Spiced Sweet Potato Quick Bread

I've been working my way through various recipes in Dr. Mark Hyman's books. This one is from The Eat Fat, Get Thin Cookbook on p. 251. I can't post the entire recipe due to copyright law, but wanted to include some comments about the recipe. The recipe can be found on his blog here.

I love to cook, but not bake. So, if I want a treat it has to be something I can make easily and quickly that has little to no sugar (and preferably uses fruit, coconut sugar, honey or maple syrup instead of granular sugar), doesn't contain wheat (gluten free is our preference), and of course, tastes great. Typically I make a quick banana bread. Today I decided to try the sweet potato bread - no added sugar, just sweet potatoes, coconut flour, spices, eggs, almond butter, and butter.

The nice thing about quick breads is that you don't have to be too exact with amounts. I used about 3 cups mashed sweet potato (2 large). I didn't have ground mace but added a little nutmeg and allspice along with the cinnamon. I also didn't have almond extract so used vanilla instead. One other note: I only used about 2 tsp of coconut oil to oil the pan (not 2 T it called for) and it slipped out of the pan just fine.

Here is the mixture going together:

The batter is quite thick:

The finished bread. Mine took about 65 minutes to cook (instead of the 50-60 minutes specified in the recipe).

It smelled so good we couldn't wait for it to entirely cool to try it. So good! My husband devoured 2 slices and my daughter and I shared a slice spread with ghee.

Artichoke Dip

My family (husband, Rob and daughter, Taylor) and I decided to do Dr. Mark Hyman's 10 Day Detox in December, 2016. I had just finished up a course of antibiotics for Lyme disease and we all wanted to eliminate sugar for awhile. Taylor was hoping it'd help clear up her acne. Rob and I aren't big consumers of sugar; but, our teenager is. We challenged her to go the 10 full days without any sugar and increase her veggie intake. She did quite well; only cheating a couple times while at school. She reported feeling less bloated, her skin became clearer, and she slept better.

Since then we've been mostly following his Eat Fat, Get Thin plan. I prefer to eat meats and veggies anyway so cutting out and minimizing carbs such as flours, rice, pasta, etc. hasn't been too difficult. Taylor gets more rice pasta, brown rice, and seeded crackers than Rob and I; she is a busy, growing teenager after all.

We need and like to eat every few hours.  It's important to have a variety of healthy snack foods available. There are always cut up fresh veggies in my fridge and usually some type of dip available.

Dr. Hyman's Artichoke Dip with Crudites on p.96 of his book is one of our favorites - delicious and a great snack mid-morning or mid-afternoon. Even Taylor loves this dip!

I've modified his recipe slightly. This is the version I made today:

1 (15-ounce) can artichoke hearts in water, drained
1 cup avocado oil mayonnaise (or homemade; see p.265 in the book)
1/2-1 cup packed organic baby spinach leaves
2 T nutritional yeast
1/4-1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 smoked cayenne 

Place artichokes and spinach in a food processor. Pulse a few times to roughly chop.
Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse until desired consistency. 

Serve with a variety of veggies. Today I had organic red bell peppers, organic celery, and organic purple carrots.