Super Grain & Nut Free Tortillas

There is a universal truth about giving up grain: It's DAMN hard. Whether you are paleo, low carb, keto or primal, a common thread is no grain. You may start out all cavalier and cocky thinking you won't miss grain, but a few days or weeks in and suddenly you remember bread, pasta, tortillas and you would claw your own eyes out for a piece of toast. I'm not kidding. That is why it's so important to have some great subs on hand. These tortillas totally will quell your cravings and work amazing as a flour tortilla sub. I've even had success with my totally grain eating hubby and kid eating and enjoying these.  They are fabulous right out of the cast iron skillet and freeze very well. When reheating, I always recommend using a skillet, as that gives the best taste, but in a pinch, the microwave will work, or you can just eat them at room temperature. Up to you. My recipe is adapted from Maria Emmerich's tortilla recipe. She uses almond flour or coconut flour in hers, however I wanted to reduce the fat and try and go nut free. I find coconut flour too sweet for my taste, so didn't want to use that either. Most people on these types of diets don't get too fussed about fat and calories, but for me, although I do not gain weight on a keto or low carb diet, I don't lose any either. So, for me, calories matter! You can follow Maria's recipe using almond flour or you can follow mine using my new favorite faux flour:

This is reduced fat sesame flour. It's high in protein, gluten free, nut free and much lower in fat and calories compared to almond flour. I'm not sure if the company is Norwegian, but I have seen their products on Amazon UK--not sure how popular it is in America yet. But I have found it works great in these types of recipes.

Grain & Nut Free Tortillas (adapted from Maria Emmerich)
11/4 cup reduced fat sesame flour
5 TBL ground psyllium husk
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 cup boiling water

Combine your dry ingredients in a bowl (note, there is NO substitute for the psyllium husk), add the two eggs and mix until combined. Pour in the water and mix until thoroughly combined. Let it rest for 5-10 minutes to firm up. The original recipe yields 10 tortillas. I tend to get 18-20 out of mine, but I roll them very thin. Do it however you want.

I always start by dividing the dough into ping pong sized balls and then flatten them out in my hand:



Then, between two sheets of parchment paper, using a rolling pin, roll it out in as close to a circle as you can get it & as thin as you can get it. Don't worry, it always looks wonky:



I always use a knife to cut around the edges to give it a cleaner shape and then save the scraps to make another tortilla at the end:



Throw it in a cast iron skillet and cook until slight bubbles appear, then flip:



Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat- About 15-20 times. When you are finished you will have a stack of lovely tortillas that even a grain lover would have no complaint about:



These really are great and I eat a ton of them. I use them for all kinds of tacos: carnitas, breakfast, beef, chicken etc. I fill them with tuna or chicken salad. I carry them in purse to have in a pinch when out in about (yes, I took a hamburger off of the bun and threw it in one of these bad boys just yesterday!). They are super versatile and will make your grain free pursuit a happier and calmer one!
Carnitas:

 

Breakfast tacos:

All dolled up and ready to eat!



Go make these! I promise you will thank me!

Low Carb, Paleo Sushi- and No, I'm not kidding.

When one makes the decision to embrace a grain free diet, one often fails to consider that one of the carby delights in life, sushi, will no longer be a regular staple of the diet. I like sushi, but I am not a purist, I'm a roll kind of gal. Which in some sets, is the trash of sushi. I like things with rice, tempura-ed shellfish, cream cheese, things with the word 'rainbow' in the name, avocado, things with the word 'California' in the name. I think you get the gist. So while I could have proper sushi, nigiri, on a paleo diet, I have ZERO interest in eating raw fish by itself. I love the soy sauce, the wasabi that makes my nose burn and eyes water, the pickled ginger. I do not like the seaweed. I have tried, but the smell, THE SMELL. So, when I went out and ordered sushi, I would order it made with soy paper, which is amazing. However, my weekly sushi habit went to carb heaven many moons ago, but man, there are times when I still intensely crave the stuff! I've thought a few times about how I could 'paleo-fy' it, but really, how do you do a sushi roll with no rice?? Stop being ridiculous! But, I've been craving sushi something fierce lately, so on my hour long commute to work, I've been putting this together in my head over the last week or so. I got the idea when I made a recipe for bacon, zucchini, feta rolls found here. When I made them, I took them to a weekend lake trip and made an appetizer plate and as I cut them I thought, huh, I wonder if I could do a sushi type roll using zucchini? It's been marinating ever since, so tonight I thought I would give it a try, and quite honestly, I wasn't convinced it would work, but the worst that could happen was that I would end up with a bowl full of ingredients and call it a 'sushi salad'. So here we go!!

