Cocoa Muffincakes v 1.10

I've been gradually mucking about with a recipe for something that vaguely resembles "chocolate muffins", somewhat more than strawberries resemble iguanas, but somewhat less than these things resemble any form of bread- or cake- based item in the world.

These are low-carb and gluten-free.

It uses mostly healthy ingredients: nuts (almond meal), seeds (flax meal), protein powder (Designer Whey Vanilla), eggs, butter, cream cheese, and quality cocoa. Optionally you can add other nuts or berries.

The processed items (aside from protein powder) include artificial vanilla extract, baking powder, sweetzfree (liquid sucralose), DaVinci syrup and Fiberfit for combined sweeteners.

The current recipe makes 40-44 "mini-muffin" sized items. I warn you that baking anything containing flax seed meal is SO much better done in a spray-it-first silicone baking pan. You can toss in half a walnut or a blackberry or couple blueberries to each muffin before adding the batter if you like, that is yummy too.

1 serving I count as 3 of the muffin-things.
Calories: 293g Fat: 23g Carbs: 6.85g Fiber: 3.33g ECC: 3.52g Protein: 16.32g

For a sweet-thang, 3.52 ecc and 16.32 protein is not bad!

They are munchy enough to graze on, but so high in protein/fiber that once they start digesting I lose interest in eating any more of them for awhile.

My favorite part of these things is that I can put them in a ziplock and keep them with me through a long day and evening. (A paper towel in there will reduce moisture.) I don't have to refrigerate them, I can just munch on them when I want to. Since the number of fairly low carb high protein items that do NOT need to be refrigerated or cooked on the spot is very low, I consider these very cool.

These are fairly sweet and you could put cream-cheese frosting on them and use them as cupcakes. I've also had these with a few lowcarb chocolate chips dropped inside each muffin, that is good too but makes them more candy-like. This particular recipe version tastes like a semi-dry, subtly-flavored brownie sort of. I think I will add a little more oil next time.

I might add that a *quality* cocoa, oil, and protein powder are obviously important to the end-result of stuff like this. I used Penzey's 24% butterfat baking (non-dutched) cocoa, macademia nut oil, and Designer Whey Vanilla Praline protein powder.

Special thanks to the fabulous Niki at Oh.2.B.Fit whose wonderful raspberry cream muffins gave me the idea to switch out my cream for cream cheese and increase my almond meal, which made this version of these muffins the best in texture so far out of all the versions.

I'm going to see, another time, if I can drop the cocoa and aim for making these fruity in a way that I can combine both extracts and real fruit for stronger flavor. I'm thinking lemon-blueberry, or orange-raspberry maybe.

Click below for a full-size image you can save or print.



Happy munching!

PJ

P-Flax Crepe-Wraps v1.1: Caraway-Rye

I'm on the long road of search for a home-made "wrap" that is super low carb, high in protein, easy to make, and can be used for anything from sweet treats to savory meals depending on how you want to season it or sweeten it.

I'm getting closer. I've removed my previous crepe recipe, which had good and bad points, in favor of this one. The current experimental version is 1.1, the v1.0 being the previous plain (vanilla with sweetener) crepe. The good part of 1.0 was that it was actually pretty decent, and with some ricotta and fruit inside and a little bit of sugarfree jam nuked and drizzled across the top, it was very yummy for breakfast. More like a crepe made of eggs, protein powder and other stuff, than a "real" crepe, but I didn't mind at all, nor did my 10 year old. The bad part was that the batter thickened so fast it was just weird.

If you want to see the whole recipe, click on the below pic for a full-size image with the nutrition counts etc. Be sure to see the "variations" at bottom.

This makes 3 crepes.
* The first one, I wanted to mix up chopped chicken, pesto, red peppers and parmesan, but only had pesto. Just that, rolled up in it, was really good.
* The second one, I separately nuked pepperoni on a paper plate till crispy, then nuked some mozzarella on top of it, and flipped its plate over onto the crepe, and rolled that mix up inside it. Yum.
* The third one, I scrambled 2 eggs and added shredded cheddar and hot sauce, and used the crepe to eat it all like a large taco. Worked fine, though you have to hold it a bit carefully (and let it cool first).

