Elana Amsterdam - Paleo Cooking from Elanas Pantry: Gluten-Free, Grain-Free, Dairy-Free Recipes

Copyright 2013 by Elana Amsterdam
Photographs copyright 2013 by Leigh Beisch

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com

Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Elanas Pantry is a trademark of Elanas Pantry, LLC.
Some of the recipes in this book originally appeared on www.elanaspantry.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the publisher.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-60774-552-5
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-60774-551-8

Cover design by Betsy Stromberg
Food styling by Dan Becker
Author photo by Francine McDougall

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F irst, thanks to my readers for your support, inspiration, encouragement, and conversation.

Special thanks to my husbandI am truly grateful for your honest feedback regarding my cooking, as well as so many areas of life in general. Thank you for your moral support during all of the deadlines that I faced in creating this book. Thanks also to my two sons J and E for offering highly critical reviews of every dish I make, yet repeatedly doing so in the most loving manner. You are my favorite taste testers.

Many other people supported my vision in a variety of ways that helped to make this book a reality, thus thanks go out to: Sara Golski, Dan Becker, Leigh Beisch, Karin Lazarus, Courtney Behnke, and my wonderful friend Deborah Kinney.

Finally, thanks to Helen McCusker for thirty years of friendship and for overnighting rhubarb to me in Boulder when it was out of season here.

I ve been eating grain-free for well over a decade, since 2001. While I am very focused on using the foods I eat to improve my health, my primary goal has been to bring people together around good food . For me, this means creating tasty dishes that appeal to everyone, not just those with dietary restrictions.

My friends say that when Im trying to perfect a new recipe I am like a dog with a boneI dont stop until my recipe tastes like the classic dish that I aim to emulate, sometimes testing a recipe as many as thirty times until I get it just right.

Where does this drive come from? It stems from the love I have for my oldest son (now fourteen, diagnosed with celiac at age two) and my desire for him to have food that is delicious and enticing. In other words, I dont want him to covet the food his friends eat. I want his friends to clamor for the food that I makeand they do. When the boys bring their friends by the house, they all dig in to piles of homemade bagels with healthy spreads, high-protein cookies (made with almond flour), and wholesome ice cream made with coconut milk, hemp seeds, and honey. During sleepovers they raid my kitchen for a midnight snacklittle do they know how nutritious the food they are sneaking is.

My culinary journey started with an Ayurvedic training that began in 1993. (Ayurveda, or the science of self-healing, is a five-thousand-year-old system that originated in India; it emphasizes balancing the body, mind, and spirit through diet, lifestyle, and exercise.) It became quite handy just a few years later in 1998, when I was diagnosed with celiac disease. Initially, I relied on the gluten-free diet; however, this did little to improve my digestion.

My husband, concerned about my continuing digestive distress, researched solutions and found the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD). This diet was created by the brilliant Elaine Gottschall, with whom I later became friends via a series of long telephone conversations. In 2001 I began eating grain-free, and I have ever since.

In 2006, after several years of creativity in the kitchen, I started my blog, Elanas Pantry , where I have a collection of more than seven hundred grain-free recipes.

In the meantime, the grain-free diet, for the most part now referred to as the Paleo (or ancestral) diet, has taken the culinary world by storm. Now, when Im at book signings, all types of people tell me about their love of Paleo eating; many want to eat like a caveman.

As interest in the Paleo diet has grown, Ive adapted many of its additional tenets, including eliminating legumes and dairy. I also avoid some nightshades (including tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and eggplant), which proponents of the Paleo diet say may possibly be detrimental to those with autoimmune conditions. Further, given the number of friends I have with nut allergies, Ive drastically increased the number of nut-free recipes in this book.

As food allergies continue to increase, I am happy to cut out allergens while rising to the challenge of keeping favorite foods flavorfully in the picture. I hope you enjoy this new book and the evolution it has taken from my past work.

For most of humankinds 2.5-million-year existence we have lived as hunter-gatherers. It has only been in the last ten thousand years, with the advent of agriculture, that we have begun to eat the modern grain-based diet.

What we have come to realize, however, is that a grain-based diet may be detrimental to certain individuals. Why? It is possible that not all of us have the genetic makeup to digest grains.

The Paleo diet was first outlined by Dr. Thats great news for many of us with chronic, untreatable conditions such as multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and arthritis.

Personally, I have found that a plant-based diet with small amounts of lean animal protein makes me feel less inflamed and more energetic. However, for me there is more to a healthy lifestyle than diet. Light exercise and good sleep are also components of our ancestors lifestyle that we too can employ.

After adopting a grain-free diet, I continued to fine-tune my healing journey by increasing my sleep and reducing the intensity of my exercise. By listening to my body, I figured out that this was what I needed. At that point, I didnt realize that what I was doing was part of a bigger health movement, so I was thrilled when I came across the works of Loren Cordain ( The Paleo Diet ), Robb Wolf ( The Paleo Solution ), and Mark Sisson ( The Primal Blueprint ), as my beliefs and practices closely resembled their own.

I have benefited so much from implementing my grain-free diet that I decided to write this book to help you get on the road to health as well. If you are already on that road, this book will make your life a little simplerand tastier, toowith its recipes for quick and healthy dishes made from unprocessed foods.

Eating the way of our ancestors is not a fad. It is a potent solution for people with health conditions, as well as a good strategy for those who are ready to benefit from a healthier diet. Whether you have an autoimmune condition or are a high-performance athlete looking to reduce inflammation and improve your recovery time, the simple, healthy, gluten-free, grain-free, dairy-free, legume-free, and nightshade-free recipes in this book can help you achieve your goals.