Gluten-free, Primal, Grain-free, Refined Sugar-free Vanilla Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

I got this recipe from Nourished and Nurtured, which, by the way, has some really great Primal/Paleo recipes.

I, of course, made this recipe my own for a couple reasons:

1. Until yesterday, we were operating under the knowledge that my older son had an egg allergy. Apparently he has grown out of it...at least according to the allergist's skin prick testing. (We're still introducing it slowly, regardless of what their testing says).
2. Eating raw eggs skeeves me.

Beware...this is a large volume of ingredients, so make sure your ice cream maker can handle it all.

Vanilla Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
makes 14 4oz servings (so about 7 cups)
*This recipe is refined sugar-free if you use chocolate chips without refined sugar in them*

3 cups of cold cream (the kind I use is from a local farm and has no carbs, sugars or protein)
1 cup cold whole milk (I use organic whole milk)
3/4 cup of forested raw honey (I have also used 1/2 honey, 1/2 organic maple sugar to cut down a bit on carbs)
1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I use Trader Joe's Bourbon Vanilla; if you use organic, consider lessening the amount as I find it to be much stronger than non-organic)
1/2 to 3/4 cup chocolate chips (I throw my Ghirardelli Double Chocolate chips in the food processor and they turn out perfectly for this recipe)
 The original recipe calls for 4 raw eggs yolks as well as 1/2 teaspoon celtic sea salt. I explained the egg thing above; I leave out the salt b/c the one time I put it in that's all I could taste.

1. Chop up the chocolate chips in your food processor, making sure to stop before they dissolve into powder. 
2. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl, but not the chocolate chips.
3. According to the directions of your ice cream maker, add the mixture to your ice cream maker. I always add the chocolate chips at this point, but you can wait until the mixture has attained a more ice-cream like texture.

Enjoy your ice cream! 

Nutritional Info (assumes 1/2c forested raw organic honey and 1/4c organic maple sugar, as well as Ghirardelli Double Chocolate Chips):

Whole Batch:
Calories: 3550.5
Fat: 289.2g
Sat fat: 171.9g
Carbs: 265.4g
Sugars: 239.1g 
Protein: 17.2g


Per Serving:
Calories: 253.6
Fat: 20.7g
Sat fat: 12.3g
Carbs: 19g
Sugars: 17.1g
Protein: 1.2g

The Best (Gluten-free, cane sugar-free) Primal Banana Nut Muffins. EVAH.

These muffins are soooooo good!

Recipe makes about 18 regular sized muffins):
3c almond flour (I make my own by buying blanched, slivered almonds from Whole Foods, then grind them in my coffee bean grinder)
1 1/2c smooshed bananas (I find that 4 bananas work well)
2t baking powder
2t baking soda
3 eggs
6T full fat sour cream
1/3c organic maple sugar (I get mine from Trader Joe's)
1/3c xylitol
2t pure vanilla extract (slightly less if using organic, as it tends to be strong)
1/4t salt
1c chopped/ground walnuts (I threw them in the grinder too)

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease regular sized muffin pans with coconut oil.

Blend all ingredients until smooth. Put 1/4c of batter into each muffin cup. Cook 20-25 minutes until the muffin is brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

Nutritional info:

For the whole batch:
Calories: 4673 
Fat: 345g
Sat Fat: 87g
Carbs: 326g
Sugar: 138g
Protein: 128g

Per muffin:
Calories: 259.6
Fat: 19.2g
Sat Fat: 4.8g
Carbs: 18.1g
Sugar: 7.7g
Protein: 7.1g 

Primal Sugar Free Sweetened Peach Iced Tea

10 cups of boiling water

4 family size tea bags (I use Tetley tea bags. I tried Lipton, but they tasted bitter to me)

2 fruit flavored tea bags (I love Celestial Seasoning’s raspberry zinger and peach tea)

1.5 – 2 teaspoons liquid stevia (I use Whole Foods brand)

Boil the water. Once it boils, put all 6 teabags in the water and remove from heat. Let the family size teabags steep for 3 minutes, then remove. Leave the fruit flavored teabags in the water for an additional 2 minutes, then remove.

Fill a gallon pitcher with ice and pour the tea from the pot into the pitcher. Add 1.5 – 2 teaspoons of liquid stevia. Mix.

Primal Chocolate Milk with Stevia

I'm so excited about this chocolate milk I made today! It's sugar free and primal! (I should add the back story as to why I made this: My younger son drinks chocolate milk at school, so I was going to buy a large container of chocolate milk and have him take some in a thermos. When I looked at the amount of sugar in the chocolate milk, I was horrified! 22 GRAMS of sugar. So I decided to make it myself, and this is what I came up with).