Per crepe, Equiv Carbs: 1.85 Protein: 10.05
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Protein Puppies

One of my favorite things about experimenting with lowcarb foods is the amazing combinations. It's like magic, or Star Trek's Replicator. It goes in as an almond, it comes out a dense bread-like thing. That's bizarre. And wonderful!

I never knew about the ability of egg and protein to combine into a semi bread-like texture for example, since typical highcarb eating combines eggs with powdered, nutrient-stripped sugar-cardboard grains as flour instead.

o0o

I think it's important (I've said this before) that lowcarbers not name half their foods like "fake versions of highcarb stuff". So for example I don't call it mock apple pie, I call it Zucchini cobbler, and then say in a subtitle it tastes just like apple pie. As long as people are comparing lowcarb dishes to highcarb dishes, or only evaluating lowcarb foods by "how much like" highcarb foods they are, then psychologically, as well as to others, it's a "specialty diet", not just different foods. (Because then you're not really saying "I eat different foods" but rather, "I eat the same foods in a substituted form". Kinda like the plainwrap or no-name version instead of a popular brand.)

I think lowcarbers should be delighted that cauliflower can do a dish that tastes a lot like twice-baked cheese potatoes, or chicken fried rice, but I think that should have its own name that lowcarbers learn to love, not "I'm pretending to be a potato or rice." I think we should celebrate the food our eating plan has, not as a substitute for high carb food, but as its own culinary delight. Who knows? Maybe some lowcarb foods, if they are not pretending to be fakes of highcarb, but are just proud to stand on their own as what they are, might migrate into a few highcarb diets as well. Plenty of highcarbers are willing to try a cauliflower dish. But they have no reason to try a 'fake potato' dish since they can just eat potatoes.

In California where I grew up, there was this place called Kaiser's Nutrition. They had carob flavored "Hercules Flips" drinks. The first time I got one, I did it as 'fake chocolate' -- I thought it was a substitute of sorts, and I thought it was healthier. (Oh brother.) At first, I was disappointed, because really, it didn't taste a damn thing like chocolate. But then later, I realized that it tasted really, really GOOD, and I loved it! In fact, it has a unique taste unlike anything else I've ever had. As a substitute for chocolate, it was pitiful. As a new food I'd never tried, I loved it. If you see what I mean.

It made me realize that how we "frame" our perceptions about our food is important. Substitutes are always 'diet' or 'fake' foods, psychologically, not their own thing.

There are many foods -- curry, pesto, etc. -- that do not taste like anything else in the universe but what they are. They are "new" to people the first time. If they were presented as a substitute for something else, they would surely be a disgustingly poor version of whatever it was. But on their own, they're divine foods!

o0o

Over in the lowcarber.org forum, a member named Atlee posted this great recipe she called "protein powder donut holes." After about 100+ replies to the thread, most ravingly positively, I finally got around to trying them. I'd like to officially offer thanks and prayers for a long happy lowcarb life to Atlee for sharing it freely!

My versions of things are seldom exactly like the original, and then I usually number them like software and they "evolve" as I try different flavor or other variations. I can later refer to v1.7 and v2.3 as my favorites worth keeping, for example. I rename them, partly to match what I think is best descriptive, and partly because it seems unfair to represent someone else's recipe in a way that is not what they provided. (I do always provide refs and links to the source, teacher's pet that I am.)

These things (protein batter deep fried into balls) are totally reminiscent to me -- in appearance, not taste -- of "Hush Puppies" (fried balls of cornmeal batter). So I am calling them:

Protein Puppies

Ingredients:

1 scoop protein powder (I used Designer Whey, Vanilla Praline)
1 egg (I used large)
1/2 cube (1/4 cup) butter, fully melted (I used regular salted)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract (I used artificial as it's way lower carb)
2-3 Tbsp sweetener equivalent (I used 6-8 drops of sweetzfree)
coconut oil in a small deep saucepan, about 1" deep of it

Nuke butter to fully melt it, stir in everything else, stir well. Let sit for a few minutes. Stir again. Original creator suggested using an ice cream scoop but I only had a large table spoon. Heat oil to boiling. Drop in a spoon(s) of the batter stuff in the pan. It poofs up into balls with the heat. Flip them over, only takes several seconds till they are done. Drop on a plate with paper towels (to drain oil). The ones I cooked longer that were pretty dark brown were better. I think it made 6-8 of these (my sizing was inconsistent).

