Whenever reflux is causing that burning sensation in my belly, I turn to my creole sauce. Weird, I know. I can only speculate that the mild spiciness that I use is just enough to create additional digestive juices to relieve the problem of low stomach acid. A friend of a friend uses Indian food for the same effect. However, I’m not making any medical promises here. I can only promise that it tastes gooooood!
I’ve modified my original recipe to make it gluten free by changing out the ingredients in the roux. I now use coconut oil and garbanzo bean flour. This substitution provides additional benefits that I hadn’t expected. The bean flour is naturally nutty so there’s no “raw” flour taste. Yeah! Plus the coconut oil adds a rich mouth feel. Double yeah!
Roasting and peeling the bell peppers is also a crucial step to getting the tummy benefit. 🙂 I skipped this step once and the skins were very hard on my digestion. Lesson learned! Now I try to buy bell peppers when they’re on sale and roast them ahead of time. I always have some available in the freezer ready to go!
I always make a big batch of this as store it in the freezer in individual servings. In the picture below, you can see I’ve used pint (16oz) canning jars, placed a cup of the sauce in the bottom and filled the rest with cooked quinoa. This makes it easy to take to work for lunch and microwave. Or, as I like to do at home, just pop it (defrosted) in a pan of water and heat it up on the stove.
I use glass and metal wherever possible and avoid storing (and especially heating) food in plastic. I’ve found that canning jars meet and exceed all my needs. There’s only two lid sizes. So there’s no mismatched lids cluttering up my kitchen. If one breaks, I’m only out about $.50. No big loss there. Since converting to using canning jars about 4 years ago, I’ve only broken about 5 jars. They’re more durable than you think.
- 8 Tbsp pastured butter (or ½ cup coconut oil)
- 8 Tbsp (1/2 cup) garbanzo bean flour
- 2 cups organic onions, chopped
- 1 cup organic celery, chopped
- 1 cup roasted organic bell pepper, chopped and peeled (I use yellow and red instead for milder flavor)
- 1 Tbsp organic garlic, chopped
- 1 7 oz jar organic tomato paste (I use Bionaturae to avoid the plastic liners in cans.)
- 3 cups stock, chicken or vegetable
- 1 Tbsp organic thyme
- 1 Tbsp organic basil
- 3 organic bay leaves
- 1 Tbsp brown sugar (or organic coconut sugar)
- 1 organic lemon, sliced
- Salt, pepper, cayenne, red pepper flakes to taste
- 1 cup organic green onion, chopped
- 1 cup organic parsley, chopped
- 3 cups cooked organic chicken, raw shrimp (or leave out for a vegetarian meal)
- Melt the butter in a large sauce pan. Stir in flour over medium heat until lightly browned*.
- Add the onions, celery, bell paper, and garlic. Sauté the vegetables until translucent.
- Add the stock, tomato sauce, thyme, basil, bay leaves, sugar, lemon slices, salt and pepper. Simmer for 15 minutes.
- Add green onions, parsley and your protein choice in the last 5 minutes of cooking.
- Serve over cooked rice or quinoa.
For vegetarian option, just substitute vegetable stock for the chicken stock.
I usually leave out the protein when cooking but add it to my individual servings when I store it in vacuum seal bags. This way I can vary my choices (chicken, shrimp, etc…) from one cooking session!
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