AIP Bread Rolls from Cassava and Tapioca

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When I was a kid, my mom used to mock me every time I would try to cook something (or to do anything in the kitchen for that matter). That’s because she always said she wanted me to be much more than a housewife and she did her best in offering me the wings to aim high. So she would always make fun of me having two left hands when it came to cooking 🙂 But now look at how life turned all my priorities upside down, and forced me into cooking and experimenting in the kitchen, as a part of my AIP diet! Don’t tell anyone but I’m really proud of my new lifestyle and of my cooking skills today 😀

Today’s story is about a new AIP bread recipe:

So I made AIP bread rolls, this time using cassava flour and tapioca starch. They are a bit different than the previous AIP bread recipes I made, as cassava flour tends to give baking a bit of crunchiness compared to other types of flour. Anyway, I like a bit of crunchy, as it reminds me of toast that I sometimes miss 🙂

Here are the ingredients I used for the bread rolls:

• 130 g cassava flour
• 4 Tbsp tapioca starch – I used my favorite from Bob’s Red Mill:

• 2/3 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground Himalaya salt
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 2 and 1/2 Tbsp gelatin for making a gelatin egg
• 100 ml water
• 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 4 Tbsp olive oil, for brushing the rolls
• 1 Tbsp thyme, for sprinkling over the baked rolls

And here’s how I made my AIP bread rolls:

• I first preheated my oven at 200 C or 400 F.
• I mixed all the dry ingredients in a bowl until well combined (cassava flour and tapioca starch, garlic powder, salt and baking soda).

• I then started working on my gelatin egg: I put the water in a small saucepan and sprinkled all the gelatin over evenly, making sure it does not create any clumps! I let it sit for 5 minutes and then put the pan on medium heat for one more minute. I then started to stir slowly until I made sure it is all dissolved.

Bloomed gelatin before putting it on heat

• Once dissolved, I put the gelatin egg and the apple cider vinegar in the bowl with the dry ingredients and mixed them all together using a wooden spoon until dough was formed.
• I let the dough rest for 3 minutes and prepared for creating my rolls by dusting some tapioca flour on my hands to make sure the dough doesn’t stick.

• I then divided the dough into five separate pieces, trying to make them all as equal sized as possible. Don’t worry if the dough may crumble, just try to smooth their edges as even as possible using your fingers, for being able to put them in the pan as whole rolls. I flattened the rolls a bit (like in the photo) and placed them on the baking tray lined with a parchment paper, making sure there’s enough space left between them.

• Before putting them in the oven, I brushed them with olive oil until completely covered and baked them for 10 minutes. I then took them out and brushed them again with olive oil to make sure they turn to a golden color. I put them back in the oven and baked them again for another 10 minutes. Then I took them out and brushed them again with olive oil for the third time, sprinkled thyme over them and let them bake for another 2 minutes or until their crust turned to golden.

They turned out DELICIOUS! Their consistency is a bit different from the previous AIP breads I baked, as the cassava flour tends to make them a bit crunchy. So they reminded me more of toast than of regular bread 🙂

Anyway, I liked them so much that I used them for making tapas with prosciutto, which is one of my favorite AIP appetizers.

Enjoy!

Sauteed Veggies – AIP and Paleo

Tonight I didn’t feel like eating meat. Maybe because I overreacted with meat-ing in the past couple of weeks. So when I was thinking of eating something fresh and tasty at the same time, I had this idea of making a sauteed veggie dish.

So using my kitchen knife I cut:

• 8 medium mushrooms
• 1 leek
• 4 green onions

…and sprinkled garlic powder and salt over them. I then heated 2 Tbsp olive oil in a large frying pan.

I put all vegetables in the pan and sauteed them for 5-6 minutes on medium heat, or until the mushrooms soaked a bit. I added in a bit more Himalayan salt because I like my food a bit more salty than average taste.

I ate them as they are and really enjoyed the flavored taste super fast dinner!

Hope you’ll enjoy them too! 🙂

AIP Bread from Plantain Flour

I managed to obtain this nice AIP bread by using only 4 ingredients. I’m so proud of the recipe I could scream for joy! That’s because I needed a new bread replacement that I could use as basis for appetizers (I used to eat a lot of bread before, so I’m constantly researching and testing the AIP bread sector :).

Here are the ingredients I used:

1. 1 cup plantain flour
2. 1/2 cup filtered water
3. 5 Tbsp olive oil
4. pinch of salt

 

And here’s how I made the small breads:

1. I first mixed the dry ingredients in a medium bowl (flour and salt) and then poured in 3 Tbsp of the olive oil. I mixed everything well and added in the water bit by bit and mixed continuously, until I obtained a dough that is ready to mold.
2. I then formed small round shapes about the size of a nut, and used a parchment paper to flatten them in a shape that was as round as possible and the thickness of a straw (they need to be as thin as possible to make sure they cook well in the middle).
3. In a larger frying pan, I put in another Tbsp olive oil and let it heat for a bit. I placed in the round dough breads and let them cook for 3 minutes on each side.

