Strawberry Pie - Gluten, Egg and Dairy Free (and Good!)

I found this recipe this week and decided to try it. On our way home from grocery shopping we passed a strawberry stand and bought a couple pints. We got home and I washed them and ate a couple and put the kids back in the car and drove back for a half flat! They are soooo good! Oregon strawberries must love the rain because these are some of the best I have tasted!
Anyway, on to the pie. I will give you the recipe as I found it and then note my changes:

Strawberry Pie

Crust:
3/4 cup pecans or walnuts, crushed
1/4 cup dried, unsweetened shredded coconut

Filling:
2 cups fresh strawberries
1 cup raw cashews
2 Tbsp vanilla extract (no, that is not a typo)
1/2 cup raw honey
1 pinch salt
1 cup coconut oil, melted

Grind crust ingredients in food processor and press into the bottom of a 9 inch pie pan building up the sides slightly.
Place all filling ingredients in blender and blend until smooth and creamy. Carefully pour on top of crust and refrigerate 3 hours.

Serve and enjoy!

This pie really was very good. I used walnuts in the crust because that is what I had and I am not a big walnut fan. Next time I make it I will use pecans. The crust tasted bitter to me.

I did not have honey so I used agave nectar (I am trying to get away from agave but have a couple of bottles left so used it in this) I used the expeller pressed coconut oil as it does not have the coconut taste. I am not sure what the creator of this pie intended but I used the one that did not taste like coconut. I buy my coconut oil from here. This is also where this recipe came from.
I need to do some more investigating on this site as it looks like a lot of good recipes!

So, my take on this pie is it is really good and worth the little time and effort to make it! It is also one that everyone at our house can eat! Yeah!

Menu Planning

I used to be pretty good about menu planning - (when I had only one little girl who took long naps and went to bed really early) but since my life has gotten busier and our eating has changed so much I have fallen out of the habit. I need to menu plan - I know it would make my life less stressful and I would not be sitting here at 5pm wondering what in the world I am going to fix for dinner (I usually manage to come up with something but it is stressful)
I like paper and fun things so when I saw this tonight I had to print them out and hopefully they will help me begin to get back on track - check out these fun summer menu planners and grocery lists and print some for yourself or give them to a friend - they're free!

I found a recipe for a no bake, gluten free, egg free and dairy free strawberry pie. I am going to get the ingredients this weekend and try it and if it turns out I will share the recipe :-)

Pizza - Gluten Free and Low Carb (but not egg and dairy free)

On this journey of reinventing my eating I love that I have friends and family who look out for recipes I may like to try. This is one such recipe that a friend saw posted by another friend and passed on to me. I made it for dinner tonight and everyone liked it. Troy was not home when I was making it and I pulled it out of the oven and served it to him hot - he could not tell what the crust was made from. It really was quite tasty. I will give you the recipe as is and then talk about what I did differently to accomodate my eating.

This would be a great recipe to try if you are looking for a low carb way to enjoy your favorite pizza toppings even if you don't need to eat gluten free.

I don't really have a name for it - but here is the recipe

1 cup of grated, raw cauliflower
2 egg whites (or 1/8 cup of egg beaters)
1/2 cup grated cheese (mexican blend or whatever you like)
dash of italian seasoning

Mix together and pat flat on parchment paper

Bake in 425 degree oven for about 20-25 minutes until edges are brown

remove from oven and put on sauce and any toppings you like. Return to oven and bake until cheese is melted

Eat and enjoy!

For my pizza I used my EngerG egg replacement. It did not hold together quite as well as the egg ones but it was still good. I am finding more things that I can sub for eggs so I may try it again with something different.

It is a good recipe but honestly one that I will probably not make too often because of the amount of cheese it uses and trying to go dairy free with the kids.

In all the changes you have to decide what things you want to substitute and what you want to just do without. Cheese is one thing that I am trying to decide about - I am not really excited about to many of the cheese "substitutes" so so far have just gone pretty much cheese free with the kids.
However, it does make me think of the different ways I can continue to find to use cauliflower. I am finding it is very versatile!