They came out with a nature and look rather like hush puppies: sorta crispy outside, dense yet light somehow (bit breadish) inside. Ry and I were amazed at the result (given the ingredients), they were really good!

Click the image below to see a nutrition count with ingredients and instructions; print in landscape mode and it should fit on one page.



Alrighty then. I think I'm going to try and make this again today and put the stuff in a ziplock and squeeze it into the oil more like a funnel cake and see how it is. Calianna said she tried it like that and it was really good. But first I think I have to come up with some kind of something to dip it in. Big Daddy D mentioned LC cinnamon rolls (oh my gosh!) so I'm off to see if his blog has any ideas for a sweet dip. I do remember seeing cinnamon streussal something on there, yum!

P.S. or maybe I'll just break down and try Tracy's Chocolate Mayo Pound Cake which actually does look pretty darn good.

Edited to add: I tried it again with strawberry protein powder and didn't like it. I forgot the sweetener though! Don't do that. :-) I did it like a funnelcake but I didn't care for it that way cause (a) it was thinner and the inside wasn't as moist and (b) I overcooked it by cooking it to the same color of the balls-ideal. So if you do the funnelcake format (cut tiny hole in corner of ziplock with the batter), it doesn't need to be cooked as long as the balls. We are talking about only seconds of difference here really. :-)

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Home-made Processed Food

Today I've been thinking about processed foods. I'm not talking about Pasteurized Process American Cheese Food kind of processed foods, or even the Double Quarter Pounder With Cheese kind of processed food. I'm talking about the potential difference -- or not? -- between foods I make in my kitchen, versus well, foods I just eat, maybe with minimal prep. And whether one is better or worse. Is it the ingredients? The % of processed ingredients in the overall product resulting? The morality of "raw" vs... whatever?

I think I'm a guilt-freak and I'm trying to figure out if I should feel guilty about making concoctions out of stuff like protein powder, flax, eggs, cream cheese, like, "You should be eating chicken and salad! There's no excuse!" or whether I should say "Hey, it tastes good, it has good nutrient-numbers, it keeps me on plan, so it's good."

There is a 'ground base' we could start with. Vegetables and fruits. If you buy them fresh, or better yet pick them fresh, that's as close to unprocessed as you can get. So we all assume that this is the best thing in the world, right? Assuming the veggie or fruit is not so sugar/starch laden that it functions like nature's pasta once it hits your innards. And of course fresh spices, which rock.

Then we move to 'mildly affected' foods. I go to the butcher shop which sells me the 1/4 of a side of beef from a local grass-fed farmer's cow just taken a couple days before, and he gives me a bunch of frozen shrink-sealed stuff that looks vaguely like a frightening science experiment, perhaps some new version of The Blob that too much time thawing on my counter could unleash on my innocent small town, but I know it will look like meat when unpackaged. Before I eat this, I have to cook it, no matter what my cats think of this uncivilized practice. So that is somewhat processed but it is "mostly" unchanged. I think.

What about seeds I grind? Surely a flax seed in 412 eeeny-weensy pieces is no less healthy than a flax seed whole? Is a flax seed eaten plain vs. mixed into a protein drink vs. baked in a muffin any different?

Then we move to processed foods. First, the dairy. I use cream, half & half, sour cream, cream cheese, cottage cheese, blue cheese, cheddar cheese, ok let's just be clear, I pretty much worship cheese in every form it may come in, not counting cheap American processed cheese food in little plastic wrapped slices which I consider an affront to the Cheese God that I will not abide. To be fair, hard cheeses are only processed in their root creation, far as I know; however all the other dairy stuff is pasteurized at the least, homogenized probably.

