I bought peaches too early and this Summer Peach Blueberry Cobbler was the answer. My husband was right. “Don’t buy those, June is too soon. They look great but they will not ripen.” He was right. We had a whole case of beautiful looking, organic peaches in mid June. After trying to eat one or two, we gave up. The skins were dehydrated and showing mold. The flesh had great flavor but was so hard the pits couldn’t be separated out. We tried putting them in paper bags to ripen, no go. I couldn’t bare to toss them all out. After perusing recipes from several favorite sources, this is the amalgam I came up with, and it’s delicious!
Peaches and blueberries are problem solvers in my pediatric nutrition practice too. Obvious benefits are antioxidants and vitamins, but I like to find healthful, non-sugary carbohydrate sources that picky eaters will enjoy (besides cheese crackers, bread, sugary granola bars, etc). If your kids won’t touch the fresh fruit, this is a good recipe to try. Blueberries are a low FODMAPs fruit, meaning kids with gas, bloating, FPIES, or reflux may do okay with them. And, both peaches and blueberries are “legal” on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, meaning that they are easy to digest in the upper small intestine, where Candida and other disruptive microbes don’t like to hang out. These fruits won’t feed yeast or dysbiosis much if at all. When both are cooked as in this recipe, they become even more digestible.
Summer Peach Blueberry Cobbler (Paleo)
Print Recipe
A luscious summer treat without all the sugar and junk. Amazing warm out of the oven with some coconut whipped cream or dairy free ice cream option like Coconut Bliss Vanilla. If your peaches are too firm for eating, cooking them slightly and then baking as is done in this recipe solves the problem. The fruit becomes sweeter and texture-perfect.
A luscious summer treat without all the sugar and junk. Amazing warm out of the oven with some coconut whipped cream or dairy free ice cream option like Coconut Bliss Vanilla. If your peaches are too firm for eating, cooking them slightly and then baking as is done in this recipe solves the problem. The fruit becomes sweeter and texture-perfect.
Rinse blueberries and remove any stems. Set aside. Grease a 9 x 12 glass baking dish with butter, ghee or coconut oil. Heat oven to 350.
Skin and pit the peaches, and cut them into chunks. You can skin peaches via one of two ways: Blanching (skin pulls off easily) or, by peeling the skin off the raw fruit with a sharp knife. To blanche and skin peaches, follow these steps: https://www.wikihow.com/Blanch-Peaches Be sure to remove pits.
Add water and honey to a pot, place over medium heat and stir to blend together evenly. Add just the peaches. Cook on medium heat to reach a low simmer, about ten minutes. Let peaches cook long enough to soften the flesh. If already ripe and soft, heat through enough to see a simmer emerge, eg 5 minutes.
Make a space in the center of the pot by clearing the fruit away. Add the arrowroot or tapioca starch, and mix it with the liquid. Continue medium heat and low simmer, and blend starch evenly with the liquid to thicken it. Then stir the peaches til evenly distributed throughout the thickened liquid. Cover and remove from heat.
In a food processor, place the GF oats, pumpkin seeds, almonds, flax meal, coconut sugar, cinnamon, stevia, and salt and process to a coarse powder. Add ghee or coconut oil and pulse again briefly, til evenly blended. Substitute additional nuts (cashew, macadamia, walnut) if you want to omit the oats for full Paleo. If these nuts are unsafe, omit oats and increase almonds, flax meal, and pumpkin seeds to make up the lost volume.
Place cooked peaches and rinsed blueberries in the greased baking dish. Spread topping from food processor generously over all. Bake 25-30 minutes. Top should look golden brown and crisp.
Recipe Notes
For Paleo option, omit gluten free oats and substitute walnuts or macadamia nuts. If these are not safe for your household, simply increase the other topping ingredients to make up volume lost by removing oats.
Canned peaches may work in a pinch, use peaches that have no added sugars or syrup. You'll need two 15 oz cans.
The Pamela’s mix has some buttermilk in it, so is not dairy free. You can adjust this recipe by using any one of these mixes alone in the recipe instead of blending them. For example, you can use just the BirchBender’s mix if you want to be strictly Paleo, or omit the Pamela’s mix and bring up the other two to make up the difference, if you want to avoid dairy. But, after trying this recipe a few different ways, this method below was the favorite for texture and taste. By the way – Pamela’s does make a gluten and dairy free pancake mix, but it has two ingredients that don’t work at my house: Sorghum and cane sugar.
Use any berries fresh or frozen! Low FODMAP berries are blueberry and raspberry; strawberry is a little more challenging for FODMAPs and for allergy, but they make a delicious scone if workable at your house. Apple, peach and pear are higher FODMAP fruits and may trigger some children who have a history of FPIES reactions. Adding nuts, GF CF chocolate chips, or banana are all reasonable options too!
Paleo flours include coconut, which is a moderate FODMAP food that may or may not work for some. Either way, this recipe does not add sugar and is sweet enough without it.
