Angel Food Cake

I made Maria's Angel Food Cake.  I made it in Strawberry, and just don't care for fake strawberry flavor.  It wasn't that strong, but still, maybe I'd like this better in vanilla.  Also, it's all eggs, as I used egg white protein too.  Eggs don't always sit well in my stomach...so it made me feel a little nauseous.  The next time I make it, it will be vanilla and with whey protein.  The consistency was interesting.  It was soft in the middle but the edges were like styrofoam.  My friend dubbed it "Space Cake" as it tasted like the freeze dried ice cream they sell as astronaut food!  :-)

Bone Broth Soup

I made Maria's Bone Broth.  It turned out so delicious!!  My kids even loved it and asked to take the leftovers for their lunch the next day.  I didn't have the stuff to make dumplings so mine just had chicken, onions and celery.

AMAZING Low Carb Chocolate Chip Cookies

Again...thanks to the awesome Maria Emmerich, I've found the best low carb chocolate chip cookie recipe.  I made these last night and wanted to eat the ENTIRE batch!  They are so good!  No one would ever think they were low carb.  I tried using her recipe, which called for Just Like Brown Sugar.  I don't know why I can't use this sugar.  I tried twice blending it with coconut oil and butter...and it clumps up on me!  GRRRR!  I ended up saying screw it and used my favorite Ideal sweetner.  YUM YUM YUM!!

Low Carb Deep Dish Pizza

I seem to be slowly working my way through all of Maria Emmerich's recipes.  She has some really great ones.  My dinner last night was no exception.  I made her Deep Dish Pizza.  I made it in a 9x13" cake pan.  Topped it with grass fed ground beef, onions, garlic, thick sliced pepperoni and mounds of mozzarella!!  It was SOOOOOO good!  I love it.  My only complaint, is that at the end of chewing and in the aftertaste, I can still taste the dang coconut.  There is only 1/2 c of coconut flour in there...so i shouldn't be tasting it, but I do.  It wasn't enough to make me not love this pizza crust.  I loved the consistency of the crust and how good it held up.  I will definately be making this a part of my go-to recipes!  It was even good cold this morning for breakfast!  ;-)

Protein Waffles!!

Yep, this again one of Maria Emmerich's recipes.  These were so good.  I bought a cheap waffle stick maker.  It made a ton of waffle sticks and I put them in ziplock baggies and froze them.  When popping them in the toaster to heat the up, my kids said they smelled like popcorn, but they don't TASTE like popcorn.  They are very good with butter and no sugar syrup!!  I'll be making them all the time.  They lasted several weeks and I've even grabbed them for a quick filling lunch!

Cinnamon Bagels

I'm working my way through Maria Emmerich's book The Art of Eating Healthy, Grain Free Low Carb Reinvented, Kids.  Last night me and the kids made her cinnamon bagels.  I used a Babycakes Mini Donut maker, so it made 18 mini bagels.  They are really good.  They aren't exactly the same texture as a bagel, kind of more bread-like, but still good.

Pumpkin Twinkies

So, my BFF Chris was having a birthday party and since he and I are low carbers, I thought I'd get in the kitchen and make him something special.  I found a recipe for pumkin twinkies.  I didn't have the proper twinkie pan, so I used a silicon bar pan that I picked up at Homegoods.  I used this recipe for Pumpkin Mini Muffins from Maria Emmerich's site (except I used 5 eggs instead of 3), and they turned out awesome!  Even the non-low carbers loved them!  I did make a double batch of the icing of course.  :-)  Each twinkie had 3.4 gms carbs!!

**WARNING - I used Ideal, which I LOVE, for the icing and accidentally dropped some on the floor.  Before I picked it up, my French Bulldogs Barkley and Lola got to it.  It is mostly xylitol, which is toxic to dogs!!  We ended up having to take them to the Emergency Vet Clinic and they had to be monitored all night.  Barkley had to be kept longer because his blood glucose dropped too low and they had to start him on a drip.  We got him home 24 hours after the incident and is doing fine so far.  I will be VERY careful from now on when using the Ideal.  Please keep your doggies away from it, apparently they love it as much as I do!!

