Pumpkin Maple Syrup Pie

I tried to come up with a pumpkin pie that was milkless and someone suggested a pumpkin pecan pie that is Paula Deen's Pumpkin Pecan Pie. I took the general concept and modified it a bit and this is what I came up with:

Crust:

Equal amounts tapioca and potato flour
1 egg
Salt to taste
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup melted ghee

Mix until right consistency to press into the bottom of a pie tin (crumbly but still formable).

Pie Filling:

1 cup canned pumpkin
4 tbsp. melted ghee plus 1/2 tsp. salt
1.5 cup maple syrup
3 eggs

Sourdough "Bread"

Given that we don't eat grains, bread has been out of our life for a long time. Husband developed this recipe because he was craving sourdough. He'd started using sourdough in biscuits and through he might try making bread. This is now off limits for us because he was making his sourdough started with almond flour and that is no longer a go for us. He's experimenting with sweet potato for the starter now. We'll see if we can get something working.

• 6 eggs
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup sourdough starter
• 1 c potato flour
• 2 c tapioca flour

1. The night before you make the bread, feed the sourdough. I didn't do this last time and I think it's why I ended up making flatbread. For best results, you should add about 4 times the volume of existing starter, about an equal mix flour and water. I used both potato flour and almond flour.
2. In the morning, place eggs in mixer bowl and mix a good long time. Then add sourdough and start adding salt and flour. I started with just 1 cup each and then switched to the dough hook.
3. Switch to the dough hook and run it at the lowest possible speed. It probably says this in the instructions which I didn't read, but the dough hook doesn't really do anything at high speed - just spins around a solid lump of dough.
4. Since I was guessing at the flour quantities, I added the entire second cup of tapioca flour a tiny sprinkle at a time. I don't know if that affected the consistency. I let the dough hook run for quite a while - 5 or 10 minutes after I was all done adding flour.
5. Turn the dough out into a bowl and sprinkle with tapioca flour so it doesn't stick to anything. Cover with cloth and leave in a warm place all day.
6. Come home in the evening and be amazed that the thing actually rose. I know this is normal for some people, but I've never been very good with bread, so it's always a miracle when it works at all. Squish it down into a disc. Place in a 350 degree oven and bake about 25 minutes.

Old Fashioned Donuts

Fannie Farmer calls these "Old Fashioned" donuts as opposed to yeast donuts and that is what husband based this recipe on. Obviously, he made a few changes to the Fannie Farmer recipe...

I ate these when I could have almonds but they only have a half cup almond flour. I am posting in the hopes we can modify this to not contain nuts. 

Makes about 7 donuts, plus holes

2 eggs

1/2 cup maple syrup

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbsp melted coconut oil

1/2 cup almond flour

1 cup potato flour (approx)

Mix eggs, syrup, baking powder, salt, and coconut oil. Add almond flour and then potato flour until it's just workable, no more.

Cover and chill for 1 hour.

Knead for a couple minutes, then roll out about 1/2" thick. Cut out donuts or crullers or whatever. Let sit for 5 minutes.

Set deep fryer to 360 degrees. It should be hot enough that they brown but not so hot that they don't cook through before they do. Fry them until they're brown on one side, then flip (they float on top of the oil). Place on paper towels to cool.

Crock Pot Roast Beef

This is a recipe husband and I make about once a week, usually on Sunday. It's a favorite except for the littlest daughter who won't touch it. It's great for trips and potlucks if you use the locking type of crock pot. 

3-5 pounds beef chuck roast
1 or two beef shanks ("soup bones")
Big handful of carrots
1 onion
1-2 sticks celery
4-5 medium potatoes
Salt & pepper
bay leaf

Place all the vegetables and the bay leaf in the bottom of a 6-quart crock pot.
Wash and dry the meat, then cover all sides generously with salt and pepper.
Cover and cook on high for 6-10 hours.

Variations:

If you don't add as many vegetables, add some liquid to keep the crock pot from drying out completely.

Last time I made this, I was out of potatoes but used radishes. That came out fine too. Most ingredients can be substituted or omitted.