Raspberry Scones – Gluten Free, Sugar Free with Paleo Option
Print Recipe
Sweet without cane sugar, light, best warm from the oven, or gently heat in toaster oven or toaster for yummy snack, breakfast add-on, or treat. Delightful with a thin honey drizzle, butter or ghee, or coconut whipped cream. Makes 15-20 scones depending on how you spoon out batter onto baking sheet.
Raspberry Scones – Gluten Free, Sugar Free with Paleo Option
Print Recipe
Sweet without cane sugar, light, best warm from the oven, or gently heat in toaster oven or toaster for yummy snack, breakfast add-on, or treat. Delightful with a thin honey drizzle, butter or ghee, or coconut whipped cream. Makes 15-20 scones depending on how you spoon out batter onto baking sheet.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease a baking sheet (you may need two). For best results, line with baking parchment also, which makes removing the scones and clean up easier.
Mix together dry ingredients.
Cut the butter into small chunks and drop into dry ingredients. Using two dinner forks, cut the butter into the dry ingredients, to a uniform and crumbly texture.
Beat together egg and milk substitute, and mix into dry ingredients with a fork. Add to dry ingredients and mix evenly. Dough will be thick.
Drop tall dollops of dough on to the baking sheet(s). They will spread lightly when baking. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until lightly browned on tips and bottom, with dough and firm in the middle.
Recipe Notes
BirchBender's Paleo mix is sweetened with monk fruit (luo han guo), which is a low FODMAP fruit source.
Fresh or frozen blueberries, raspberries or chopped strawberries are all delicious in this recipe.
Vary if desired with chopped walnuts or pecans, and add a teaspoon cinnamon.
For a more dessert like scone, add chocolate chips.
I’ve been getting requests lately for a not-so-sugary treat that kids can pack to school. This banana bread recipe, adapted from Rebecca Reilly’s book Gluten Free Baking, fills the bill.
If you know this book, you know it is definitely not Paleo, and that it’s full of delicious recipes from sweet (like, molten chocolate cakes that are grain free) to savory (salmon quiche) – all gluten free.
I love this book. My copy is very well worn! When my son was little, there were precious few gluten free products on store shelves, and they pretty much all tasted really, really terrible. This book helped me bake anything for any occasion. He was no longer left out of holidays, birthdays, or gatherings because of gluten intolerance. But, sugar is still not his friend, and this is true for virtually all the kids in my pediatric nutrition practice. Still, kids need to be kids and enjoy treats that work for them once in a while. This recipe works well with coconut sugar instead of cane sugar. Using very ripe bananas enhances both digestibility and sweetness, so save those black and bruised bananas for this – don’t use firm bananas here.
For the flour, you can either mix your own “Bette Hagman Blend” with brown rice flour, tapioca starch, and potato starch, or purchase a pre-blended gluten free flour like Authentic Foods GF Classical Blend. Note: Don’t use GF baking mixes, as these add xanthan gum, baking soda, salt or other ingredients not needed here. As always, use organic ingredients as much as possible.
Don’t like grains? There are grain free versions out there – I haven’t sampled this recipe, but if you’re looking for a Paleo-ish version of banana bread, it may be worth a try. It will not rise as much and may be more grainy in texture. Neither recipe is necessarily better in terms of nutrition; what is better is what your kid tolerates well and likes to eat! Many kids do fine on gluten free grains – as long as these aren’t 24/7 calorie sources in your kid’s diet. Both versions offer healthy supportive food in a not-too-sweet treat. For kids with tree nut allergies, skip the grain free version (which relies on almond flour) and go with this recipe below.
Banana Bread, Gluten Free with Coconut Sugar
Print Recipe
Moist, just sweet enough, and it will disappear fast. If you like, reduce the sugar to 3/4 cup and add 2 drops of stevia to the batter.
1/2cup chopped cashewsnuts are optional; choose your favorite if any, or use GF CF chocolate chips
Servings: 9 x 5 inch loaf
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan with coconut oil or butter and dust with rice flour. You can also line with parchment if you like instead. Both work well. Parchment lets you lift the loaf neatly out of the pan after baking.
If you have a stand mixer such as a KitchenAid, place the butter in it and cream til pale or white. While the mixer is running, in a separate bowl, blend the GF flours, baking soda, xanthan gum, and salt.
When the butter is pale or white, add the sugar. Beat til fluffy and smooth, about two more minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, and blend thoroughly. Stir in the mashed bananas and mix well.
Add the dry ingredients and stir until just blended, then fold in nuts or chocolate chips. Spoon batter into loaf pan. Bake for 40 minutes and test for doneness, add more time if needed.
Soothing, easy to digest, helpful for kids who need to gain weight, or a low sugar treat for any occasion. Cook this longer to make it even more digestible and nourishing. In Chinese medical tradition, congee is a slow-cooked, white rice porridge used as a base for many ailments, and for weak digestion in particular. Medicinal herbs are often added to congee. This recipe emulates that tradition with ginger (anti-inflammatory), cinnamon (modulates blood sugar), cardamom (eases nausea and constipation), and adds easy-to-assimilate coconut fats. Raisins, though a higher FODMAPs food, become more digestible here also, with long slow cooking. For further sweetening, this recipe calls for maple syrup and coconut sugar in small amounts. Coconut sugar has a lower glycemic index than cane sugar. It also adds inulin, a pre-biotic for healthy bacteria strains in the gut, along with some zinc, iron, and short chain fatty acids that benefit the large intestine. Organic stevia is always an option, for those unable to tolerate any sugars. In that case, use 2-5 drops for the entire recipe, or to your taste. Lastly: Brown rice is a suitable option here for those with no digestive issues; cook it even longer, up to 2 hours, and increase the liquid in the recipe. Otherwise, use a good quality organic white rice.