Chicken Fried Chicken Livers

Last year I went to my doctor for a routine checkup and found out that I was very low in iron.  I started taking an iron supplement, and like I usually do, quit taking it as frequently as I should.  Well, a week ago I started feeling very weak, being overly tired, having heart palpitations and leg cramps.  I knew these were signs of low iron again, and decided I better start taking my iron pills, go make an appointment to see my doc and eat some liver!  My grandma used to make fried chicken a lot, it was her favorite.  Everytime she'd make it, she'd fry up the livers just me!  It's one of my favorite things!!  Every since going low carb, I don't have them as much because you can only get them fried up with flour at restuarants.  So I decided I needed to go make my own, using a version of my Chicken Nugget breading.  Well, this wasn't a great idea, because livers are SO GROSS raw!  I really was just grossing myself out as I was disecting them trying to get them ready to fry up.  They were bloody (yeah, I know, DUH!), and stringy...not all of them were the same color or consistency even!  But I managed to make a big enough batch to eat for my lunch.  And actually...they tasted awesome!!  I put them in an egg and cream wash, then shook them up in a bag of 1 cup of almond flour, 2 TB garlic salt, 1T black pepper.  Almost as good as grandma used to make!

Thin and Crispy Crust Pizzas

I got this thin crust recipe from one of my favorite low carb blogs:  Mariahealth.blogspot.com.  Here is her recipe for thin crust pizza.  It was delish!

Mini Pan Pizzas with the Kids

Tonight the kids and I made low carb mini pan pizzas.  This was a recipe I saw awhile back and I tweaked it to make it low carb. 

Cut low carb tortillas with a large biscuit cutter.  Then put them in a muffin pan.  Put a spoonful of pizza sauce in them, add mozzarella and mini pepperonis in it.  Bake in the oven at 425 for 12 -15 minutes.  YUM!  Each one has only about 2-3 carbs depending on what you add to it.

Chicken Quiche Muffins

My kids love chicken quiche, so I decided to change up a muffin recipe and see if I could make it taste the same, but be more portable.  They turned out amazing!  The kids love them!

Here's my recipe:

8 eggs
the white meat off a rotisserie chicken
4 oz cream cheese
8 oz swiss cheese
1/2 sweet yellow onion, diced.
1 tspn nutmeg
1 tspn salt

Preheat oven to 350.  Whisk the eggs together.  Then mix in the softened cream cheese and swiss cheese.    Add all the other ingredients and mix until blended.  Pour into a muffin pan and bake for 25 minutes.

Cheesecake "Muffins"

I found a new recipe that everyone raved about online.  They've made a million tweaks to them, so I thought I'd give the original recipe a shot.  They are called cheesecake muffins.  I made them exactly like the original recipe.  Here it is:

2 8oz. pks. philadelphia cream cheese
1/2 cup sweetener (I use Ideal)
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Soften cream cheese about 40 seconds in microwave. Add other ingredients. Beat with mixer till smooth. Pour into 12 muffin pans lined with the papers. Bake at 350 for 20 min.

They turned out really good, but I did not llike the cinnamon on the top.  I used my fall silicone muffin pan, which was cute and they came out easily.  I'm going to do a different variation next without the cinnamon and try some DaVinci syrup and see how it goes.

Low Carb Cheesecake

I found a really good cheesecake recipe and made it.  Next time I'll put chocolate chips in it, because with the nut crust, it tastes like a turtle cheesecake which is my favorite!  Here is the link:  Low Carb Cheesecake

Low Carb Margarita

Check out this yummy low carb strawberry margarita!  Made a quick limeaid with lime concentrate and Fiji water, added some sugar free Strawberry syrup, a shot of tequila and ice...YUM!

Favorite Nugget So Far

I decided last night to try a mixture of my two recipes and came up with this one and it was delicisous!  So here you go!

1.5 lbs of Chicken Breasts, cut into small chunks
1 Egg
1 C Heavy Cream or for dairy free - coconut milk or almond milk
1 1/4 C Splendid Gluten Free Bake Mix
2 TBS Powdered Ideal
2 TBS Garlic Salt
1/2 TBS Garlic Powder
1/2 TBS Black Pepper
1/2 tspn Chili Powder
Coconut Oil

Put coconut oil in a skillet and turn it on medium high heat and let melt.  Beat the egg lightly in a bowl, then add the heavy cream.  Put the chicken peices in the bowl (may be done in smaller batches).  In another bowl mix the dry ingredients.  Using a fork, pull the chicken peices out one at a time and put into the dry mixture to coat.  Once the oil is hot enough (but not too hot that the oil starts smoking), put the coated chicken peices in.  Cook until brown on the bottom, then flip them.  Ready to eat!!

Yet Another Chicken Nugget

OK...so I'll admit it, I've got a chicken nugget obsession going on.  These are little chunks of protein heaven which I've had for breakfast lunch and dinner!  I liked the faux Chick Fil A ones I made the other day, but thought I'd try something a little more savory.  Here is what I did tonight:

1.5 lbs of chicken tenderloins, cut into chunks
2 eggs
1/2 C cream
1 1/4 C Splendid Gluten Free bake mix
1.5 T of garlic salt
1 T black pepper
1/2 tspn chili powder
coconut oil

I mixed the eggs and cream.  Mixed all the dry ingredients and then tossed the nuggets in the dry mixture, then dunked them in the egg/cream wash and then back in the dry mixture and into the coconut oil.

