My white chocolate cookie dough dip was inspired by this cookie dough dip over at Chocolate-Covered Katie’s blog. At first I tried to make my white chocolate cookie dough dip low oxalate, but this dip is so rich I opted to keep it medium-oxalate and to limit my serving size. If you need to lower the oxalate level, use coconut oil or applesauce in place of some of the sunflower seed butter.

White Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip

• 1 1/2 cups chickpeas (1 can, drained and rinsed very well)
• 1/4 tsp. sea salt
• 1 T pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup Sunbutter (or 3 T Sunbutter and one T coconut oil or applesauce)
• sweeten to taste with 1/4 -1/2 cup agave nectar, honey, brown sugar or maple syrup (or try 1 – 2 tsp Better Stevia powder)
• 2 T ground flax
• Up to 1/4 cup coconut milk (or cow or goat milk)
• 1/3 cup white chocolate chips (or try butterscotch chips)

Mix everything but the chocolate chips and the coconut milk in a food processor until well blended. Add coconut milk as needed to get the consistency you want. I usually use 2 T. Add white chocolate chips and spoon the cookie dough dip into a serving bowl. Serve with apple slices or GF graham crackers.

Makes about 1 1/2 cups.

Low Oxalate Info: White Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip has three medium oxalate ingredients, including Sunbutter, chick peas and ground flax. All other ingredients are low oxalate or very low oxalate.  The oxalate content of White Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip will vary depending what sweetener you choose and how much sweetener you use. The dip has 1.5 mg. oxalate per tablespoon or about 6 mg. oxalate per 1/4 cup when made with 1/2 cup maple syrup and 1/4 cup Sunbutter. Substituting coconut oil for 2 T of the Sunbutter and 2 teaspoons Stevia powder for the maple syrup reduces the oxalate of White Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip to about 4.4 mg. oxalate per 1/4 cup.

Silky gingered zucchini soup is my new favorite. When I first read Melissa’s recipe on her fabulous blog The Clothes Make the Girl, I knew I had to make a lower oxalate version and try it right away. I also wanted to make my version vegan because I knew my vegan readers would appreciate a new recipe and this seemed like a good possibility. Boy, was I right!  My version of silky gingered soup is full of nutrition and flavor and it’s so silky and smooth. It’s also very comforting on a cool spring morning or evening.  My favorite thing about silky gingered zucchini soup, however, is that it’s the perfect way to use up all that frozen zucchini in my freezer! This recipe doesn’t depend on the zucchini having good texture, so frozen zucchini works just as well as fresh. Just remember that this summer if you or your neighbor get a bumper crop.

Silky Gingered Zucchini Soup

1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 cup chopped yellow onion (1 big one)
4 – 6 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 tablespoon raw ginger, minced (see note)
4-5 cups zucchini, roughly chopped (4 medium zucchini)
4 cups water
2 bay leaves
1 capsule Jarrow 95 curcumin extract (optional)

Heat coconut oil in a large soup pot on medium heat for two minutes. Add onion, garlic, salt, pepper and ginger and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally (you want the onions to soften but not brown). Add zucchini, water and bay leaves (no need to peel the zucchini, just wash it and chop it into 1 inch pieces). Break open the curcumin capsule and stir it into the soup. Bring the soup to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook about 45 – 60 minutes until the zucchini is very soft. If you have a magic soup wand (also commonly known as a stick blender or an immersion blender), go ahead and puree your soup in the pot. Otherwise, carefully transfer the soup to your blender in small batches and puree until smooth. Return to the pot to keep warm until you’re ready to enjoy it.

Makes 8 servings

Note About Ginger: You might need to play around with the ginger amount to suit your own tastes. I’ve used up to 2 T of ginger in this soup and liked it a lot. You can substitute 1/2 tsp ground ginger for about the same amount of oxalate as 1.5 T raw ginger, but this isn’t gingery enough for me (3/4 teaspoon ground ginger is about the minimum for a really mild, yummy taste). If you’d like to lower the oxalate of this dish, you could also use Olive Nation’s pure ginger extract (which is very low oxalate). Ginger extract is an especially nice way to intensify the ginger taste if you don’t want to go overboard with the raw ginger. I usually use 1 T raw ginger, then if I don’t feel the end soup is gingery enough, I add a few drops of extract. Remember, ginger is easiest to deal with if you peel and freeze it, then just grate what you need into your soup.

Variation: If you’d like to pack more vegetable nutrition and flavor into your soup and are willing to give up the silky texture, try adding 3 -4 cups of chopped arugula. This peppery green adds lots of flavor and nutrition with very little oxalate to your soup (arugula is very low oxalate with about 0.7 mg. oxalate per half cup raw).

