Vanilla extract

There are a few different SCD-legal types of vanilla extract out there, and I thought I'd share something I discovered recently.

I was using Flavorganics vanilla most of the time when I could find it. However, when the grocery store seemed perpetually out of stock, I got frustrated and tried Simply Organic Pure Vanilla extract.

There is NO CONTEST, you guys. The Simply Organic vanilla is MUCH stronger than the Flavorganics variety. In fact, I had to cut the amount of vanilla I was using in our ice cream recipe from 1 tablespoon to 1 teaspoon!

So, if you're looking to save some cash, go for the Simply Organic. And no, they didn't give me any for free to say any of this. I bought it all fair and square. LOL.

Perfect carrot pancakes

OK, now, I know that if you are on the SCD diet, you have probably made carrot pancakes.

But nobody told you how to make PERFECT carrot pancakes, now did they?

I thought not.

So! Here is how you do it.

PERFECT CARROT PANCAKES

6-8 eggs
1/2-3/4 cup carrot puree, squished
cinnamon or allspice
honey
salt

This recipe is super forgiving. Find the ratio that works best for you.

What I do for the carrot puree is very simple. I take cooled, steamed carrots, fold up some paper towels, and squish them. Yep, I take big handfuls of carrots and moosh them up in the paper towels. The paper towels absorb some of the water and that works just fine.

I plop the puree in a bowl and break the eggs on top of it. Then I add honey, spices and salt to taste (do less; you can always add more later!), and I beat the whole mess with an electric mixer.

How long do I beat them for? Until they start to look kind of opaque from the egg whites getting all whipped up nicely.

Now, once they're all whipped up nice, remember that the bits of carrot will tend to fall to the bottom of the bowl. So when you're dipping out ladlefuls of your batter, make sure you get down to the bottom so that you keep getting that perfect egg/carrot ratio. OK? Good!

Here's what your not so cooked pancake will look like. I hope you have a nice high quality nonstick pan, or you're going to need a lot of oil. The pancakes tend to absorb a LOT of oil, so be aware.



See how nice and opaque-ish it looks? That's what you want!

You will want to carefully turn the pancake when you are pretty sure it's done. It will have dry-ish bubbles in the middle as it cooks, much like real pancakes.

Now it is time to turn your pancake!

By the way, it is VERY hard to make several of these pancakes in one pan. I recommend using an 8" pan and making one pancake at a time, with approximately 1/3 to 1/2 cup batter. You will know when you have used too much. It will not be pretty.

However, if you DID use the right amount, and you DID succeed in perfectly flipping your perfect pancake...

Here is what it should look like:



Now pat yourself on the back for a job well done, and then make a dozen more.

Because your child is going to eat them all. At once. :)

Roasted tomato soup

OK, I know, it's been three weeks! *pulls hair* I've been ridiculously busy, but I know, I always say that. It's wearing thin, even if it's true. :)

I made this soup! It was soooooo good! Of course it's good; it's a recipe by Gordon Freakin' Ramsay!

The recipe is available for free here, although you'll have to do a little bit of conversion. Not much though.

I actually bought a Gordon Ramsay cookbook. I can make a surprising number of his recipes, since they focus on real, fresh food.

You guys, this soup is SO AMAZING. Seriously. It's like you died and went to tomato heaven.

I took pictures, but none of them came out. I stink.

This soup does take some effort, but it's so worth it! If you have to throw a little dinner party, I highly recommend this!

Pork roast!

I have spent many hours trying to perfect a simple pork roast.

Pork is a delicious and yet cruel meat. If you put it in your crock pot on high, it overcooks. If you keep it in the oven too long, it overcooks. If you cook it at too high of a temperature, it overcooks.

If you look at it sideways, it overcooks.

You must combat its natural tendencies to turn dry and tough. Here are some ways you can do this:

1. Use proper kitchen tools. By this I mean a thermometer with an electronic readout that will survive being in the oven. I have one, and it is FABULOUS. It is well worth the $20-$30 to save your meat from being inedible!

2. However long you THINK it will cook... subtract at least 30 minutes. Check it. Then keep checking, and keep checking.

3. Don't be afraid to let the meat rest! I know, your inner germophobe is screaming at you. How can you possibly take the meat out of the oven before it registers on the thermometer that it is safe to eat?

