In the last few months I have been looking at changing my diet (see my post about diet). Up to now I follow the Swank diet. This diet removes all processed food, and anything from the cow. It also doesn’t like frying. As an Irishman not being able to eat a traditional Irish breakfast (eggs, rashers, sausages, black & white pudding, potato, mushrooms and beans) is tough. However, my health has been deteriorating over the last four years, and my partner and I think that a new diet could help.
After a lot of reading, and online research, we decided to try the autoimmune diet. This is much stricter. One pillar of this diet is the removal of grain. This includes rice, wheat, rye, oats and several other grain variants. No more cake, pasta or bread, and sushi will also be thrown in the bin. All the special treats are gone!!
That is what I thought.
Over the last few weeks we looked for some treat alternatives allowable in this diet. To transition easily the diet will not start until mid-September giving about 1.5 months to find new recipes.
As I find new things to try, I have been sharing pictures on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. A few people sent me messages for recipes, and I am sharing them here, so everyone can try them. There have been disasters, and also confusion. One thing that makes little sense is that when I use flaxseed (linseed) for baking bread the finished product tastes like seaweed. Unexpected, and maybe I will acquire the taste.
Autoimmune Recipe 1: Pumpkin seed cake
Ingredients
- 4 eggs
- 200 gram pumpkin flour (we made our own from seeds)
- 2 tablespoon coconut flour
- 100 grams sugar/honey/maple syrup (honey is probably the best choice)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 200-400 grams fresh fruit ( blueberries, strawberries)
Directions
- Preheat oven to 180C.
- Whisk egg whites until peaks form
- Fold in the sugar and baking powder, being careful not to remove the air.
- Gently fold in 1 yolk at a time.
- Then quickly and gently fold in the pumpkin and coconut flour.
- Pour mixture into a cake tin that is greased and floured or lined with baking paper.
- Spread fruit evenly onto cake and they will naturally sink into the mixture.
- Put into the oven for 30-35 minutes until a wooden toothpick comes out clean.
- Turn off the oven, open it slightly and let the cake rest for 20 minutes.
Recipe 2: Oat cookies
These are not autoimmune, but we had to use some over ripe bananas and oats. These tasted great on the first day, but they became soggy on day two. My recommendation is to bake and then eat, don’t save them for the next day.
Ingredients
- 2-3 ripe bananas – mashed
- 200 grams oats
- 2 tablespoon maple syrup
- 1-2 tablespoons poppy/sesame seed
- Raisins or other dried fruit
- Small pinch salt
Directions
- Heat oven to 180C
- Line a tray with baking paper
- Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, stirring well
- Using a large spoon put the mixture on the tray spacing them evenly. You should have about 8 cookies.
- Put in the oven and bake for 15-30 minutes, watching that they don’t burn.
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