 

First you have to resolve the rice issue. The only sensible solution is the low carb staple, cauli-rice:

magical cauli-rice
 

To make the rice, just grate the cauliflower with a box grater and microwave it for 2-3 minutes on high. I added a splash of rice vinegar, a splash of sesame oil and sea salt.

Next, I had to decide what to wrap it in since the seaweed wasn't an option and this is where the zucchini comes in. So, I took a vegetable peeler and made long, flat zucchini strips:

zucchini ribbons
 

I had decided to make a California roll for this experiment, so assemble the cast of characters:

King Crab- no fake stuff here!!!
 

 

cucumber cut in matchsticks
 

avocado
 

My first approach was to lay 4 zucchini ribbons slightly overlapping, to recreate the size of a sheet of seaweed:



 

Next, I spread a thin layer of the cauli rice on the zucchini like you would do with sushi rice:




 

Add the cucumber, a bit thickly, because you need some volume to make up for the lack of rice:



top with the matchstick cucumbers

Now, the king crab! Try and splurge on real crab. The imitation stuff is scary with the stuff they add! And the real thing tastes exponentially better!



King Crab

Finally I added the avocado and I was ready to roll!


avocado

The first few rotations turned out fine and I was feeling like maybe I was gonna pull this off!


rolling

However, by the end, so much filling had pushed out and it was not sturdy at all:


So, I scraped out all the filling and decided to use a single zucchini ribbon for each roll:

single ribbon technique

And to make them even more secure, I used a piece of spring onion to tie it and from there on it was smooth sailing!

finished Paleo sushi!!

Once they were all rolled and secured, it really was a great sushi experience! A big part of the sushi ritual for me is the taste of the soy sauce and wasabi, so for me, to dip it into that and have that burn and taste, it was amazing!


Ready to start eating!



They were sturdy enough to use chopsticks with and truly satisfied my sushi craving!


You can use chopsticks!

This was an amazing recipe and was a milestone for me in my low carb journey. To actually think outside of the box and recreate something that really is a tough one to recreate in a grain free way, but everything is possible! You just have to suspend your expectations! Did this taste like 'normal' sushi? Of course not, but did it taste like a California roll? YES, it did! Try it!

Beautiful sushi!

Almond flour, flax meal pancakes

This morning Christopher and Zoe wanted pancakes. My first thought was 'Damn. He knows I can't eat pancakes!' The flour shoots my blood sugar through the roof, the calories are totally empty and they put you in a food coma within an hour. So, I decided to make them the regular ones and make me some protein laden, low carb, grain free beauties. Cooking with almond flour is actually very easy when it comes to baked goods, you just sub out flour equally and off you go.
For this recipe I used:

• 1/3 cup almond flour
• 1/4 cup golden flax meal
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup of milk (to make these paleo or for dairy intolerance use coconut milk, almond milk, ect)
• a dash of baking powder
• a few drops of vanilla stevia

Mix it all together in bowl and heat your pan. I make them a little larger than silver dollar pancakes. To this batch I added fresh blueberries and banana slices:

And then drizzled raw, local honey on them:

These are great! Very filling. I got about 7 good size pancakes out of it, but what is really great is what I didn't get. High blood sugar, low nutritional value and an epic crash an hour later.
This is really a breakfast you can feel good about! Go make them, you'll love them, your kids will love them, it'll be a big 'ol love fest! Just don't forget the bacon!!!