GAPS-friendly, Paleo-ish Pumpkin Pie

Ok, so my latest addiction is pumpkin pie. It's kind of ridiculous, actually. Between my almost-2-year-old daughter and myself, we have consumed an entire pie in the last 48 hours. Oops.

Granted, it's been a little crazy here. I worked the past couple days at my old job, and I'm totally out of practice and the loop. Just because you remember how to ride your bike doesn't mean it's not going to be extremely awkward when you get back on and try to ride...

Anywho, we ate lots of pie. And it was splendiferous.

Here's how I make it, with a very, uh, standard recipe format. Right.

I use as few dishes as possible, given my aversion to washing them.

Get out a batter bowl, whisk, rubber spatula, 1/2 cup measuring cup, 1/2 teaspoon measuring spoon, fork, and pie plate.

Put 1/3 cup butter in the bowl. Nuke it for 30 seconds or til the butter melts. Add 1 1/2 c. almond meal. (I like almond meal that I make myself in the Vitamix better than almond flour. Not sure why, I just like the texture better.) I usually add a little coconut flour too, like maybe 1/8 cup?

Stir up with fork. Dump into pie plate. Squish into a shape vaguely resembling pie crust using your spatula or, let's face it, your fingers. Set aside.

Into the bowl go the following:

• 1 small can pumpkin (15 oz.)
• I like this one from Farmer's Market, though I use Libby's if in a pinch. The FM stuff tastes different, but it has more taste in general. Plus, you won't get your RDA of BPA, since the can isn't lined with BPA. Good choice.
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• Again, with the BPA thing, I like Native Forest. Of course, it would have to have something wrong with it (doesn't everything), being that it has guar gum. Fail. But at least that is better than xanthan gum! That's some nasty $#!+ right there.
• 1/2 cup honey
• Measure and pour the coconut milk before the honey, don't rinse your cup, and the honey will pour right out. No muss, no fuss.
• 1 1/2 t cinnamon
• 1 1/2 t vanilla
• Rodelle is my fav for this! I'm sure I've mentioned that before...
• 1/2 t sea salt
• 1/4 t ground ginger
• dusting of freshly grated nutmeg

Whisk. Pour. Bake at 425 F for 15 minutes, then lower heat to 350 for approx 30 minutes. Remove either once your delicate almond crust gets almost burned, or the middle doesn't seem jiggly anymore. Whichever comes first!

I'll warn you, though. This is not like SAD pumpkin pie. It is way better! It's more like a pumpkin custard with a nutty, textured crust. Seriously good warm, too. I usually destroy my pie by taking out a messy, pudding-y piece as soon as it is cool enough not to burn and destroy my mouth. Don't want everything to taste like rubber for a month... (Jim Gaffigan. Hot Pockets. You must see this.)

Anywho... good stuff. I'll take a picture sometime if it ever lasts long enough.

So maybe this isn't so bad.

I sometimes wish I took more time to blog. But then, I wouldn't have as much time to cook. Or sleep. So you can see how it falls down the priority list. Maybe if it was my job, but whatever. I'm never going to be THAT dedicated.

That said, I've been meaning to blog for a long time. Blog posts often form in my mind as I wash dishes. And heaven knows, I do a LOT of dishes. My latest and most important update post was going to be about how I was trying GAPS again. Mostly. And was. I've eaten some buckwheat and quinoa bread lately, and I actually feel better with it. So that wagon has kind of sailed.

It's not a willpower thing though. It's a migraine thing. I don't know if my hormones have decided to run amok, or what in the world is going on, but I have NEVER had this many migraines. I thought maybe it was a magnesium thing, so I took more magnesium. After a few days, I felt weird, and I had more migraines. So I tried zinc. Then calcium with some mag. Then none of the above because of the citrate content. This belongs in a separate blog post. I'll get around to that eventually.

Right.

So the moral of the story is that I've been feeling like crap, just a different kind of crap from before. Gotta love variety.

I've had a lot of down days, when I'm just so damn frustrated that I can't figure this out. That what seems to work for other people is totally useless for me. That I'm always seeming to miss that one piece of the puzzle that would make me feel human again.

And on top of it all, I'm just plain tired. Of being tired. And spacey.

Things have gotten slightly better since I started taking some l-glutamine. It's been on the shelf in my ever-filling-with-useless-crap supplement cabinet for probably a couple years now, but I was always hesistant to take it while I was breastfeeding. I know it's just an amino acid, but still. I'm paranoid.

