Andrew and Isaac with Kyla making cut-out Christmas cookies.

Ahhhhhh!  It feels good to sit down at the computer.  For days, I have been running around here like a chicken with its head cut off.  My home has transformed into Santa’s Workshop and Christmas Factory.  My hands have been busy creating, making, and baking.

God sure did bless with me with such a wonderful daughter.  She is such a help with the work, with the boys, and with the baking.  She loves to bake and we love it when she does because she is so good at it.

Today we made Christmas Cookies from Heather on SCD Recipe.  Kyla made almond butter brownies from Texas Homesteader’s Wheat-Free Cookbook. She just substituted the sugar with honey in equal parts.  And, we are making Holiday Cookies from Elana Amsterdam’s book, The Almond Flour Cookbook. Christmas just is not Christmas without baking and decorating cut-out cookies.

From the emails I have been receiving, I know that I am not the only one busy making gifts.  Most emails have concerned my Blue Ribbon Jalapeno Jelly recipe.  There are going to be some really happy recipients of this delicious jelly all over the country.

We are in the process of curing our own fresh ham and smoking it for Christmas dinner along with a turkey.  We are also roasting a nice wild duck.  In addition, I am mashing cauliflower with gravy and roasted butternut squash separately.  I love the latter; it is almost like eating sweet potatoes.  Kyla is making green beans with bacon (legal on SCD, of course).  We are having fruit salad and biscuits.

For dessert, we will have pecan pie cupcakes with Incredible Icing, our variety of cookies, and lemon bars.  My mom is making pumpkin pie with legal whipped cream.  In fact you can see my yogurt maker on the counter by Isaac in the photograph.  You make it like yogurt with a yogurt culture and cook it for 24 hours to make French Cream.  Then you add a dash of vanilla and some honey to your taste and whip it up.  Yummy!!  I am going to have to roll away from the table.

Anyone who says you cannot possible enjoy eating on Christmas or any other special occasion on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet needs to learn how to cook.  You are your own obstacle in that regard.  We are eating like kings.

I also write for another blog, Welcome To The Ranch!  Last night I was inspired to write my own version of Clement C. Moore’s classic, The Night Before Christmas. If you want to see what I came up with, read “Twas the Night Before Christmas“.

I just wanted to sit down and take a moment out of my hectic day to wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas.  It will probably be after the New Year before I write again.  Therefore, Happy New Year, too!  Have a safe and fun time with your family.  Merry Christmas, again!

Steaming Bowl of Taco Soup

As I sit inside next to a roaring fire listening to the pitter-patter of raindrops gently hitting our metal roof, all I can think about is, ”What a great day for soup.”  

Seven years ago as I was trying to recover from a horrific car accident, one of my aunt’s stayed the weekend with us to help take care of me.  While there, she made this soup.  I don’t know where she got the recipe, but it is delicious.  Best of all, it is easy to make.

Aunt Do’s Taco Soup 

2 pounds of chicken breasts
2 cans each of: 
ranch style beans
kidney beans
black beans
great northern beans
corn
stewed tomatoes
package of taco seasoning
package of ranch dip
grated cheese, sliced avocadoes, and/or sour cream to garnish

Stew the chicken breasts in 12 cups of water until cooked.  I add celery, onions, garlic cloves, and carrots to the chicken to make a more flavorful broth.  Then using my hand-held blender, I puree the vegetables.

Add the stewed tomatoes and ranch style beans.  Drain the corn and other beans first and then add to the pot.  Stir in the packets of flavorings.  Simmer until hot.  Serve with grated cheese, sliced avocadoes, and/or sour cream. 

If you don’t have time to stew the chicken, then use canned chicken broth and already cooked chicken.  I do not use the ranch dip packet as it has milk.  Since the yummy goodness of the soup is not noticeably changed, I do not even try to substitute for it. 

Also if you don’t like to use packaged taco seasoning, use my recipe for it.  In an article I wrote for Welcome to the Ranch, “Homemade Taco Seasoning,” I not only gives you a great recipe, but also additional ideas for using it. 

Cornbread, biscuits, or grilled cheese sandwiches are great sides for this delicious and hearty soup.  My cookbook, the Texas Homesteader Wheat-Free Cookbook, has gluten-free recipes for both the cornbread and the biscuits. 

Keep warm and dry this winter.  Enjoy this taco soup recipe.

Last year I posted a pumpkin puree recipe that I use often in the article, “Pumpkins.”  It is a simple recipe to follow, which is what drew me to it.  Sometimes the puree is too watery, especially compared to the store-bought canned pumpkin.  It is no big deal; I just have to adjust the amount of liquid in my recipes.

Another more popular way to make homemade pumpkin puree is to roast the pumpkin.  It gives the puree a slightly different flavor and color.  Choosing a smaller pumpkin is easier to handle.  When I have used larger pumpkins like the one in the photo, I have not noticed a difference in texture or flavor.  There is just a lot more pumpkin.

Remove the stem and cut the pumpkin into large chunks.  Clean out the innards.  You can save the seeds to dry and roast later, throw them out to your chickens, or throw them away.  Place the cleaned chunks on a baking sheet.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Allow the pumpkin to cook for about 45 minutes until the flesh of the vegetable is tender.  Allow them to cool down.  You have to peel the skin off and you don’t want burned fingers.  The peel is usually very easy to remove at this point.  Dispose of the skin.

In a food processor, puree the roasted pumpkin.  Place in a cheesecloth and allow the liquid to drain if you think the puree is too watery.

