Apple-Pear Spice Muffins

This time of year it is impossible not to want to enjoy those warm, nostalgic fall foods like apple pies, muffins, chicken and dumplings! But what are you to do if you're now eating grain-free? You can call it a fad-diet if you want to (and many do), but what anyone who has suffered themselves to go grain-free knows is that it is worth it, and while it may in fact be the current fad, for those of us who are serious about our health, we'll likely be avoiding grains to varying degrees for the rest of our lives!

But. As healthy as I believe going grain-free is I still want those comfort foods from my childhood that we'd bake in the fall; those things that filled the entire house with their intoxicating scent, and warmed the very cockles of our hearts (seriously, my cockles are warming and fuzzy just thinking about the autumn delights of days gone by!). All the lovelies filled with the sweet warmth of cinnamon and ginger, the apples and pears baked to perfection in golden flaky crusts; so soft and tender (never mushy), the pumpkins and even the savory stews slow cooked in the crock pot until the meat was so tender you could cut it with a spoon, and served with a huge homemade biscuit, so fluffy and buttery you could eat it plain. Ah, those were the days! Ignorant bliss! When I thought that eating a whole wheat cracker was one of the healthiest things I could do for myself! *sigh*

Yesterday was rather chilly (though nothing compared to today! 2PM and 45 degrees!) and put me in such a mood for all things autumnal. I lit pie scented candles, I brewed spiced pumpkin coffee, and then when those things were not enough to satisfy, I threw together a recipe for grain-free muffins that were certain to assuage my need for sweet spiced perfection! I based it on my chocolate muffin recipe but omitted the chocolate and replaced it with a variety of spices. I also left out the flax because I'm running low and have two orders to fulfill for my Etsy shop on Monday morning. So really there is very little about it that is the same as my chocolate muffin recipe, but I digress! Back to the yummies at hand:  By the time I was halfway through and had all the dry ingredients combined I was ready to sit down and eat it just as it was, so sweet and spicy was the dry mixture! Yes I did taste it. This is how one must bake when they bake without a recipe in hand, you see? So without further blatherings, here is the thing that you desire:

Apple-Pear Spice Muffins

Dry Ingredients:
6 tbsp almond flour (I like Honeyville Grains blanched almond flour best)
1 tbsp coconut flour
3 tbsp stevia powder (I use Stevia in the Raw)
2 tbsp Ideal Brown (Ideal brand is the only one I know of that makes "brown sugar" xylitol)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
pinch of allspice

Combine dry ingredients together, set aside.

Wet Ingredients:
1 egg
2 tbsp chunky applesauce
1 tbsp butter, melted
1 tsp molasses*
1/2 -1 tsp vanilla
2 slices of pear, cut into small chunks (I had small homegrown pears on hand from a friend and used the half that didn't have bug holes in it, but I think that half of a pear would work out to about 2 slices of a regular sized/store bought pear)

Combine wet ingredients in a small bowl, including pear. Combine with dry ingredients and spoon into prepared mini muffin cups. I didn't grease my liners and perhaps should have; the muffins did stick just a bit to them, though not terribly.

Also, I realize that the Ideal Brown is not a common household product, even for those who try to keep their sugar intake low. I have it because of my etsy shop, but if you don't have it as I suspect, you could use regular xylitol, or other sweetener of choice and add just a tad more molasses and it ought to turn out well.

Yield: 12-14 mini muffins

*I am aware that I called these sugar free and then added molasses, but 1 tsp only has about 3 1/2g sugar in it, so divided between 12-14 muffins, I think that still qualifies.

Cookies

So over a week ago I received an email from Google AdSense informing me that my account had been shut down. I hadn't noticed any changes in my earnings, no suspicious trends upward, nothing. But what can you do? Appeal the decision! So I filled out their appeal form and sent it in, confident that they would give me another chance since I'd never had any infractions in the rules prior. Sadly, I was wrong, and a small (yet at once significant) source of income has disappeared for good. They will not reconsider once you appeal their decision once, nor will they ever allow you to set up a new account. This has put an end to my writing for Natural News, and really dampened my enthusiasm for blogging (which I know is sad and pathetic because I'm not blogging to make money, that was just a nice little aside). We are allowed to use David's code on my sites, but I'm hesitant to do so in case the "click-attack" that ended my account was malicious and somebody, somewhere has it out for me.