Low Oxalate Info: All ingredients in Silky Gingered Zucchini Soup are low oxalate, except for ginger which is medium oxalate. One serving of silky gingered zucchini soup has about 5.1 mg. oxalate per serving based on 8 servings, using 4 cups of zucchini.  If you end up using more zucchini, add about 3.25 mg. oxalate per half cup of zucchini. Also, if you experiment with the ginger levels, remember raw ginger has about 6.2 mg. oxalate per tablespoon, ground ginger has about 17.4 mg. per teaspoon, and Olive Nation ginger extract has about 0.22 mg. per teaspoon.

Other Diets: Silky Gingered Zucchini Soup may be appropriate for vegan, Paleo, GFCF, GAPs, low carbohydrate, dairy-free and gluten-free diets.

If you’ve been missing good ‘ole hash browns then these rutabaga hash browns are for you!

I ‘ve always loved those skillet breakfasts that you can get at places like Denney’s and Mom and Pop cafes, so I was especially happy to discover that rutabaga (swede) makes good hash browns. Yum! I’ve really missed hash browns, but these rutabaga hash browns hit the spot. You can make them in a skillet with onions, red pepper, zucchini, sausage, bacon, mushrooms or arugula, then crack a few eggs over the top. Or just make the rutabaga hash browns by themselves and mix your “hash” on your plate.

Here’s my simplest breakfast skillet with rutabaga hash browns, which I make mostly in the winter with the red peppers I froze from my garden. When the spring greens start coming in, I’ll add a handful of arugula or mustard greens to my skillet, and in the summer, yellow summer squash, zucchini and kholrabi hits the spot. But first, a lesson in picking out a rutabaga for those of you who are new to this low oxalate root vegetable.

How to choose a good rutabaga: Make sure to take care when picking out a rutabaga (swede), especially if you’ve never picked one out before. You want to pick a firm, “heavy” rutabaga, about 3-5 inches in diameter for the sweetest, rutabaga experience. Be sure to avoid a rutabaga that feels light for its size, is “old and woody” looking, is enormous, or has cracks or soft spots. BTW, these are the same guidelines for picking out a good turnip, except turnips should be 2 – 4 inches in diameter, slightly smaller than a rutabaga. Also, turnips are white with purplish skin on top, while rutabaga are yellow with purplish skin. The ones in the picture below and to the right all look pretty good.
Low Oxalate Breakfast Skillet with Rutabaga Hashbrowns

1 1/2 – 2 cups rutabaga (swede)  (2 medium)
1  tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon sage
1/2 cup yellow onions (1 small)
1/2 cup red pepper (1/2 large)
4 ounces cooked low oxalate ground sausage (see note below)
4 eggs
salt and white pepper to taste

Peel the rutabaga and shred it in a food processor or by hand. Squeeze the excess water out of the rutabaga (I use my hands but you can also set it in a cheese cloth first). Heat the oil in a medium-sized skillet over medium heat. When the oil shimmers, add the rutabaga and spread evenly with a spatula. Sprinkle with sage, then let the rutabaga cook for about 7 to 10 minutes until browned. Turn the rutabaga hash browns over and push them to the side of the skillet to make room for your other veggies. Add onions and red peppers and saute until the onions are transparent. Add sausage to warm. At this point you may either crack your eggs over the top of your skillet breakfast and cover with a lid until they reach your desired doneness. OR pour your skillet “hash” onto two separate plates. Then crack your eggs into the skillet (you may need a tad more oil) and cook about two minutes. Flip the eggs and cook another 30 seconds or so until they reach your desired doneness. Add two eggs to each plate of “hash” and add salt and freshly-ground white pepper to taste.

Makes two large servings.

Low Oxalate Sausage: Most commercial brands of ground sausage have between 5.5 and 6.5 mg. per 2 ounce serving. You can make your own ground sausage with considerable less oxalate by mixing 1 pound ground pork with white pepper to taste (2-4 teaspoons), 2 teaspoons sage, 1 teaspoon thyme, 1/2 teaspoon rosemary and salt. Low oxalate mace is a nice addition, as is cayenne if you want more heat (try 1/4 teaspoon each). Another alternative is to mix one pound of commercial ground sausage with one pound of ground pork, then add salt and white pepper to taste. Both of these alternatives can get you down to about 3 mg. oxalate per 2 ounces of ground sausage (or less if you go easy on the herbs in your homemade version.) I hope to post a more complete recipe soon.

