A friend of mine recently found out she had a condition that required her to follow the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD). When my friend first told me that she was cutting grains and starches of all/most kinds out of her diet, I was floored. "What do you EAT?" I wondered. And the truth was, she wasn't eating much. Salads and plain slabs of meat kind of lose their wonder after about the 100th day! After a while she began searching out recipes, and the challenge of finding recipes safe for her to eat began to entice me. So, here's a list of recipes she's given me and recipes I've discovered (or am suggesting) for SCD. I'm going to skip the ones heavy in substitutionary flours because those flours can get expensive. I'm also going to skip the (sometimes quite wonderful) things you can do with just cooked meat or just cooked veggies. This hunt is about finding recipes that use mostly regular ingredients with only small amounts of those substitutionary flours. Oh, and I am relying heavily on this listing of
legal vs. illegal foods for those on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet.
So here goes:
1. This first one is a suggestion that I've shared with readers before as
edible play dough. This is definitely fun to play with, but, it could make a great sweet, healthy snack as well. Peanut butter is (so I've read) something that those on this diet should not take in too much of, but this recipe could also use almond butter or cashew butter (yum!).
Peanut Butter Balls
Mix 1 cup instant nonfat dry milk, 1 cup peanut butter, and 3 T honey. Form dough in small balls and enjoy.
2. Here's a recipe from an
SCD Recipe site that my friend recommended:
Egg Noodle Soup
Blend 3 eggs, 1 t water, and 1/2 t salt. Spread on heated and greased frying pan and allow to set. Flip to cook other side slightly. Flip out on a towel and cut into strip. Add these noodles, 1 cup chopped chicken and 1 cup frozen mixed vegetables to 6 cups chicken broth. Season to taste.
3. I found this one
here and I think it would be a standard go-to if I were following this diet. Even though it calls for some unusual (and therefore expensive) ingredients, it doesn't use very much of any of them. The great thing about these is that you can leave out the honey and vanilla and add a pinch of salt to use them to wrap savory ingredients (see suggestions below.)
Crepes
6 eggs
1 tsp coconut oil
½ tsp vanilla essence
1 Tbs coconut cream
1 tsp honey
3 Tbs coconut flour
Combine the eggs with the coconut oil, vanilla, coconut cream and honey and whisk until light and frothy. Add the sifted coconut flour and combine. The consistency of the batter should be the same as normal crepe batter. It should coat the back of spoon but be quite thin.
Heat a little oil in a frying pan on medium and pour about 3 Tbs of batter into the pan. Lift the pan by the handle and roll the batter over the surface of the pan until the whole surface is covered. It only takes around one minutes for the crepe to brown on one side. Turn it over and brown on the other side.
4. Savory Crepes: Make the above crepe for savory ingredients. Choose one kind of meat, a cheese, one or two veggies, and one of these home made salad dressings. (There are 9 different kinds to choose from!) Examples might be ham-swiss-spinach-poppy seed dressing/chicken-cheddar-no sugar bacon-zucchini strips-italian dressing/turkey-carrots-green leaf lettuce-ranch dressing. These all sound yummy and easy to me.
5. Sweet Crepes: Make the above crepe for sweet ingredients. Chop and heat 1 peach in a bowl with 2 T water and 1 t honey. Bring just to a boil. Pour peach mixture into crepe and fold crepe over. Top with SCD safe yogurt. (I am making myself very hungry.)
6. I love casseroles, so I was especially looking for some that my friend could put together. Here's one from this site that sounds very yummy to me.
Zucchini Egg Casserole
1/4 C water, 1/4 t salt, 1 lb. zucchini (coarsely chopped) 1 T butter, 1 C sliced fresh mushrooms, 1/3 C chopped onion, 4 eggs beaten, 1 1/2 C shredded Cheddar cheese, 1 2-oz. jar diced pimiento (drained), 1/8 t garlic powder, 1/4 t salt, 1/8 t pepper
Boil zucchini in water and salt for about 7 minutes, stirring often. Drain well and set zucchini asisde. Saute mushrooms and onions in butter until tender. Add remaining ingreients and zucchini to sauteed vegetables and mix well. Pour into a greased baking dish. Bake at 350 F (180 C) until eggs are set.
7. This is just a group of vegetables, but since the combination makes me salivate just thinking about it, I thought I'd share: Mushroom Broccoli Medley has the wonderfulness of being cooked in bacon grease and tossed with bacon. I know the SC Diet recommends not too much bacon, so you'd have to make this a different week than #9.
8. Here's a recipe my friend says she's been enjoying a lot lately. They strike me as something every momma would want to have around the house for the kiddos (and herself too, of course. If I were making them I would use 2C whole wheat flour and 2C AP flour.) This recipe is also from scdiet.org. This is my token high substitutionary flour recipe.
4 C of almond flour, 1/3 C melted butter, 1/4 t baking soda, 1/4 t salt, 1/2-1 t SCD-legal vanilla, 1/2 C honey, 1/2 C raisins, 1/2 C unsweetened coconut flakes, 1 T natural peanut butter, 2 eggs
Cook dough balls of this mixture on two cookie sheets at 350 F degrees (180 C) for 6-8 minutes and then flatten them with a fork. Lower the temp to 300 F (150 C) for another 10-12 minutes. Every few minutes alternate the two sheets on the oven racks. Use heavy duty cookie sheets that are extra thick to help avoid burning.
9. I'm sure that those who are on the SC diet do A LOT of tweaking recipes. This recipe for Chuck Wagon Stew could easily be tweaked for this diet. I recently put rutabaga (legal according to this list) in a beef stew instead of potatoes. You could do the same for this hearty comfort stew. Chop it well and it will take just a little longer than potato to cook. Use frozen green beans (put them in when after rutabaga has cooked about 20 minutes.) And chop a fresh tomato to put in about 10 minutes before serving the stew.
10. How about ending with an appetizer/ calorie booster? These
Green Bean Bundles sound very yummy. Leave out the sugar, use homemade bullion, and make sure the bacon is low sodium, no sugar.
So I'm certainly no expert, but even just making this list has given me a huge admiration for those of you who have to follow any kind of strict diet. It would be hard to look for recipes you could use just because you have to weed through so many (that sound yummy and) that are full of taboo foods. I hope this helps a teeny bit--even if it's just knowing that someone else sympathizes!
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