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

Midnight Munchies and the Ode to Carbs

I know. Me of all people. Mistress of forgot-to-eat-fulness. I actually had an appetite a little bit ago. And I wanted to be bad. I wanted to be a frozen taquito ho. My body said yes, yessss, YES! And I actually got out of bed and went to the kitchen. I stood in the darkness in my bare feet in the center of the kitchen. It was 1:14am in the morning and I was humming a few bars of "Ode to Carbs".

Ode to Carbs

They slither here through quantum dimensions of cold
Through the magic of cupboards, now nearly bare
Which call in the night to their playmates of old
Come pasta, tortillas, and chocolates so rare!

I hear subtle shuffling of boxes and bags
The cellular memories are filling my room
'To all of the cookies I've loved before'
--and anything frozen I ate with a spoon

My body is yearning for thick pizza crust
For garlic bread toast and fresh cookie dough
For waffles with light powdered sugar as dust
And frozen taquitos you nuke till they glow

Oh, carbohydroxilatechemicalstuff!
Ingredient glories I cannot pronounce
You're still somewhere deep in my heart.

You fuzz up my brain so I fail to remember
All the good reasons why just last September
I emptied my household of starch.

But how I recall when we were still lovers
Oh pasta, your flatulence moved me so!
Your gluten ensured not a pound would desert me
For 10 minutes high and a 2 hour low.

O carbs how I long for the thrill at my peril!
I lust for eclairs though my oversized heart
Beats quickly while insulin slithers into me
And says 'I'm ready! Last dance in the dark?'

It's night. So quiet.
Clock clickedy-ticking.
I'd abandon my diet
For canned frosting-licking.

I want me some CARBS!
In the MILLIONS! Sounds GREAT!
So I foraged, house-wide --

...but I only found steak.



Friggin low carb.
Thanks to this stupid eating plan,
I might actually live another day to whine about it.

-- PJ

I seldom suffer carb cravings. Or any appetite at all for that matter. Must be hormonal!

Sweetbread Bowl (aka 'Mock Danish')
version 162 out of at least 1.7 million. Ideal midnight munchie.
(original 400+ message recipe/variant thread is here.)

1 large egg
1-2 oz cream cheese
1/4 teaspoon fiberfit powder (or 2 tsp sweetener equivalent)
some kind of extract or flavor (tonight I used vanilla & blueberry)
some kind of LC jam or berries (tonight I used frozen wild blueberries)

Use a cheap round plastic microwaveable bowl.
Nuke cream cheese till soft (if it isn't already).
Mix up well with egg, with fork.
Add all the other junk but leave some jam/berries out, mix with fork.
(There'll be little chunks of cream cheese. That's fine.)
Nuke it for about 1.5 minutes.
Add jam/remaining berries to middle, nuke another 30 seconds.
Let cool slightly.
Eat.
Live another day.

.

Spicy Pesto Tuna Salad

I don't have nutrition counts for this, because I am insanely lazy today, and because I didn't weigh the veggies which I'd need to for any decent estimate. Suffice to say this is a fairly lowcarb substantial protein meal that was VERY munchable for lunch and dinner.

Spice wimps, you could replace the peppers with other crunchy veggies small-diced like celery, broccoli or cooked asparagus. I think adding a few crunchy seeds or chopped nuts and diced roma tomato might be good too.

Spicy Pesto Tuna Salad

6 oz well-drained canned tuna
~2 Tbsp mayonnaise (just to get it wet/mixed, not as a main flavor)
~3-4 Tbsp basil pesto (this is the dominant flavor)
~1-3oz tiny-cubed jack cheese
2 medium garlic cloves, minced
1 anaheim chili, finely chopped
2 medium jalapeno peppers, finely chopped
4 medium green onions (scallions), finely chopped
~1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

I mixed everything but the pesto and cheese together, then added the pesto and mixed, then added the cheese and mixed. I only added the cheese to increase protein and calories for me, it was not necessary to the recipe. Makes 2-3 servings.

Obviously your counts will depend on what you put in it and how much, and how many servings you make out of it. It's just "a bowl of stuff" and it is yummy cold, which during summer is GREAT. The peppers and onions make it 'crunchy' added to the shredded/creamy which is a neat combo.

This is vaguely similar to my mexi-chicken mix (green or red) except pesto is the dominant flavor instead of enchilada sauce and it's tuna not chicken. They are probably pretty interchangeable though for the most part (that one has nutrition counts). Part of my continuing search for stuff I can eat that is easy, fast, yummy, high protein, lowcarb, and can be made with either pre-cooked (slowcooker) chicken breasts or canned tuna.

