Another Fantastic Recipe: Stewed Chicken with Zucchini, Mushrooms, and Tomatoes

We tried this recipe a couple weeks ago and loved it!  It is appropriate for Stage 2 and beyond - we just used gently boiled chicken on top of the vegetables instead of how it is directed in the recipe.  Once roasted/grilled meats are allowed (Stage 4), you could easily cook it how the recipe intends or put roasted chicken on top.

I have my modifications (sometimes just because it is what I did/did not have available at home) in red.  Enjoy!  This is so good, and it is a great meal for GAPSters and non-GAPSters alike!  And it is a fast and easy recipe, especially if you have the veggies already chopped.  All my notes make the recipe look much longer than it actually is!


Recipe from Garden of Eating (the book)

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, cut into thick crescents
2 heaping cups button, cremini, or fresh shiitake mushrooms, rinsed and quartered, stems removed (I didn't have mushrooms either time but I bet it would be soooo good with them!)
4 cups zucchini, cut into 2x2 inch chunks (I usually use zucchini and yellow summer squash just because I have both that need to be used....and sometimes I use much smaller pieces to cook faster and also so I don't have to cut them up even more at the table for our boys)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (I use coconut oil and ghee, about half and half, or all ghee)
4 lbs bone-in chicken parts, skinned OR 2 lbs boneless, skinless thigh or breast fillets (since on intro, I just cook all the vegetables and then put boiled chicken pieces on top, like in the picture above)
1 bay leaf
3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1/2 c sun dried tomatoes halves, quartered  (I don't have these, and since on intro, I just used halved grape tomatoes that I had at home - 1 of the packages from the store)
1 cup filtered water, homemade stock, or homemade bone broth (sometimes I use a little bit more but not enough to make it like a soup)
2 tsp dried herbs de provence OR italian herb blend
1/2 tsp group red OR black pepper OR 1/2 tsp lemon pepper
1/2 to 1 tsp unrefined sea salt OR 1 to 2 tbsp tamari soy sauce, optional
1/2 c minced fresh parsley for garnish (just like in the carrot soup recipe, I never do this haha)
lemon pepper (also haven't used this on top, but I bet I could try squeezing some lemon juice on top and some extra pepper!)

Directions:
1) Chop vegetables. Rinse chicken, pat dry, and set aside
2) Heat oil in heavy 3 to 4 quart Dutch oven or stew pot over med-high heat. Lightly brown chicken in 2 batches and remove to bowl.  (Obviously, I just start with step 3 since I am using boiled chicken)
3) Saute onion in same pan, stirring often until tender, about 5-7 minutes. Add bay leaf, garlic, sun-dried tomato halves, liquid, herbs, pepper, sea salt, chicken and any juices that have accumulated in the bowl. Turn to coat, cover, and bring to a boil.
4) Reduce heat so liquid just simmers. Cook for 20 minutes, turning chicken once or twice. Add Zucchini. Cover and cook 15-20 minutes more, until chicken is firm and juices run clear when pierced with a sharp knife.
5) Garnish with parsley and pepper and serve,

Variations:
replace sun dried tomatoes with 1 1/4 lbs halved, seeded, and sliced fresh tomatoes
(this is from the actual recipe in the book...I don't take the time to de-seed...)

This really is so good!  Any family would enjoy it!   

A MUST make recipe no matter how you eat!

Carrot soup.

Doesn't sound that amazing, does it?

I mean, who would think some carrots boiled in some chicken broth and pureed could be one of the best soups ever?

Not me.

But now we know.

We all LOVE this soup.  I think I could eat this every day.  But I'm not going to because I don't want to risk getting tired of it.  For now I will do 1-2 times a week (which means a couple days 1-2 times a week if we only have a mug with a meal as a serving versus eating a huge bowl of it).

Seriously.  And where has coriander been all my life?  I never knew the wonders of this spice, but since I now know (correct me if I am wrong) that it is the seed of the cilantro plant, I know that this is one of my favorite plants ever.