To make 5 - 6 cups of chocolate milk you'll need:

6T natural cocoa powder (this makes it pretty chocolatey)
5 1/4 - 6 1/4c organic whole milk (or whatever kind of milk you want - I think it would work with alternative milks such as coconut, almond, etc)
30-40 drops of liquid stevia


1. Put 6T of cocoa powder in a flat-bottomed bowl.

2. Pour enough milk in the bowl to make a paste with the cocoa powder (I'm guessing around 1/4c).

3. Mix the milk and the cocoa.

4. When it is completely mixed (if you see any little balls of cocoa, try to smash them and mix them into the paste), it should be pretty uniform in color and very pasty.

5. Put the cocoa powder/milk paste into the container you'll be using for your chocolate milk.

6. Pour 5 - 6 cups of cold milk into the container with the paste, along with 30 - 40 drops of liquid stevia, then mix with an immersion blender until completely blended. It's ok if you get a layer of froth on the top. The more milk you put in, the less chocolatey it will taste.

7. Pour into a cup and enjoy your sugar free chocolate milk!

NOTE: You will have to blend or shake the chocolate milk if it's been in the fridge for any period of time as the chocolate will settle to the bottom.

Busy week ahead, so I'm cooking tonight

It's going to be a busy week, so tonight I took some time to cook and bake a few things:

First I made 2 kinds of turkey sausage. Hubs wanted apple sausage, so I made a pound of onion/apple sausage and a pound of regular sausage. I'll do separate posts with the recipes.

Next I started the fermentation process for some kefir I've been wanting to make. I bought some freeze dried starter grains (it's not grain, actually; it's yeast and bacteria) at Whole Foods (they were like $5 off, so only $.97 for a pack of 6) yesterday. I heated up some organic whole milk, let it cool to about 75 degrees, then poured some into 4 different containers into which I'd already put one pack each of starter grains. Now they sit, covered, for about 24 hours while the kefir starter grains "wake up" and ferment the milk. After that, I think I drain off the excess liquid and voila! My very own live and active starter grains. Throw them in some milk and let them get to business.

Then I made banana/strawberry egg-free and grain-free muffins. They are actually in the oven right now, and I'm not sure they are going to make it. This happens frequently to me when I try baking without eggs. It's really a gigantic pain in the ass, but I figured that since this particular recipe didn't call for eggs, there shouldn't be a problem. We shall see. I'm not opening the oven door for another 20 minutes...

I'm also going to bake some pumpkin-zucchini egg-free and grain-free muffins. And possibly some of those delicious brownies.

I'm feeling a bit sad right now, but it's nothing I want to talk about. It's something that's been going on for years, and it's something I guess I just have to deal with. As much as it sucks...

Egg-free, Grain-free, Cane Sugar-free Brownies (primal)

So I was looking around for egg free muffin recipes earlier today, and some how came across this recipe for egg-free, grain-free brownies.

I didn't have any xanthan gum, but I did have flax meal. After looking around the interwebs for subbing flax, I finally found that it's a 1:1 sub...for breads. That little tidbit escaped my notice for a bit.

I made the recipe exactly like she said, with the exception of honey - I used 1/3c xylitol - and the flax subbed for xanthan. My batter was incredibly dry and crumbly. So I decided to put a little whole milk in. And a little more. And a little more. Didn't work well enough, so I threw in some full fat sour cream. That did the trick! These brownies are soooo moist and chewy. The only thing I'd change is using almond butter without salt.

Here's the recipe:

1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
3 T coconut flour
1 c almond butter (salt free)
1/4 t salt
2 droppersful liquid stevia (mine was actually Lemon Drop from SweetLeaf, but the lemon flavor is so minute, it made no difference)
1/4 t organic vanilla (maybe use a bit more if yours isn't organic - I find organic to be very strong)
1/3 c xylitol (I use XyloSweet)
1/4 c cocoa powder
1/2 c organic whole milk
1/2 c full fat sour cream

Mix all ingredients together with an electric beater or stand mixer. Pour into a small greased cake pan (I used a metal pan greased with organic coconut oil). Bake at 325 degrees for about 25 minutes.

Makes 18 brownies.

By my calculations, here is the nutritional breakdown per brownie:
Calories: 119
Fat: 9.2g
Sat Fat: 1.6g
Carbs: 8.2g
Sugar: 1.3g
Protein: 4g

If you make them, lemme know how they turn out!