I decided to post the other chia-based food that we love and eat every day. This cereal was inspired by a chia cereal that I found at Costco. My Costco discontinued it so I developed a delicious replacement. I don't mix a big batch of the ingredients together because I like to keep the ingredients at the exact amounts that I like. By using only a tsp of the high-carb buckwheat groats it just adds 2 carb but a lot of nice texture. The tsp of cranberries or raisins are just adding 2 or 3 carbs but add a yummy treat to the cereal. I have a chia cereal bar on my counter, so it is very fast to add the ingredients to a bowl, stir in the milk, and let it hydrate for about 20 minutes while I make the rest of our breakfast.

Chia seed cereal

1 &1/2 TBL chia seeds

1/2 TBL hemp seeds

1 tsp raw buckwheat groats

1 tsp fruit-juice sweetened cranberries, or raisins

1 tsp chopped almonds

a pinch of Bolivian stevia

a little vanilla extract

1/4 cup milk

Add all of the ingredients to a bowl, stir every few minutes until the chia seeds hydrate (about 20 minutes). Add a little more milk if the cereal is too thick.

I am still in love with chia seeds and eat them in different forms every day. My daughter-in-law Sarah is crazy about chia seeds also; she developed a berry jam that is sweetened with stevia and thickened with chia seeds. It is very quick and easy to make.

Chia Berry Jam

10 ounces of berries (defrosted frozen or fresh)

1/8 tsp of Bolivian stevia (I add a pinch more, to taste)

1/4 cup chia seeds

Blend 10 ounces of fruit until pureed. So far I have tried raspberry and strawberry, they are both delicious. Pour the fruit into a pint-sized jar or container. Add stevia and chia seeds to the pureed fruit. Stir about every 5 minutes for a half hour until the chia seeds hydrate, thickening the jam. Store covered in the refrigerator.

This jam is made with raw uncooked fruit so I am guessing that it will spoil in a week or so. We eat it so fast that I have not had any spoiling experience. 

These biscuits are seriously delicious! They are so good that I make a double batch for just the two of us. I store the leftover ones in the refrigerator. They reheat up very nicely in the toaster. We love them with eggs for breakfast or as a bun for a sandwich.

They have a lot of cheese in them, for the double batch I use one cup of sharp cheddar and a half a cup of gouda or parmesan. Because they have a lot of cheese in them, the biscuits get a bit thin. This is why they fit in my toaster.

These delicious, cheesy, garlicky biscuits are so good and have such a great texture that even your non grain-free, low-carb family and friends will love them! Click here for the recipe. 

Before our grain- free low- carb lifestyle we would have whole grain pancakes or waffles every Saturday morning and then feel tired and sluggish when our blood sugar dropped. We now enjoy these delicious pancakes made with almond flour and now have the energy to enjoy our Saturday. 

These pancakes are delicious with a nice flavor and texture. They are great with fresh or frozen blueberries. This recipe makes a good sized batch, if you have some left keep them in the refrigerator, they reheat in the toaster very well. I like to add  the first four ingredients to quart sized Ziploc bags for convenience later. I store these in the refrigerator.

Almond Flour Pancakes

2 cups of almond flour (I use Honeyville blanched)

2 tsp baking powder (I use aluminum free)

1/2 tsp sea salt

a pinch of stevia (to your taste)

4 eggs

3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk (or the kind of milk that you use)

2 TBL melted coconut oil (or light for baking olive oil)

In a medium, small bowl mix the dry ingredients together. In a medium, large bowl, I use my 8 cup measuring bowl so that I have a spout for pouring the pancakes, mix together the eggs, almond milk and the coconut oil. Add dry ingredients to the wet and mix just until incorporated.

Heat your skillet then grease it with coconut oil or butter. Pour the pancake batter onto the hot, greased skillet flipping over when golden brown.

We like these with my stevia sweetened berry jam. Click here for the recipe.

These muffins are seriously delicious and easy to make. They have a great flavor and a very nice texture. They are nice and light not heavy like some grain free muffins that I have made. If you have a ripe banana and 2/3 of a cup of natural peanut butter then you probably have all of the ingredients to make a batch! I found this recipe on the blog Satisfying Eats, click here for the recipe.