So you MUST make this.  My boys will drink a lot of it - cold, warm, in between.

Really.  You MUST make it.  Even if you eat nothing like what we eat, and even if you aren't on a diet that 'makes' you eat soup.  This soup is amazing.  Okay, I'll share it now.  I'll stop being a crazy soup loving rambler.


CARROT SOUP AMAZING!!

I am including the recipe here with my notes because I almost never follow things completely...

Ingredients

1 Tbsp. olive oil (I used coconut oil)
1 Tbsp. butter (or ghee)
1 1/2 large onions, chopped (I used 2 medium)
2 lbs carrots, peeled and chopped
1 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and minced (I peel ginger and freeze it in a bag, then just grab a piece and grate it frozen - so easy and I don't have to mince, which makes me happy)
2 quarts (or more) homemade chicken broth
2 tsp. ground coriander (praise God for making this plant...)
Salt to taste (for us, that means lots...CELTIC rules!)
Pepper to taste
Chopped cilantro or parsley for garnish (I actually haven't used this when I've made it because I'm lazy busy and we haven't missed it)

Method

Sautee the onions, ginger and carrots in the fat until onions are translucent. Add coriander, salt and pepper. Stir for about a minute. Add chicken broth and cook until vegetables are very soft. Puree. Add more liquid, if necessary. This is good with coconut milk too, but I don't have any that's suitable on hand at the moment.

You can leave out the coriander for the intro diet, if you are avoiding spices. You can also substitute the fat without worrying.

Preparation Day - a Must for GAPS or even just a busy life!

Taking a couple hours once or twice a week (depending on how much you cook and your family size) to do a lot of vegetable and meat prep work makes world of difference in getting nourishing meals prepared and on the table without making you go crazy!  With the ages that our boys are at, getting this kind of work done is really not possible while they are awake.  And overlapping naptime, at best, is less than 1.5 hours.  So, theoretically, I could take 2 naptimes per week and get TONS done.  But I highly recommend doing this 1 or 2 nights a week after kiddos are in bed. 

Last night, hubby took care of baths/getting ready for bed/putting kiddos down so I was able to clean our kitchen!  That way I could start my prep time with a completely clean work area, which makes all the difference.  So here's what went on...

Here's our box of vegetables from the farmer's market this past weekend (and we've already used some zucchini, squash, and onions).  There is a whole layer of onions underneath the zucchini and yellow squash.  Sorry I didn't turn the picture right side up ;-). 

 And some squashes, carrots, and cauliflower...

 Sweet hubby de-boning 2 small soup chickens and 4 hindquarters that I had gently boiled in the afternoon.  Isn't he so sweet to do this?! 

 My process was (I forgot to count everything):
- Got Butternut squash (3) and Spaghetti Squash (1) in the oven
- Chopped Zucchini (5ish?) and Yellow Squash (7ish? - they were small)
- Chopped Onions (10ish?)
- Washed and separate 2 Cauliflower heads (don't use stalks)
- Peeled and washed 5 lbs of carrots
- With my beloved food processor, sliced most of the carrots for soups and grated all the cauliflower for 'rice' to either eat as a 'rice' dish or to put in soup.  

I ended up with:
all this!
Things are in bags and glass bowls for easy meal preparation!

From left to right (approx)...All the Chicken (thanks, hubs!), 2 Quart bags of carrots, 5 cups of sliced carrots (in bowls with white lids), 4 half full quart bags of Shredded cauliflower, 1 STUFFED quart bag of sliced onions, 5 cups of chopped onions (bowls with white lids), large bowls of chopped zucchini and yellow squash, and then in the front, 2 large containers of butternut squash and 1 of spaghetti squash!

 And all that took less than 2 hours...and I still have all this left to use next week!

This is SO worth a couple hours - on the weekend, a night, a naptime (or naptime + movie time ;-) )...