This tasted great! I suppose since it's dumping tons of stuff in there anyway, you could also throw in a tiny bit of chopped boiled egg for yet-more protein. It made me two servings, but it could easily have been 3, or even 4 if it was being used as a spread for LC bread/tortilla rollup.

Caveat: I love pesto. If you are not a pesto fan you are not going to like this one. Theoretically I could probably eat a volkswagon as long as it had pesto on it, so you might take my gushing with a grain of salt.

PJ

A Few Little Things

Here's a few little things I've made recently that some folks might like. This doesn't have nutrition on it and most are loose concept recipes you can mess with however you like.


Eggs & Mushrooms

I made this in the morning and the kid and I agree it's ridiculously good. It's one of those no-brainer recipes I feel stupid for even writing down, but I never tried it before so maybe someone else hasn't either.

Ingredients:
* couple TBSP saved bacon grease (I make bacon just to save the grease for eggs)
* couple TBSP butter (use all butter if you don't have bacon grease.)
* some diced onion or scallion
* a few minced cloves of garlic
* a couple ounces mushrooms, cleaned/de-stem'd and sliced thin
* a few eggs
* optionally, a little cream or half&half or milk (or just water is fine)
* some finely shredded cheese, any kind you like (we used colby-jack mix)
* beef broth or french onion soup

I put the bacon grease and garlic in a frying pan and let it get hot and start to cook. I added the butter and melted it, then poured in the onion and cooked for a couple minutes, then poured in the sliced mushrooms and a few ounces of either beef broth/stock or french onion soup (I used the soup as it was all I had), and sauteed it all together for awhile until it seemed cooked through. Turned off heat.

In a cup or bowl crack a few eggs into it and add some salt&pepper or whatever seasoning you like, add a little liquid (the cream/water whatever) and use a stick blender to make it frothy. (Optional of course.) In a separate tiny frying pan, spray it and make it hot then pour the egg batter in there. I let it cook, lifting up the sides to tilt the liquid under so it cooks like an 'egg pie'. You could do this as a quiche if you preferred.

Turn the heat back on the mushroom mix so it gets hot again.

Cut the egg pie into however many pieces you need for the folks eating, and put each on a plate. Sprinkle some shredded cheese on the egg-pie-slice and then on the plate just around it. Then dump some amount of your mushroom mix on top of the egg-pie-slice and the plate around it. The heat will melt the cheese into it.

Obviously your quantity of all ingredients needs to be "eyeballed". The mushroom mix should end up very wet at least. You could add thickNthin to make it a little thicker if you need to (that is a lowcarb replacement for cornstarch or other thickeners, see netrition.com for it I think), or just add more 'stuff' to it (you could add chopped peppers for example).

It was yummy! As variation, I think I could have added a little bit of cream cheese or sour cream to the mushroom mix; and I could have added some finely shredded parmesan to the top if I were presenting it to guests.


Cocoa Coconut Bits

Some folks want to get coconut oil into their diet on purpose, and in my case I'm always desperate to add calories that don't have too many carbs, as my weight means my caloric intake needs to be decent to avoid the starvation response that is the primary cause of my fat to begin with, but usually getting that many calories, unless I'm living on bacon and mayo or something, is hard work.

This is a slightly modified recipe a friend gave me. I made this in a silicon baking pan and I'm not sure how well it would come out in anything else; if you don't have silicon, I recommend using the wax paper in a pie or cake pan method instead.

Ingredients:
* 1/3 cup coconut oil (or 2/3 cup if you don't have the cream below)
* 1/3 cup coconut cream concentrate (tropicaltraditions.com has the pure coconut stuff of all kinds)
* 2 TBSP cocoa (I recommend Penzeys.com 24% butterfat dutched)
* 1 tsp vanilla extract (artificial is much lower carb)
* 1/2 tsp cinnamon (or any spice you prefer)
* optionally, other spices or extracts (citrus peel/extract might be nice too)
* sweetener of some kind. I used a lot of sweetzfree. For me usually chocolate is 1 part cocoa to 4 parts sweetener to work; I think I used about 20 drops.

In a small saucepan, melt the coconut oil. Low heat, it doesn't take much. Add in the coconut cream and melt that with it. Add the vanilla and spice(s) and stir well, then stir in the cocoa.