Because MEAT IS MAGIC, people. And you must always obey the laws of magic. And science.

OK, so here's how it's done.

PORK ROAST
1 boneless pork loin roast, 4-5 pounds
1 tbsp scd legal garlic powder
2 tbsp scd legal onion powder
2 tsp ground rosemary
1 tbsp salt
1 tsp pre-ground pepper
olive oil

cider vinegar and 1/2 c vegetable broth (optional)

Mix up all of the spices together. Score the fat side of your pork roast with a sharp knife and really sprinkle the roast well with all the spices, rubbing them in.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Brown your pork roast really well on all sides in an oven-safe pan with a little bit of olive oil. Once it's all nice and browned like the photo above, turn the roast so that the fat side is facing up and then stick the whole pan in the oven.

Set your timer for 45 minutes and then put your nice oven-safe thermometer right in the middle of the roast. Put it back in the oven until the temperature registers 150 degrees. A little higher than that is OK but if it gets past 155, it's going to overcook.

Here's where the magic comes in: Take the pan out of the oven. Leave the roast with the thermometer in it until the temperature gets to 155 degrees.

Final temperature after resting: 155 to 160 should be OK.

The last roast I made went to 162 degrees and honest to God, it was overdone. My fault -- I took it out when the thermometer said 155, and the temperature then rose to 162. Overdone.

Most frustrating, but really, I can only blame myself for ignoring the laws of magic meat. So TAKE YOUR ROAST OUT AT 150 I BEG YOU.

Now for the optional part: Take the roast out of the pan and set it on a plate. Heat up your nice oven-safe pan on a burner (which should be full of yummy juices at this point). Pour in 1-2 tablespoons cider vinegar, and then 1/2 cup of vegetable stock. Simmer until it reduces a bit, and you should have a really nice sauce for your pork. Taste it and adjust seasoning if necessary, and you can even stir in a couple of tablespoons of coconut milk if you want it to be a little creamy.

Yum and done!

Turkey sausage

I love this sausage!

I am pretty proud of this recipe, because I put it together myself from a bunch of different sources. It's soooo good, seriously!

TURKEY SAUSAGE

3 pounds ground turkey
1 tbsp plus 1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground fennel
2 tsp pre-ground pepper
1 tbsp scd legal granulated onion
1 tsp scd legal garlic
1/2 tsp ground celery
2 tsp allspice
1 tbsp coriander
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tbsp honey

Mix sausage and make your sausage logs (see below). Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. You're going to cook these for 40-50 minutes or until your meat thermometer says 165 degrees. I stick the thermometer right through the foil into the middle of the logs, and then I just keep an eye out for foil bits once they're done.

When they ARE done, let them rest without unwrapping them for at least 45 minutes.

OK, let's get to the actual sausage-making part. :)

First, you need to prep your work area. I'll give you my bulk cooking tips, although you might prefer to make less the first time or two, just to see how it goes.

Usually when I make this, I make six pounds at a time. I do this by measuring out spices twice -- in a small container and in a large bowl.

Next I prep my pans. You need to have a cookie sheet with a lip all the way around, or a large-ish pan with sides, for each batch.

I make three one-pound logs with each batch. So I put five pieces of foil in my pan -- two pieces to make it watertight, and the three other pieces are stacked on top of each other to make the rolls. Two batches, two pans.

Now that my pans are prepped, I am ready to start making the sausage. I use the large bowl to mix three pounds of ground turkey with my first batch of spices.

After it's well mixed, I put about a pound of turkey on the top sheet of foil, roll it into a log, and then twist the ends shut. I do my best to make the log of even thickness, without tapered ends. Try for flat ends. Then I move the log aside, and I use the next sheet of foil for the next log. Repeat for third log.

Now I have three rolls ready to be placed on my double foil lined pan.

If you are making a second batch of sausage, you can just dump your container of spices in the bowl you just used, and mix in the second three pounds of turkey.

It's OK if your rolls are not all exactly the same size, but try to make them all the same thickness. This will help them cook evenly.

If you want this sausage to be REALLY amazing, after it's rested for 45 minutes, unwrap the logs, cut them in half and then brown them all over in a pan with a little olive oil. You can also fry up slices in olive oil too for a tasty treat. :)

I realize this recipe seems a little involved, but once you've done it a time or two, it's really quite easy and the sausage is absolutely delicious. It's great for breakfast and on SCD pizza.