So things have looked up a little bit. I'm still having some blood sugar issues that seem to feed into the migraine issues (or vice versa?) and singlehandedly keeping my chiropractor in business. But I don't feel quite so tired. Maybe more like a normal person when they are hungover instead of someone in a coma.

That said, the point of this post is that things aren't really so bad. Yes, I'm still sick and tired. Yes, I have to cook ALL. THE. TIME. and I have no social life and no time to pursue the things I really enjoy. Yes, I would love to travel, learn new things, see faraway friends, go out for a cup of coffee.

But my genetically-linked disease is not spina bifida. Nor is it Batten Disease. SB is potentially terrible, and BD is a worst nightmare scenario. Both of these have recently entered the lives of friends.

This might not make a lot of sense, but I'll attempt to describe this accurately... It's hard to have perspective when your day-in-day-out reality of just surviving the exhaustion and pain clouds your view. When I hear of friends going through such awful circumstances, I feel such pain for them. I pray a lot. I somewhat understand (as much as is possible) just how terrifying it must be. It makes me realize (in my brain) how lucky I am. The problem is, though, it often doesn't jolt me into really realizing in my heart that I am fortunate. It doesn't usually inspire gratefulness. Just sadness and fear.

Today, though, it finally did. God must finally have gotten through to me and finally beat into my head just how good I do have it.

It's just food. It's not a debilitating, fatal disease where I have to watch my child regress and eventually slip away. That just breaks my heart. And along with breaking my heart today, it finally replaced my guilt, fear, and self-absorption with gratefulness.

And for that, I'm truly thankful.

Top 5 reasons to blog in the middle of the night

I have a bit of unexpected time. Granted, it is the middle of the freaking night, and I am what my husband calls "exhausperated", but hey, why not blog? Doesn't everyone want to read about my exhausperated thoughts??

So here are my top 5 reasons why you should blog at 1:21 AM.

1. Because if you go to sleep, and your one-year-old wakes up screaming AGAIN, you just might start actually banging your head against the wall instead of just thinking about it. And that's just not nice.

2. Because you have such clear thinking when you haven't gotten much sleep lately. And everyone wants to read about that. And know that you get really terrible songs stuck in your head when sleep-deprived. And that you develop a potty mouth.

3. Because waiting up to see if your husband can text you when he lands in China is cool. And since he only had about 20 minutes left in his flight when your kid finally stopped protesting sleep, why the hell not?!

4. Because I love reading "Top #" Lists. They are my fav. Especially when you can tell that someone is really reaching for that last reason.

5. Did I say 5? I really meant 4.

So was this post completely pointless? YES. Do I actually have useful things to say, and useful info to share? YES. Will I ever get around to doing that?

Depends on if I ever get some sleep...

Good morning.

SC

So what SHOULD I eat??

It seems as though there is something wrong with every food.

Grains- bad. Not only from a gluten standpoint, but the others make my blood sugar wacky. Plus, they feed the yeast.

Legumes- I seem to have more, ahem, "side effects" from these now than I used to, even with soaking. Nuff said.

Nightshades- I know I don't deal well with these, except maybe a little cooked tomato. Plus, little one has nasty, nasty reflux when I eat tomatoes. Had I known that, maybe I would have gotten some sleep during those first terrible months... or maybe not.

Cruciferous veggies, like broccoli, cauli, cabbage- similar to legumes, but for the little one. Though, come to think of it, they have started to bother me more the few times I have had them. Kind of like beans, but less. What's the deal?

Sugar- so many reasons. Not even gonna start with that one.

Fruit- feeds the yeast.

Dairy- not sure why, but I feel yucky any time I have some. Tried a little bit of cheese the other night on an omelette-y/fritatta-y thing with chorizo and spinach. It sure was good, but I felt tired and just gross for awhile after. I do eat butter. And yes, I've tried raw dairy. Maybe I should try it yet again, but it hasn't made a difference so far. And the one time I ate raw milk cheese? Sorry, but it tasted and smelled like a cow. The business end of said cow. Not worth it.

Nuts and seeds, including almond flour, cocoa, coconut flour- PHYTATES. I have severe problems with phytates. I think part of this has come to a head while nursing, but I don't exactly have the absorbing capacity to make up for whatever minerals the phytates bind. I've been feeling weird for awhile, thought at first it was just Mg deficiency, and now I'm thinking it is probably multiple minerals from phytic acid. Fail.