YUM!

Faux Chick Fil A Nuggets

So I found a recipe on Pinterest that I wanted to check out from www.mynameissnickerdoodle.com, where she made a faux chick fil a chicken nugget. I low carbed it up though, and they turned out really great!!  Here is how I made it:

4 small skinless and boneless chicken breasts, cut into nugget size chunks
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 egg
1 1/4 cups Splendid Gluten-Free Bake Mix
2 TBSP powdered Ideal
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
coconut oil

I didn't have time to marinate my chicken first, so just cut it up as is.  Mixed the egg up and added the cream.  Dip the chicken nuggets in the egg/cream wash.  Then put them in a plastic bag that had all the dry ingredients in it.  Then fried them in a pan of coconut oil.  They came out so good. My kids loved them, and I've eaten several meals of this, cold even!!  So good!  :-)

Chinese "Take-out" Night

Tonight I made Faux Fried Rice and Orange Chicken.  Both from Kent Altena, who has Youtube videos and his recipes are in Low-Carbing Among Friends.  I cooked the cauliflower (rice) way too long, and it mushed down way too small, so once I added in the soy sauce, it was way too salty.  I think it would have tasted exactly like fried rice, if I would not have cooked it too long.  The Orange Chicken, was AWESOME!  I even loved the chicken "nuggets" by themselves even without the Orange sauce.  This made a TON of chicken.  It was delicous.  The Orange chicken will definately be a staple.  I can't wait to try other sauces with the chicken!!

UPDATE:  I had the leftover chicken nuggets for lunch today, cold out of the fridge, and OMG they reminded me of my grandma's homemade leftover friend chicken I used to eat straight out of the fridnge too!!  These are so good!!!  I think I might start living off of them, and the different variations I can make with them!  :-)  YUM!

Pumpkin Spice Loaf

YUM! YUM! YUM!  This was so good!  This is another recipe from Jennifer Eloff, her Pumpkin Spice Loaf.  It is really good!  I didn't even make the cream cheese icing for it.  I heat up the slices and put some butter on them, so good.

Pecan Turtle Bars

I tried another desert recipe from Low Carb-ing Among Friends.  It was called Pecan Turtle Bars.  There were several layers, a shortbread type crust, then pecans and a caramel, then topped with chocolate.  I didn't really care for it.  It was quite crumbly and hard, but the taste had a bite to it that I did not like.  I'm thinking it might have been all the erithrytol in it.  I don't think I'll be making this one again.

Carrot Cake - Yes, Low carb

So, I'm in heaven.  I found an amazing carrot cake recipe.  It's again from Jennifer Eloff at Splendid Low-Carbing.  She calls it a Carrot Cake Loaf.  I doubled the recipe for the icing, added .5 more carbs per slice.  I also used Ideal sweetner instead of Splenda.  This was SOOOOO good!  There was no way you could tell this was low carb!  AMAZING!

The dark spots are the walnuts...YUM!  I did those instead of raisins, because raisins add more carbs, and I can't stand them in baked goods.  :-)

Chris' Stir Fry

My friend, and fellow low carber Chris created a yummy new recipe.  Wal-Mart sells a frozen Philly Cheesesteak.  It comes in beef, pork and chicken.  This is what he used for the meat.

4 frozen Philly Cheesesteaks
butter
olive oil or coconut oil
one onion, sliced
one red bell pepper, sliced
4 cloves of garlic
2 shakes chinese 5 spice
4 Tbs dried basil
2 tsp soy sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Put the cheesesteaks in a pan and grill them until they are done.  Remove them from the pan and set aside.

In the same pan melt some butter and oil (olive or coconut).  Then add the garlic and saute.  Next add the onions and bell peppers and let them saute until the onions start to become translucent.  Then add back in the cheesesteak meat (you may want to chop it up some before adding it in).  Add the chinese 5 spice, basil soy sauce, salt, pepper and mix. 

This is so yummy!  I ate mine out of the bowl by itself.  Chris buttered up some sandwich bread (another recipe I wrote about on this blog) and fried it and ate it with his.  This is definately something I'll make again!