They’re very tasty to serve while still hot (warm) or at least the same day you make them. I used them for making bruschetta with prosciutto crudo but you can top them up with just about anything AIP compliant (guacamole, bacon, liver paté, etc).

They took me a total 20 minutes to prep, including frying.

Note! I tried to save them for the next day but they hardened a bit and were not so tasty like when I had cooked them. I suggest you eat them the same day you cook them. 

Enjoy! 🙂

 

How to make Plantain Chips – AIP and Paleo

Plantains some of the few AIP compliant foods that can be turned into real snacks! Yeah, you saw it well, I wrote snacks! Plantain chips are made per a traditional African recipe (and South American), that combines the crunchy texture with a mildly salted flavor. Yum!

The difficult part for me in making plantain chips is that I didn’t actually find any plantains :))) – because no supermarket sells them in Romania. So I had to deal with what I had, and that is “barely green” bananas 🙂

But the result turned out great whatsoever!

Here’s how I made my “plantain” chips:

1. I used 5 green bananas and 8 Tbsp duck fat for frying
2. Peeled the green bananas and cut them into very thin slices (they need to be thin so that they cook well and don’t remain soft in the middle)
3. I placed all the plantain sliced in a bowl with enough water to cover them, in which I also added in 1 tsp Himalayan salt. I let them rest for 30 minutes in water
4. Heated 6 Tbsp duck fat in a larger pan on high heat and once the fat was very hot I turned the heat to medium-low. You need to make sure there’s enough fat in the pan to cover the plantains, as they will need to be deep fried
5. I placed the first batch of plantain chips from the water bowl on a paper towel to have the water removed a bit before frying (water in hot grease is pretty dangerous to be next to). I then placed them in the heated duck fat (after I turned the heat to medium-low, otherwise the fat would have sprinkled everywhere). Make sure there’s enough space between the chips, or else they’ll stick to each other, which we don’t want
6. I deep fried them for about 3 minutes on each side and them placed them from the pan to a paper towel to have the grease removed. You can get them out when they look crispy enough and their color becomes golden. Once taken out, sprinkle more salt over them while they’re still hot
7. I repeated the same steps with the next batches of plantains, adding in more duck fat as needed

You can also use any other vegetable oil for deep frying them, however I preferred duck fat in order to have them 100% AIP compliant (as olive oil is not normally used for deep frying). But if I think about it, you can also try frying them in coconut oil as well (which is also appropriate for deep frying).

The plantain chips are an AIP friendly snack that you can store for up to 2 days and enjoy a healthy crunchy snack anytime you need one. Aaaaand if you do find plantains instead of green bananas ( 🙂 ) it’s going to be even better!

P.S. The avocado oil in this post’s image was just used for the green salad that I combined the plantains with!

Enjoy!

Coconut Bread Rolls – AIP and Paleo

I missed bread during my AIP diet! Guilty as charged! Just wanted to remember the taste of baked flour in my mouth after almost 2 months of being on a strict AIP diet (in elimination phase).

So I put together some ingredients that gave me these delicious AIP bread rolls I’m very proud of!

Of course they’re gluten-free, egg-free and dairy free and they served me as a great side-dish for my delicious traditional Romanian “bucket meat”.

Here’s what I put in them (measurement unit in grams for flour and ml for liquid):

• 180 g tapioca flour
• 40 g coconut flour – I used my favorite from Swanson:

• 2/3 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground Himalaya salt
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 2 Tbsp gelatin for making a gelatin egg
• 80 ml water
• 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 4 Tbsp olive oil, for brushing the rolls
• 1 Tbsp thyme, for sprinkling over the baked rolls

Here’s how I made my rolls:

• I first preheated my oven at 200 C or 400 F.
• I mixed all the dry ingredients in a bowl until well combined (tapioca and coconut flour, garlic powder, salt and baking soda).

Dry ingredients before mixing

• I then started working on my gelatin egg: I put the water in a small saucepan and sprinkled the gelatin over evenly, making sure it does not create any clumps! I let it sit for 5 minutes and then put the pan on medium heat for one more minute. I then started to stir slowly until I made sure it is all dissolved.
• Once dissolved, I put the gelatin egg and the apple cider vinegar in the bowl with the dry ingredients and mixed them using a wooden spoon until dough was formed.
• I let the dough rest for 5 minutes and prepared for creating my rolls by dusting some tapioca flour on my hands to make sure the dough doesn’t stick.

Dough ready for shaping

• I then divided the dough into eight separate pieces, trying to make them all as equal sized as possible. I then modeled the pieces as rolls and placed them on the baking tray lined with a parchment paper, making sure there’s enough space between them.
• Before putting them in the oven, I brushed them with olive oil until completely covered and baked them for 12 minutes. I then took them out and brushed them again with olive oil to make sure they turn to a golden color. I put them back in the oven and baked them again for another 12 minutes. Then I took them out and brushed them again with olive oil for the third time and let them bake for another 2-3 minutes or until their crust turned to golden.
• After the last round of baking I took them out of the oven and sprinkled thyme on all the rolls.

They turned out delicious!