I'm not sure what either of those are in detail except according to my father, who spent his childhood swiping the big lump of cream at the top of milk bottles on the way to school in the morning from around the mid-40s to mid-50s, it has something to do with why he can't do that anymore. How his stories of luscious cream in the frosty cold mesh with his other stories of walking 2 miles to school barefoot in the snow with only a hard biscuit for lunch is beyond me, but these are the mysteries of parenthood. I have already assured my ten year old that the tragic deprivation of my childhood makes any complaint she may have for the next 8 years pointless and whiney. Dad taught me well.

I'm not really sure what difference that processing makes. My friends used to have 'raw milk'. I thought it tasted disgusting. Another friend drinks skim milk. To me this tastes like I imagine lapping up the dregs of my cat's water dish might. I am a whole milk kinda girl, although I can deal with 2%/1% if I must. Not just whole but even the somewhat intensified milk that Braum's sells, as they are the dairy slash fast food milk source of my choice. This is because it tastes awesome.

(But to be honest, it's also because super walmart, in their attempt to sell me 114.7 items I did not intend to shop for, puts the milk literally at the other end of the store away from the front door. They oughtta have quarter mile markers in that store, it's so big. If it were much bigger, it would cross the state line. I really like milk but I am just not making that much effort for it frankly.) Now that I'm VLC (very low carb) again, milk is out, which since it causes a craving response in me and I'm probably allergic to it in some bizarre way, is for the best.

So ok, dairy products are generally processed but I assume this processing is mostly just making them (a) fit to drink, (b) infused with vitamin D so my programmer / project manager "mole" lifestyle without sun is compensated for, and (c) less likely to kill me from some side effect of industrial dairy cow farming that I had not foreseen. Is it bad that they are processed like that? I don't know. I don't seem to have much choice in the matter though. My cream does not come with variants like "non"-homogenized. Is dairy technically a processed food?

Next we move on to the severely processed. Let's start with my favorite frankenfood: Low Carb Slim Fast drink in the can. 190 calories. 10.5g fat. 4 carbs, 2 fiber carbs, 2ecc, 20g protein. Plus a buncha vitamins. You cannot beat those numbers. After even my super walmart abandoned the LC version in favor of the omnipresent "Optima-reduces appetite!" version (with lowfat and 2g protein?! how does it do that?), I had to order it from Amazon. According to my estimates I need to buy stock in Slim-Fast's parent company, since a hefty chunk of my limited single-mom income is going toward it for the next 7.2 centuries, which is how long I expect my weight loss to take. No, I am NOT on a slim-fast diet, before anybody keels over with the horror of it. It's simply that I am trying to eat lots of times a day, I need a ton of protein a day, and I loathe protein powder. I can mix protein powder in with a slimfast and actually get it down my throat though, so it is helpful to have in my daily intake.

Is it bad to drink the stuff? Oddly the LC version has a lot less chemicals on the ingredients list than the other I compared it to some months ago. If it's the difference between not having a meal (which is my biggest problem: not having food ready in advance, not having time to make it when I'm working, etc.) then I figure it served a noble purpose, despite its processing.

OK now we get to home made stuff.

Let's say I take some eggs, and some cream, and some ground up flax seeds, and some protein powder, and some cocoa (Penzeys.com 24% high butterfat dutched!), and some sweetener (fiberfit and sweetzfree), and some almond oil, and some hazelnut flour (lower carb than almond flour), and I mix it all together in a bowl and then I bake it, for my cocoa muffins v1.8. The protein powder is very processed. The cream is pastur-homogo-something'd, and I'm sure the cocoa has gone through more processing than Liz Taylor's face. The flax seeds were ground up. But hey the eggs were pure!

OK so pop quiz: is it healthier for me to eat this that I make in my kitchen, than to eat something with similar ingredients I buy at the store? (No, it doesn't exist at the store. Humor my example.) Aside from maybe a single preservative ingredient or something, would there really be a difference?

If I am told to "avoid processed foods", does this mean that my combination of ingredients (ranging from pure to excessively processed), mixed and baked into some chemical conglomerate that even my kid likes (which only proves it's probably killing us from the inside out, given her other tastes), is a "higher grade, but still processed, food"?

