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Ayurveda, Balanced Plate / Meal, protein

Gluten Free Flour Tortillas or Flatbread Wraps

by Rebecca1 Comment on Gluten Free Flour Tortillas or Flatbread Wraps

A few years ago, I started making various quick gluten-free flatbreads to use in meals when I wanted a grain but needed something quick, easy and different from the usual rice or quinoa or millet or buckwheat. I would often choose a slice or two of my whole grain gluten-free sourdough in that instance, but often I don’t have any bread handy either.

The flatbreads, made with just a couple flours, a pinch of salt and water, were a little lackluster, and William ate them unenthusiastically. Somewhere in the many months of making them, I happened upon the addition of psyllium seed husk. I also use psyllium husk in my sourdough recipe – it’s an essential ingredient for the stretch that gluten-free bread doughs will otherwise lack.

The psyllium addition has been a gamechanger. The flatbreads have become flour tortillas, or wraps, which I went over a decade without, and burrito size tortillas for various burritos and wraps – also a warm welcome after so long without.

The bonus is: these come together really quick! Like just as quick as the much less pliable flour/water/salt version. And if you only want enough for a meal, any leftover dough can easily be refrigerated until the next day, and rolls out super quick as you’re reheating leftovers.

Probably the only thing you’ll be wishing you had is an even larger pan to get these as absolutely large as you can possibly want them. :)

Gluten-Free Flour Tortilla or Chapati Flatbread

This is a quick and easy flatbread that can be used to make thin flour tortillas, or as chapati flatbread as a whole-grain addition to a balanced meal.

Prep:  15-25 minutes  | Cook: 20-30  minutes  | Serves: 4

12 grams / 2.5 Tbs. psyllium husk (rough husk form, not powder
240 ml / 1 cup warm water
180 grams / 1 ½ cups whole grain gf flour mix
  (or a 50:50 mix of  brown rice and sorghum flour)
¼ tsp. mineral salt

  1. In a bowl, whisk the psyllium husk and warm water. Within a few seconds, a gel will start to form. Set aside until needed. 
  2. In a separate larger bowl, stir the flour(s) and salt together, then add the liquids and mix with a wooden spoon until all the flour is mixed in.
  3. Then, give it a thorough knead by hand. Squeeze the dough through your fingers and work your way around the bowl, scraping off the sides as necessary. The final dough should come away from the sides of the bowl and be very springy to the touch. It shouldn’t be too sticky. It doesn’t have to be perfectly smooth – so long as it’s homogeneous with all the ingredients well combined and no clumps of flour or psyllium gel, you can proceed to the next step.
  4. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Divide into 4 to 6 equal portions. If making four, this will yield burrito size tortillas or flatbreads – if you’re making them quite thin.
  5. Cover the pieces you are not currently working with with a towel to prevent them drying out.
  6. Use a rolling pin to roll out the dough into a thin tortilla, or if you’re wanting a thicker flatbread, you can also use your hands.
  7. For a tortilla, aim for very thin, about 1mm thick. This works best when your countertop is well-floured and you rotate the dough frequently to prevent it from sticking to the surface. As necessary, dust the top of the tortilla and your rolling pin with more flour.
  8. To cook: Heat a large cast-iron pan over medium-high heat. The pan is ready when a droplet of water sizzles on its surface.
  9. Place a tortilla into the hot pan and cook it for about 45 seconds. 
  10. Once you flip it, it should puff up in places with bubbles of varying size appearing. Cook on the other side for about 45 seconds to 1 minute. The tortilla is done when you begin to see large dark brown spots on the underside.
  11. Tip: If your tortillas are cooking/browning too quickly, reduce the heat. If they’re taking longer than a minute per each side to cook, increase the heat.
  12. Transfer to a clean dish towel and cover – this will help it stay soft and flexible. Continue cooking the remaining tortillas.

Notes: The tortillas are best served warm immediately after cooking, but can be stored for 1-2 days and reheated.
You can also store the uncooked dough in a covered container in the fridge for a day to quickly make 1-2 fresh tortillas as needed.