This takes such a weight off my shoulders and allows me to simply 'throw' together a great big batch of soup.  It is such a relief to not have to do all this all throughout the week.  I highly recommend doing something like this no matter what your eating style! 

A Busy Week - Birthday Cakes!!

This past week has been crazier than normal - preparing for our 3 yr old's birthday party and hubby had a lot going on this week.  So at some point I decided to take a break from posting our everyday diet (and also, we were eating pretty much the same eggs, veggies, pancakes, soup every day so I didn't think I was leaving much out).  Although I do have exciting cake and icing recipes to share (none my own, as most things aren't! I just find other people's good ideas!).  I am fairly confident that they are all completely full GAPS friendly. 

I tested all of these out on family and friends and everyone seemed to like them a lot (of course, they could just be being nice).  I actually LOVED all of them. 

Note: we have noticed the effect of eating these cakes (um, we might have eaten more than we should...) on our tiredness levels and digestion and bloating.  TMI right?  :-)  Oh, and we ate barbequed meat (avoided black parts) and salad with berries, parmesan, and homemade full GAPS legal salad dressing.  And some raw cheese.  And some raw milk.  Had to confess...

So, go to the "GAPS Recipes" tab at the top and look under the dessert section for these:
Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing (so good!  I especially loved it cold.)
Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Ganache Icing (this icing is rich and SO good - I don't think you can taste the coconut oil and I loved it, especially cold as well!  It made the cake heavy and dense, which I love.  But having it room temperature is good, too - the cake is very fluffy!)
Banana Bread (I sent this to sweet husband's work and everyone raved about this.  We love this with lots of butter!  And some honey drizzled on it would be amazing, too!)

Enjoy and we'll be back this week with GAPS updates and new posts!  Although it might be slow because we are preparing for a wedding this next weekend and have a lot to do to prepare food to take with us! 

GAPS journey: Day 10 & 11 Intro

Stage: we are in stage 3! This makes a huge difference because we can make a meal or two out of something that is not a soup.  Although we still love the soups, and I find myself craving those above other things now.  Crazy cool.

What we ate: 
Day 10:

• Scrambled Eggs (in ghee) (1-2 each, increasing from just 1 per person the 2 days before) with zuchinni and squash boiled in salted chicken broth (veggies scooped out and eating with eggs, broth in mugs to drink).  Salt and Pepper to taste.
• Spaghetti Soup (at bottom of that post), and everyone else tried some of our first batch of 24 hour fermented homemade raw milk yogurt (instructions below).  I forgot to try some.  Tomorrow!
• Butternut squash and Peeled/diced/boiled apple as snacks (at different times of the day)
• Hamburger Soup (seriously, we eat this a lot and it really isn't getting old!)
• CHEAT (or failure...) ALERT!  Little man's 3rd birthday party is coming up this weekend, and we are compromising on our introduction phases for his party day.  We are experimenting with completely GAPS legal cakes, so we aren't falling off GAPS, just falling off intro in the moment.  Trying this one (LOVE THIS WEBSITE!!) and this one (must make modifications like honey instead of agave and coconut oil instead of whatever she lists and not using the icing recipe).  I must admit I ate more than 'tastes' of these...
• Chamomile tea before bed

Day 11:

• exact same breakfast as Day 10 above.  I don't care, we're all enjoying it! 
• Leftover spaghetti soup with 1-2 tsp SK
• ginger lemon tea with honey (this always wakes me up post-lunch/putting boys down for naps)
• Boys and I snacked on butternut squash with coconut oil and a drizzle of honey and some cooked apples with about 1 tbsp of our yogurt.  
• Round steak that was cooked all day in the crock pot just covered with water and 1 tsp salt.  That was cooked a couple days ago.  Today I cooked about 4-5 onions (medium-small) (i halved and kind of thinly sliced them) in coconut oil and ghee (sauteed for a few minutes, then covered and cooked for about 20 minutes, stirring every now and then).  Then I added some of the round steak and broke it up (it falls apart after being in the crock pot all day) and mixed it all together.  So basically, steak and onions.  We all LOVED it.  Also ate a simple broccoli soup.  Just put some frozen organic broccoli florets in a pot and put chicken broth in there, boiled and salted!  We all love that, too.  
• Confession: more of the carrot cake and cupcakes I made yesterday to see how they are the day after to see if I can make them the day before for little man's birthday.  