Is it better for me to eat my eggs scrambled, vs. mixed up in a breadish, because they are less processed that way? Or is the fact that my breadishes are composed of protein, flax, nuts, etc. sufficiently redeeming?

Should I feel guilty about having many dozens of liquid flavorings/extracts, nearly three dozen flavors of DaVinci sugarfree syrups, "alternative sugars" in like 9 different forms, NOT/Starch etc. for thickening -- all pretty close to totally artificial ingredients? Am I losing dietary brownie points for eating things that were not one with God within the last 48 hours?

I want to quote this great passage from Dr. Michael Eades' blog about natural vs. well, unnatural, foods:

There is so much hype about the crappiness of the standard American diet crawling with processed foods of every stripe that it is easy to fall victim to the if-it's-organic-it-must-be-healthful con. Homemade ice cream with organic cream and organic sugar and home grown fruit seems so much more wholesome than store-bought, but your pancreas can't tell the difference. If you eat it (in large quantities) they will come. 'They' being enlarged fat cells and hyperinsulinemia. And 'they' come whether it's 'organic' or not. (Again, were I planning on going face down in the ice cream, I would prefer it made with 'wholesome' ingredients, but I wouldn't fool myself that my pancreas wasn't going to pay the price.)

So theoretically is my Low Carb Slimfast a better choice than frozen corn and peas microwaved? 'Cause even though the latter are "real food" and "natural," they'll kick pancreas butt better than an LC cheesecake will?

Speaking of LC cheesecake, how are they? I don't know. I've made three tiny ones (enough for 2 ramikens) but unfortunately, my hand, the spoon, and my mouth, conspire to eat it out of the Magic Bullet blender cup before it ever gets to the ramikens to bake. I would trade sex for the stuff it's so good. I haven't made it in eons because I think I like it too well. There has to be something sinful about anything I feel that passionate about.

Tonight's food: Godzilla Burgers. A replay on the hamburger mixed with some mustard, worcestershire, oregano, and Gorgonzola crumbled cheese. I'm hoping to make several and freeze a few and fridge a couple. My kid loves these.

Tonight's experiment: a sweetish that started out called 'protein powder donut holes', moved into 'LC funnel cakes', sidestepped to another form of 'waffles', etc. Most lowcarb recipes like this are actually "concept recipes", much like the flax bowl muffin or mock danish or pizza quiche, which you can modify like a mad scientist. There is an original, then variant versions, and four pages of raving, at the lowcarber.org forum, link here.

Now there's that guilt again. "It's fried!" Maybe I can use coconut oil. Trying to get more calories and fat in my diet anyway and it's ridiculously hard. It's dominantly egg, butter, protein powder. If it's encouraged for me to eat eggs fried in butter, coconut oil in my coffee, and protein powder drinks, is it less healthy for me to eat something vaguely akin to a fried pastry? I mean, if I were putting a little sweetzfree or splenda in my coffee nobody'd comment, so adding it to my fried-thing shouldn't matter.

Is it like a matter of "the moral of it" -- morning coffee, protein drink and eggs are somehow inherently better than all of those ingredients (except the coffee) in a different form? I mean is it just WRONG for me if I were to adopt some recipe (using this one as an example) that is "homemade processed food" and eat that quite a lot, rather than fresh veggies and steak?

I guess my point is that recommendations from others in LC-land sometimes seem a bit contradictory or pollyanna and I'm wondering what "really" matters.

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Egg+ Crepes (sweet version)

I seem pretty lively for someone who died of joy a couple hours ago. I did an experiment based on a recipe and it came out so well I think my eyes are still crossed. Me. The cook so scary I'm lucky to make eggsalad without screwing it up. Amazing.

This rocks. The original recipe I didn't use but based it on is here and the detailed post where I have all my waxing-on about it and how I made it is here. Ingredients and basics are below. I really recommend this one.