“But it’s not Paleo! It’s not GAPS! It’s not SCD!” True, it isn’t. But if there is one thing I’ve learned in my decades working with babies and kids, it’s that there is no dogma. Every child is different, every gut is different. Individualizing care for each child, each gut, each circumstance is what works best. Don’t forget to bend the rules, to find what works for your child.
Dairy Free Creamy Coconut Rice Pudding
Print Recipe
A slow cooked soother for tender digestion. Ready to eat after 45 minutes of cooking, but cooking longer is fine also, as long as you continue to add liquid to keep the porridge from drying or burning.
A slow cooked soother for tender digestion. Ready to eat after 45 minutes of cooking, but cooking longer is fine also, as long as you continue to add liquid to keep the porridge from drying or burning.
Place a medium sized pot on stove. If you are using fresh minced rather than powdered ginger, soften this in the pot first, with a teaspoon of ghee or coconut oil, for 5 minutes, on low-medium heat. Then add coconut milk, almond milk, cinnamon, cardamom, maple syrup, coconut sugar, and vanilla. Stir and heat together on low-medium heat until well blended. Do not boil.
If you are using powdered ginger, heat the milks gently. Blend in powdered spices, maple syrup, coconut sugar, and vanilla. Stir and heat to steaming but not boiling.
Add the cooked rice and mix til evenly blended. Turn up heat to medium high until just boiling, then reduce heat to low simmer. Liquid should just cover rice. Add more coconut milk if needed to cover rice. Add raisins.
Whisk the egg with a small amount of almond or coconut milk. Add to the pot, mix well.
Cook on low heat for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring occasionally. Add more liquid if needed, or if you would like a softer porridge: Use additional almond milk, coconut milk, plain coconut water, or water as needed. Serve warm.
Kids love starchy starts in the morning like cereal, pancakes, muffins, toast… and waffles. The trouble is these can spike blood sugar early, then drop it in an hour or two, leaving kids droopy, crabby, and inattentive at school. Make this type of breakfast worth it – less empty starch, more brain-powering protein, fats, vitamins and minerals. Stir up a batch of these and freeze ahead. On school mornings, give them a light toasting for a fast and nourishing option. Credit to Boulder Bike Life Magazine for publishing the inspiration version of this recipe in their Spring 2016 issue.
If juicing the carrots is out of the question, buy fresh carrot juice, leave out the carrot pulp, and increase the hemp hearts by adding an extra tablespoon. You’ll still get a boost of healthy sweet and beautiful carotenoids! Check out this primer on carrot pulp here. For nut flours, you can buy these already ground (pricey), or grind them in an instant to fine powder from fresh whole raw organic nuts yourself. Use a coffee grinder or an immersion blender with the cup attachment (pictured below). For the fat in this recipe, I prefer ghee for its rich and lightly sweet taste. Ghee is well tolerated by most dairy sensitive children in my practice, but see other options below.
Grain Free Carrot Waffles
Print Recipe
Deliciously sweet thanks to the carrot, easy to prepare in about 20 minutes plus juicing time, or prepare ahead and freeze for fast breakfast on school mornings.
Deliciously sweet thanks to the carrot, easy to prepare in about 20 minutes plus juicing time, or prepare ahead and freeze for fast breakfast on school mornings.
Plug in your waffle iron and oil it, so that it is at ready temperature when your batter is mixed.
If grinding flours yourself, combine almonds with coconut flour, hemp hearts, and/or hazelnuts. Grind to a fine powder. You can use a coffee grinder or an immersion blender with its cup attachment like the one shown here. If you're using nut flours already ground, blend them thoroughly together in a medium bowl. Either way, combine nut flours and hemp hearts. Add remaining dry ingredients, and mix together.
In a separate small bowl, whip the separated egg whites to soft peaks. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, combine carrot juice, egg yolks, and melted ghee.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry mixture and mix until flour is thoroughly incorporated. Add carrot pulp - the batter will be a little lumpy. Your carrot pulp will look like this:
Fold the egg whites gently into the batter.
Spoon batter into each waffle form to nearly but not completely fill it - batter will expand when pressed. Cook til steam stops escaping from the waffle iron and edges feel crisp to touch. If you have extra batter, repeat and make smaller waffles - don't over fill the waffle iron as the batter will spill and be wasted.
Makes 4 large waffles. Serve immediately from waffle iron with favorite toppings - or slice on some banana, drizzle with sesame tahini, cinnamon, and a dash of maple syrup. Or, let cool then store in freezer for later use.