At this point, use the fresh puree or freeze it.  I freeze mine in 2 cup amounts since that is what most recipes call for.  If you know that you are making pumpkin pie, you can go ahead and add the spices to your puree.   This helps save you time later in the midst of making 15 different pies during the holidays.

I add: 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ginger, and 1/8 tsp of cloves (all ground of course) to2 cups of puree.  Make sure you label your puree, “Pumpkin Pie Filling.”  Then you will just have to add the sugar, eggs, and milk to make the pie later.

Regardless which recipe you use to make homemade pumpkin puree, both will make delicious goodies.  I always feel great knowing that I made it from scratch.  I find it rewarding.

Honeyville Almond Flour

Whether you eat gluten-free, avoid carbohydrates on a high protein diet, or are simply an adventurous cook, I bet that you have cooked with almond flour.  The recipes in my cookbook, Texas Homesteader Wheat-Free Cookbook, depend on almond flour.  But as I found out while experimenting for my cookbook, not all almond flours are created equal.

On the gluten-free aisle in your grocery store, you are inundated with different flours.  From garbanzo beans to potato starch, the choices can make your head spin, especially if you were only familiar with refined white flour and whole wheat flour before.

Almond flour is high in protein, low in carbohydrates, and high in fiber.  Almonds are also high in copper, iron, and vitamins.  To read more about the health benefits of almonds, click here.

Some companies use the term almond flour and almond meal interchangeably, but there is a difference.  Almond flour is made from grinding blanched almonds without their skins while almond meal is made from grinding the whole sweet almond.  The consistency is the difference.  Almond flour is more like flour while almond meal is more like corn meal.  If you bake much, you know that consistency and texture matters.

In my baking and in my gluten-free recipes, I use almond flour.  I do a lot of baking; therefore, I order it in bulk.  In fact I order as much as I can afford.  The more you order, the cheaper it costs you per pound.  Almond flour keeps well in the freezer so you can order more than you can use at the moment.

Honeyville Grain is the best almond flour available in my opinion.  It is a consistent product and yields absolutely delicious baked goods.  On the Resources and Links page in my cookbook, I write, “(Honeyville Grain) is a great source of high-quality blanched almond flour in bulk for a fraction of the cost in the grocery stores.”

If you sign up for the emails, they will send you a 10% discount code for your next order.  Regardless of how much blanched almond flour you purchase, the shipping is only $4.49.  If you want to try incorporating almond flour into your diet, order from Honeyville Grain.  You won’t be disappointed by the quality of their product.

The garden was the hardest to get back under control.  The tomatoes have gone crazy.  The squash died.  The peppers were producing in force.  Our potatoes needed to be pulled up.  Weeds were also growing like mad.

Usually I find harvesting to be the most rewarding part of gardening.  Literally  eating the fruits of your labor gives you a sense of accomplishment.  But, sometimes you harvest so much that the quantity of vegetables is overwhelming.

You don’t want to waste your produce.  You have worked too hard for that.  You give away what you can, but most of it you want to put up for the rest of the year.  I love to make things with my vegetables or can or freeze them so that I can enjoy them year round.

First, I made pickles.  I made dill and bread and butter pickles both in spears and in slices.  My son ,Jake, and I put up 12 quarts of pickles.  That will be one quart of pickles a month for the rest of the year.  I don’t know about your family, but that sounds about right for us.

Then, I made salsa with my fresh tomatoes, jalapenos, and green peppers.  I added onion and cilantro from the store.  One of the perks of making your own foods is that you get to customize your goods.  The salsa recipe that I was following was making chunky salsa.  My husband prefers the restaurant-style salsa that is very liquid.  He dislikes chunks of tomatoes.  So, after the salsa had cooked together the correct amount of time.  I took my hand-held blender to the mixture in order to make my salsa the correct consistency for my husband.

Lane is very pleased with the salsa.  Actually he is impressed that it tastes so good and that most of the ingredients came from our farm.  When he tried it out for the first time with tortilla chips, he said, “Move over La Casita!”  I could not have been more pleased since La Casita is an awesome Tex-Mex restaurant in Navasota.

I canned 6 quarts of crushed tomatoes, which I use throughout the year making sauces, adding to soups, or putting in chili.  Tomatoes had always intimidated me with the additional step of peeling, but I did it and realized that tomatoes are not so hard to can.

Plums are ripe, too.  We have been eating so many I was surprised when I still had enough to give away and make 12 pints of plum jam.  I cannot wait to tell you  how I did it later this week.  It tastes out of this world.  I am so excited.

Today is my daughter’s 11th birthday.  I have to make her a gluten-free chocolate cake.  I am happy to be back to writing.  I hope that you are too.  Wednesday I will write about plum jam and on Friday I will let you know how my children did at the fair.

To everyone who ordered my Texas Homesteader Wheat-Free Cookbook during the sale, I want to sincerely thank you.  Thank you for not only supporting my book, but for supporting me.

To receive the coupon for the discount, email me at lndehaven@aol.com and I will send you the e-coupon. It is only good if you order through Lulu, the publishing company.

I want to send a special “Thank you” to my past customers.  I really appreciate the business.  And to any future customers, allow me to say, “Thank you,” in advance.

The Texas Homesteader Wheat-Free Cookbook is also available on Amazon.  The coupon is not for any purchases at amazon.com; however, you can leave a review of my book, if you are so inclined.

I wanted to let everyone know about the 10% discount.  I hope everything is going well.  I will return to writing soon.  The Grimes County Fair is almost over.  It sure has been a long week!