Good for you chocolate meringue cookies!

After being tortured by Jillian michaels for the last few days and eating dang near close to perfect, I started craving chocolate. Chocolate preferably in the form of cake or cookies. Determined not to give in, I started thinking of an alternative. I thought of meringues, those yummy, crispy airy delicacies. It's just egg whites, right? And a teeny bit of sugar. I figured I could add chocolate and call it a day. I did a quick google search and quickly discovered that there are thousands of recipes out there for meringues! I couldn't believe all of the variations! I just wanted chocolate, so I went with this one and modified it pretty heavily. I followed the baking instructions in the recipe, so these aren't true meringues, not crispy and airy, but more dense and chewy, but plus side, they only take about 12 minutes to bake versus 2-3 hours.
Here's the recipe:

• 3 eggs at room temperature. (if you're anything like me, you hate seeing the words room temperature because it requires advance preparation, so just put the eggs in a bowl of hot tap water for a few minutes. Voila. Room Temperature!)
• Preheat the oven to 350
• Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and spray with PAM
• 1/2 cup of organic coconut sugar
• 2 TBL cocoa powder
• 3TBL organic cocoa nibs
• 2 oz dark chocolate chopped finely
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar or a teeny splash of white vinegar 

Start by separating the eggs. I find the easiest way to do this is to crack it in my hand over a bowl and let the white slip through my fingers. Just slips right through and the yolk NEVER breaks. I also recommend organic, free range eggs! They're just better for you!

using a glass or metal bowl, whip the whites until peaks start to form. Slowly add the coconut sugar, tablespoon by tablespoon:

                                 
Continue to beat the egg whites and sugar until you have stiff peaks. I never really got them too stiff. Not sure why, but does it matter really?? When you are satisfied with the volume of the eggwhites, stir in the cocoa powder and cocoa nibs:

                                     
I guess the cocoa nibs are optional, but man, they add in such a depth of deep, chocolaty flavor. So delicious. You can get them at Whole Foods or Trader Joes.

Your mixture will look something like this:

                            

 

Get a spoon and drop them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and sprayed with PAM:

The recipe I followed said there were 40 cookies here. But I only got 24. She did say to use a TEASPOON though. Seriously??? Who wants a cookie the size of a teaspoon?? So I revolted and used a normal spoon instead! Baked them in a 350 degree oven for 12 minutes and took them out and transferred them to a wire rack to cool. I took this picture an hour later:

 

Seriously good, folks! And really perfect to satisfy a sweet tooth. Best of all, they are low carb, grain free, gluten free, refined sugar free. I did the nutritional values for you because I know some of you require proof.

Per cookie:

• Calories: 31
• Carbs: 2
• Fat: 2
• Protein: 1

Whatcha waiting for?? Delicious! and basically guilt free, so, you're welcome.

Spaghetti Bolognese, kind of...

As a non insulin taking diabetic, pasta is one of those things I have a love/hate relationship with. As someone who tries to eat mostly primal/Paleo, pasta is almost like a cuss word. I manage the cravings well for the most part, but every now and then...every now and then...I break down and eat pasta. My blood sugar rockets through the roof and I feel awful. Swearing I won't eat it again, but knowing I will. Oh the life of the wishfully pious.
The times I am a Paleo rock star, I eat meat sauce with zucchini pasta. Yes, zucchini pasta. It tastes just like real pasta, said nobody ever, but it does the trick and I always feel quite smug when I make the good choice to have it instead of the wheat kind!

It's super easy. Grab a zucchini, and using a veggie peeler, peel that bad boy until you get down to the seeds. It'll look something like this:

I drizzle a little olive oil, add some garlic, sea salt and cracked pepper.

 

Top it with your meat sauce and a teeny tiny bit of Parmesan and you're ready to twirl!

Because really, isn't the twirling half the fun of pasta???