Ideal Sweetner

I finally found a sweetner that I really like in coffee.  I was using the DaVinci syrups but the Splenda just doesn't sit right in my stomach.  I then tried several different kinds of Stevia...but didn't really care for them.  I then found Ideal at my HEB Kingwood Market.  It is so good!!  It's a blend of Xylitol, Dextrose with Maltodextrin and sucralose.  It's only got .3 gms net carbs per packet.  LOVE IT!  I plan on trying it in some recipes soon to see how it does there.

Breakfast Bonanza Muffins

Today's recipe was Breakfast Bonanza Muffins.  This recipe is again from my Low Carb-ing Among Friends cookbook.  I used a smoked sausage, which was a little strong, think I'll use another type of sausage next time, but these are good.  My kids like them, so thats all I need!  And at 2 carbs a peice, they are filling, yummy and really low in carbs!  It made a great lunch today, tomorrow it will be a good breakfast.  I'll have to see how they reheat!

Dia De Los Muertos Mannequin

Here is the pic of my mannequin that I did last year for Halloween.

Halloween Mantle 2011

So, it's already feeling like fall to me, so I've been thinking about my Halloween decorations for this year.  I always go ALL OUT for decorating.  I fill every window in the front of my house with Jack-o-laterns and have full size props of a witch, butler and vampire that I put into a display in my dining room.  Last year I turned a mannequin of mine into a Dia De Los Muertos mannequin.  I'll post some other pics up as I find them.  Here was my mantle.

Almond Chocolate Donuts

Another day, another donut recipe. :-)  Today it's Almond Chocolate Donuts.  It's another recipe out of Low Carb-ing Among Friends cookbook.  I really like this one.  My kids were not fond of it.  I love all the almond flavor, a friend of mine wished it had more chocolate flavor to the glaze instead of almond flavor.  I used a Lindt 85% bar because I didn't have any unsweet chocolate.  My donut pan must be a different size than the normal.  It was supposed to make 10, but I made 12.  I think this one might be a keeper! 

UPDATE:  These donuts were not good after they were first made.   It seems the almond extract became really strong and gave it an almost medicine taste.  The consistency seemed to dry out too.  I will not be making these again.  I did like the glaze, will try putting that on maybe a bundt cake recipe (minus the almond extract), once I find a good one to try.

Mini Coconut Donuts

OK...so, still on a donut kick.  I purchased a new food processor today and while I was at the store, picked up a mini donut pan and a regular donut pan.  So, I thought I'd whip up a quick batch from one of my many recipes I've got bookmarked.  The ones I chose to make tonight were called Mini Coconut Donuts.  I got the recipe out of my recipe book "Low Carb-ing with Friends".  They were definately coconut-y and they took a while to grow on me.  They are not going to be a staple in my "go to list", but they were ok.

Low Carb Donut Holes / Funnel Cake

I found this recipe for low carb donut holes.  First off I got the oil too hot because I did not have a candy thermometer to judge the oil temperature (need to get one).  I used coconut oil to fry these in and it started smoking because I got it too hot.  Secondly, I could not find a way to drop the whole blob down in one scoop so that it would look like a donut hole.  So mine ended up looking more like funnel cake or squid!  The ones that weren't burnt ended up tasting REALLY good!!  I need to try this one again one day with the proper oil temperature and a better way to drop the balls of dough or a better way to make funnel cake.  I ate all the good peices before I remembered to take a picture, so you get to see the burnt ones!  Here is the recipe I tried:  Low Carb Donuts

Low Carb Brownie Search

I was having some serious chocolate cravings and decided to search for a low carb brownie recipe.  I found a ton of them.  It was hard to decide which one I wanted to try first.  After reading some good recommendations, I decided to make this one:  Low Carb Chocolate Brownies    I used erythritol and xylitol  instead of Splenda.  It ended up being too sweet for me.  Maybe I got the wrong porportions for the different sugars.

Sandwich Bread

I've tried a couple of different low carb sandwich breads that I've ordered online, and I don't care for them.  I spent some time this weekend browsing the web and came up with one I made.  It was pretty easy to make, even though I did not have a food processor (need to get one of those).  I omitted the parmesan cheese though.  I think it turned out good, I'm not sure I love the cheese flavor of it, but I tried it on a Turkey and Cheddar sandwich and it was good.  The next morning tried it toasted in  pan with butter and a bacon and egg sandwich.  I'm not sure it worked as well with that one.  I'll keep trying it though, as it made plenty of bread (30 slices)!  Splendid Low Carb Sandwich Bread

Amazing Low Carb Donuts!

Last week, I found some delicious looking low carb chocolate donuts on Etsy.  They were AMAZING!  So yummy, and filling!  I'm in breakfast heaven.  :-)  ShannonsSugarFree  Can't wait to try some of her other baked goods.