Nonstick spray a silicon pan (I used a mini-donut pan, but a mini-muffin or even plain muffin pan would work), or, put wax paper inside a pie or cake pan. Pour the mix (it is really a thin liquid) into it and stick it in the fridge to chill. Because coconut oil is solid at 75 degrees or so, it'll usually only take about 15-20 minutes to make these chilled (depends on thickness). When fully chilled through, if you used a pie/cake pan, take it out and break it into pieces. If you used a silicon pan, turn each little piece out. I stored all the little mini-donut shapes (quite cute really!) in a ziploc.

My kid thinks this is revolting by the way. She said, "It tastes like it is almost pure coconut oil, bleagh!" Yes... because it is. But, it's a cocoa flavored coconut oil which makes it pretty decent tasting to me, much like a candy of sorts. Once in awhile if I feel like eating something but it's not food time, I'll just have one of these. They are rich enough that you don't want to eat lots, but they have lots of good fat so they are satiating. Deals with my occasional chocolate longing as well. And I bet I could just stir a little ring into my coffee and have a cocoa mocha!


Pesto Chicken Salad

Spice wimps can replace the jalapenos with diced green bell pepper. :-)

Ingredients:
* 4-6oz diced or chopped cooked chicken (this is great for leftover chicken!)
* 1/4 cup pesto
* 2 oz cream cheese, very softened or melted slightly
* some diced scallions (green onions have fewer carbs than bulb onions) I used 4
* some diced jalapeno (the more the hotter, obviously!) I used 2 medium ones
* optionally, some finely grated cheese, any kind you like but pepper jack would be good

Mix the pesto into the supersoft cream cheese. Mix in the chicken, scallions and pepper. Nuke for about a minute which melts the cheese(s) further, then mix well.

You can put this on any kind of breadish, wrap it in a protein crepe, or eat it plain with a fork -- it's good cold from the fridge as well as hot. I could almost live on this stuff and what I like best is that I can make a lot of it thanks to crockpotting some chicken, keep it in the fridge in separate little half-cup Glad plastic containers, and when it's time to eat I can just eat it or nuke it so it's hot and eat it... insta-food, real food, high protein low carb.

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
.

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. :-)

.

MexiChickenMix (quick micro)

Highlights:

4 ingredients. 5 min max to make, 1 min to cook. Mix/cook/store/eat from same bowl. High protein low carb. Yummy. Uses pre-cooked chicken.

---

I was experimenting with a few goals in mind:

1 - A use for cooked chicken, because we tend to crockpot two big bags of formerly-frozen chicken breasts at a time, so we have a big bowl of cooked chicken that needs to be eaten.

2 - Something that could be made QUICK AND EASY, in the microwave even, and with not many ingredients

3 - Something with enough protein and few enough carbs that eating it wouldn't make me have to do the hula around carbs the rest of my day.

4 - Something that I could make a bunch of, put in those 1/2cup/4oz Glad containers, and eat a few times a day -- so something that could be nuked as leftovers.

This worked out really great!

As it turns out, it's even good eaten at room temp and straight out of the fridge like a sort of mexi-flavored chicken salad. It's like chopped chicken in a sort of 'creamy' mix, not very creamy, but enough to full flavor every bite in the best way.

You can vary this recipe any way you like -- add spices, add fresh herbs, add more or less hot peppers, add onions. This is more a 'concept' recipe but it comes out really yummy!!

I planned it for 'single serving' but it actually came out like 2-3 each.

Old El Paso brand is available in most groceries; they make tons of stuff, including "enchilada sauce" in mild green, red, red medium, and red hot. It comes in cans, they are yellow with red titles and available in the mexican-food section of the store.

INGREDIENTS

1 oz cream cheese,

2 oz El Paso enchilada sauce, either mild green OR red

1-2 oz chopped FRESH chilis so they are crunchy, either green OR red
(you can substitute green chilis in the can, or onions for this, but it's really good with the fresh chilis)

2 oz grated cheese: pepperjack (for green) or cheddar (for red)

4-6oz small- to finely- chopped cooked chicken (I use mine from the fridge)

INSTRUCTIONS

You can mix and cook and store and eat this all from the same bowl. I used one of those deep rectangular 24oz Glad plastic bowls.

Put the cream cheese in your bowl and nuke it till it's supersoft.

Add the enchilada sauce

Add the chopped chilis and stir it all up well

Add the grated cheese (I only had slices for the pepperjack, so I just chopped them up well) and again mix it all together well.

