Yellow Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

This recipe is a part of the eBook Nourishing Eats Cookbook.  The recipe is also available here.

I found the cupcake recipe to be a little lack luster. Flavor wise, it's okay, but the consistency was a little weird.  See the picture of an unfrosted cupcake below:

I like cupcakes and muffins with a little less of a thick consistency- at least when dealing with coconut flour. I would prefer a smooth top (the type of smoothness that I can achieve with coconut flour muffins) and probably with the addition of cocoa powder. I feel that yellow cakes with coconut flour are waste. You don't get the traditional buttery yellow cake flavor when baking with coconut flour and so it's just a let down. Well, at least it's a let down for me. With chocolate cakes there's more diversity and so you enter into the cupcake with less expectations.

It looks fine when frosted. See below:

I omitted the eggs from the frosting recipe mostly out of laziness. What you see above is butter whipped with honey and cocoa. The flavor is pretty spot on. Eggs would most likely provided for a fluffier and richer frosting.

I will definitely make the frosting again. It would work well on brownies, cupcakes, and Cheeseslave's GAPs Birthday cake recipe.

As for the cupcake recipe, I might make again if I can't find something else with a better consistency.

Recipe Review: Key West Grilled Chicken

I found this recipe on Pinterest a year ago, and it is awesome! The recipe for Key West Grilled Chicken is found on a blog called Grocery Budget 101. I honestly haven't checked out any of the other recipes on the blog. This is definitely one of the good recipes floating out there in the ether of Pinterest. It is bursting with flavor!

It's a super easy marinade for chicken that you throw on the grill. You can either make chicken kabobs or just grill the whole breast. I usually just grill the breast. The recipe also works for shrimp, although I have never tried that (I never noticed that at the bottom of the recipe before), but I will be in the next few weeks.

The ingredients are as follows:

* 3 tablespoons soy sauce
* 2 Tbs. honey
* 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

* Juice of 1 Lime
* 1 teaspoon minced garlic
* 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

That's it. I like to add some chili flakes for some heat. While the soy sauce isn't GAPs legal, it's still a fairly small amount. I use San-J Tamari Sauce that is Gluten Free, and I don't have any reactions.

Here's a picture of the finished product:

Overall, the recipe has tons of flavor, is easy to put together, and has minimal clean up. I highly recommend this recipe if you are okay with soy sauce.

Recipe Review: Salsa Poached Eggs

I love eggs. I especially love them poached. But let's be honest, plain poached eggs aren't nearly as exciting as Eggs Benedict (my most favorite of egg recipes) or poached eggs on some well buttered toast. There's also so many times that you can have scrambled eggs without cheese before you go insane.

That's why I was so excited to try this recipe: Salsa Poached Eggs. It comes from the blogger Beth M, who blogs at Budget Bytes. She has a large number of recipes for food that always looks good, but on a budget. This is actually the first recipe from her site that I have ever tried.

The ingredients are as follows:

olive oil
onion
garlic
fire roasted tomatoes
diced green chiles
tomato paste
salt
cumin
pepper
eggs
green onions (optional)

I had just about everything on had, but had to make a few substitutions. I did not have fire roasted tomatoes or diced green chiles in my pantry so I used plain canned tomatoes (I canned them myself) and fresh jalapeno peppers carefully diced with gloves on (boy do I have some stories!). While it didn't taste like salsa, it was still a really nice way to prepare eggs.

I will definitely make this recipe again. It was fairly simple, has a great presentation, and tasted really good. I also have a few ideas of how to make it better. When I try those out, I'll let you know. I'll also start taking pictures as a blog about food with only text could be rather boring.

Recipe Review: Grain-Free Cinnamon Swirl Apple Nut Butter Bars

I recently made the recipe Grain-Free Cinnamon Swirl Apple Nut Butter Bars. The recipe is from a grain-free dessert cookbook that the blogger Cheeseslave was featuring. Cheeseslave went through GAPs a few years ago to cure her food allergies/sensitivities as well as is a follower of the Weston A. Price way of thinking. She's a great resource for GAPs recipes as well as general real food recipes.