This isn't all bad news though. As much as I will miss writing for Natural News, it has forced me to reconsider other options for bringing in a little extra income each month. Right now my focus is on Etsy.com. I have had a shop there in the past but had little success. I made jewelry at first. It was fun, but not a passion, and not really good enough. Etsy.com is just packed with unique, amazing items, and my jewelry was mediocre at best. I was careful to make everything to the highest standard of quality I could, but it was nothing special or  unique. Anybody could make what I made with a trip to Hobby Lobby or Walmart. I also tried to sell prints of some of my photography, and even had one of my drawings up for a while (incidentally it never sold, and a good thing too; during the move from Texas to Missouri it got left in a storage pocket in my in-laws car after they picked us up from the car rental location and somehow it was torn before I got it back). I also made felt ninjas, which were fun, and I actually sold enough of those to cover a fair portion of our Christmas gifts we purchased last year. But that died off after the holidays and it was back to never making sales. So now my focus is on setting up a new shop, which will be devoted to low-carb, sugar-free, grain-free treats! My older sister has had amazing success with her shop Softly Sweetly, and while I have no expectations of enjoying the same level of success, I do think I could be moderately successful since the sort of healthy diet David and I follow and promote is growing in popularity. And if there's one thing people on this sort of diet miss, it's the sweet treats! Cookies and cakes and candies. I'm not sure how extensive my shop will end up, but time will tell. I've already tried a fantastic peanut butter cookie recipe and sent half a dozen off to a friend for her to critique them for me.

And they do taste as good as they look, so the challenge is going to be whether or not they ship well and still taste good and fresh after a couple days in the mail! They have never survived around here long enough to know what they're like after 3-4 days.

I also spent all day yesterday in the kitchen, making up a new grain-free, sugar-free bread recipe. I can't wait to try it again once I get to the store for more yeast though. I did a similar recipe with yeast a few days ago and it gave it a nicer crust, though this one did turn out quite yummy, especially toasted and with a bit of cinnamon-xylitol sprinkled on top. I'm running low on my healthy baking ingredients though, so I may have to postpone further experimentation for a while. I also made a chocolate cake yesterday, but that was nearly a disaster it came out so strange (though the icing was GREAT!). Perhaps I need to just stick with my usual method of not using other peoples recipes. Apparently I have a very unique style in the kitchen as I seem to have much better success when I "wing it", versus using someones written out recipe. This is even true for baking more often than not, which is unusual, considering baking really is a science, and easy to mess up!

My husband is currently putting up shelving in our furnace room/closet. Organization, here I come! I'm also planning on reorganizing one of our bookshelves today, and there may be pictures to prove it if my method is successful. We shall see.

Xylitol, People, and Pets

I would like to to talk to you briefly about xylitol. You've probably heard the name at least once or twice if you're trying to lead a healthy lifestyle and avoid sugar, but still enjoy the occasional indulgence. Xylitol is a sugar alcohol that occurs naturally in certain plants. It can be harvested from a variety of fruits and vegetables, as well as the bark of birch trees. A common source of xylitol these days is corn and corn fibers though, so be careful when purchasing xylitol to look for one labeled "non-GMO"!