Egg+ Crepes (sweet version)

3 eggs (I used large)
2 Tablespoons butter (melted, I used unsalted)
1 oz cream cheese (greatly softened)
1 teaspoon almond flour (I used the course meal)
1 teaspoon flax meal (golden)
1 teaspoon protein powder (I used designer whey vanilla-praline)
1 teaspoon carbsense baking mix (like carbquick)
1 Tablespoon DaVinci Maple(pancake) syrup (it's a sweetener too)
(I meant to add some kind of spice but forgot!)
I added a drop or 2 of brown sugar extract

Filling: whatever you want. I used ricotta, lowcarb jam and a pkt Splenda.

It made 5 crepes in my 8" pan.

Nutrition, Summary:

Totals for the five crepes: Cal 585.04 Fat 53.26 Carb 4.64 Fiber 1.17 Protein 23.8 (ECC 3.47)

Total per crepe (1/5): Cal 117.01 Fat 10.65 Carb .93 Fiber .23 Protein 4.76 (ECC .70)

You'll need to add the counts for whatever filling you use, to the above.


Instructions:

Mix all your stuff together until batter is thin and smooth though some tiniest chunks of cream cheese may remain, that was ok in mine.

If you don't know how to make crepes or don't have a crepe pan, I used an 8" nonstick shallow saute pan, sprayed it with nonstick stuff before each crepe (lightly, not heavily), poured about 1/5 the batter (maybe half a cup?) into it for each one, turned the pan until it well coated the whole bottom and a few times around the bottom-sides to make that solid too, and let cook about a minute on low-med or until the top was 'set'. Then I flipped it (sliding it gently out onto an oversized spatula, then flipping) and cooked the other side about a minute, then flipped the pan above a plate to drop it out.

I spread some of my filling all over the crepe, then rolled up, and put a tiny bit of lowcarb jam on the top. Would have been better if I had slightly nuked the jam in a little dish; that way it goes farther and it's really good warm, could be 'drizzled' over it.

Comments:

This gets my 5 star rating for taste. I'd never made crepes before but now that I know how and by the last one was getting the hang of it, I don't think this will be hard to make from now on. It took me an hour to make all of them and clean up my mess this morning but I bet I could do it in about 15 minutes next time.

Some butter with a cinnamon/sweetener mix, rolled up, would be great on these too.

Actually I'm thinking that I could do a carbsense/almond/flax/protein dry "mix" of the four and keep it in the fridge, and then just grab that by the teaspoon/tablespoon into this in the morning, that might save time/trouble.

As well as rolling up with filling, like crepes:

You could layer these out flat with butter in between and syrup on top and eat them like super thin pancakes. They were actually surprisingly filling; I ate three and I had to force the last one down (I didn't have a container to store it in to save, is why, need to go get some).

If you were making a savory version of this, you could saute some stuff for the inside (I'm thinking like a little shredded cooked chicken, mushrooms, onions, peppers, garlic, and some grated cheese melty on top), then dump that in the crepe once it's flipped and fold it over like some hybrid of omelette and quesadilla.

Although these are not "tough" like tortillas (which need gluten for that), they are more than competent to serve as a soft burrito or taco shell if you made a savory (not sweet) version, especially if you made them larger so they'd be easier to roll up while folding up one side (so you could hold it by hand).

This could be messed with for variants very easily. I think next time I might put a tad more carbsense (baking mix) in. I bet one egg could be replaced with a bit more cream cheese or something for those who really just are NOT into eggs at all, although I have to say I don't like eggs and sweet but this didn't taste eggy enough for that to be any serious issue (to me anyway).

My next experiment: Did I mention that I am a pesto and hot-pepper freak? I'm going to mix pesto, finely chopped cooked chicken, finely chopped sliced peppers, and make a savory version of these crepes, maybe even with Rye flavor and Caraway seed, and then use that as a rather thick 'spread' for them, sprinkle a little fresh grated parmesan and red pepper flakes on top and roll up. They'd be thicker but it would work.

Actually, putting toothpicks in and slicing the roll ito swirly medallions would probably be cool and make a great looking appetizer or snacker now that I think of it.
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Rumplestiltskin: Flax's Fairy Tale

I remember third grade. Becky had long hair so she got to be the girl in our school play, and I consoled myself that it was my recent haircut that dropped me to the role of Rumplestiltskin, the male magical dwarf-entity that saves the weeping young maid from losing her head (literally) by spinning all the king's flax into gold. To my credit, my final "angrily stomping into collapse" when she outsmarted me was so convincing that teachers rushed the stage to see if I was hurt. Which kind of stole my thunder I admit. But I digress.