Add the chopped chicken and stir it all up so the chicken is totally mixed into the rest of the ingredients.

Nuke it for 45-60 seconds, take it out and stir it well.

That's it! It's yummy!

This makes about 10-12oz of stuff depending on your ingredients. I used 4.25oz as the 'serving size' in my counts below -- that's 20-25g of protein and 3-4g of carbs depending on the version.

Tips:

If you add 6oz rather than 4oz meat, obviously the same weight of serving will have a little more protein and calories and a little less carbs. So vary it as you need. It's a little creamier the more 'other' stuff you add to the chicken. Chopping the chicken more finely also makes it a little creamier. Theoretically I bet you could even blender this and use it as a 'spread' on something.

Green chilis have a tad more carbs than red chilis, if you're buying and chopping fresh. However, red chilis tend to be hotter. I have a big garden with lots of stuff. For my green I used poblano and anaheim and a jalapeno. For my red I used thai, cayenne, and red jalapeno.

The 'crunch' of the fresh chopped veggies really added a lot to this! Made it kinda like chicken salad with fresh onions or something. If you add onions instead of chilis you add more carbs but keep some of the crunch. If you add canned green chilis instead of the fresh, you keep the flavor on the green chili version but lose all the crunch.

Nutrition Info

Like all the recipes I post, it depends on how you put it together! But here's the counts on the two versions I made in my experiment, with line-item counts in case that helps ya.

---

GREEN VERSION

   cal     prot    carb    fiber
223.00    43.00       -        -     5 oz chicken
 18.59        -    2.79        -     2 oz mild green el paso 
                                          enchilada sauce
 99.00     2.00    1.00        -     1 oz cream cheese
109.00     7.00    1.00        -     2 oz pepper jack cheese
 23.00     1.13    5.36     0.90     2 oz green chilis, fresh, 
                                          chopped
472.59    53.13   10.15     0.90     TOTAL RECIPE MADE ~11.25 OZ

 42.01     4.72    0.90     0.08     per ounce
178.53    20.07    3.83     0.34     for a 4.25oz serving (~ 1/2c)

RED VERSION

   cal     prot    carb    fiber
275.00    52.00       -        -     6 oz chicken
 23.63     0.95    2.84        -     2 oz HOT red el paso red 
                                          enchilada sauce
 99.00     2.00    1.00        -     1 oz cream cheese
223.00    13.00    1.00        -     2 oz cheddar cheese
 14.00     0.66    3.12     0.50     1.25 oz hot red chilis, fresh, 
                                             chopped
634.63    68.61    7.96     0.50     TOTAL RECIPE MADE ~11.5 OUNCES

 55.19     5.97    0.69     0.04     per ounce
234.54    25.36    2.94     0.18     per 4.25oz serving (~ 1/2 c)

---

The serving size (half a cup is around 4-4.5 oz) is reasonable because with 20-25 grams of protein this is pretty filling.

Chili Verde, geared to lowest-carb

My grandfather (whose family left Texas in a covered wagon in 1904 to head to California!) had two dishes he specialized in, and one was Chili Verde. Not just some pork and some tomatillos and a wimpy california anaheim chili, but a KNOCK YER SOCKS OFF mix of hot peppers and pork.

Looking back, I'm not sure why botchilism didn't kill us all, but he would make a gigantic sized pot of it on the stove, and it would literally sit there and simmer on lowest fire for DAYS. (If grandma needed the stove, he would move it to the top of the Wood Stove that was the house's heater.) Everybody in the extended family would at some point drop by and have some.

I have many fond memories of the stuff, and I didn't think of it being "low-carb-able" until I saw the recipe. Granted, I can't have the big homemade flour tortillas to go with it (primarily used to cool the fire of it in your mouth) but that's ok. I don't much like pork, either -- bacon, spicy sausage, and this, that's it. I detest 'ham'. But the meat is so good in this! I can't resist.

If you like SPICY FOOD and meat, I bet you'll like this. If you're a spice wimp, or you don't much care for things like garlic/onions/peppers, skip this recipe, or definitely use only a tiny amount of sweet peppers instead of the pepper mix and quantity I mention -- and use the 'variant' below that makes a thicker, less meat-heavy stew.

I first found the recipe here, although this is only one version (there are many I've found on the web).

Below is the version I make in my large oval crockpot -- and it is more than twice the size of the original recipe so you might want to cut this down a bit if your crockpot is the typical round-size. This stuff would freeze very well for the long term.