Ayurveda, GI Problems, Herbal Medicine, Nutrition + Health, Seasonal Eating, Spring, Summertime

Observing the 20 Energies and How To Really Start Intuitive Eating

by Rebecca4 Comments on Observing the 20 Energies and How To Really Start Intuitive Eating

Every day in May is precious.

Where I live, the months of February through April are often the most challenging – January and the post-holiday, beginning of year hope always seem to fly by, but it’s in February, and March, and April that every day can feel like a grind. 

It’s not the sunshine that May can bring that necessarily turns it all around for me. I do love the sun and warmer days, but I also enjoy the rain. 

It’s the flowers and the fully leafed out trees that late winter and early spring lacks. The sheer density of foliage that has returned by early May.

A heavy blanket or extra padding of plant life that soothes my nervous system as I go out into the world, making everything hard, more bearable, and everything mundane or merely good, elevated. 

The twenty Gunas valued in Ayurvedic medicine.

One thing that is inevitably helpful from day to day, whether it’s in those more difficult late winter and early spring months, in May, or in the heat of peak summer, is tuning into and adjusting my food and lifestyle choices based on the energies around and inside me. What I’m referring to are the 20 Gunas in Ayurvedic wisdom. These are a set of 10 pairs of opposing qualities or energies that describe the different attributes inherent in all substances. 

For instance, a rock is hard. Feathers are soft. 
A rainy day is wet. A clear, sunny day in August in Oregon is dry. 
Fresh ginger is heating. Coconut milk and coconut water are cooling.  

What is so powerful about observing these qualities in your body and everyday life, and then using them to make subtle food and lifestyle adjustments, is that it’s a way to bring balance to your body, mind and health.

This daily adjusting is especially helpful as a preventative measure, but should also be used when there is clear illness or disease. Our body’s prefer to operate at homeostasis. Even with everything we do in our everyday that knocks the body out of homeostasis, its object is always to return to ‘baseline’ as quickly as possible. When there are too many blocks in its ability to do so, that’s when illness and disease, abnormal lab values, pain and aches, and injuries occur.  

The 20 Qualities are:
Heavy | Light
Cold | Hot
Soft | Hard
Oily | Dry
Smooth | Rough
Dense or Solid | Liquid
Slow or Dull | Sharp
Stable | Unstable or Mobile
Cloudy, Sticky or Slimy | Clear
Gross or Big | Subtle or Small

Observing and using the 20 qualities or gunas is a way to help the body system return to homeostasis. How you do that is for every quality that is out of balance, utilize the opposite quality instead. 

For instance, if I am currently experiencing hot, itchy skin rashes or acne, I know that adding more heating substances, foods, and heating spices will further increase the heat condition. Reducing the amount of spices in food, the type of foods that are hot in nature, and increasing cooling foods will help to clear the heat. Adding cooling, bitter vegetables like broccoli and asparagus and more cooling spices and herbs like fennel, coriander, mint and cilantro,  instead of eating a dish with garlic, onions, ginger, mustard seeds, and chili peppers will slowly (or sometimes quickly) assist in coming back to equilibrium. 

Or say I have a tendency towards being constipated and gassy, and I eat lots of dry, airy foods. Snacking on popcorn, granola, chips, crackers, yeasted bread, and raw, crunchy salads, which I eat while on the go, or eat while talking. All are dry and/or contain a lot of air.
A way towards balance is to increase the moisture — both through adding liquid into the foods consumed, and cooking foods until they’re soft, and by adding liquid fats and oils instead of dry, crunchy roasted nuts or seeds, etc.

A Daily Check-In

One way to begin to use this method is by doing a short daily check-in. Take a few minutes near the beginning of each day to journal or jot down the answers to these questions:

– What is Present today? 
– And What is Needed?

Getting more granular, it can sometimes be helpful to do a quick scan or review of different body systems, the mind and emotions, and the weather to help. Is something feeling dry? Hot? Slimy and mucousy? Slow and sluggish? Adjust your food and lifestyle choices with the opposite qualities, and see where it begins to bring more balance. 