How we Felt: 
We are feeling SO good!  We have both noticed our boys' digestion improving!  Little man's behavior has drastically improved over the past week.  Hubs and I were talking about it last night and how he is being so much better with baby brother and is responding to correction and our talks so much better.  I know that anything good that comes out of us, including him, is the work of the Lord.  So I praise God for work He is doing in our little guy...who's not so little these days.  Anyway, it is very encouraging, and I don't know if it is simply his age and behavior changing or if the diet has anything to do with it, but it has corresponded so strongly with GAPS that we can't excuse it simply as his age.  It is God working in him, in his heart and also in his mind through this diet.  In the mind area, we are both thinking much more clearly, not getting tired as easily, feeling more motivated and able to think about and tackle all that needs to be done (not to say I don't have many moments still where I feel overwhelmed by all we have going on right now, even just outside of GAPS).  

The big point is this: we are feeling so much better physically and especially mentally, it seems completely silly to go back to eating some of the things we used to eat that, even though in the moment were enjoyable, wreaked havoc on our bodies and minds.  It is very easy to look back and see how much damage those foods did to us - not only in tiredness, weight gain or lack of loss, and harming our bodies for disease in the future, but also how much it was doing to us mentally.  And this is less than 2 weeks in.  I can't wait to see what we are like months from now!  

And if anyone is really worried about having dinner with us or eating out with us ever again, it will happen!  I promise :-).  


Recipes: 
Yogurt!  I simply bought some whole milk plain Stonyfield yogurt and used about 1 Tbsp of it per cup of milk.  Mix them together gently in a jar (I wouldn't do larger than a quart) and put a lid on it.  We put ours in our dehydrator set at 95*-ish for 24 hours.  I think you can do temperatures around 100 or 105, but I read that 95* (i think) is what Dr. NCM (author of GAPS) says you should do.  It turned out runnier than store bought (I have read that raw milk yogurt will always be much more runny), but the boys all enjoyed it! 

GAPS journey: Day 3 & 4 Intro

(Yes, this is a week late!  I am going to combine our first week days to catch up!)

Day 3...ah, that was a Monday, but it actually went pretty well! Praise God! However, I was going back and forth between thinking 'I am crazy, absolutely crazy, for trying something like this...why are we doing this?!' and feeling so motivated and committed. 

Sweet hubby is helping me stay focused on not giving into my severe Starbucks longings.  I am crazy, but I think about it so often!  I think on day 3 we were still feeling cravings and wanting to eat other stuff, but at least for me, the cravings were a little bit less (just a little!). Now on to the details:


We decided to move into Stage 2 (yep, only on day 3!).  We kind of felt like we were going to go crazy and the boys needed more than I could get in them with just the soup (probably because I just didn't have enough on hand, but that's a preparation mistake).  So we decided to go ahead and do 1 raw egg yolk per person for this day.  Raw egg yolk is healing to the gut and is so packed with wonderful nutrition.  Make sure you get eggs from a great source...pastured (truly out on pasture, eating bugs and grass, playing in sunshine, getting exercise) and also make sure that they are not fed chicken feed that is made with GMO items like corn and soy.  Just ask the farmer!  We get ours at the best farm ever.

