Oatmeal, tigernut flour, and chia are great foods for getting different types of fiber into our diets. Fiber is what helps build diversity in our gut microbiomes – and there is growing evidence that this is pivotal for preventing food allergy. It’s possible that microbiome therapies may help correct and treat food allergy too, along with many other conditions. But how do you get picky eaters to go there?
Cookies! Here’s an easy recipe to use all three of those foods in one. Tigernut flour is easy to work with and gives baked goods a warm earthy flavor and texture. Combined with oats ground in to flour, it makes an easy texture for a nice twist on the usual oatmeal cookie that anyone can enjoy. Even kids with conditions like Crohn’s disease, food allergy, celiac, or other inflammatory bowel conditions where sweets, eggs, dairy or gluten can wreak havoc will enjoy these cookies.
Everyone needs a cookie now and then! Pack these in your kids’ lunches or enjoy as snacks. No cane sugar, no eggs, lots of fiber and minerals. If your gang can roll with (GF CF no sugar) chocolate chips, chopped nuts, or raisins, add those too. Option to leave oats whole for coarse texture, or grind oats into a fine flour in a food processor for easier digestion in tender or toddler tummies. I have a mini-size food processor in my kitchen to make this task simple and fast. Lastly, see below for why stevia is included – here’s the one I recommend. It is pure organic plant extract, no fillers, in glycerite (not alcohol).
Oatmeal Tigernut Flour Cookies
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Soft, chewy, oat-y cookies that work with all kinds of elimination diets. See amazon links above for hard to find ingredients.
Preheat oven to 350 and grease a baking sheet with coconut oil. Lay a piece of baking parchment on top. Set aside to soak for at least five minutes, or til other ingredients are ready.
Place the chia seeds in a cup or small bowl. Add the water, so that chia seeds are covered. Press any that stick to sides of cup or bowl down into the water with a spoon or spatula, so they can soak. Set aside.
Measure 1/4 gluten free oats and place in a food processor. Process into a fine flour. Use this in your dry ingredient mixture. Make sure it measures 1/4 cup when ground.
In a medium size bowl, mix together dry ingredients: Tigernut flour, oat flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, and salt. Blend til evenly combined.
In another bowl, combine wet ingredients: Melted coconut oil, vanilla, honey, and stevia drops (why stevia? See note below!). Mix with electric mixer or whisk with a fork or whisk until these are evenly blended. Then add the soaked chia seeds. Stir until all are evenly blended.
Stir wet ingredients into dry, and combine all till evenly mixed. If you are adding chocolate chips, nuts, or raisins, stir these in now.
Place on baking sheet, bake x 15-20 minutes, til slightly browned on bottoms and tops. Enjoy!
Recipe Notes
White chia seeds have a higher amount of omega-3 fatty acids than black chia seeds - which have more protein than the white ones. The omega-3 fatty acids can have a bitter taste, hence the extra help from stevia in this recipe. If you want to go for the slightly bigger protein boost, use black chia seeds instead - they will look like poppy seeds in your final product, which some picky eaters may object to ("what are THOSE? I don't like 'bits'"). They white ones will disappear!
Tigernut flour is something I had heard of often, but never used, until I needed an option without almond flour, gluten, any grain flours, or nut flours. I also had to omit eggs in this case, which are substituted here with “chia eggs” – and it worked! This is a dense, moist bread, almost crumb cake like. If your kids are missing muffins on an elimination diet, give this a try in small muffin tins. I’ve baked it here as a sweet bread.
This tigernut flour recipe is easy on the gut – it’s compatible with auto-immune Paleo (AIP) and modified Specific Carbohydrate Diets (SCD, some of users of which can comfortably enjoy this flour).It’s low FODMAPS too – which means it may work for toddlers emerging from FPIES restricted diets. Of course, always check with your care team before going forward.
Tigernut flour is not from nuts at all, but from a starchy root vegetable which is roasted then ground into a fine powder. Tigernuts were a food source for humans thousands of years ago! The flour yields a nutty earthy taste and texture. It’s a great source of gut-helping prebiotic fiber as well as minerals like iron, zinc, potassium, and magnesium – plus some protein too.