Traditional chili verde is basically a thick stew. This recipe, if you want to make that, should increase everything but meat and decrease the meat (so it's more like 4lbs meat and 4cups 'stuff' and 2tsp+ of each of the spices). However I wanted something super-heavy on the meat, so it would be really low carb, yet still with that awesome flavor and heat, so that's what this recipe is geared for. It is basically a bowl of supersoft spicy meat chunks with a bit of 'sauce' that is in the bowl that I spoon over 'em that is the beer, onions, peppers and spices all cooked together.

Ingredients

About 5-7 lbs of pork loin, chopped into bite-size chunks. (There are two 'grades' of this, one half the price of the other. The cheaper is just fine. This cooks so much that when I've combined them, I can't tell the diff anyway. The cheaper variant has a lot of fat; we cut most the fat off the outside of ours first but it's your option. We used about 8 lbs last time.)

8oz of beer and 8oz of water (we use Foster's lager. You can taste the beer if you use more than about 12 oz of it. If it's Fosters, that's not a bad thing (I dislike beer, but I don't mind the malt/hops 'influence' on this), but if you're using cheap beer I'd dilute it! ;-))

About 1/2- 2 cups of coursely chopped onion. (We used around a cup last time. Green onion has fewer carbs than regular if you care, but we used a white onion last time.

About 1.5-2.5 cups of chopped hot and sweet peppers; chop them about the size of the onions. (We used about 2-2.5 cups last time. We use our garden stuff which has poblano, cayenne, jalapeno, anaheim chili, hot banana, cherry bomb, and red bell, now that most the season is over; most of those are very red at this point (hot!) and yummy.)

About 12-14 fresh tomatillos. Chop them about the size you did the veggies. These are the small mexican green-tomatos that come in a 'husk' in the store. You can just stuff 'em in a food processor if you prefer.*

One can (I forget size. 8-10oz?) of the HOT green tomatillo sauce -- the kind you get in the mexican section of the store, NOT the green enchilida sauce.*

* Alternatively just add a few more tomatillos and no sauce, or use more of the sauce and fewer fresh tomatillos, or just forget the sauce, it's up to you. We like the spice of the canned stuff but the freshness of the real veggies.

4oz can diced green chilis.

6 garlic cloves, minced
1.5 tsp Oregano
1.5 tsp Sage
1.5 tsp Cumin
a little bit of salt and pepper
a little bit of peanut oil (or whatever you wish)


Instructions

Dice the pork into small bite-size pieces. Brown it in a big pan, separate or stirred enough that the pieces get a bit cooked on at least 4 sides. It'll take a lot of batches to do this. Toss your browned pork into the crockpot.

Add some oil to the pan and saute all your onions and peppers a little. (Note: peanut oil is good for browning, as olive oil isn't great used with heat and veggie oil usually has trans-fats.) Lower the heat so they can brown without burning. When done, dump the whole pan of stuff into the crockpot.

Mix all your spices, garlic and the water with the beer and dump it over the whole thing in the crockpot.

Put the lid on and cook on high for around 8-9 hours. If you want, you can take off the lid after about 5 hours and stir it well. You'll lose about half an hour of heating time if you do that just fyi (that you should add to the end). I should mention that when you begin this, you don't see the fluid -- it's way at the bottom -- you just have veggies and stuff all the way to the top of the crock. So stirring is a good idea.

Note: you can eat it in 5 hours if you must. But it's better cooked longer; the pork is softer and the spice is stronger and hotter. Sometimes we have a bowl for dinner and leave it cooking for several more hours.... in fact the more it's cooked the better it gets, so cooking leftovers is great.

I stuff those little 4oz "Glad" containers with it, put 'em in the fridge, and several times a day I grab one, take off the lid and nuke it for 45 seconds, and I have an instant little meal. Since it's almost entirely meat it's still pretty filling though not a big portion.

My version of it, per one of those containers of stuff (4 7/8 oz not counting container weight), comes out to around

Calories: 261.04
Carbohydrates: 1.54
Fiber: 1
ECC: 0.54
Protein: 22.10
Fat etc.: no clue

But you really need to figure your own ingredients and quantities for counts. Really. It varies a great deal depending on the quantity of beer, onions and peppers and spices.

I had to figure my counts in reverse -- by measuring how much meat vs. veggies vs. liquid was in one of those little containers we filled 'on average' and then calculate. If you weigh your ingredients in grams and then get the counts for that many grams from the USDA database for that food, you'd have a good idea what the whole recipe has... if you separate it into little bowls, you can divide up how many servings it made.