What we ate:
Day 3:

•  Leftover blended zucchini/squash soup with raw EGG YOLK!  
• Eggplant soup with some salted boiled chicken
• What I called "Spaghetti Soup" (recipe at bottom) so as to entice little mister 3 yr old to eat it when he was kind of getting tired of hearing 'come eat your soup' AGAIN. 
• The boys downed a ton of cold (I can't handle eating soups cold but they both LOVED this cold) butternut squash soup (recipe at bottom) for an afternoon snack.  They had tried it a few days before warm, and neither of them cared for it too much, although they both love butternut squash.  So, either their taste buds were already changing, they were desperately hungry, or they liked it better cold.  No matter what, I was excited!

Day 4:

• Leftover squash soup and eggplant soup with raw egg yolk and some chicken
• the beloved Hamburger Soup 
• This Chicken Cauliflower Cilantro Soup (we added some diced red bell pepper we had on hand as well)
• I made the carrot mousse cake from GAPS guide.  We all enjoyed this a lot (maybe because I used about 5 tbsp of honey?!) and it was a lifesaver that day for us all about to go crazy.  I know the coconut wasn't intro legal, but it really helped us get over a big hill in this stage. 

How we felt:
We were feeling well - nourished with the food, handling eating soups for every meal better than we had imagined.  The boys were handling it well, too!  I was still thinking about coffee a LOT and how much I would thoroughly enjoy a good mocha or iced caramel machiatto...We still were feeling some die-off and who knows what the boys were feeling!  I think overall we started to feel a little better about this whole thing once we got to add egg yolks in to the soup.  We have all handled the egg yolk well - it's been very nice knowing the boys (and us, too) are getting the nutrition of the egg yolks.  At this point, I was still feeling kind of off and on about this whole thing, but I was still very committed to it.  

Recipes:  
Spaghetti soup Recipe:  saute 1 chopped onion and brown 1 lb ground beef in fat and enough chicken broth to make moist.  Add remaining 1 quart of chicken broth and about 3/4-1 cup of pureed/strained tomatoes (in glass jars at many stores), bring to a boil.  Add 1/2 of a spaghetti squash (or you could do the whole thing if you want) that has been baked in the oven and shredded out.  Simmer until squash is desired tenderness, add 1-2 chopped zucchini and simmer until cooked.  I added salt, basil, oregano, thyme, and parsley and finished it off with a few cloves of chopped garlic.  We all really enjoy this!  I think it would be great with just salt if you want to avoid herbs at this stage of intro, or you could just do 1 herb to simplify it.  


  Butternut Squash soup Recipe:  I can't remember where I found this recipe and what I omitted to make it suitable for intro, so here's what I did.  1/2 c onion, 3/4 c carrot, diced and cooked in coconut oil.  Add 3 c chicken stock, about 1 small/medium or 1/2 large butternut squash (I slice mine in half, scoop out seeds, bake cut side down in a 9x13 dish with 1 inch of water for about 45 min+, depending on size, then just scoop out the squash into the soup pot!), and salt and pepper to taste.  Then just puree it - either in blender in batches or I used my stick blender (but I put mine in a mixing bowl to puree because my stick blender will scratch my enameled pots).  It was pretty good, and the littles LOVED it. 

GAPS journey: Day 9 Intro

I am jumping to Day 9 because I need to get caught up somehow!  I WILL go back and detail all the other days - I have notes for them, but just have to make posts.  I want to reflect on our first week because I can already look back and see how far we have come in just 1 short week!  And we survived it!  We didn't starve, we actually had a good week, and we saw benefits pretty quickly!  Wow, that's a lot of "!"s.  Sorry.  I am just excited we are eating eggs and almond butter now.  :-)

So here we go, jumping ahead almost a week to get caught up.  We are currently in Stage 3!!  This makes things SO much easier! We are taking it very slow in this stage, though - especially for our little 1 yr old.  But seriously, getting into using cooked eggs makes things so much easier - in cooking and in getting little ones (um...and us big ones) to eat things!  And some almond butter doesn't hurt, either :-).

Little man was so happy to eat a pancake!  