Enjoy!!!

Work, work, work...

Sorry for being so sporadic. But! I am working on some new recipes. Hopefully I'll have something tasty to share with you guys soon.

Instead of making you wait, though, I'm sharing the recipes that I'm tinkering with. NOTE: THESE ARE NOT NECSSARILY SCD LEGAL YET. But I'm of course making them that way.

Moroccan Coconut Chicken

Homemade curry powder

Caveman chili

Lemon meringue pie

So yeah! Here's to more recipe fun soon! :)

Watermelon

I have a wonderful SCD legal watermelon recipe!



WATERMELON

1. Buy watermelon.
2. Cut watermelon.
3. Eat watermelon.

:D

We liked this recipe very much, and will do it again. :)

Beef stew

I haven't made beef stew in a while. This time I thought I'd write down my basic recipe. :)

You're going to need some SCD legal beef stock, so make that first.

BEEF STOCK

1.5 pounds beef marrow bones or shank bones
water

Toss the bones into your crockpot with a quartered onion, some garlic, a few carrots, some whole peppercorns, a glug of vinegar, and a stick of celery if desired. Heat on high until the mixture comes to a simmer.

Leave your crock pot on whatever temperature keeps the mix bubbling. Check it every six hours or so and add more water.

Strain and discard bones and veggies after 24 hours.

OK, so you should have somewhere in the neighborhood of six cups of stock, if you used a 4 quart crockpot.

BEEF STEW

6 cups beef stock
2-3 onions
3-5 pounds stew beef
1/3 cup SCD legal red wine
1 pound fresh or frozen green beans
1 pound fresh or frozen carrots
1 pound frozen spinach
2 bay leaves
16 oz tomato juice
1 tsp ground celery seed (if desired)
1 tsp garlic (or more whole garlic cloves)
2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp ground pepper
2 tsp salt

Brown the beef (in batches if you have to) with onions and a little olive oil (or reserved bacon grease - yum!). I used five pounds of beef and so I browned it in two batches, with one onion per batch.

Dump the beef into a very large stock pot with the six cups of stock. Deglaze your pan with the red wine. This is a fancy way of saying pour the wine in, let it bubble for a second, and then scrape out all the delicious bits and wine into your stew pot.

Add the beans, carrots, spinach, tomato juice, garlic, thyme and bay leaves. Check the liquid level in your pot -- you don't want it too full, and if you're using frozen veggies, make sure you leave enough room for the melted ice water. Bring to a boil and then simmer with a splatter shield on or a lid slightly ajar. Add water as necessary until the meat is done and falling apart (this can take an hour or longer).

Is this a lot of work? Kind of. But most of the steps are just you throwing stuff in a pot and walking away. Plus, you end up with a huge amount of leftovers, so I'm OK with it. :)



Enjoy!

Chai

I've had a recipe for chai for a while now, and I haven't really had much success with it. Until today, anyway!

This is a nice, mild chai recipe. I'm not going to lie to you -- if you want to make your own chai, you're going to have to order some special stuff for it. Luckily, it's not too hard to find. Penzeys and The Spice House offer whole spices that are SCD legal, and The Spice House offers muslin bags.

I know, I know, muslin bags? In essence, to make your own chai, you need to make your own tea bag. Muslin bags are inexpensive and reusable, so don't forget to order a few when you order your chai spices.

OK, enough of that. Here's what you need:

SCD LEGAL CHAI TEA

2 c water
2 black tea bags (earl grey can be used), or 1 tbsp loose black tea
6 whole green cardamom pods
1 tsp whole fennel seeds (or 1/2 tsp ground fennel)
10 peppercorns

Put the cardamom pods in the muslin bag. Use the back of a measuring cup to bang on the pods. You want them open and the seeds inside to be partially crushed.

Add the rest of the spices to the muslin bag and draw it up tight. Put the bag in the water and bring to a boil.

Simmer for five minutes, and then add the tea bags. Simmer for another five minutes. Turn the heat off and let it sit for 2-3 minutes more. Pull out all your tea bags.

Put a little honey in the bottom of a large mug (I use about 1 tsp). Add the chai tea and 1/3 cup coconut milk.