 I soak my raw nuts and seeds for at least eight hours to neutralize the phytic acid that is found in seeds, nuts and grains. Untreated phytic acid can combine with magnesium, calcium, zinc, copper and iron in the intestine, blocking the bodies absorption of these minerals. Soaking seeds and nuts also neutralizes the enzyme inhibitors, which are hard on your digestion. Soaking actually encourages the production of beneficial enzymes. Activating these enzymes also increases the amount of many vitamins.

In a big plastic or glass bowl I cover m yraw nuts or seeds with water and add 1 tsp of sea salt. I soak overnight or at least eight hours. After rinsing well, I dehydrate the nuts or seeds in my dehydrator on the nut setting which is 103 degrees for about 24 hours or until crunchy again. The soaked sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds are actually starting to sprout after soaking! Now it is not a big deal to soak and dehydrate my seeds and nuts. I soak 2 or 3 pounds at a time and store them in zip lock freezer bags in the freezer.

When I first learned about nuts containing phytic acid I thought, "oh no, one more thing that I have to do, soak my nuts." After the first time that I soaked my nuts and tried them, without dehydrating them, I did not like them! They tasted rather beanie and were soggy. I was happy when I thought to try dehydrating my soaked nuts, they taste better than the unsoaked ones, and have a great texture. I love the raw, soaked, sprouted, dehydrated sunflower seeds and keep a dish on my counter to snack on all day.

This is our favorite cereal, as it contains 2 cups of nuts you can see my motivation for the steps above so that they are beneficial nuts. It is seriously delicious and easy to make. It was inspired by the Peanut Butter Crunch Cereal at satisfyingeats.blogspot.com. Because I make this cereal often, I pre chop big batches of my nuts in my food processor or ninja and store them in my freezer.    

Peanut butter granola

2 cups unsweetened shredded coconut
1 cup chopped almonds
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup natural peanut butter (I like crunchy, salted)
1/8 tsp stevia, to taste (this is equal to 1/4 of a cup sugar sweetness)
2 TBL powdered erythritol (I use Swerve)

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. In a small bowl combine the peanut butter and the stevia. In a medium, large bowl mix the coconut, almonds, pecans and walnuts, stir to combine. Put half of the sweetened peanut butter on the nuts and stir, repeat with the remainder of the peanut butter. Break up the big clumps of peanut butter. Sprinkle the granola with the powdered erythritol. Stir to mix well. 

Spread the granola on a large cookie sheet. Bake for 15 minutes, stir carefully. Bake for 10 minutes more, being careful not to burn it. The coconut should be a nice golden brown.

Cool completely and store it in the refrigerator.  

This recipe was inspired by my sister Catherine. I love making a German Pancake because the cook gets to eat breakfast with everyone instead of flipping pancakes in the kitchen. I had not heard of a German Pancake until my sister made one while we were visiting. It is baked in the oven in a 9x13 pan and puffs up while cooking, especially on the edges. I modified her recipe to make it low-carb. I think that this recipe is one that your non low-carb, grain-free family and friends will like. Let me know if that is true. We top this with my easy, stevia-sweetened berry jam (click here) that I have just made so it is not gelled up yet. You can also gently warm the jam so that the gelatin liquefies.

Low-Carb  German Pancake

6 eggs

1/8 tsp stevia (I use Bolivian stevia. This is equivalent to ¼ cup of sugar sweetness)

1/8 tsp salt (I use Real Salt)

2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp vanilla

¼ cup coconut flour

¼ cup cream

¾ cup unsweetened almond milk (I use vanilla)

¼ cup coconut oil- you do not add this to the batter, you melt it in the pan.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. When the oven is hot, put your empty 9x13 baking dish in it while you are making the batter. When the dish is hot, put your ¼ cup of coconut oil into the hot dish to melt.

In a medium-sized bowl, beat the eggs with the stevia, salt, cinnamon, vanilla and coconut flour. Add the cream and almond milk, and mix until smooth. (if you are dairy-free substitute the ¼ cup of cream for ¼ cup more of almond milk.)