Low Oxalate Info: All of the ingredients in my low oxalate breakfast skillet with rutabaga hash browns are low oxalate. In fact, rutabaga is so low oxalate, you can fudge the amounts if you want a lot more hash brown in your breakfast skillet (rutabaga is only 3.2 mg. per cup, cubed). One large serving of low oxalate breakfast skillet with rutabaga hash browns has 9.7 mg. oxalate and includes 3 servings of veggies, 2 eggs and 2 ounces of meat, a complete breakfast for even the hungriest low oxalate dieter! (Oxalate values are based on 2 cups of rutabaga per recipe.)

Photo credit goes to QueenaSookKim for rutabaga.

Most of you know I’m a Ph.D. student, a fiction writer, a teacher and a single mom, so I don’t post nearly as often as I’d like. I try to keep up with answers to your comments, and I occasionally answer questions on the Trying Low Oxalate Facebook group. Some questions keep coming up, so I’ve decided to keep track of these common questions and re-post my answers here as a resource for everyone. Look for more FAQ posts to come!

Question: What is oxalate dumping? I keep hearing this term, but I don’t get it.

Answer:  Dumping is what we in the low oxalate community call the oxalate detoxification process. Oxalate is a toxin. If too much gets into the blood stream (often because of poor gut health), then your body desperately tries to get rid of it. Your elimination systems can only process so much at a time, so the rest gets stored away in other parts of your body. Where oxalate is stored is different for each person, but some common places are the joints, the thyroid, old injury sites, the brain, and the skin. Too much stored oxalate is what most likely triggered your oxalate-related symptoms.

When you begin a low oxalate diet, you reduce the amount of oxalate that enters the blood stream. When this level goes low enough to reach your body’s threshold point, it triggers your body to take stored oxalate out of storage and to get rid of it. Yay! You want to get that toxic oxalate out of your body. The problem is that detoxification, or oxalate dumping, can cause a whole host of new symptoms, plus it may increase the severity of your current oxalate-related symptoms. Severe dumping is not fun. But some moderate or low level dumping is good and is needed for your body to heal (note: you might not notice low level dumping symptoms)

The key to surviving dumping is to try to control the rate of your dumping, so that you keep the low level detoxification going, but you don’t let it get so severe that you are crippled by oxalate dumping symptoms. One way to do this is to start slow with the low oxalate diet, especially if you were eating very high oxalate to begin with. Eliminate some high oxalate foods then wait a few days. Then eliminate a few more. Gradually, work your way down to a medium or low oxalate diet. If the dumping gets bad, up your oxalate intake a bit and try to get yourself back into the controlled, low level dumping phase. Oxalate dumping does not sound fun, but dumping is your friend. If you suffer from oxalate-toxicity, then you need to detox the oxalate to heal.

For more information on oxalate dumping, check out this great article over at Ox Vox.

Question:  Why do some vegetables seem to increase in oxalate when cooked, while others seem to decrease in oxalate when cooked?

Answer:  Vegetables don’t actually gain oxalate when cooked. They either lose oxalate or their oxalate value remains the same. The key to remember is that the serving size for cooked vegetables in the “Master List” are measured after cooking. Also, remember that most vegetables decrease in volume when cooked, sometimes significantly. You’ll notice on your list that raw broccoli has about 4.2 mg. oxalate per half cup. It takes about 3/4 cup raw broccoli (about 6.5 mg. oxalate) to steam down to 1/2 cup steamed broccoli (about 6.5 mg. oxalate) or to boil down to about 1/2 cup boiled broccoli (about 1.1 mg. oxalate). You’ll notice that steaming and roasting usually don’t decrease oxalate, while boiling often does. So although raw broccoli is considered low oxalate and steamed broccoli is considered medium oxalate, this is just a factor of how we measure oxalate and serving size.

Question: I have a question about your Banana-Blueberry Shakes. Blueberries are a high oxalate berry. How come this is listed as a low oxalate food? My doctor also told me to be weary of Kale and Broccolli rabe- how do I reconcile this with what is on the web site?

Answer: Unfortunately, most high oxalate food lists used by doctors were written ten, twenty or even thirty years ago. They are hopelessly outdated and often misleading in that they don’t consider portion size – just oxalate per 100 grams of the item. All of the oxalate values on this site come from the master list kept by the Autism Oxalate Project and were the most up-to-date value available at the date the post was published. This master list contains all the up-to-date values by the latest testing methods performed in  Dr. Michael Liebman’s lab, a food nutritionist from the University of Wyoming (most of the updated testing was funded by the VP Foundation and the Autism Oxalate Project). You may get your own copy of this list by joining the Trying Low Oxalates Yahoo Group or the Trying Low Oxalates Facebook Group (ask someone from the Facebook Group to send it to you.) I can’t publish the list on my website because it contains copyrighted material but it is free to anyone who wants it. (See How to Get a Low Oxlaate Food List).