Serves one person. :)

You can adjust the strength by putting the black tea in earlier or later. Try it out a few different ways until you find a strength you like.

Enjoy! :)

Ginger spice cookies

What, another recipe in one day?!

It's true.

I'm actually in the midst of a bit of a cooking marathon. I've got marrow bones in the crock pot for 24 hour beef broth, I made Murgh Kabuli for lunch, I've got green beans steaming, and I just finished making these ginger spice cookies.

I've still got to make hard boiled eggs and hamburgers, but I thought I'd take a little break. :)

I've tried to make ginger spice cookies before and they were a dismal failure. I have been trying to clean out a completely full notebook of mine, and thus I came across the failed recipe today. With a few tweaks, I had success! So here you go.



These cookies taste light and not too sweet. I think with raisins they'd make a great fake oatmeal raisin cookie!

SCD LEGAL (ITALIAN) GINGER SPICE COOKIES

2 cups almond meal (I used the Trader Joe's brand)
1/3 c palm shortening
1/3 c honey
1 egg
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon or allspice
1/4 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp salt

Grease two cookie sheets with extra shortening. Beat all ingredients together and drop onto trays, about 2" apart or so. Bake at 325 (or 300, depending on your oven) degrees for about 15 minutes -- watch the bottoms for burning. Cookies should be evenly golden brown.

Makes about 14 cookies.

Let them cool completely... if you can wait that long. We couldn't. :)

EDITS: I changed the temperature, and I added the word "Italian" to the recipe. I am Italian, so I figure I'm allowed. LOL.

Broken oven!

I know I haven't posted here for a while, but I had some good reasons.

One of the reasons was because we took a very short vacation. This is significant because we haven't actually had a vacation in seven years!

But, of course, drama must ensue.

The week before we left, our oven broke. The stovetop still worked, but the heating element in the oven was completely broken. Not only that, maintenance had to order the part. So I was stuck having to cook food for a trip with no oven.

What's an SCD girl to do?

Well, Pecanbread came to the rescue! I couldn't make my son's favorite almond butter brownies, so instead I used the nut butter pancake recipe found here.

I'll post it below for the peeps too lazy to click the link:

PLAIN NUT BUTTER PANCAKES
by Caroline

1 tablespoon nut butter
1 whole egg
2 egg yolks
dash of baking soda

Of course, I had to adapt this into traveling food proportions.

So I used a 16 oz jar of almond butter and 20 eggs, along with a teaspoon or so of baking soda and a teaspoon or so of salt. And then I cooked a stack of flapjacks like you have never seen!

All went well with the recipe, but they turned out kinda bland. Still, though, I will definitely tinker with this further in the future, and served with honey, they were pretty good. I will definitely make these again.

Other than that, well, I live in Los Angeles, so I fired up the grill and cooked six pounds of hamburgers to take with us. I also had three or four pounds of leftover chicken in the refrigerator, so I made a chicken salad with olive oil, vinegar, and SCD legal spices.

I brought the normal veggies and grape juice jello to round it all out. So the trip was saved.

I was very much hoping to post my almond butter biscotti recipe, but I need to make it again. In fact, I was going to make them to take with us on our trip, but because of the oven fiasco, that wasn't possible.

Thanks for hanging in there, my darling readers! :)

Omelet of Yum

Here's a quicky to hold you all over.

I found some jarred jalapeno peppers at Smart and Final here in the Los Angeles area. Instead of using artificial coloring, they are colored using turmeric. How cool is that?

Anyway, I've been making a bunch of stuff with them. I've been eating a ton of salads with hardboiled eggs and jalapenos.

Then I had the idea to make a cheddar jalapeno omelet.

Oh yes.



It was pretty easy.

All I did was break some eggs, stirred them briefly, tossed in the jalapenos, and cooked the whole mass it until it was set on one side.

Then I flipped it over, put some cheese on, and pathetically attempted to fold it.

It's on a Gordon Ramsay plate, which counts for something.

Right?

Enjoy! :D

SCD legal Caesar dressing

Great recipe for Caesar dressing from the Minneapolis Real Food Lover blog.

Some great stuff gets mentioned in this post -- like how canola and soybean oils are still considered good for you by major so-called "health" food manufacturers. Yuck.