Pour your batter into the hot pan that has the coconut oil melted in it. 

Bake on the center rack for 25 to 30 minutes until puffed up and golden brown.
 
I make the entire recipe for just the two of us. My husband, Mark, is a pancake monster and can eat half of the pancake on his own, and still remains thin! I like to save the flatter middle to cut into “bread” shapes to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch; it is so good!! Store any uneaten pancake in the refrigerator. It heats up nicely in the toaster.

 This jam is a staple in our refrigerator and so easy to make. We use it on
our pancakes or waffles for breakfast and in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. Yummy! Berries are a good fruit to eat. They are lower in carbs than a lot of other fruits, high in fiber and full of antioxidants. I use the frozen “Nature’s Three Berries” from Costco. It is a raspberry, blueberry, and blackberry blend. Each cup of berries has 17 grams of carbs and 3 grams of fiber.

Easy, stevia-sweetened berry jam

6 cups of berries (frozen or fresh)

1 TBL good, unflavored gelatin (Bernard Jensen’s or Great Lakes)

¼ tsp stevia (I use Bolivian stevia. This is equivalent to ½ cup of sugar sweetness)

Place 6 cups of frozen or fresh berries with ¼ cup of water in a medium-sized pan on medium-low heat. Stirring
occasionally bring the berries to a low boil. Time the boiling berries for 3 minutes.

While the berries are boiling, place ¼ cup of water in a small bowl. Sprinkle 1 TBL of gelatin into the water. Allow to sit for at least 1 minute.

When the berries have finished boiling, remove the pan from the heat. Add ¼ tsp of stevia - my stevia is strong so you may need to add more.  Taste and adjust to your desired sweetness level. Add the softened gelatin to the berries and stir well. Cool for about 10 minutes and pour into 2 pint jars. Keep refrigerated.

Note: This recipe will keep in the refrigerator for about two weeks. With no sugar as a preservative it will mold as any fresh fruit does. The two of us have never had a problem with not eating this fast enough. This does not freeze well...I tried it. The gelatin broke down, but it was still delicious, berry syrup! 

 The longer we travel on this low-carb journey, the stricter we have become. For us, eating high fat, moderate protein, and low carb is a lifestyle, not a diet; we are both at a healthy weight. We eat this way because doing so has drastically improved our health. At the beginning we just used low-carb bread for toast to enjoy with our eggs and bacon or sausage (nitrate, nitrite free). As we learned more about our modern wheat from Dr. William Davis, the author of "Wheat Belly", we decided it would be healthier for us to be grain free. This episode of Dr. Oz with Dr. Davis is very interesting. Dr. Oz was amazed when his staff ate a piece of whole grain bread, their blood sugar level was higher, than when they ate a candy bar! 
http://www.doctoroz.com/episode/are-you-addicted-wheat
 
Our answer to what do we dip in our easy over eggs is “Maria’s everything bagel”. Maria’s Nutritious and Delicious Journal is one of my favorite blogs. Click below for the bagel recipe. 
http://mariahealth.blogspot.com/search?q=everything+bagels

 This recipe makes six savory bagels made with eggs, coconut flour, and whey protein. It uses a donut pan. I got mine at Bed Bath and Beyond - with my 20% off coupon, it cost only $8.

When I showed my mom how to make these, she did not have all of the herbs that Maria recommended so we just added whatever sounded good like rosemary, basil, oregano, etc. and they were great. I recommend you make these bagels your own. I use Herbes De Provence in my spice blend and Sharp Cheddar or Pecorino Romano for my cheese. I think it is the cheese that gives these bagels such a nice texture. Try making a savory sandwich on this bagel, yummy!

This recipe also answers the question: what is for lunch? I used it to make mini pigs in a blanket. I used two silicone mini-muffin pans that I got at Joanne’s with my 50% off coupon, so they cost $5.50 a piece.  One
recipe made 20. I filled the 20 mini-muffin cavities to the top, cut the hot dogs (nitrate, nitrite free) into four pieces and stuck each hot dog piece into the middle of the batter. I baked them at 350 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes.  The silicone pans are so nice, after cooling for five minutes my pigs popped right out!