Chocolate Buttercream Frosting (low carb, grain free, dairy free)

I decided I wanted something sweet tonight, so I thought I'd try to recreate a chocolate buttercream icing.  It turned out pretty good!

1/4 cup Organic Palm Oil Shorterning
1 1/2 C powdered Ideal
3 Tbs Cocoa Powder
1 tspn Vanilla
3 TBS Unsweet Vanilla Almond Milk

Blend all together in stand mixer until nice and creamy.  YUM!

Dairy Free Vanilla Coffee Creamer

Finding a replacement for heavy cream in my coffee as been a HUGE challenge.  I've been through all kinds of attempts.  I've finally found one I can enjoy.  Of course I can still taste a hint of the conconut flavor, which I can't stand, but it's not strong enough to bother me in this recipe.  I still plan on tweaking it some and see how it goes.  It reminds me of the Coldstone Creamer that I used to love so much :-)

2 cups of canned coconut milk
2 TBS of xylitol honey
2 TBS of xylitol maple syrup
1 TBS vanilla extract
1/4 C Ideal

Stir constantly over medium/low heat.  I waited until it was steaming and then turned off the fire, put the lid on the pan and let it sit for 30 minutes.  I then poured it into a mason jar and put it in the fridge.  I let it sit in the fridge overnight before I used it.

Sweet Tea!!

I'm definitely a southern girl...which means I LOVE my sweet tea.  I made a picture up tonight at a friend's house with Ideal and thought I'd post it.

Boil 1/2 gallon of water.  Once boiling, turn off fire and add 3 family size bags of tea and 1/4 tsp of baking soda.  Let brew for 15 minutes.  Then remove the bags and add 2 cups of Ideal and stir until disolved.  Pour into your pitcher and then add another 1/2 gallon of cold water.  Pour over ice in a glass and enjoy!!

Kalua Pig - Crockpot Style

My friend Chris sent me a link to this Kalua Pig recipe from Nom Nom Paleo's blog.  I decided to throw it in the crock pot last night, but didn't have the Hawaiian red salt, so I found some smoked sea salt that I used instead.  It takes 16 hours to cook, so be prepared to wait.  I don't think it smelled all that great when cooking, but it sure tasted good.  The kids really ate it up too!

Chocolate Icing Shots

In looking for other icing shots I ran across one from Chocolate Covered Katie.  It's dairy free and I used Ideal for the sugar in it, probably close to 3/4 of a cup.  In the end mine turned out more like pudding, it wasn't quite thick enough to be icing.  You could still taste a hint of coconut, which I don't care for, but this "pudding" was good.  The kids really liked it.  Here is Katie's recipe.

Icing Shots

So, it should be no shock that I have a sweet tooth.  I was craving something creamy and sweet, and I've recently decided to give up dairy, along with everything the sugar, grains and carbs that I've already given up.  I remembered when my aunt worked at a grocery store bakery decorating cakes, she told me they make the white icing with sugar and shortening.  I was at the store and found an organic shortening made with palm oil.  Palm oil is another great tropical oil like coconut oil, so I bought it thought I'd give it a shot.  I'd seen several "icing shot" recipes online and just whipped up my own sugar free, dairy free version.  It was YUMMY!!  The xylitol turned out too crunchy...maybe next time I'll blend it even longer and see if I can get it more powdery.

White-ish Icing

1/2 cup organic palm oil shortening
2 cups of Ideal (I put it in the magic bullet and blended it to make it "powdery")
1 tsp GF/Sugar Free Vanilla Extract (or any other of your choosing)
1/4 cup water

Put it all in the mixer and mix on low until it's all combined, then crank it up to high for 5 minutes...it will turn nice and fluffy by the end of it.  Then I spooned it into shot glasses and devoured it!!

Vanilla Coconut Flour Cookies

These cookies turned out pretty good.  It's an "add sweetness to taste" kinda of thing, and I did not add enough sweetness.  I also think they are a little plain, so next time I might drizzle some xylitol honey on them and toasted coconut, or maybe dip them in dark chocolate.  But its definitely a great base cookie. I got the recipe from The Prudent Wife website.

Low Carb Snickerdoodles

WOW...these are so GOOD!!  They are chewy and so good.  My kids loved them.  I made a few tweaks to the original recipe.  It's the Snickerdoodle recipe off of Urban Poser's blog.  These are grain free, egg free, gluten free and dairy free.  For the honey I used Nature's Hollow xylitol honey and for the sugar to mix with the cinnamon, I used Ideal.

Cashew Chicken - Crockpot Style

So, I tried some low carb chinese food again.  I was not really thrilled with it.  I'm not sure why so many of these recipes call for so much soy sauce.  It ends up tasting like "soy sauce chicken".  It was eaten, and no one refused it, but it won't be something I'll make again, unless I find a recpie with almost NO soy sauce in it.  Here is the link to the recipe if you want to try it out.  crock-pot-cashew-chicken