So what makes xylitol so great? Unlike sucrose (table sugar) and some other sugar substitutes, xylitol has a very low Glycemic Index (7, versus sucrose at 65). Other sugar substitutes such as maltitol, which is also a sugar alcohol and found commonly in pre-made "sugar-free" foods has a glycemic index nearly identical to that of table sugar (50), making it a much poorer choice than xylitol if good health is your goal. Xylitol contains 40% fewer calories and 75% fewer carbohydrates than sucrose, and is absorbed more slowly than sugar. It doesn't need insulin to be metabolized by the body, either, which means it doesn't raise blood sugar. For anyone looking to maintain good health, this is great news, as high blood sugars damage the body over time (heart disease risk, for example, goes up with postprandial readings greater than 100 ng/dl). For these reasons, xylitol has been used in countries like Japan, Russia, and Germany as a diabetic sweetener since the 1960's! Xylitol is as sweet as table sugar, making it a perfect substitute for baking with.

Aside from the fact that xylitol doesn't cause insulin spikes, it has some other health benefits. It can help to prevent tooth decay by maintaining a more neutral pH balance in the mouth and preventing bacteria from sticking to your teeth. It has also been shown to repair damaged enamel on teeth. Because xylitol can help prevent the growth of bacteria, it has also been used medicinally (though this is not approved by the FDA) to treat ear and sinus infections. Some research suggests that it can also help maintain bone density, and slow the growth of Candida Albicans.

Recently xylitol use has come under attack from some veterinarians and pet lovers after a report came out in 2006 suggesting it may be toxic to dogs. I have even been asked to revise one of my recipes to remove the xylitol from it due to it's potential for insulin spiking in our furry friends. I have a simpler solution than that we quit using a product that is not only safe but actually healthy for human consumption. It's called not feeding it to your dog. There is always the chance xylitol consumption may occur if a dog finds something that has been dropped on the floor by accident or left within reach somehow. But why single out xylitol? There are other healthy human foods that we don't eliminate from our diets because of their potential dangers to pets. Some of these foods include chocolate, grapes, raisins, avocado, and onion. Many of the reports of "xylitol poisoning" haven't in fact been proven to be due to xylitol at all and when toxicity is seen in dogs it is often after an animal has eaten an exorbitant amount of something, like when a news story reported on this issue after a dog ate 100 pieces of sugar-free gum that contained both xylitol and aspartame. The American Veterinary Medical Association reported on this as well when another dog ate 4 large, chocolate frosted muffins which, combined, contained around a pound of xylitol. Often times, these warnings about the toxicity of human foods to dogs are blown out of proportion after some freak cases where pets consume massive quantities of something, so to suggest that we should exclude these healthy foods from our diet because of this potential problem for pets is ridiculous. The ASPCA, for example, includes raw and undercooked meat, eggs, and bones on their list of dangerous pet foods. The fact is raw foods and especially raw meat and bones are dogs and cats natural foods. Did God dump a bag of kibble in The Garden for Adam to feed to the cats and dogs? Nope. It has only become the "norm" for pets to consume grain-based, man-made food over the last 100 years (a mere breath in the history of the world!), and the truth is, we're not doing them any favors with this type of diet. It's like pediatricians who tell mothers that formula is just as healthy for their babies as breastmilk; it's simply not true, and that has been proven over and over with scientific research. We are made in the image of God. As such, we are naturally inclined to create. But we can never create anything better than God did, and this applies to every area of life, whether it is the ideal food for ourselves, our babies, or our pets (or anything non-food related).

I have really stumbled off topic here. But that's one of the benefits of having your own blog. You can write whatever you want and follow as many rabbit-trails as you please.

So the bottom line is: Eat xylitol. It's good for you. Don't let Fido eat xylitol. It might be bad for him. If you're new to xylitol, however, keep in mind that xylitol has a moderate "laxation threshold" -- that is, too much can cause abdominal discomfort (gas, bloating, and diarrhea). It's not harmful and your body will adjust in time, but starting with a small amount daily and slowly working your way up will avoid the discomfort altogether.

NaturalNews.com: Mini Minty Chocolate Chip Muffins

NaturalNews.com has published another one of my articles. This one was mint (get it? get it?) to come out around the holidays, but I guess they had too much to publish at the time and it got stuck in a long line of articles waiting to see the sunshiney day of publishing. Check it out, try it out, and you won't be disappointed!

Mini Minty Chocolate Chip Muffins