What we ate: 

- 1 zucchini and 1 yellow squash diced and boiled in chicken broth, then scooped them out of the broth and onto plates, and we added salt and pepper.  Ate those with scrambled eggs (!!!) (1 egg each) cooked in probably 1-2 Tbsp ghee (I use Pure Indian Foods).   Then the remaining chicken broth was divided into mugs for each person to drink (little ones drank 1/2 cup each!).  This was surprisingly very very good!

Hubby and I both felt like eating the vegetables with the scrambled eggs made it SO much easier to eat them (I believe we were both developing an intolerance, especially my man, before we started GAPS, so sometimes it is hard even just bring myself to eat them).  I know that drinking broth and eating the vegetables with the eggs is very important in our healing and being able to eat them. 

- Pancakes!  Yay, this always makes eating fun and not a battle at all with the littles.  I followed this recipe and we all love it.  I first made a couple with just squash, egg, and cinnamon for the really little one since we aren't giving him nuts yet.  We usually eat them plain at this point or a little honey drizzled on top.

- Hamburger Soup with egg yolk and 1 tsp sauerkraut.  We just love this soup.  Everyone.  Everyone eats it happily and we give the littles straws to drink the broth down - they both just chug the egg yolk-y broth down and then eat the rest happily.  Ah, when everyone's happy and eats easily, that makes life so much more peaceful!

- Diced Cooked Apples: peel and dice organic apple, boil in a small amount of water until soft.  I usually sprinkle cinnamon on them for fun, but the boys love them plain, too.  It's not super filling, but it's a good treat to have for the boys after naps to make them happy and not have to utter the words "if you're hungry you can have more soup..."! I've also been cheating a little (um sad) with little man because he's been so hungry and I had bought some 4oz cups of stonyfield plain whole milk yogurt to use as starter to make our raw milk 24 hr cultured yogurt...so I have caved for about 5 days in a row now and given him between 2-4 oz.  But we just made our first batch of 24 hr raw milk yogurt, so now more store-bought for him! :-)

- Chicken Cilantro Soup with egg yolk and 1 tsp sauerkraut (yes, we are doing actual SK now, not just the juice!).

         Recipe: 1 quart chicken bone broth, about 1-2 cups of sliced or diced carrots, 1 diced yellow onion.  Boil/simmer those until carrots are tender, add 2-3 diced yellow summer squash, 1 bunch of chopped cilantro (I use scissors to cut it right into the pot) and simmer until squash is done.  Then add your desired amount of already boiled, diced chicken.  We used leftovers from a boiled chicken that had already been a meal for all 4 of us and a meal for the littles.  Salt to taste and enjoy!  Cilantro is so good and we are so happy to have some fresh herbs now!

- Hubby and I had some hard boiled eggs to snack on.  We also had some chamomile tea before bed.  

- I guess I can't lie: I had some of the carrot mousse cake that is found in the GAPS guide book.  It is also on her website (a great resource!  The book is SO valuable, too!).  Scroll down a bit and you'll see 'carrot mousse cake' with the recipe.  I used about 1/4 c honey and I left out the coconut this time, and it's still enjoyable and I know my boys will eat it.  I did like the coconut in it last time I tried it. 

How we are feeling:

This is my favorite part now!  What a difference a week makes!  Here's everything I can ALREADY see progress in (and we've been seeing this for days already).  

- We are MUCH less tired.  We talk about it all the time.  I don't think about coffee very often compared to what it was like just over a week ago! 

- We have more energy - physically and mentally.  Mental fog is dramatically lifted and keeps getting better every day!

- We definitely notice changes in, well, let's just say...digestion.  We feel like our bodies are getting cleaned out.  

- Bloating/stomach discomfort is lessening. 

- We both know for sure that we are thinking much more clearly, are doing our jobs better, and aren't feeling anxiety or stress as much.  

- Our cravings for sweets have diminished GREATLY.  HUGE.  We feel satisfied and don't have the same urge for dessert at night.  This is a huge change.  