I do soak them, but maybe I don't do it long enough or the right way. Or the right whey... since I don't exactly have whey to ferment them with...

I'm sure there is something here that I've missed. Because any time one of my friends says, "Hey, can you eat __________?" I almost always have to say no, then follow up with an abbreviated explanation of why that no one really cares to hear.

So what's a girl to do? What's a girl to eat??

Grass-fed beef and lettuce. That's about it. Sigh. Not that I don't love a good burger or steak, but I'm running out of options here. I have to force myself to eat salad. I just have NO appetite for it.

And what is little one supposed to eat??

This is getting expensive and depressing. Even soaking my nuts and seeds has only been moderately effective. I thought using blanched almond flour would be ok, but I should just avoid it. Cuz then I bake with it and make yummy things and eat too much of them and really screw myself in the phytate department.

Thanks for letting me rant,
SC

(Oh, and little one is allergic to carrots. Sigh.)

Drugs

Imagine with me, if you will:

You committed yourself to an insane dietary plan like GAPS, SCD, etc. It helped, so you try to stick to it for the most part. You've had to add a little rice or quinoa here and there, but you at least remember what you learned from going GAPS. You decide to feed your child accordingly, starting with vegetables and fruits (organic as possible), adding grass-fed beef, pastured chicken and eggs, and so on.

And then teething starts. And goes on for months. And the poor child can barely function, much less sleep.

(And this is the ONE situation in which you really, really wish she still took a pacifier... at least she'd have something to chomp on while falling asleep...)

So, tired of seeing poor baby in pain, you decide that maybe giving her some Tylenol isn't the end of the world. After all, you are a pharmacist. You're supposed to like drugs, right?!

So maybe acetaminophen (hereafter known as APAP) might contribute to asthma development. Or might overwhelm her tiny liver. But you look past those minute risks, and decide that the benefits win.

The bottle says gluten free. Yay! Easy win there!

Then you look at the list of ingredients. #1 is anhydrous citric acid, which you know you can't tolerate, as most commercial citric acid is derived from an Aspergillus mold, therefore activating your overly-sensitive yeast/mold sensor.

Following is a list of other ingredients just as questionable. The label touts "No high fructose corn syrup!", which is great, but the stuff has a bunch of sucralose in it, the likes of which alters GI flora. And sorbitol, a sugar alcohol that can cause diarrhea. There is basically no sweetener that could make me happy.

Hmmm...

And now that the infant drops have been discontinued, you have to give her 3.75 mL to get the 120 mg dose you want. Doesn't sound like much, but that's like four swallows!

(Maybe we could have kept that concentration available for parents who read the label carefully and follow directions. I can see flaming comments in my future... but it sure would be handy. Should have bought a ton before it totally went off the shelves, but didn't think about it. Fail. I know the new standard concentration is safer, yada yada, but still. Come on.)

Too bad you can't just give her plain APAP powder, if you could get your hands on it. Which you can't. Plus, it tastes horrendously bitter (thus the flavoring...).

So what to do? Wouldn't it be nice to have something like a plain, concentrated suspension you could add to some appropriate food? I would totally give it to her in a syringe filled with applesauce...

Wish I could do that. Blend modern drugs and science with vehicles more appropriate for natural and organic diets.

I feel like such a schmuck for being so anal about what she eats, then pumping her full of this crap for dessert at every meal. But hey, we gotta do what we gotta do, and this kid is the slowest teether in the history of dentition.

And by the way, her diarrhea abruptly stopped when she went a day without APAP. Guess I have my answer there. Ick.

Pyramid Scheme: It's just SAD

I forget where I first heard the acronym SAD used for the Standard American Diet, but it sure is spot-on.

Everyone I talk to understands the way I eat. I never get comments and questions like "Gosh, that sure doesn't sound low-fat" or "I have high cholesterol, I could never eat that way" or "How can you be healthy without whole grains?"

Right.

It seems like so many people are paying attention to "healthy" eating, or at least they are trying. Counting calories, eating diet foods, what have you.

So why, then, does no one seem to understand what a healthy diet really entails? Even some of the mass media is eschewing carbs (and thus, sometimes, grains). I know for a fact that I actually agreed with what Dr. Oz was saying the one time I saw him on TV...

Even people who are close to me, who understand the most about why I *try* to avoid grains, why I don't eat much processed stuff, why I soak my nuts and seeds, etc. make comments that just don't make any sense.