As we weave into the summer months in the northern hemisphere, it’s often that the qualities on display in the environment become hotter, dryer (or more humid, depending on where you live), and this can be mirrored in the body more rapidly, especially when we likewise choose heating and drying foods. Here’s a recipe for summer that can give you a good example of how to balance the heat and dryness with cooling spices, coconut and gently cooked, more liquid-containing meals. 

Observing what’s occurring internally and externally and adjusting to quickly reach equilibrium is the very definition of true intuitive eating. It’s tuning into what the body needs rather than what the mind craves. 


If you’d like to know more, there is a free download in more detail to use this idea in the Resources section. I also work with clients in individual nutrition consultations, and as a Licensed Dietician / Nutritionist (LDN /LD) and Certified Nutrition Specialist (CNS), use medical nutrition therapy, integrative health measures, and a root cause approach to heal imbalanced health conditions. 

If you’d like to learn more about how you can improve your symptoms of imbalance, I’d love to speak with you in a quick phone consultation! 

Carbohydrates, Fat, Nutrition + Health, Running, Sports Nutrition, Spring

Coconut Macaroon No-Bake Cookies

by RebeccaLeave a Comment on Coconut Macaroon No-Bake Cookies
GUTSY Performance Nutrition Coconut Macaroon No-Bake Cookies

I have a handful of routine no-bake cookie and energy bar formulas I frequently use to make tasty (and still nutritious) treats and snacks. In the winter, I often make a gingerbread variation. Or for routine mid-afternoon snacks, I’ll make a date / hemp protein / apricot / nut or seed energy bar variation.

A couple years ago, I taught a cook-along class with my local Oregon Oiselle running group, and we made one of the recipe variations of these no-bake cookies as a dessert. A couple weeks later while on a run, one of the attendees mentioned she’d adapted the recipe just slightly to make it even easier to whip together, and she was using it for long run and ultra training fuel.

With the combination of milled oats and ground nuts, coconut oil, and a quickly absorbing sugar source (honey or maple syrup), these will indeed make a good fuel option for longer (slower) runs or cycling rides, where the digestive system can take its time a bit and handle a little more complex carbohydrates and fats as fuel.

And I’m all for taking a recipe and making it your own.

I give a variation to make these sort of like no-bake truffles that are coated in a dark chocolate shell, but realistically, I almost never do that. I don’t tend to be a big chocolate person (I do like chocolate! I just rarely crave it or set out to make chocolate infused foods.) But if that sounds good to you, the chocolate / coconut flavor pairing is generally a good one.

Hope you enjoy – as a dessert, a post-workout quick fuel, afternoon snack, or training fuel – or whatever way works for you!

GUTSy Performance Nutrition Coconut Macaroon No-Bake Cookies

Coconut Macaroon No-Bake Cookies

Nothing like a traditional macaroon but rich in coconut and almond flavor, these are tasty little bites to have as a quick snack or end of day dessert – or training fuel for longer, lower intensity (easy day) efforts.

Prep:  10-15 minutes | Makes: 6-7

½ cup + 2 Tbs. / 70 grams rolled oats
¼ cup / 28 grams almond flour
¼ cup / 20 grams unsweetened coconut flakes
⅛ tsp. salt
2 Tbs.  / 32 grams raw coconut butter
½ Tbs.  / 7 grams coconut oil
2 ½ Tbs. / 50 grams maple syrup or honey
¼ tsp. vanilla extract
Optional: melted dark chocolate

  1. In a food processor, combine the oats until broken down in a rough flour-like consistency. Then add the remaining ingredients and process until everything comes together.
  2. Scoop out heaping tablespoons of the dough and roll into balls in using your palms until they are firm and won’t fall apart when you pick them up. Put them on a plate or in a storage container.
  3. Store in the fridge for up to 1 week. They will last longer, but won’t taste as fresh. Allow them to come to room temperature before enjoying.

Note: if you’d like a slightly more decadent dessert, melt a small amount of chocolate in a double boiler and dip each cookie into the chocolate. Set in the fridge to firm up.