I love this stuff. Of course, the more veggies and spices you have compared to quantity of meat, the more glorious it is, but the mostly-meat variant above is still insanely good. It has finally allowed me to make a ton of food that is easy to grab a small serving of for eating, freezing for later, whatever.

I recommend most folks start with the above recipe using about 4-5lbs of meat instead. I suspect most people would like it better. I'm really trying to limit carbs is all, hence my over-emphasis on the meat in the dish.

ADDENDUM 10/26/2006: We just made this again. This time, we used a little less peppers, but a can of hot tomato+chilis (Rotel brand), a little less beer, but a bunch of water. The result was still spicy, a little more rich, and with a lot more "juice" (the yummiest part).

Zucchini Cobbler

Lowcarb is a never-ending source of culinary surprise. I detest cauliflower, but chicken fried cauli (aka mock chinese chicken fried rice) is astoundingly good. And I detest Zucchini, but zucchini cobbler (aka mock apple cobbler/pie) is astoundingly good as well. There are other things I haven't tried. But so far, I'm really impressed with how a lot of veggies I never would have thought of using, turn out to be not only 'good replacements' but quite awesome on their own merits. And usually healthier and vastly more lowcarb.

Everybody on the thread where I found this recipe said it tasted just like apple pie. "Suuuuure," I thought to myself, remembering the old recipes where everyone swore that crushed pork rinds with cinnamon were SO yummy. (Bleagh!)

But I'm trying to be kind to the husband to maintain a decent environ since we have Issues at the moment, and apple pie is his fave, so I figured my first dessert ought to start with that.

It's unbelievable. I swear I had a hard time believing that the zucchini would ever truly end up tasting like apple, but damn if it didn't. I think the reality is that maybe zucchini (cooked first with lemon) and apple might not have a whole bunch of taste on their own, so the sweeteners and spices flavor whatever is there. In any case, this came out REALLY GOOD! We were all surprised, haha.

Guess what I am growing in the garden next year. :-)

Zucchini Cobbler

The original thread/contributor and where I waxed on about it is here.

I doubled the filling, as many had commented about that.

3-1/2 cups zucchini - peeled, seeded, and chopped
1/4 cup + 1 Tbsp (5 Tbsp total) fresh lemon juice (I used TrueLemon and water)
1/2 cup sugar-equivalent (I used a mix of splenda, eyrthritol, and diabetisweet which is isomalt and Ace-K)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon *
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg *
* I used 1 teaspoon of "apple pie spice" instead (has those + some allspice)

Put the zucchini and lemon juice in a medium saucepan with lid. Cook covered over medium heat stirring occasionally. Cook around 10 minutes or until the zucchini are very tender/soft.

Stir in the sweetener and spice, cook for about a minute more, then remove from heat and set aside till you're ready for it.

1-1/3 cups carbquik (you could use other meal/flour-ish combos here)
1/2 cup equivalent of sweetener (I used the same as noted above)
1/2 cup butter, chilled (if it's TOO chilled this is a bit of a pain...)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I used 1/2 teaspoon apple pie spice.)

Heat oven to 375.

We used ramekins but you can use a 9x9 baking dish if you prefer. Spray it with nonstick stuff.

Mix the flour-ishes and sweetener, then gradually cut in butter until the mixture resembles course crumbs. Stir half the mixture into the filling in the saucepan. Press the rest of it, minus a little you save for the topping, into your cooking dish(es). Pour in filling, and then top with the crumbles that remain. Sprinkle with a little more cinnamon if you wish.

Bake for around 25-40 minutes or until golden and bubbly. Let cool a bit.

We had some extra filling. It'll rock over ice cream.

I really recommend this!

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.
.

Protein Shakes, Variants

All recipe threads are backdated to prevent interference with current blogging.

Since there are near-infinite variations on things like protein drinks, mock danishes, flax bread, etc. I've decided to make one thread for each major food and then just note the variants as I experiment with them.

SHAKES I REALLY LIKED

Strawberry Cinnamon Brown Sugar Protein Shake Intensely strawberry, and very sweet, this is more a dessert than anything. But with this combo of ingredients I didn't taste the protein powder enough to bug me, for the first time ever. Hours later, the 'cloying sweet' bugged me but during the eating experience it was nearly candy-like but cool.