You can brown the beef before adding it. If you do add liquid, you probably should. But if the pot is hot and dry enough, it will brown on its own.

You can of course use rump roast, brisket, or any tough cut of beef that has a lot of connective tissue in it. But chuck roast is by far my favorite. Do NOT use tenderloin! Tenderloin should be roasted in the oven and left pink in the middle.

Ginger Zucchini Short Ribs

Husband was inspired by this recipe last year when we found we had short ribs and no plan: http://nomnompaleo.com/post/3762844557/slow-cooker-korean-grass-fed-short-ribs

Since we had lots of zucchini and yellow squash as it was summer, he figured he'd try a substitution and came up with this:

1 big bunch scallions, coarsely chopped
1-2 inches ginger, coarsely chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed and peeled
1 big yellow squash, cut in half lengthwise, seeds scooped out
1/2 cup fermented carrot juice
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 Tbsp fish sauce

6 lb beef short ribs
salt
pepper
ghee

Season ribs with salt and pepper. Brown in 450 degree oven, 5-10 minutes per side, placing each in the crock pot when it's done.

Place scallions, ginger, garlic, and fish sauce in the blender flask. Don't blend yet.

Meanwhile, melt some ghee in a cast iron pan and place squash halves cut side down in the pan at medium high heat. When it gets soft (5-10 minutes), squash flat with a grill press and pour the excess liquid in with the carrot juice and broth. Continue to fry at medium heat until well browned on the cut side (another 5-10 minutes).

Remove the squash from the cast iron pan to cool.

Deglaze the roasting pan and the cast iron pan with the carrot juice and broth. Add juices to the blender. Scrape the squash meat from the skin and place in the blender. If it's too hard to get the skin off of some chunks, just throw the whole chunk in. Blend until smooth.

Pour the sauce over the short ribs in the crock pot. Cover and cook all day.

Pear Pudding

The husband is a great forager and he picks up food on the way home sometimes when everything is fruiting. There is a pear tree where the owner does not like them picked but is OK with people taking ones that have fallen, so sometimes we just get a couple pears. When that happened last summer, husband and the girls made pear pudding to stretch the pears and they used this conventional recipe:

http://www.robertsplace.ca/recipes/bakedpearpudding.htm

They modified it to be this:

6 pears, cored and chopped in quarters
4 Tbsp maple syrup
4 Tbsp water
1 vanilla pod, cut in half and seeds scraped free

2 cups tapioca flour
1 cup coconut flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda

6 eggs
1 cup melted ghee
2/3 cup maple syrup

Preheat oven to 350.

Place pears in a pot with 4 Tbsp maple syrup, water, and vanilla seeds. Simmer for 5 minutes.

Grease a 9" pan.

Spread pears out in the pan.

Mix solid ingredients. Whisk eggs and add other liquids, then mix into the flour. Spread over the pears.

Bake 35-45 minutes.

This recipe is double what we actually made because we didn't have many pears. I just noticed that the original recipe listed the liquids that go in the pot as 4 teaspoons each, not tablespoons. But I like the way it came out, so I'm saying tablespoons here.

"The Oven's Broke" Skillet Apple Upside Down Cake

8 eggs

One and a quarter cup maple syrup

2 apples

1- 1.5 cups potato flour

juice of one lemon

ghee or butter

Salt

Heat a 9 inch cast iron skillet on medium, melting a generous amount of ghee or butter on the bottom

Turn skillet to low heat

Slice apples into wedges like for a pie

Mix eggs, maple syrup, salt and the juice of one lemon in a mixing bowl until frothy

Add potato flour in small amounts until cake mixture resembles that stuff you get from Duncan Hines.

Cover bottom of the skillet with apples but don't stack them. If there are extra, just have a snack.

Pour the cake mixture into the skillet and cover with a lid.

The liquid from the apples will help steam cook the cake. It takes about 30 minutes and can be checked like a normal cake with a toothpick or a fork. You should also smell check it once in a while since it's not possible to see if it's burning on the bottom. You can also use other fruits like pears, maybe peaches in the summer, or pineapple. Just make sure there is enough butter or ghee to caramelize the fruit and not let it stick.

