Tag Archives: Gluten Free

Apple Coconut Ginger Hermit Cookies

These are delicious! Without much sweetener, and made entirely gluten free with no eggs or dairy (unless you choose to use butter for the oil). Mainly I have to be careful not to eat too many at a time since I can’t handle eating any kind of sugar very much at all ! So yes, I eat one or two and freeze the rest (unless my bf gets to them first!).

Preheat oven to 350′ F.

Note: This recipe can be whipped together mostly in one bowl.

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp. Flax seed, grind in seed grinder
2 Tbsp. chia seeds, also grind
2 Tbsp. sunflower seeds, also grind
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup coconut oil or butter (melted)
2/3 Cup maple syrup
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp powdered ginger root
1 1/4 cup dried unsweetened shredded coconut
1 1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup amaranth flour
one peeled chopped apple

Instructions:

Grind the seeds — each separately if you have a small seed and nut grinder.
Then put the seeds in a bowl, and add in 3/4 water. Mix with a wire whisk.

Meanwhile, melt coconut oil or butter in small pan on the stove.

Then add in to the bowl with the seed mixture:
2/3 cup maple syrup and the baking soda and salt plus the powdered ginger root.
Whisk again.

Then add in the melted oil and mix well so the oil does not separate from the cookie batter.

Then add in the dried shredded coconut and mix again followed by the sorghum and amaranth flours. Use a large spoon at this stage. The batter should be adhering to itself very smoothly in a kind of springy way that chia and flax bring to any kind of dough.

Finally add in the peeled chopped apple and mix well with the large spoon.

Now if the oven is preheated, you can oil your cookie sheet and place large rounded tablespoons of the batter on it. Its wise to leave some space between cookies, however the batter mostly puffs up rather than spreads. Hence the word “Hermits” since they are round backed! Though you can flatten the batter so it makes thinner cookies, I find the humped form more interesting.

Bake on an oiled pan roughly 15 minutes and then remove from pan and place on a wire rack to cool.

If you have histamine/amine sensitivity, you might want to wrap each cookie with saranwrap after the cookies have cooled, and place in a closed container in the freezer. However, it might not be crucial since there are no eggs. And if you used the coconut oil, no animal fats either.

If you want the cookies to be sweeter, you could add in a little stevia, or indeed, you could halve the maple syrup and use stevia for the other half of the sweetness. I didn’t, since my bf is allergic to even the smell of stevia! But likely you won’t have that problem. I find its nice to lessen the amount of sugar even in one’s sweets if you can. I use maple syrup since I have less problem with it than cane sugar. I have also found I just do not tolerate honey or other types of sugars like agave etc.

Light and Delicious! I am loving what magic chia and flax seeds bring toa recipe!

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On Overcoming Yet Another Migraine

"The Poetry Genies" by Bea Garth, copyright 2015
“The Poetry Genies” by Bea Garth, copyright 2015

by Bea Garth, copyright 2015

You might think that with everything I do to watch my diet, exercise and otherwise take care of myself, I would no longer get migraines. However I still do. Usually I don’t get so very  many of them like I used to, but every once in a while I get a spate of them.

This current one that I have right now seems to be related to the fact I prepared a cake for my mother’s 100th birthday. It was a wonderful event, even though she unfortunately was too ill to show up. She was honored by at least 50 of her relatives as well as most of her children.  My partner Chris and I danced to the live jazz band. Everyone commented on how energetic and  well we looked. And certainly I felt that at the time. Later on that evening we visited my mother with my brother Donald. Mom  was soundly asleep. Apparently she had had many visitors that day. Her small table was filled with happy birthday cards, to which we added ours.

I had made a lovely gluten free rice based coconut cake for the event so we would have something safe to eat, as well as others in our large family who are gluten sensitive. And although it seemed to be just fine that day, the sugar content seems to have made my health more fragile today, two days later. No doubt eating some of the crumbs from the cake before I froze it last night after it had sat out all afternoon on the day  of the birthday celebration, did not help amine wise. No doubt it did not help my fight against the SIBO (Small Intestinal Bowel Overgrowth). Even my bf is struggling a bit, no doubt the sugar did not suit him either.  It does look like I will have to give the leftover cake to someone else. Even though it tasted great it is poison to us now!

So now I am drinking some olive leaf detox tea after having consumed a green smoothie and finally putting some attention to this blog. Its helping make the pressure behind my left eye more bearable.

Shortly I plan on doing some Hatha Yoga and deep breathing  to help too. Apparently it increases one’s serotonin, which helps in cases like migraines or what otherwise would be potentially sleepless nights.  Plus it plain calms and centers my nervous system in a way nothing else does. It truly does make me feel at one with the Universe. Similar to doing my art, but perhaps more  focused in its way…

I am eternally grateful for the work of the Low Histamine Chef to point me in the right direction in matters like this. I had already made a lot of progress on my own before reading her work, but she has done the research, talked with the leading doctors and other scientists and advocates in the field, and has documented her path from extreme low to glowing health. In addition she has written some very informative antihistamine cookbooks. Her theory is that its best to not just eat low histamine foods. Rather its important to add in other high histamine anti-inflammatory foods too–slowly of course, especially at first, while balancing it with low histamine anti-inflammatory foods and herbs–plus meditation. The idea is that this helps balance and feed the whole body. If one just eats low histamine, then one is in danger of producing too many histamines on one’s own just to get the energy one needs.

Of course, neither she nor I are doctors. If you plan to try some of these remedies/suggestions, its important to consult your doctor first.