Strawberry Cinnamon Brown Sugar Protein Shake

1/2 cup soy milk, 1/2 cup water, 6 ice cubes
3 frozen strawberries
2 scoops Designer Whey Protein, Strawberry
1-2 Tbsp DaVinci strawberry syrup
some "brown sugar" extract-flavoring
maybe 1/2 tsp of cinnamon

I think a tad more cinnamon and even a little nutmeg wouldn't go wrong. But it was good. The miniscule amount of protein powder that my picky taste buds could discern underneath all that strawberry overkill didn't bother me.


OTHER SHAKES I'VE TRIED



Soy Milk + Designer Whey Protein, Strawberry

1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup water
6 ice cubes
2 scoops Designer, Strawberry
Blenderized.

That was actually not bad. I detest protein powder and hiding the taste in a shake seems almost impossible, but the strawberry seemed to "mute" the flavor much more than the chocolate peanut butter caramel flavor did. Of course I used some soy instead of the almond stuff, too.

Soy Milk + Designer Whey Protein, Chocolate

Same as above but Chocolate flavor. I didn't like it so much, I could taste

Soy Milk + Designer Whey Protein, French Vanilla

Same as above, a little lemon and a little banana. Bleah. Maybe I should have done no lemon and more banana.

Almond Breeze + Designer Whey Protein, Chocolate Peanut Butter Caramel

1 cup Almond Breeze, chocolate
1/2 cup heavy (whipping) cream
6 ice cubes
2 scoops Designer, Chocolate Peanut Butter Caramel
1 Tbsp DaVinci, chocolate
2 strawberries
Blenderized.

Eh. I could still taste too much of the 'protein powder' taste for my liking, although I admit the first drink or two were the worst; the drinks after that didn't seem so bad, maybe I adapted. It seeemed to mimic the effect I got from the almond stuff, which was like "a great chocolate flavor but added to water instead of milk". Will have to try this again using soymilk.

Chicken Casserole Verde

Recipes are backdated to prevent interference with current blogging.

This is a slight variation on a recipe I found at the lowcarber forum (read it here) that we really liked. Next time we make it, we'll make twice as much... we really chowed on the leftovers for lunch the next day, they nuke beautifully.

Chicken Casserole Verde

INGREDIENTS

4 cups cooked chicken (or turkey) -- shredded or cubed

2 teaspoons Taco Seasoning (you can make this yourself)

8 ounces softened cream cheese (Philly light has slightly fewer carbs by the way)

1 tablespoon minced green onions or chives

7 ounce can Green Mexican Salsa (we used green enchilada sauce)

4 ounce can chopped green chiles

6 ounces Monterey jack cheese, shredded (you could make it spicier by using pepper jack, though it is a bit more carbs)

4 green onions, chopped (this is just to sprinkle on top)

Optional: we would add some super-thin sliced jalapeno and some red pepper flakes 'cause we're hot-spicy addicts but that's up to you.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees while you grease a full size baking pan and put the chicken in it.

2. Add the taco seasoning and mix the chicken around in it to coat.

3. Mix cream cheese with the onions/chives and green sauce in a medium bowl. Stir in the chiles.

4. Pour sauce evenly over chicken and top with the cheese.

Bake for 25 minutes, until hot and bubbly. Remove from oven and sprinkle with green onions.

Makes 6-8 servings.

NUTRITION

The original recipe poster was kind enough to include this:
Per 1/6 recipe: 432 Calories; 29g Fat; 38g Protein; 5g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 4g Net Carbs
Per 1/8 recipe: 324 Calories; 22g Fat; 28g Protein; 4g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 3g Net Carbs

But personally I would figure it out yourself based on what you add, because mexican sauces in particular vary widely.

COMMENTS

This is already deemed a staple in our house. The leftovers are as good as the fresh stuff. I think I could eat this several times a week and be happy. Even the kid was nuts about it.

Mushroomy Chicken with Bacon

Recipes are back-dated to prevent interference with current blogging.

This is rather like recipes I've had before that are "cream of mushroom soup dumped on chicken" except it's homemade. It's good stuff. I've modified my version (of course -- if I don't modify something, I just link to it) slightly. The original was on the lowcarber forum (read it here).

Mushroomy Chicken with Bacon

INGREDIENTS:

2-4 boneless chicken breasts (or whatever you prefer.)

2 tablespoons butter, melted (a little more if you have more than 2-3 pcs chicken)

slices of bacon to match your quantity of chicken

crushed garlic (quantity to taste)

1 cup mushrooms, sliced (if everyone eating is LC, just 1/2 cup. Otherwise, put in more and the LCer can just not take so many of them. It's better with more.)