Until a short time ago, I'd never even heard of flax except in that fairy tale. I wasn't even certain what it was. Some kind of plant. Which apparently in the old days, when there were fairies and kingdoms and spinning wheels were common, could be spun into thread -- and in one improbable instance, gold.


The lowcarb world for the last several years has been in the throes of an internet-driven experimental evolution that would make any inventor -- and the staunchest capitalist -- darn proud. Wow, it's a different world today than it used to be.

In January 2001 when I first tried lowcarb, the options for "food that wasn't meat or dairy" were severely limited. I was running the tech side of a small corp with an IT product and working 100 hours a week at least, and a single mom, so with all that available time for cooking... that means none... I lived on microwaved cheese over pepperoni. Pitiful, I know. It worked. But I knew it wasn't a workable long-term eating plan, which I hoped to have time and readiness for 'someday soon'.

There were other ideas, of course. If you wandered into a lowcarb forum, you could find about 1,742 ways to eat with pork rinds. In pancakes, even! Leery but willing to be brave, I tried it.

I decided I'd rather die.

But that was before the advent of the ready availability of a ton of products that are specific to the lowcarb eating lifestyle. Some just got more popular and available, such as DaVinci's zillion flavors of sugarfree syrups. Some were brand new.

Sucralose can't be sold in the US as a sweetener except by Splenda, which finally (thankfully) the market did the hula around (ever the entrepreneurial spirit!) by presenting several products that are "sweetened BY" the stuff -- such as the syrups; such as Fiberfit; such as Sweetzfree. They are "not sweeteners, of course..." -- of course. They are just (in the case of Fiberfit) 8x sweeter than sugar -- or more -- and can be substituted for it. How convenient! Thank you. I will happily testify that I use those products only as flavor syrups and fiber supplements, guys---call on me anytime.

Forms of sugar common to the food industry were made available in retail to consumers finally. Erythritol, Isomalt, and Acesulfame-K (that is found combined with Isomalt in the product Diabetisweet) were suddenly as near as Netrition.com. The first two provided the bulk and qualities of sugar. Polydextrose provided bulk if you were going to be using a high intensity liquid sweetener instead. No longer stuck with putting up with Splenda's carb-laden "filler" material, the whole world of desserts opened up to lowcarbers in a new way.

No longer did a devout LCer have to sadly do without anything remotely sweet -- or fall off the wagon entirely when a chocolate craving hit. Now they could make their own desserts and bring 'em to the party, or have them before or after. LC was now a workable plan even for those who couldn't live without the occasional dessert.

And no more culinary wallflowers! -- every LCer became an ad-hoc chef, experimenting with revamping high-carb products into low-carb alternatives, or creating whole new ideas, and sharing with their LC buddies online, who would further experiment with variations and flavors and ingredients. (For great examples of this fabulous principle in action, check out the Deep Dish Quiche Pizza and Mock Danish threads in the lowcarber forum.)

Much was helped too by the contribution of LC's favorite real gourmet chef, Karen Barnaby, whose food is sometimes too gourmet-complicated for cooking clutzes like me, but sometimes (like Cauli-flied 'Rice') a total savior... and she certainly has made it possible to have a classy dinner with guests, with food everyone will love, and still be lowcarb.

A variety of ingredients that were pretty low in carbs found their way into kitchen labs everywhere. Unsweetened coconut got real popular -- there are at least a hundred desserts, cookies, breadishes and more using the stuff. Hard cheeses like parmesan bloomed into new ideas, like as a sort of crunchy coating for the Munchy Parmey Chicken Chunks.