Stick with olive oil, and look for sardines packaged similarly (or in water). Use whatever SCD legal cheese you like as well. I'm no purist when it comes to cheese. Whatever works.

Sorry for the lack of recipes. I have them scrawled in my notebook, even with photos that are saved on my computer! But I've been so busy writing and trying to find a job, they are languishing a bit. I'll have to rectify that situation soon.

Happy new year!

I hope you all had a great holiday. Mine was pretty good!

At the last minute, I decided to make Clark some cookies for Christmas. They were with almond flour, and they were egg free. I thought that there was no way this silly recipe would work, but it did. The cookies stayed together when cool as well!

I got the recipe from Comfy Belly's section of SCD legal recipes. I recommend you check it out.

The recipe for EGG FREE ALMOND FLOUR COOKIES.

My son doesn't tolerate cinnamon well, so I should have left it out. He had red spots around his mouth for a day or two. Oopsie. Next time, vanilla!

Enjoy!

scd apple cranberry sauce

OK, so I wasn't going to post anymore.

But!

I came up with this recipe for apple cranberry sauce. It's so good, I had to share it with you. Plus, it doesn't have an obscene amount of honey in it like some other recipes I've seen.

No photo because it's chilling in the fridge and I forgot. Sorry!

EASY SCD APPLE CRANBERRY SAUCE

3 cups fresh or frozen whole cranberries
3 apples, peeled and cut into reasonable chunks
1 cup SCD legal grape juice (Welch's 100 percent grape juice without any calcium)
3 tablespoons honey

Add all ingredients to a small saucepan. Bring to boil. Turn down to low heat. Simmer on LOW (watch for sticking, so give them a stir now and then) until most of the cranberries have popped and the apples are softened, about 20 minutes. Stir and taste after it's cooled down a bit. Add more honey if desired (I like my cranberry sauce kinda tart).

And there ya go! Gluten free, grain free, egg free, soy free... you get the idea. :P

Now, I admit that I don't know how many cranberries are in a standard bag -- I believe that 3 cups equals 12 ounces, so 4 cups would be a one pound bag. I measured from the giant bag of fresh cranberries I got at Costco.

But this recipe can be adjusted to whatever amount you have. For every cup of cranberries, you add 1 apple, 1/3 cup grape juice, and 1 tbsp honey. It's very straightforward.

As for the fresh cranberries, I immediately threw the bag in the freezer after I bought it, because they go bad kinda fast in the fridge. I learned that the hard way.

Hope you enjoy the recipe! Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Susan :)

chicken

I love chicken. I really do. I used to purchase frozen boneless and skinless SCD legal chicken breasts, but eventually I got tired of them being totally tasteless. Plus, they're expensive.

So, here's a great way to cut your chicken costs.

Look for sale prices on SCD legal, bone-in chicken breasts. I've seen several legal brands of these available fresh. Foster Farms and Sanderson Farms are two brands local to me (I live in Los Angeles).

Much of the time, I can get these for $2 per pound regular price, and 99 cents per pound while on sale!

But of course, this is an SCD blog. And one of the major themes of SCD is "make it yourself"!

This overwhelms a lot of people, but the secret to surviving is to buy, and cook, in bulk.

So! Here is about 10 pounds worth of bone-in chicken breasts, ready to go into the oven. I can fit two 9x13 glass pans side by side on the top shelf, and I have a slightly larger glass pan that I put on the bottom shelf.



I cook these at 450 degrees for about an hour and fifteen minutes. There's no need to cover them if you leave the skin on.

I was going to take a picture of the chicken after it cooked, but I forgot. Sorry!

Anyway, what I usually do is I cook all of this chicken. Then, I personally eat all of the skin. This is a meal for me, because my son is the only child in the history of the universe who does not like chicken skin. I know, I know. What is the world coming to?

After the chicken has had time to cool down, I pull all the meat off and store it like so in the refrigerator:



This way, I have food for at least four days or so, and it took at most an hour of work total. I eat it on salads, or alone with olive oil, salt and pepper. You will have to re-season it, though, since most of the seasoning was probably on the chicken skin.

Once you've eaten chicken breast off the bone, I swear that you will never want to go back to frozen chicken breasts. This stuff tastes WAY better.