So good news. You can eat all of the foods you mentioned. Blue berries are low oxalate at about 4 mg. oxalate per half cup. Broccoli Rabe (rapini) is low oxalate at about 2.7 mg. per half cup raw. The oxalate value of kale depends a lot on how its cooked and what variety you are using. The lowest is boiled Dino Kale with the cooking water discarded at 1.8 mg. per half cup.

Photo credits go to Ventura and Mike Litch

I don’t make these hot chocolate steamers for my sons very often because I don’t like to feed my family the artificial ingredients in the Torani’s Sugar Free Chocolate Syrup. But today is Christmas Eve Day, and it’s icy and snowy in mid-Missouri, a perfect day to sip hot chocolate by the fire with a couple of Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies. I also have to admit that this syrup doesn’t taste artificial. It tastes really good, especially if you haven’t had the real thing in a long time. Hope you enjoy your steamer and Happy Holidays!

Hot Chocolate Steamer

1 cup milk
1/4 cup Torani’s SF Chocolate Syrup (or to taste)

Mix the milk and the syrup in a large glass measuring cup. If you have one of those nifty steamer attachments on your coffee or cappuccino maker, then run your hot chocolate through the steamer attachment and enjoy. If you don’t have a steamer, you can either warm the milk in the microwave (on high for about a minute) or on the stove top. It won’t be as frothy this way, but it will still be yummy!

Serve in a large mug, or divide in half and share with a friend.

Low Oxalate Additions: Add a dollop of whipped cream, a peppermint stick stirrer, or a pinch of mace or cardamom. My boys love the candy canes but I prefer the mace. So Delicious!

Low Oxalate Info: All ingredients in your Hot Chocolate Steamer are low oxalate.  Torani’s Sugar Free Chocolate Syrup has about 1.4 mg. oxalate per fourth cup, while milk ranges from 0 – 2.9 mg. per cup depending on the brand and how it was processed. So your hot chocolate steamer has about 1.4 -4.3 mg. oxalate if you drink the whole thing.

Hi everyone. This is just a quick note to let you know my lowoxalateinfo.com email address is currently not working (the automated one you can find on my About page). My hard drive crashed about three weeks ago and I ended up having to get a new computer. I didn’t realize how much I’d linked my blog to my old computer including my email account, but I currently do not have access to the account and I haven’t been able to quickly figure it out. I’m afraid it’s going to take time to get it set up on my new computer–time I don’t have this month as I meet some dissertation deadlines.

If you’ve sent me an email in the last month and I haven’t responded, I apologize. Please put any non-personal questions in the comments section below and I will try to answer all of them in a timely manner. Thank you for your patience! Hopefully, I’ll have the email address up in running again by January.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and it’s time to make pumpkin pie or custard, plus lots of other fabulous low oxalate pumpkin deserts. Unfortunately, most of the ground spices in a traditional pumpkin pie spice mix (cinnamon, all spice and cloves) are high oxalate, while nutmeg and ground ginger are medium oxalate. In fact, just one teaspoon of cinnamon contains almost a full days worth of oxalate for folks on a low oxalate diet. Dang!

You can still get that traditional pumpkin pie taste on the low oxalate diet, but you have to be a little sneaky about it. You might try using extracts instead of ground spices. Olive Nation pure all spice extract and ginger extract are both very low oxalate (about 0.2 mg. per teaspoon). And although cinnamon extracted in alcohol has not been tested, it’s very likely that Olive Nation pure cinnamon extract is low oxalate also. I have had great success using these extracts in my baking. They work especially well when added to batters like pumpkin bread or pumpkin custard and pumpkin soups (as opposed to vegetable dishes like fresh baked pumpkin or apples). They are also cost effective since a little extract goes a long way.

If you aren’t sure about using untested cinnamon liquid extract and prefer a ground whole food spice, you can also use powdered cinnamon extract which is sold in a capsule form for people wishing to supplement cinnamon into their diet. You just break open the capsule and pour it into your batter. Dr.’s Best cinnamon extract is only 1.5 mg. per teaspoon and it has a satisfying cinnamon taste. The only problem I have with it is the cost! It takes 13 capsules to make a teaspoon. 60 capsules come in a bottle that costs about $10.00, so that’s almost $2.00 a teaspoon! I rarely use powdered cinnamon extract in my daily cooking, but for a special occasion like baking a Thanksgiving pumpkin pie, I will make an exception. Ginger also comes as a powdered extract for supplementation, but it’s only slightly lower oxalate than it’s whole spice counterpart (9.2 mg. per teaspoon for ginger extract compared to 13.0 mg. per teaspoon ground ginger). For the price, you’re much better off just using real ground ginger.