This flour can be a little hard to find, but it can be had on line. In my region in Boulder, Colorado, I found it at my favorite Natural Grocers. It’s also always available on amazon and Organic Gemini Tiger Nut Flour is the brand I have tested in this recipe.
Tigernut Blueberry Peach Breakfast Bread
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A moist, sweet, dense treat for breakfast or snacking. Bake in a bread pan or in small paper lined muffin tins.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a bread loaf baking pan with coconut oil.
Combine chia seed with water in a small bowl and set aside. Allow chia seeds to gel for at least five minutes while you prepare other ingredients.
Combine the dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
In another bowl, whisk together the melted coconut oil, vanilla, and honey. Then stir in the chopped peaches and softened blueberries, followed by the soaked chia seeds.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and mix til evenly combined.
Scoop batter into prepared baking pan and bake x 30 minutes for bread, and 20 minutes for muffins. Top and edges should be browned and toothpick will come out clean except for fruit.
Recipe Notes
For peaches, you can use canned as long as organic and thoroughly rinsed of all packing juices. You can use frozen thawed fruit as well if preferred.
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)
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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.
There’s no reason why kids – any kids – can’t eat good, real food. Adapted from a New York Times recipe, this recipe is modified for allergy by omitting all bovine dairy and all gluten sources. Manchego (sheep’s) cheese is the substitute for stronger Parmesan and Gruyere cheeses. The spice is dropped for kids’ palates here too, by omitting Tabasco and using the milder (and less allergenic) Manchego. The result is a pleasing, easy to eat, nourishing meal that kids with feeding or texture issues can enjoy.
Tuna Manchego Souffle
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Your kids can feel fancy and enjoy a truly nourishing, restorative food in this dish. Use straight-sided ramekins for baking; use four 1.5 cup capacity ramekins for four adult servings, or six 1 cup capacity for six toddler size servings. I find that Manchego cheese from Spain is routinely available at my local Costco.
Your kids can feel fancy and enjoy a truly nourishing, restorative food in this dish. Use straight-sided ramekins for baking; use four 1.5 cup capacity ramekins for four adult servings, or six 1 cup capacity for six toddler size servings. I find that Manchego cheese from Spain is routinely available at my local Costco.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Using wax paper or paper towel, grease bottoms and sides of your ramekins with ghee. Place them in the refrigerator to chill before baking.
Melt a tablespoon of the ghee in a saucepan, and add onion. Cook on medium heat til softened, 2-3 minutes. Add finely minced tuna and stir til warmed through. Remove it from heat and set aside on a plate or cutting board. Don't let the tuna onion mixture dry out by overheating.
In a 1 quart sauce pan, bring almond and coconut milks to barely a simmer. Remove from heat, cover, and set aside.
Melt 3 tablespoons of the butter in a saucepan and add GF flour blend. Stir rapidly with a wire whisk to smooth, blended texture. Then add warm milk, and whisk rapidly until the mixture is thick and smooth.
Blend the starch (tapioca, potato, or arrowroot) with the water to an even smooth blend in a small cup. Add it to the simmering mixture. Whisk in the mustard, Worcestershire, cayenne, salt and pepper. The mixture should be thick and smooth but not sticky. If it is too thin, remove a half cup of mixture to a small dish and add a half teaspoon more starch. Blend to thicken, then add this back to the pot, and stir steadily on medium high heat until it thickens.
Add egg yolks and continue briskly whisking the mixture for a few seconds, then remove it from heat.
In a mixing bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Set aside.
Stir grated cheese into the warm mixture, then add about a third of the beaten egg whites. Stir quickly until well blended. Then add the rest of the egg whites and fold them in gently with a rubber spatula.
Fill chilled souffle dishes to about 3/4 full. Arrange dishes on a baking sheet and place in the oven. Bake 20 minutes, until well puffed and golden brown on top. Serve immediately.
