's website and learned that yes it indeed works! I add a teeny bit of sea salt and honey to mine as well. You just process it in the food processor for about 7 minutes, stopping about 4 times to scrape down the sides, and you end up with nice creamy almond butter.

 This was also my first time using my new Cuisinart food processor. I felt like such a dork, trying to figure out all the gadgets and contraptions, but I got the hang of it. Here's the finished product of my 2nd time making almond butter.

And finally, this is a picture of one of my other favorites: crustless pumpkin pie. Or in this case, butternut squash pie. It's basically a combo of coconut milk and squash with some spices, and it tastes deeelicious. I keep it in the fridge and enjoy a little bit every day.

Crustless Pumpkin Pie
Ingredients:
2 cups cooked butternut squash puree (1 medium butternut squash, roasted in the oven. Scoop out flesh and puree in blender until smooth) OR one 15 oz can of Trader Joes pumpkin puree
1/2 cup coconut milk (homemade or from an SCD legal can, like Trader Joes light or Asian market brand with no guar gum)
2 eggs (I use 1 egg) OR substitute with 4 Tbs boiled water whisked with 2 tsp unflavored gelatin
1 Tbs cinnamon
1 Tbs vanilla
1/4 to 1/2 cup honey, depending on how sweet you want it
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp allspice (I don't use this)
Preheat oven to 350. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl until smooth. Pour into a glass pie dish and bake for 1 hour. Let cool, keep in refrigerator and eat like pudding. It's yummy with some refrigerated coconut milk "cream" and a scoop of almond butter!

I don't know where this recipe originated, but I got it from my SCD friend, Traci. Thank you! :) I wanted to post it so that I know right where to find it when I make it next time.

So there you have it, some of the crazy things I've been making in the kitchen, and the things I'm learning on this healing journey. I'm a week away from hitting my 90 day milestone on the SCD. I'm not sure what that means, other than that I'm proud of myself for sticking with something that seems to be the best thing I can do for my body right now. I'm still bloated all the time and have the same issues, but I like to think that WITH TIME I WILL GET BETTER. Keep on keepin on.