The recipe for the bars is GAPs friendly, with one exception- arrowroot. I simply omitted it. It's a really simple but expensive recipe (I used a whole jar of almond butter), so it's not something I'd make every week. It did make for a nice treat.

The recipe came together fairly well. I found the "dough" to be rather sticky. The one frustration I had was that I could not get the honey to evenly coat the apple chunks. Heating the honey may have helped with that.

Overall, it was easy to do, an easy clean up, and a decent dessert. For my personal taste, there was too much cinnamon.  I'd definitely make it again, but with less cinnamon.

Recipe Review: Egg Drop Soup

Through my vast Google-ing I stumbled across a blog named Nourished and Nurtured. I happened to be looking for GAPs friendly recipes, since the GAPs book can be a little lacking.

This site has a lot of recipes on it, and I haven't tried all of them. I've only tried two, but they have both been really good. The Egg Drop Soup recipe is one of them.

This recipe is absolutely delicious. I make a double batch almost every week. It makes a great meal or a nice snack. I've used the soy sauce (it's a really small amount) and have had no reaction, but everyone is different, so be careful if it is your first time having soy sauce since starting GAPs.

The recipe has a incredible flavor, normal ingredients, and is put together in a snap. It has just the right amount of ginger and the green onion adds a nice dimension. I usually go heavy on the eggs for a more filling soup.

If you are bored with having chicken soup or you love the Asian flavor. This is the recipe for you.

Recipe Review: 100% Natural Pancakes Recipe

This recipe is something I found on Pinterest. It promises to be easy and delicious, as well as being gluten free and low calorie. The recipe is posted on a blog site called Blogilates and can be found here.

The ingredients are as follows:

1 ripe banana
2 eggs


That's all. I tried it out with a banana that I defrosted from the freezer and while the flavor was good, the "pancakes" lacked enough stability to be able to be turned over. They didn't even seem to cook very evenly. I followed the cooking directions and was frustrated by the difficulty with which I had trying to get the pancakes to flip. The pancakes might have been easier to work with if I had not used a previously frozen banana, but I personally don't think it would be that much better. At the end of the day, egg and banana lack the necessary strength that a batter made with any other type of flour would have.

I would not make this recipe again, and would instead make pancakes out of nut flour or coconut flour.

Recipe Review: Roasted Leg of Lamb Review

The first recipe up for review is the Roasted Leg of Lamb recipe from Martha Stewart. I saw this recipe in Martha Stewart Living (either March or April) and decided to make it for Easter this year since it's nigh impossible to find ham cured without sugar in America. The recipe is also on Martha's website found here.

I had to tweak the recipe a tad- instead of a leg of lamb (with bone) I got a rack of lamb. My normal butcher is about an hour away in Amish country, so I decided to go with what I could find easily in the store. Most leg of lamb sold in Costco or Giant Eagle are all boneless, and well, bones add more flavor to the meat you are preparing and can also be used later on for homemade stock. So I changed how I roasted the lamb. I also opted to not make the gravy because I'm only cooking for two and I don't know what I would use to thicken gravy that would be GAPs approved. I'm not sure how well coconut flour would work, since it does a flavor all its own.  When I figure something out, I'll let you know.

The ingredients for the rub/dressing that you put on the lamb are as follows:

• 2 tablespoons coarse salt (I used Celtic Sea Salt)
• 2 teaspoons freshly ground pepper
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary leaves, plus sprigs for garnish
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

The proportions and ingredients work really well together. The flavors were really spot on. I roasted my lamb in the oven at 350 for the first 1/2 hour and then kicked it up to 400 for the 2nd half (it was getting late). In hindsight I should have done it in reverse, but the final result was a rack of lamb cooked to a nice 140 degrees (I prefer my lamb more like a medium). I'm sure Martha's roasting method for a whole leg is fine.

Note: If mustard isn't your thing, you can substitute balsamic vinegar (just make sure it doesn't have sugar in it) instead. It works quite nicely as well with the lamb. 

Overall, I think this recipe is a winner. The flavor was good (when is garlic & rosemary not a good duo?!?), it was fairly easy to prepare, and the clean up wasn't too bad either. I tested it out before Easter, and liked it enough to make it for Easter. I would definitely make this again.