Some other ground whole food spices that may surprise you with their yumminess are cardamom and mace. Cardamom makes an excellent substitute for cinnamon and only has about 6.2 mg. per teaspoon. I’ve heard it described as a cross between ginger and cinnamon. It’s a warm and aromatic with a slightly citrusy flavor, and it’s highly prized by the Danish for baking sweet-tasting breads and rolls. One caveat — a little goes a long way. Don’t substitute is teaspoon for teaspoon with cinnamon or your pie and breads will be way too strong. Mace is also a lesser known spice in the United States. It’s made from the same seed as nutmeg, just a different part of it. Mace is low oxalate at 1.2 mg. per teaspoon and has a similar flavor to nutmeg only more pungent and a little bit spicier. I think it tastes kind of like a cross between nutmeg and pepper, and it’s wonderful in savory Middle Eastern dishes. You probably don’t want to put too much into your pumpkin pie, but it’s really quite good in muffins and breads.

Two other flavoring you might consider for your holiday baking are raw ginger and cinnamon-flavored herbal teas. Ground ginger has 13 mg. of oxalate per teaspoon as opposed to raw ginger which has only 2.1 mg. per teaspoon. Plus, minced raw ginger is quite strong and goes a long way. You don’t need much to get a fabulous ginger taste. I also use herbal teas to get a cinnamon spice flavor. All herbal teas tested so far have been low oxalate, including a number with cinnamon. Herbal teas works best in recipes that require a liquid that tea can be seeped in. For example, I often seep Bigalowe Apple Cinnamon tea in 1/4 cup apple cidar, then use the cidar tea to flavor baked apples or as a substitute for the liquid in my high fiber muffins. Teas don’t seep as well into evaporated milk, cream or canned coconut milk, so it’s probably not a great solution for  pumpkin pie. However, it might be just the right touch for a pumpkin bread or spice cake where some of the liquid could be apple juice or regular milk.

Now, on to my low oxalate pumpkin pie spice mix. First, let me just say this is a work in progress. I don’t feel I’ve perfected it yet, but it’s pretty good and I wanted to get it to you in plenty of time for Thanksgiving. So here’s my current best version. I do like it with the ginger but then I’m a gingerbread fanatic. My boys thinks it’s “too spicy” and prefer it without the ginger. Of course, you do get a similar flavor profile as ginger from the mace and cardamom, so it’s definitely good without the ginger. You also might just want to squeeze some fresh ginger “juice” into your pie instead to really save on the oxalate (I “juice” my ginger with a garlic press.)

Low Oxalate Pumpkin Pie Spice Mix

26 capsules Dr.’s Best cinnamon extract (capsules broken open)
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon mace
1/2 teaspoon ginger (0ptional)

Mix in a small glass jar or bowl. Stores well in a labeled, airtight glass container such as a baby food jar.

Makes 4.5 teaspoons of powdered lower oxalate pie spice mix, which is enough for two pies.

Low Oxalate Info: Low Oxalate Pumpkin Pie Spice Mix has about 3.9 mg. oxalate per teaspoon. If you chose to leave out the ginger, it only has 2.5 mg. oxalate per teaspoon! Bring on the pumpkin pie.

Thanks to culinary geek for the pumpkin pie photo.

Turnip carrot mash is the first recipe in my new series of simple family side dishes. I’m on a kick to really increase my sons’ intake of fruits and veggies, so I’m trying a lot of new combinations and kid-approved recipes that I’ve found in kid’s cookbooks and on-line. I hope that by having my boys help me pick out some of the recipes, help buy the groceries and help prepare the veggie and fruit dishes, they will at least try and maybe eat a little of the dish. If the recipe looks like it might be useful for other families even if my kids don’t like it, I’ll go ahead and post it, too–my big experiment. So, keeping with the theme of simple here’s the recipe for turnip carrot mash and a fun turnip fact which might make your kids more willing to try turnips. It sure did mine!

Fun Turnip Fact: Jack-o-lanterns were traditionally carved out of turnips rather than pumpkins–a custom that is still practiced in Ireland and parts of Europe (see my fun picture.)

Turnip Carrot Mash

4 medium turnips, peeled and cut into cubes 4 carrots, peeled and sliced into rounds
2 tablespoons olive oil, butter or ghee (optional)
dash of salt (optional)

Put the turnips and carrots in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to a boil. Cook until the turnips and carrots are tender. Drain the water and mash. Add olive oil or butter.

Makes about 6 – 8  half cup servings depending on how big your carrot or turnips are.