1/3 cup heavy (whipping) cream

Your favorite seasoning to taste for your chicken (seasoning salt, etc.)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Optional: you can half-cook the bacon first if you prefer your bacon a little more done in the final product. (Of course, the bacon dripping on the chicken is the point of this, and you lose some of that, if you half-cook it first.)

2. Pour melted butter into a baking dish of whatever size will fit all your chicken. Add chicken (if it has skin, put that side down), and sprinkle with your seasoning and the garlic. Turn the chicken over, season that side, and lay the bacon strips on top. Sprinkle with mushrooms.

3. Bake 45 to 60 minutes, until chicken is done (is no longer pink).

4. Remove chicken and whatever's on top of it to your serving plates or somewhere to keep warm. Pour all the juices from the baking dish into a small saucepan and whisk together with the cream over low heat until thickened. If you have an issue with the 'reduction' taking forever, try some Not/Starch (replaces corn starch wonderfully and is lowcarb, buy it here).

5. Pour sauce over the chicken and serve warm.

NUTRITION

Well it depends on how much you make. Chicken and bacon have no carbs. Mushrooms and cream have some. USDA says a 'medium white mushroom, raw' weighs 18grams and has .59 carbs. It says 'cream' (heavy whipping) .34 (about 1/3) a cup weighs 80.92 grams and has 2.26 carbs.

COMMENTS

You could crockpot chicken, fry some mushrooms in garlic and butter, and then dump the crockpot runoff and shrooms into a saucepan and make the sauce for this recipe and have something similar -- we crockpot more than we bake, especially in summer.

We didn't make a side with this but I think grilled green beens with pepper, garlic and butter would have been great with it.

All three of us loved it, the kid too. This is a nice one for leftovers you can store in a bowl and nuke for lunch. It might be freezeable but I wouldn't chance it since most dairy doesn't do too well frozen and this has a bunch of cream in the sauce.

Munchy Parmey Chicken Chunks

All recipes back date a month so they don't interfere with current blogging fyi.

OK, the first-source (prior to modifications, etc.) of this recipe seems to be in Dr. Atkins big recipe book (buy it here) under the title Angel Wings. However, it mosey'd on over to the awesome LowCarber forum on a thread called Heroin Chicken Wings (read thread here). I modified this slightly and I didn't use wings at all, so to further devolve the name of this poor recipe, I call my version Munchy Parmey Chicken Chunks since... well, that's exactly what they are.

Munchy Parmey Chicken Chunks

INGREDIENTS

A bunch of chicken. Use whatever you want. We used about 2-3 pounds of boneless skinless breast of chicken, cut with kitchen scissors up into pieces that held about 2-3 bites.

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese. Personally this recipe's so parmey that it makes you wanna yell OUI! so I think mixing a little Romano in would be nice, we'll do that next time.

2 Tablespoons dried parsley
1 Tablespoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons paprika
Did you know that the higher quality the paprika, the bolder the color? You pay bigtime for the screaming orange level but wow. It's cool.

P.S. I thought there was too much parsley-etc. in this, I'll reduce it next time.

The original recipe had salt but they're insane. Parmesan is so salty already! I wouldn't add any salt unless you're selling drinks to the people you're serving them to.

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1/2 cup butter, melted

Optional: garlic; bit of cayenne; red pepper flakes.


INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cut the chicken into pieces

3. Combine the cheese(s) and spices in a bowl.

4. Line a shallow baking pan with foil. You'll be sorry if you don't.

5. Melt the butter in whatever fashion you prefer.

6. Dip each chicken piece real well in the butter, roll it around in the cheese and seasoning mixture, and arranged it in the foil-lined pan.

7. Bake for about 1 hour.


NUTRITION

Makes however much you make with it! Each piece has only a trace of carbs, since chicken doesn't have any and there's not so much stuff on any given piece.


COMMENTS

This would be ideal with marinara sauce but it's carby. We had it with blue cheese dressing for dipping.

My 10 year gave this her "I ate all mine, do you have any more?" approval.

This is a very 'munchy'-like meal. It's not like a warm dinner or something for guests at a table. This is an awesome thing to make when you're going to be sitting around watching a screen and everybody else is munching on junk you can't have if you're lowcarb. Or if you're going to have to eat in the car or something. There aren't many LC foods that are sorta-crunchy, this is novel in that regard.