And guess what else? You can save all those bones to make the best chicken stock ever. If I'm not ready to make stock, I just throw all the bones and leftover little pieces of chicken and cartilage and stuff into large ziploc bags for later use. Occasionally I'll just throw a bunch of bones in the crock pot and let it cook all night long.

So there you go -- cheap, fast, easy, delicious (and convenient) chicken!

karianne's grain free bread

I've been hanging on to this recipe for a while, and I've been looking forward to sharing it with you!

Months ago, on the Pecanbread mailing list, member Karianne (who has Asperger's) posted a recipe for a loaf of specific carbohydrate diet bread.

It was so simple it was hard to believe.

Many of us scrambled to try this bread. We had to do some recipe conversion, since Karianne lives in Europe, but we managed!

This bread is moist, delicious, holds its shape well, and can be toasted.

And it's made from almond butter! No flour required.

Karianne made hers with cinnamon. I left it out and made a few more tweaks to be more like a sandwich bread, but I'm still going to call it hers. Thank you, Karianne, for your amazing recipe!

KARIANNE'S BREAD

1 16 oz jar of almond butter
1/2 c cooked butternut squash
2 tbsp oil
1 tsp baking soda
5 eggs
1/4 tsp salt (if almond butter is unsalted)

Beat ingredients in a bowl until well combined. Pour into a parchment paper-lined loaf pan (or well greased loaf pan). Bake at 325-350 degrees for one hour.

The bread will be firm to the touch and a knife will come out clean when it's done.

Storage: Allow bread to cool completely (this is important). Place loaf in a large ziploc bag on top of a folded paper towel. Squeeze air out and store in refrigerator.

Here's what it looks like coming out. Believe me when I say it's very solid. It will not fall apart!



And here's my little guy enjoying it!



Now go make some bread! The recipe is very forgiving, so try some different ingredients out with it. It's awesome!

Jamaican Jerk chicken... crock pot style

I really should not be writing this.

I'm in the midst of a very big project, I'm supposed to be working on a LONG self-paced training session, I've got scripts to read, and a newsletter to lay out.

Sigh.

But I had to share this recipe with you.

My family recently moved to a nice new neighborhood, and my husband had the good fortune to try out Zankou chicken. He had never eaten hummus, or tabbouleh, or anything like that, and I got jealous because I was missing all sorts of ethnic foods.

First, I want to mention that if you do want to try out some more ethnic recipes, try out Raman Prasad's cookbook here. I've been meaning to do a proper review but my food tolerances have only recently gotten to the point where I can actually try some of the recipes I really want to try.

But anyway, I started poking around on the Internet and I stumbled across Jamaican Jerk chicken.

I read several recipes before deciding to attempt it. I made it at first in a skillet without marinating it first, because I didn't have time for that. It was OK.

But then the long traditional marination time struck me as something useful for a crock pot.

Of course it's not barbecued like true Jamaican Jerk chicken would be, but it's still pretty good.

The interesting thing is, my son LOVES this chicken. It's spicy as all get out, but then I realized that most of the heat is in the sauce. In the crock pot, this dish becomes extremely saucy. So as long as I went easy on the sauce when I served it to my guy, he was fine and ended up eating three bowls!

By the way, if you've never gotten smoked paprika, you are missing out. It's delicious. I buy the big McCormick brand at Costco. It's not spicy but it helps to impart a smoky flavor. Yum!

JAMAICAN JERK CROCK POT CHICKEN

4-6 fresh chicken thighs with bones (about 3 pounds)
6 cloves garlic, thrown in whole
1-2 onions, chopped
2 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp original Tabasco (only the original is SCD legal)
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tbsp honey
1-2 tsp allspice (I did not have this)

Put all ingredients in the crock with the chicken on the bottom. Cook on high for about six hours. Done!

Personally I think putting some spinach in the crock would taste really good, but there wasn't enough room in my crock to do that (I have a 4 quart one).

As I mentioned, I did not have allspice. Until recently I thought allspice was a blend of spices. Well, it isn't! It's a single spice and as we know, single spices without additives are legal. Allspice is a traditional jerk chicken spice.

Oh, and one more thing -- you'll probably need to add more salt at the end to the individual bowls of food. When you cook anything for a long time with salt added, the salty taste fades, even though the sodium content of the food remains the same. So you end up adding way more salt than you need to if you add a lot at the start of cooking.