My Family’s Verdict: C ate his entire serving of turnip carrot mash. A ate two small bites. Success!  I personally liked the way the sweetness of the carrot took away some of the usual bitterness of plain mashed turnips. I added a little white pepper and thyme to mine and it tasted decent — simple and satisfying. If you eat cream or milk, you could also try adding a half cup or so to make the dish creamier.

Low Oxalate Info: Boiled carrots, turnips, butter and olive oil are low oxalate. If you make this with 2 cups turnips, 1 1/2 cups carrots and 2 T olive oil you’ll end up with 6 servings with about 3.8 mg. oxalate per serving.

Other Diets: Turnip Carrot Mash may also be appropriate for vegan, vegetarian,dairy-free, GFCF, Paleo and GAPS diets.

Thanks to Darwin Bell and Somewhere in the World for the pics!

Roasted Pumpkin Chili is my new favorite soup! Mild and savory, it’s a perfect one pot family meal for cool fall nights. I keep things simple and serve roasted pumpkin chili with sliced apples and avocado, but it also pairs well with a low oxalate salad. For lunches, I don’t bother to eat anything else!

I started playing around with the idea for a roasted pumpkin chili about a month ago when pie pumpkins first hit the stores. Creative chef, Karla, over at the Trying Low Oxalates Yahoo and Facebook Groups uses pumpkin puree as a substitute for some of the tomato in spaghetti sauce, so I thought why not chili? But I didn’t want to stop there. I wanted to create a hearty chili with big chunks of pumpkin and some of the traditional pumpkin pie spices. The result is a mild, slightly sweet and savory chili with a middle eastern flair. I highly encourage you to give this Roasted Pumpkin Chili a try. And if you’re reading the ingredients and thinking this sounds really good without the nutmeg and cardamom, I highly recommend you to give it a chance as written with all its spicy goodness. Middle eastern chefs have been using spicy hot flavors like cayenne and chili powder blended with savory spices like cloves, cinnamon and cardamom for centuries, and it’s delicious!

I also want to take this opportunity to let you know that you will see some changes coming up on Low Oxalate Info in the next few months. A recent tax law in Missouri has made me ineligible to continue receiving commissions for products my readers buy through Amazon (in the US) after clicking one of my links or by using my Amazon search engine (UK and Canadian customers can still earn a small commission for Low Oxalate Info with your purchases.) Thank you to every one who has supported this site through your Amazon purchases in the past! I couldn’t keep this site running with out you. I will be taking down the Amazon search engines, but I will continue to link to Amazon products in my recipes when appropriate, so you can see exactly what product I use or which one has been tested for oxalate content. I will also continue to take donations through Paypal. Again, thanks so much to those of you who contributed generously to this site! I may also explore other sources of advertising for Low Oxalate Info, although I promise to keep it tasteful and to a minimum. Thank you for your patience as I explore! I don’t expect this site to earn an income, but I do need it to at least pay for itself.

And now, the recipe I promise will make your taste buds happy!

Roasted Pumpkin Chili

1 smallish to medium-sized pie pumpkin (about six cups raw)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds ground beef
1 cup chopped onion (about 1 large or two small onions)
6-8 cloves garlic
3 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
1 1/2 teaspoons Hatch red chili powder
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/8 –  1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
3 cups big beef tomatoes* (parboiled to remove skins if desired and chopped)
1 1/2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt (omit or reduce if you use a canned tomato product)
1 cup water, beef meat broth or beef bone broth

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Peel the pumpkin and clean out the pulp (save the low oxalate seeds to eat raw or roasted!). I find pumpkins are easiest to peel when cut in half or quartered. Cut the pumpkin flesh into one inch pieces and toss with the olive oil on a cookie sheet. Put the pumpkin into the oven to roast, stirring once if necessary, until the flesh is soft and at least some of it is slightly browned (about 25 – 30 minutes).

Meanwhile, brown the beef over medium heat in a large stew pot or dutch oven, stirring occasionally but not so much that you don’t have a few nice big chunks left. When the meat is half brown, half pink add the onions and garlic and keep stirring occasionally. This is also the time to drain off some of the fat if you used a high fat content beef. (I use ground chuck for this recipe and don’t drain my meat). When the onions are translucent add the spices and herbs. Stir well for a minute or two. Add the tomatoes, vinegar and salt. Let simmer until the tomatoes cook down some and start to form a sauce (about 20 – 40 minutes).