Fauxtmeal

The last time I had oatmeal I described the sensation that followed as "it feels like someone is trying to peel my intestines inside out". I have never had it again, but who doesn't love hot porridge? My husband recently developed this recipe based on tapioca pudding. But it tastes exactly like a creamy oatmeal and it's very good. I've been trying to decide if we could make it up in the crock pot overnight, but have not tried that yet. Use the small tapioca pearls or you will be stirring all night.

1 package tapioca pearls (8oz) - soak in water overnight and drain

Add: 

2 beaten eggs

1/3 cup maple syrup

1/4 tsp. salt

Whisk together:

4 egg yolks

2 T melted ghee or butter

water to make three cups total

Add this liquid to mixture of tapioca, maple syrup and salt. Stir 15-20 minutes over medium heat, stirring constantly (don't allow to boil or bubble). Add 1/2 tsp. vanilla and salt to taste. The pearls will be translucent when done.

Maple Syrup Pie

Last year, I got a hankering for maple syrup pie, not the real maple syrup pie but more like a sugar pie made with maple syrup instead of sugar. I salivated over this concept and finally made a few pies for the holidays. It's a perfect option for people who cannot have nuts but still would like something akin to a pecan pie for the holidays. The recipe I ended up using is based on a pecan pie recipe because a true maple syrup pie (eaten in Canada and New England) is a whole different animal with flour in the filling.

I made my filling according to a similar recipe to this one, minus the pecans: http://glutenfreefix.com/maple-pecan-pie/.

I don't have a solid recipe to recommend or a homegrown one to share as I forget exactly what I did last year, but the concept is so awesome, I needed to get it out there before everyone goes and makes their pies.

Smoked Sausage and Potatoes

I really love this specific smoked sausage that we get from a farmer who comes to the local farmers' market but it's very salty. I don't like boiling the salt out of it so I was thinking of how I could make it with potatoes to take a bite out of the saltiness. I found this recipe: http://recipesfromthebigbluebinder.blogspot.com/2012/08/oven-roasted-smoked-sausage-and-potatoes.html.

It cooks up great in the slow cooker so it's easy. Without the cheese, it's dairy free if the sausage is not made with dry milk powder.

Lemon Custard

My daughter developed a tendency to break out in a red clown face when she eat citrus fruit so we had a lot of lemons to kill one night. We ended up making this lemon custard recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/lemon-custard-filling/. We substituted the sugar with maple syrup and the cornstarch with tapioca starch and it turned out perfectly. Just don't cook too long or it gets gummy. Soon we will pair this with a meringue top to use up the egg whites since the recipe takes only the yolks (I love the ingenuity of traditional recipes!). This is a recipe we have not tried that gives instructions for each part: http://www.fitfreshfearless.com/lemon-meringue-pie-with-coconut-crust/.

Grain-Free Basic Bread and Pizza Recipe

We started using this recipe for Paleo Dinner Rolls in other forms: http://paleospirit.com/2013/paleo-dinner-rolls

We modified the recipe to use potato flour instead of coconut flour to remove the coconut taste. Potato flour and coconut flour behave almost identically in recipes. The recipe gets a bit gummy from the tapioca so it works best as the tiny rolls of the original recipe or pizza or flat bread. We've also used it for pretzel and breadstick shape and that worked out fine, too.

Potato Flour Pancakes

• 8 eggs
• Potato flour to add in small amounts ca. 1/2 cup
• Salt
• Melted ghee (clarified butter) or butter

1. Beat the eggs in a fairly large bowl. Add pinch salt. Put about 1/2 up ghee or butter to melt in skillet.
2. Still beating, slowly add the potato flour until the mixture is desired thickness.
3. Pour melted ghee or butter into a mug to cool so that the pan still has a thin coating.
4. Cook pancakes on medium heat.
5. When bubbles form on top, flip with a spatula.

We developed this recipe as a switch out from eggs in the morning. It's still a lot of eggs, but the potato flour allows us to have traditional pancakes. Using less potato flour yields a more crepe-like pancake. Using more will make a more dense, fluffy pancake. We serve with maple syrup. Serves about 4 people.