Enjoy!

pickles

So after much consulting of the Internets, I have come up with my own refrigerator pickle recipe. They are a lot of fun to make and they are very crisp like Claussen's... or at least, what I remember Claussen pickles to taste like.

I was told at one point there is a legal pickle at Trader Joe's. They were called half sour dills with whole spices in the jars. So far, I have never found them, but if you do... they're accepted as legal by the SCD populace.

On to my recipe!

You might want to cut the brine recipe in half if you are not making a lot. I found that if I stuffed a quart jar with cucumbers, I needed 1/2 cup vinegar and 1 1/2 cups water (and thus 1 1/2 tsp salt). So that is 1/4 of the recipe. At least I think it was a quart jar. Now it is full of pickles, so I can't check.

MY REFRIGERATOR PICKLE RECIPE

2 cups apple cider vinegar (or distilled white vinegar, wine vinegar, whatever you want)
4 cups cold water
2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon dried dill (or fresh sprigs of dill)
pickling cucumbers, cut into spears (peeled if you're still symptomatic)
whole peeled garlic cloves (if you want)

Mix up the vinegar, cold water, and salt. Peel if you are still peeling your veggies to cook them.

Cut cucumbers into spears or rounds or whatever. Toss in the jar with the dill and garlic, and refrigerate. Ready in about 10 days.

I found pickling cucumbers at my local grocery store, but I live in a really strange ethnic neighborhood, so I can't say that they're available everywhere. I'm told the dark green ones with lots of warty spots are the freshest. As you can see from the photos, the ones I got are not the freshest. But they still worked fine! I just picked the ones that felt really hard.

Heh.


My not-fresh pickling cucumbers

Here you can see our very big pickle jar in progress. This jar holds half a gallon I think. I needed the whole brine recipe and then some for it. Luckily you can do the math and cut it down or multiply as needed. Well, at least I hope you can. I can't really assume. One time while I was working retail, these 11-year-olds asked me how much 50 percent off a pair of earrings was. After I finished laughing, I realized they were serious. And then I was sad.


See? Dill bits abound.

The fresh sprigs of dill are a much better idea than the dried. The dried dill sticks to the pickles and then you have to worry about dill in your teeth. A social faux pas if ever there was one.


Finished jar, ready for refrigeration!

So there you have it. You can start eating the pickles in about 10 days. Anything before that, they don't really taste much like pickles. They will become more pickle-like as time goes on. The brine and pickles should keep for about a month after the 10-day period.

Oh, and I did have a pickle helper...



He hasn't exactly been behaving lately, so he hasn't had a chance to try them. But I am sure he will be thrilled when he does. :)

Enjoy!

Vanilla extract

As you probably already know, only vanilla extracts without sugars and colors added are SCD legal.

This may surprise you. I know it surprised me. But most commercial vanilla extracts are full of all kinds of junk these days -- caramel color and sugar are two of the more popular offenders.

I recently found a bottle of legal vanilla extract at Smart and Final, but it only lists "alcohol" on it. Now I personally have to write and find out if the alcohol they used is distilled -- and thus, gluten free. My son and I remain gluten free due to demonstrated sensitivity to gluten, you see.

Anyway! I started thinking. I thought, Self, why do you do this to yourself? Why don't you try to make my own?

I haven't yet. But when I do, I'm going to use this web site.

From that site, I learned that most of the people on the Internet are making vanilla incorrectly, which is why some sites say that making it on your own just doesn't work all that well.

Some takeaway points, if you are going to attempt this:

--use a dark brown, blue, or green bottle or other airtight container
--remember that only LIGHT rum is SCD legal, if you decide to use rum
--Vodka is the most neutral tasting alcohol
--shoot for 80 proof (40 percent alcohol)
--try to get "grade B" vanilla beans, which create a better and stronger extract
--use at MINIMUM 8 beans per 8 ounces of alcohol. Commercial vanilla producers have ways to bang all the good stuff out of the beans -- we're just cutting them lengthwise. So we have to use more.
--don't be afraid to use more beans! There are plenty of "double strength" brands of vanilla out there. Go for it.

By the way, I have taste tested my pickles and they are DIVINE. I am going to be posting photos and a recipe soon, so stay tuned! :D