When the pumpkin has finished roasting, put 1.5 – 2 cups roasted pumpkin into your blender and puree with 1 cup water (or broth). Pour the puree into the chili and stir. Put the remaining 3.5-5 cups of roasted pumpkin chunks into your soup pot. (If your pumpkin yielded more than 7 cups pumpkin, save some for another recipe or meal. If it yielded less than five cups, pick a bigger pumpkin next time and consider adding some black-eyed peas to your pot for bulk/carbs). Continue to simmer for another 10 – 20 minutes to meld the flavors and reach the desired consistency. You may add more plain broth or water if it looks too dry, but its supposed to be a very hearty, thick soup. Serve plain or with a big dollop of gaucamole or sour cream.

Makes 8 large “full meal” servings or 12 smaller servings.

*About low oxalate big beef tomatoes: This recipe calls for big beef tomatoes because they have the lowest oxalate content and the best taste for this type of recipe (4.1 mg. oxalate per half cup and a good acidity) You may also use early girl, pink girl, German Johnson or Brandywine  tomatoes with good results and only a little more oxalate (all of these varieties have less than 6 mg. oxalate per half cup and decent acidity). If you make your own tomato sauce from low oxalate tomatoes you may substitute an appropriate amount. For me, its about 2 cups of my somewhat watery homemade sauce or about 3.5 cups of my homemade tomato juice. If you do not have access to low oxalate tomatoes, keep in mind that many varieties of tomato have as much as 10 or 11 mg. oxalate per half cup. Go ahead and use them but consider reducing the tomato content to 2 cups diced tomatoes or two cups tomato juice.

Low Oxalate Info: All of  the ingredients in Roasted Pumpkin Chili are low or lower medium oxalate. One large “full meal” serving with a quarter pound meat and about 1 1/4 cup veggies has only 6.3 mg. oxalate per serving (based on 8 servings per pot made with big beef tomatoes and red hatch chili powder). Add a chopped avocado, a dollop of sour cream and a sliced apple and your entire meal will have about   11. 5 mg. oxalate. Not bad! If you feel the need to reduce the oxalate content more, you might experiment with using mace in place of nutmeg, cinnamon extract powder in place of cardamom, and a smaller amount of tomato (and be sure to let us know how it turns out in the comments section!). Alternately, if you can stand a little more oxalate, you might enjoy more tomato, a bit more hatch chili powder or a more traditional chili powder with cumin.

If you use a chili powder with ground onion and cumin (such as McCormick’s Chili powder) instead of Hatch red chili powder, your oxalate content will be slightly higher (about 0.8 mg. 0xalate per serving higher). If you use a different variety of tomato, that also will raise your oxalate content. If it is an unknown variety it might be a lot higher, but not necessarily too high to eat (an extra 4.5 mg. oxalate per serving based on the average 10 mg. oxalate per half cup of tomatoes). This still puts your entire meal with avocado and sliced apple at 16 mg. oxalate — well within reasonable limits for a low oxalate diet. I’ve made Roasted Pumpkin Chili with early girl tomatoes, too–a prolific early and late producing variety common in the US that is easy to grow and easy to find at many farmers’ markets. Early girl tomatoes are a decent substitution with only an extra 1.5 mg. oxalate per serving. 

Picky Eater Pleaser:  Leave some ground beef and roasted pumpkin plain for your picky eater, so you don’t have to cook an entire new meal. You may also want to puree the onion with the roasted pumpkin so there aren’t any onion chunks. Consider leaving out the cayenne if any spice is too much and consider leaving out the basil if even the tiniest bit of green stuff is a problem. One of my boys loves this chili as is. The other is willing to try a bite of the spiced meat and a bite of the pumpkin that I’ve fished out of the pot for him. After that he wants to eat plain meat and pumpkin that I’ve reserved for him.

Other Diets: Roasted Pumpkin Chili may also be appropriate for gluten-free, dairy-free, GFCF, GAPS and Paleo diets.

Thanks to Alan Levine and Brian Jackson for your wonderful photos.

I love just about any kind of oatmeal cookie, but the traditional Toll House Oatmeal Scottie has got to be one of my favorites. I’ve been trying to develop a decent low oxalate gluten-free oatmeal butterscotch cookie for awhile, but the problem I run into with gluten-free low oxalate flours is that they almost always produce a really dry or a really cakey cookie. Not these! I finally figured out how to mix coconut flour with sweet rice flour (mochi) and lots of butter (or coconut oil) to make a crispy, tasty cookie. And don’t worry if you’re dairy-free. These taste just as good with dairy-free white chocolate chips.

I call these gluten-free oatmeal butterscotch cookies my toaster oven cookies because I usually only make a toaster oven sized batch. In fact, I develop all my cookies as toaster oven cookies first, then multiply by six or eight to get a full batch recipe when I think I’ve got the toaster oven version down (although sometimes I have to tweak the final large batch version). I started this as a way to save costs on ingredients. When you are trying something completely new, especially baked goods like cookies, you’re going to have some major flops. The second reason I make small batch cookies in my toaster oven is portion control. Once I get a recipe to work fairly well, I start to dream about those yummy cookies. This way if I eat the whole batch the worse I can do is about 8 mg. oxalate. I can live with that!

