30 Days to a Food Revolution Day 2- The Spunky Coconut

30 Days to a Food Revolution Day 2- The Spunky Coconut Welcome to Day 2.  Today’s guest blogger is Kelly Brozyna.   Kelly began to study nutrition in Maryland when her girls were very young.  Her daughter Ashley was a baby, and daughter Zoe was a toddler at that time. Both girls were not well.  Her naturopathic doctor worked with them to radically change their diet by removing gluten, casein, and sugar.  Kelly and her husband soon realized that their own health problems could be resolved as well. It was very eye-opening to see how many kinds of issues could be treated with the diet.  So, after years of research and experimentation, Kelly now creates food so similar to conventional wheat/dairy/sugar recipes that no one feels deprived.  Together, through diet and biomedical treatments, their family is overcoming celiac disease, gluten-intolerance, ADD, and autism with great success.

Kelly’s recipe:  Coffee Cake

Kelly’s tip:  Cook your own dry beans

30 Days to a Food Revolution Day 2- The Spunky Coconut Hi! My name is Kelly, and I’m the author of, The Spunky Coconut.  Before I began eating real food, as opposed to processed food and junk food, I would always buy the coffee cakes that come in the box at the grocery store. When I was growing up my mom bought them. It was a habit. Almost everything we ate was from a package. When I became an adult I began to realize that those coffee cakes in the box were full of refined sugar and bleached wheat flour, but I never dreamt of making coffee cake myself. Then, almost 6 years ago my family decided to drastically change our diets to improve our health. Last year I developed my own coffee cake recipe, and now it’s one of our favorites.

You may be surprised when you see that the main ingredient in this coffee cake is white beans, but trust me, this cake is amazing. It’s based on my Vanilla Bean Cake which is one of my most popular recipes. Just check out the comments, and you’ll see =) Beans are high in protein and low in carbohydrates, so they are a great alternative to flour made of grains. I use a combination of honey and liquid stevia to sweeten the coffee cake—only about 1/3 cup total sweetener for the recipe! That’s at least one third the amount of sugar found in most cake recipes. Even the topping is low in sugar—only 1/4 cup for an entire large rectangular coffee cake. However, this version of coffee cake is so sensational, that no one ever knows what (really unhealthy fattening stuff) they’re missing =)

30 Days to a Food Revolution Day 2- The Spunky Coconut

Coffee Cake:

Add to food processor:
2 cups cooked white beans, room temperature, so they don’t cook the eggs (I make mine myself by soaking dry white beans overnight. In the morning I rinse them well, and cook them. Directions to follow in tip below.)
6 eggs
3/4  tsp vanilla creme liquid stevia (do not measure over the batter, just in case it spills out)
(What is stevia & why do I love it? Click here )
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup honey
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Puree well.

Add:
1/4 cup coconut oil, liquified
(Why coconut oil? Click here: )
1/3 cup coconut flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
3/4  tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp baking powder

Puree well.

Pour batter into large rectangular greased pan.

Puree Crumble Topping:
3 cups of walnuts
2 tbsp butter, ghee, or coconut oil
1/8 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup coconut sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon

Spread the crumble over the top of the batter.
Using a fork or knife, really swirl the topping into the batter.
Then pat the topping down.

Bake at 325 degrees for about 25 minutes.

Great hot or cold from the refrigerator.

Store in the refrigerator after the first day.

I would also like to offer another tip to eating healthier and saving money—Cook your own dry beans. Buying beans that come in an aluminum can was another big habit that I wanted to break. By purchasing dry, uncooked beans, I not only save money, but they are much easier to digest. The reason beans cause gas is because most of us eat beans from a can that haven’t been properly soaked and rinsed before cooking. It’s a shame that these canned beans have given beans a bad reputation, because beans are very nutritious and great for all sorts of recipes. Plus, beans come in all kinds of pretty shapes and colors. Here is how to make them yourself.

Pour beans one handful at a time into a large bowl, picking out any pebbles or discolored beans. I usually make 2 cups of dry beans at a time.
Cover beans in water plus a few extra inches of water, and soak overnight, or up to 24 hours.
Pour soaked beans through a mesh strainer in your sink to remove the soaking water.
Place the beans back in the empty bowl and fill with fresh water.
Stir the beans around in the fresh water and strain again.
Add the beans to a pot with enough water to cover plus an extra inch or two.
Bring water to a simmer.
Reduce heat to low and cover for about one hour.
Strain the cooked beans.

30 Days to a Food Revolution Day 2- The Spunky Coconut I hope you are as inspired as I am by Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. If you get a chance, watch his speech on Ted Talks—Wowza!  I want to give a big thanks to Diane for all her work and for creating 30 Days to a Food Revolution—You go, Diane! And thanks to you, dear readers, for being part of this revolution—I know we can become a culture of real food again. The connections we make with each other are so important =) Happy real food eating! Love, Kelly

Visit Kelly’s blog for her another post on 30 Days to a Food Revolution.

Don’t forget:

In order to be entered to win one of 7 cookbooks, here’s what you need to do to gather entries into the drawing.  The more you do, the more chances you have to win!

  1. Leave a comment on this blog on as many of the 30 guest food bloggers as you like.  Each comment is an entry.
  2. Sign up for The W.H.O.L.E. Gang newsletter.
  3. Visit that guest blogger’s site and leave a comment there too.
  4. Tweet about this project using both of these in your tweet so I’ll find you  #30days2 #foodrevolution

When the initial 30 days of guest posts are over on June 4th, we’ll pick the winners.

56 Responses to 30 Days to a Food Revolution Day 2- The Spunky Coconut

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