- We don't have any blood sugar swings or crashes.  We don't get shaky, just hungry, if we haven't eaten in a while.  This makes it much easier to think clearly about food choices. 

- We have been noticing die-off symptoms all week, and that is so encouraging to me because it tells us that things are working and good things are happening inside us! 

- The little boys: little man (3) has been calmer, gentler with baby brother, and much better at obeying this week!  Now, how much of that is GAPS related and how much is just him being 3 and having a sinful nature has yet to be seen.  We'll see how the coming weeks go (and how he reacts to some compromises we are going to have to make in 2 weeks).  But truly, we have seen changes in his reaction to correction, his readiness to obey, his behavior towards others (not perfect by any means, but there was a lot less baby crying because of big brother this week!).  The bumps all over his arms seem to be getting better, too!  Little baby boy (1): his skin seems clearer to me, his stools have gone from a range of very loose/liquidy 6+ times in an afternoon (die-off I believe!) to 2-3 a day for the past few days and much better consistency.  I can't believe I talk about poop so easily now...should I be embarrassed? :-)

- This is HUGE and I think would be huge to most parents: my boys are already becoming 'better' eaters.  They definitely knew what soups and meat and veggies were prior to starting this, but in the first few days, little man would have to be worked on a lot to eat his soup.  Now he just accepts it and eats it really well for the most part.  He even gladly ate his squash and zucchini this morning with his egg.  He drinks broth much better, too.  Really, kids eating this kind of stuff gladly is such a blessed and it really is getting easier!   

It is so great to look back a week and see how much better we feel and know that this IS worth it and it is SO beneficial.  There is a lot that God is teaching us through this, and I will share more of that later. This post is too long anyway... :-)  God bless your week!

GAPS journey: Day 2 Intro

Day 2 was actually this past Sunday - I might be a little behind, but I think it's pretty good considering I feel like all I've been doing is cooking/prepping food, doing dishes, and going to different stores for different produce items.  Oh, and not to mention keeping up with our little boys and keeping them from hurting themselves or each other... :-) 

Here's a so wonderful picture of some of my stockpiled prepped vegetables and broth...(ignore the milk in the back, it was for some friends who needed to pick it up).  

So on to the fun!

What we ate:
- Hamburger Soup again (I suggest making at least a double batch one time and saving it for more meals!  Our boys and I don't seem to get tired of it!)
- Blended yellow summer squash/zucchini soup, boiled chicken with good amounts of salt (we use himalayan for grinding on our food at the table because celtic sea salt is so difficult to grind and clumps and takes forever to get a decent amount on our food).  I based the soup on the recipe I have linked, but adjusted it to fit intro.  I simply brought my stock to a boil, added the onions and simmered until those were soft.  Then I added the zucchini and squash and garlic, simmered until those vegetables were soft.  Then I used my immersion blender (cheap one from target, but it works great!) to blend it all together.  So I did leave out any non-intro friendly ingredients and just salted to taste. 
- I threw together a quick soup before church Sunday afternoon (we go to our church's evening service).  I just brought some of my chicken stock to a boil, dumped in a bag (1 lb) of frozen organic broccoli florets (I LOVE Costco) and then added chopped boiled chicken once the broccoli was cooked.  (And as if this isn't getting annoyingly repetitive, lots of celtic salt!)  We actually all LOVED this soup.  So yummy. 
- More of our 'juice' to get us through lulls and just because it is so yummy.  We originally got this 'tea' recipe from here when we were sick sometime this past winter. 
- The boys also had butternut squash (they'll eat that stuff all day long if we let them!) as a snack at church.  Little 3 yr old man also obeyed well and didn't eat crackers during snack time at church! 

How we felt:
Overall, I would say day 2 was better than day 1 by far.  I was still having a bad attitude about no coffee, but graciously, the Lord is teaching me a lot through this.  The boys did well, but little man wanted to eat at bedtime, so he just ate lots of broccoli. 