So it's not always that we are oblivious to what we're eating. It's that what we're taught is pretty much just blatantly wrong, and we just can't get it out of our heads.

I about screamed in delight when I read a blog post from a local doctor that told the TRUTH about grains: that they make your blood sugar spike (and, therefore, crash), then causing other hormonal issues and ultimately leading to weight gain and a whole host of other problems.

YES!

And DUH!

At least DUH for someone who made progress using the GAPS diet. And lost weight and gained muscle while eating plenty. And who feels at least marginally weird every time she eats rice pasta...

But I think back to that damn food pyramid that I still have embedded in my brain from junior high health classes. Remember that one? With the enormous base of breads and grains, it was like 6-11 servings/day? I know they've changed it since, but it's still ridiculous.

Not to mention that I, with no formal training in the area of dietetics, have taught dieticians at my office about gluten issues. They said they had no education or experience with it. That is just not right. I know some great dieticians, but it seems exceedingly weird to me that so many have no clue about Celiac. It seems like this has gotten better over the past 2-3 years, but geesh. If they aren't the experts, who are??

(Side note: when I was first diagnosed with Celiac, the doc told me nothing and referred me to a dietician. When I called to schedule the appointment, they didn't even know what Celiac was, but said that I could come talk to the dietician anyway and she would try to look something up about it. Because I couldn't do that myself...
Also, that it would be at my own expense, since my insurance only covered dietician visits in cases of diabetes. The insurance people were clueless too, by the way. I called to complain, since I have a condition which can only be managed by dietary intervention, and they basically told me I was SOL. Pretty sure I told them where they could stuff their whole wheat bagels...)


I often feel like I'm giving a lecture every time someone asks about what I'm eating. I consciously try to make things as general as possible. After all, it would be a VERY long conversation to fully explain it. But sometimes, I feel obligated to include as much of the story as possible. Maybe I'm not inconveniencing someone with my verbosity, maybe they will use the info to help someone else figure out their food-related problems. Maybe it will spark interest in real healthy food.

As long as we can just ignore that dumb pyramid. Thanks, USDA. Grain subsidies, anyone?

Life. And sticking together. And blogging.

I often think "I should blog about this!" throughout my day.

It doesn't always have anything to do with Celiac Disease. It is often just me ranting about something or other.

Then, I think- what else could I do with my time? Something more useful? Actually tackle the mountains of dishes and laundry? Or get back on track with working out? Or do some meal prep so I'm not scrambling later? Or the other bazillion projects I need to finish (Er... start...)? Or anything else that might free me up later so I can stop "managing" my daughter and actually being present with her?

Blogging just doesn't seem like an important thing in the scheme of life; however, I start to think of how so many blogs have given me ideas, inspiration, and encouragement, and I realize that maybe there is something more to it than just a relatively anonymous place to vent.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I ran into a friend at the grocery store today. I wouldn't have seen her had I not been making my second trip into the store. As is typical, I was feeling like a failure because I left my list out in the truck and decided to wing it, only to have to go back in after checking out. After all, how can you make vegetable soup without vegetables? I'm good at substitution, but not that good...

She's been through waaaaay more than I have prior to her diagnosis last year. Her daughter has also been chronically ill and in pain. She said I looked well and asked how I was doing. I said we were doing pretty well, which is the truth most of the time. I still deal with a lot of fatigue and off and on anxiety, but looking back at where I've been, I'm doing just fine. Praise God! (Now if I would just stop eating rice, that would help!)

I then asked how she was doing. I could tell by her hesitancy that things were still pretty awful. She has found more food intolerances. I (not so wisely) mentioned that it took me years and years to figure mine out enough to even feel human again. I felt like an idiot for saying that. After all, who wants to hear that it took someone else on the order of years to improve?

But then she said that it was encouraging to know that it had taken awhile. It took me a bit to realize that it could, in fact, be encouraging. That whole light at the end of the tunnel thing. The hope I felt when I came across someone else's relatable story, a new piece of info, or a new safe meal idea, many times on blogs.

And that's when I realized that even though I complain a lot (I think it kind of naturally goes along with a sarcastic sense of humor...), maybe my story is important to other people. Maybe my ideas could help someone else. If nothing else, blogging provides me a way to reflect.

Since I write lengthy summaries in my personal journal every day, I take a ton of time for that already... not...

So maybe I'm back. Not with regularity, but occasionally when I have something to say. It might not be the prettiest or funniest or best-worded, but it's real. And I hope I can help!

SC