But it just got better. Wheat flour's carbs got you down? Wheat Protein Isolate 5000 became available, using the protein of the wheat for a flour with superlow carbs and a ton of protein. Vital Wheat Gluten can be added if needed. Almond "meal" became a standard, in part thanks to retailers like Bob's Red Mill that sold every 'farm-related' product you might want, and of course any cook with a coffee grinder could make their own almond meal. It didn't rise, of course---but it bulked up beautifully, and dense bread was a damn site better than no bread at all. I feel that almond flour was the "idea catalyst" for an explosion of "experimental" use of any product that could possibly be ground into meal that had a fairly low number of carbs.

And the star of flax was BORN!


Flax seed, 'golden' or brown, can be milled into a meal. It provides a great 'bulk' without any bad taste. And a lot of fiber. And with a few ingredients common to lowcarb kitchen experiments, can make the difference between "making bread in the microwave in 3 minutes" vs. looking mournfully at that egg salad and wishing it had a piece of toast underneath it. You can add flavors, sweeteners or savory spice, and have a dense but not overly heavy bread for anything from cinnamon french toast to caraway-seed sandwich bread. (Great spices at penzeys.com and great extracts at spicebarn.com by the way!)

Is it like "normal" high-carb bread, that is soft-risen inside and thin-crunchy outside? Not really. But since that crap's gonna kill me anyway, I'm not complaining -- flaxbread tastes a darn site better than some "healthy" breads I've had in my life and it's actually good, made well.

Thanks to WPI5K, almond meal, flax meal, and other alternatives -- including some "bake mixes" that do for lowcarb what bisquick did for our mom's generation (such as CarbSmart's line or CarbQuick), you can create a somewhat different but darn good version of pie crust or cobbler-topping or waffles in the morning.

Flax seed has begun to be used in more and more recipes you'll find in the online lowcarb world. It's extremely lowcarb. How else can you get a workable and pretty tasty "breadish" as I call it---any product bread-like---with about 2 carbs and 10g protein per slice? Who's yer friend baby if it ain't flax seed?! Philly cheesesteak doesn't need a fork anymore. My thick garlic cheese spread finally became a workable food again. Chopped chicken in pesto, toaster-oven'd with a little cheese and hot peppers on top, is back on my to-die-for food list. Yay!

The expansion of ingredient-level foods over the last few years has made the lowcarb lifestyle possible even for people who can't or won't live solely on meats and eggs and a few fibrous veggies and fruits for the rest of their lives. And for those who worship all things bread-ish but can't take the gluten without asthma-like effects, flax seed has none of that. Yee. Haw.

The use of a lot of versatile vegetables that nobody'd bothered experimenting with before has opened many doors as well. You might not believe me that cauliflower--which I despise on its own--makes something similar to chicken-fried-rice that is so good, every time I've made it for (non-LC) friends they eat theirs and all my leftovers too and rave. Didja know zucchini, prepared a special way, ends up making a helluva pie filling that is a heck of a twin to apple pie? Come on, whodathunkit?! Cauli mixes into a great mashed potato-like or even cheesy twice-baked potato-like food that even high-carb folks will love and often not even know the difference if you don't tell them.

One of the most interesting things about the lowcarb food-world developments is that often, it is not so much that a given product is a "replacement" for high-carb (despite the 'mock' naming of many dishes), as that it is simply a new dish of its own, similar-to or usable-as things we know, but worth the spotlight as its own good stuff without comparison.

One thing I think the LC world really needs to focus on is re-naming a lot of their stuff to match what it IS and not what it was originally developed to replace the craved-taste-of. For example, "mock chicken fried rice" or "mock apple pie" should just be "chicken fried cauli" or "zucchini pie". I dare anybody to taste the stuff and complain. As long as LCers make it seem like their food choices are just "fakes" of high-carb stuff, rather than awesome foods on their own, there is going to be some psychology in how folks perceive the options. It should just be different food. Which tastes great!


But thanks to a versatile breadish I tried today, right now my hero is FLAX SEED... flax meal... O let me adore thee, flax!

As so many people grow smaller, the profits for suppliers of low-carb ingredients grow larger. I bet the sudden interest from the low-carb (and diabetic) world has taken the flax growers and sellers by happy surprise. That new cash crop is probably like a genuine fairy tale for 'em: finally, they're spinning flax into gold!

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