Sweet hubby man and I both noticed that we were much less tired during church than normal (it's from about 4-7, and usually we eat something totally not GAPS friendly in our bible study class and get very sleepy during church because of it!).  I thought that our tiredness was partly due to diet before GAPS and partly just the time of day and having little kids, but I really think food is so much a factor in this! 

After eating dinner, we both still wanted desserts, but we had some chamomile tea with a little honey (I don't know how much exactly is intro approved, but if someone says 'to taste', I take that literally, and I like honey taste...oh well...). 

That was day 2!  I spent much of the day when I could in the kitchen prepping veggies and making several soups, one of which we ate on day 3...and hopefully I'll catch up on my days soon! 

GAPS journey: Day 1 Intro

Since this is the very first blog post I am doing here, I should give some information about us, why we are doing GAPS, and how we got prepared for it.  BUT we have two little crazy boys and doing GAPS takes a lot of time and energy, plus I quit coffee (the reasons are multifaceted), so I am just doing an awkward jump right into chronicling how our GAPS journey goes.

I definitely plan on doing many posts about why we are doing this, the path God took us on to get here, how to get informed about it, and how to approach/prepare for starting GAPS.

But for now, here's my summary of our first day.  I will be including notes about what we ate and how we feel, along with what recipes we used and how I would do things differently (that classic 'I should have...').

Now on to the fun!

What we ate: 
- Butternut squash for little ones at breakfast then followed by Hamburger Soup (without tomato paste) mid-morning.
- Chicken Bone Broth Soup with tomatoes, cauliflower, carrots, onions, and of course, chicken!  And let's not forget lots of celtic sea salt!  This is when hubby kind of panicked and exclaimed 'will I ever get to eat lasagna again!!?!?!?!'. 
- Shredded Round steak (cooked in crock pot all day with enough water to cover and sea salt), spaghetti squash with chicken broth to moisten, boiled broccoli with varied pureed vegetable/chicken broth soups to drink along with the meal.  And let's just say it again, the beautiful celtic sea salt to taste!
- To drink in between meals, I make us 'juice' (gets the 3 yr old excited).  I don't know how completely stage 1 intro legal this is, but I grate about 1 inch of ginger (I peel and freeze it because it is so easy to grate frozen!) into a 4 c measuring cup, fill with just off boiling water, squeeze about half a lemon into it, let it sit for probably 30 minutes, strain and poor it into a mason jar, sweeten with just enough raw honey to make everyone happy (probably 1/4 cup?) store in the fridge.  Then we dilute it into cups to drink whenever we want, and sometimes I will heat some up on the stove to have some warm tea to drink. 

How we felt/behaved:
Well, I don't really know how everyone else felt or behaved because I was kind of a crazy woman Saturday.  I was NOT happy about giving up coffee (it's physical, mental, spiritual...it is hard for me!) and I was so very tired and all I wanted to do was complain and sleep.  So sweet husband took care of the boys, let me relax by myself some and I took a 2 hour nap.  Another note about me: I decided to get some DLPA to see if that would help me quit my insane addiction to coffee (see interesting posts about it here and here!).  So I took that in the morning, but only a small dose, so I didn't notice any benefit.  More about that on day 2.

Overall, hubby and I both kind of had bad attitudes about it even though we've been committed to doing this!  We both never really felt super hungry, just tired if we hadn't eaten in a while.  At the end of the day, we both just really wanted cookies and (me) coffee and chocolate and ice cream. :-)

The little ones handled it pretty well!  I could tell a big difference without them having milk to drink.  That makes keeping them full and happy a bit difficult!  But everyone slept well for naps and through the night, so I don't think they were super hungry or anything.  I  have lots of thoughts on how to help this process with wee little cute crazy boys, but I will share more about that later.

Thanks for joining us on this journey!  I can't wait to share more about everything I mentioned above along with what happens as we go through this!