I’ve been hesitant to share this recipe because although I can get the toaster oven version to work well almost every time, when I multiply by six to try a large batch something wonky happens and they just don’t work as well. Also, these cookies tend to absorb moisture when stored even if you put them in an air tight container in the refrigerator and they loose their crispness. These cookies are definitely best fresh out of the oven and still warm and gooey! So today, I’m only going to give you the toaster oven version of these gluten-free oatmeal butterscotch cookies. Feel free to try a larger batch and let me know what you did if they work well!

Just a few notes before you get started. Yes, you need to use an egg. Coconut flour needs lots of moisture and it loves eggs! No, I did not make a mistake with the flour measurements. A little coconut flour and mochi goes a long way. Your dough will form nicely with this amount of flour. It may be slightly sticky but you can either deal with that or you can put the dough in the fridge to set up for 15 – 30 minutes. Yes, that’s a lot of butter, and yes, your cookie will look like it’s swimming in butter as it cooks. It needs the oil to get crispy. Otherwise these would be just one more cakey, coconut flour cookie. Believe me, I’ve tried. And yes, the cooking times are very imprecise and longer than most wheat flour versions. Sorry. It seems like every time I make these cookies they take longer to bake. Once, I forgot about them for a half hour and they were still good. I know crazy, but it’s a bonus for those of us with young children that can never seem to get things out of the oven in time.

Have fun trying these cookies. And be sure to read my notes if you attempt these with coconut oil instead of butter!

Gluten-Free Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies
(Toaster Oven-Sized Batch)

1 egg
1.75 T butter or ghee, softened*
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
2 T sugar
2 tsp. coconut flour
2 tsp. sweet rice flour (mochi)
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
A pinch of salt if your butter isn’t salted
2 T GF oats (quick works best, but rolled are fine) **
1 – 1.5 T butterscotch chips (I use this low oxalate recipe)

Preheat your toaster oven to 350 degrees if it bakes at true temperatures (I have to put mine at 400 because it doesn’t heat as well a my regular oven.) Cream the egg, butter, vanilla and sugar in a small bowl. Add the flours, baking soda and salt and mix well. Add the oatmeal and stir. Mix in the butterscotch chips. At this point your dough with either be perfect or it will be slightly sticky/wet. It you don’t mind it being wet, go on to the next step. If you would rather it be a little more dough-like, pop it into the refrigerator for 15-30 minutes to let it set up. Drop by tablespoons full on a greased toaster oven cookie sheet. Don’t leave the cookies mounded or they won’t spread enough (unless you use 2 T butter. Then they spread quite well). Go ahead and push them down a little bit into more of a cookie shape. Bake for about 13 -20 minutes until golden brown. Let cool for a couple minutes.Then enjoy these cookies warm!

Makes 5 cookies.

I’ve doubled this recipe before without problems, but something goes wonky when I try to multiply by six for a full batch recipe.  A doubled batch can go in the regular oven.

*Yes,I know. Sorry about the weird measurement. Anywhere between 1.5 – 2.0 T works but 1.75 works best for my tastes

** You can use 3 T oatmeal if you want a more of an oatmeal taste. It raises the full batch to about 11.5 mg. oxalate or about 2. 3 mg. oxalate per cookie.

Dairy-Free Instructions: You may substitute melted coconut oil for the butter in this recipe. If you do, go ahead and add a pinch of salt. You will also have to let the dough rest in the refrigerator or it will be way too sticky and wet. I personally haven’t found any dairy-free butterscotch chips that I enjoy, but if you know of some, please give us a link in the comments section. If I want to make dairy-free white chocolate chips, they also taste fabulous in these cookies. (I like this recipe for dairy-free white chocolate. You can leave the soymilk powder out, or try rice milk powder if you can find it. Of course if you tolerate dairy, you can use cow or goat milk powder also.)

Variations: White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies – Substitute white chocolate chips for the butterscotch chips.

Low Oxalate Info:  Oatmeal is medium oxalate, even at this small of amount (I base my measurements on 12.5 mg. oxalate per 1/4 cup GF oats). All other ingredients are low oxalate. The entire batch of cookies has about 8 mg. oxalate or about 1.6 mg. oxalate per cookie.

Other Diets: Gluten-free Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies may also be appropriate for vegetarian diets or for dairy-free or GFCF diets with modifications.