Homemade coconut butter

I have heard of coconut butter for awhile now, but never really understood what is was. To me, it sounded like a new body cream by Philosophy or Origins. I hopped on the coconut oil craze early on, but admittedly, I'm a bit late to the coconut butter party. I had been meaning to try it, and stumbled across a jar at Whole Foods. For $12. For 8oz! What?? I didn't want to try it $12 worth, so I moved on.
But then one day I was at church with my sister, and by church I mean TJMaxx, when I had an encounter on the food aisle. You know that aisle, where overpriced gourmet foods and davinci syrups go to die. It was there. An 8 oz jar of chocolate coconut butter. For $7.99. Why not, I said to no one in particular. It took me a few months to even open it, but when I did, hallelujah! It was amazing. Smooth, coconutty, chocolaty. It was Delish. And as I do with most things, I googled how to make it And quickly thought "wow. Those people selling this stuff at whole foods are making a fortune off of their profit margin!" Because the ingredient list is short and NOT expensive. All you need is a bag of plain, shredded coconut. NOT the kind you buy at the grocery store that is loaded with sugar, just plain, unsweetened, desiccated coconut.



I had that in my pantry. So I whipped out my Vitamix, dumped the coconut in and turned it on. I used the plunger to push it into the blades and after about 2 minutes it went from coconut to liquid coconut. I kept blending for another 3 minutes. It was smooth, but a bit grainy. Another google search took me to Nam Nam Paleo, and she used a tablespoon of coconut oil in addition, so I tried that and voila, it smoothed it right out. I added some vanilla bean paste, vanilla stevia and cinnamon to it and am now waiting for it to go from liquid to butter. I eat it straight from the spoon when I'm hungry and need something to tide me over. But if you can't handle having something so delicious open and freely available, it could be wise to have a loved one hide it from you. Seriously. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The Great Butter Debacle of 2011

I was in London this week when I received word from a friend that I had better buy butter while there because Norway was out.
Come again?
Yes, Norway, the COUNTRY is out of butter. How this happens, I am a bit unsure, but the dairy industry has been quick to blame the low-carb dieters and lower than average production levels.
Well, I did buy butter in London and brought it home to Norway, but really, the whole out of butter thing bothered me. I won't say it's a conspiracy set in motion by the margarine lobby, but I'll be damned if I'm going to eat that nasty butter LIKE spread. The sign at the grocery store on the bare butter shelves says there will be no butter until at least the 1st week of 2012, so clearly I needed to take action. So, why not make my own? Moving out to the country has given me a crafty streak, so I decided to tackle it with the help of my 2.5 year old. We googled 'How to make butter' and got about 5000 hits, so don't worry, there are plenty of methods. Basically, if you are going to make butter, you need heavy whipping cream. That's it.
So, we got out the stand mixer and our cream and measured out 2 cups:


Then poured it into the bowl of the mixer and using the whisk attachment, let whip:
Every once in awhile, have a peek in and look:
It will whip up beautifully into fluffy whipcream in a couple of minutes:
Your kitchen helper may want to lick the spatula:

Keep whipping and whipping and suddenly it will totally separate and look disgusting, like yellow blobs floating in water! Guess what, you have curds and whey:

Pour it into a strainer and the buttermilk will drain out leaving the butter behind:
Then use your hands to ball it up and squeeze out the excess buttermilk and put it back in the mixer and see if you can beat out any more water. Drain it one more time and form it into a ball and then it's time for an ice bath. Apparantly, if you bathe it, it will make it last longer. So I bathed it in freezing cold water:


and then once the water ran clear, took it out, patted it dry and formed it into a ball. I then kneaded sea salt into it:
And voila, I made BUTTER!! It is delicious:
No worries here about any dang butter shortage! Try it! It's so easy!

Homemade almond milk

On our most recent trip back to America, I was surprised to see the presence of Almond milk in the grocery stores in the dairy section right next to cow's milk. When I last lived in the states in 2003, you had to go to the health food store to get it. I was also impressed at how cheap almond milk is! I spent the 5 weeks we were there drinking almond milk whenever possible. It's lower in carbs than regular milk, same amount of fat, HALF the calories, cholesterol free, loaded in antioxidants, has nearly as much calcium and an impressive array of vitamins. Really, what's not to love? Well, the price of it in Norway, that's what's not to love. Coming back to Norway, I went in search of almond milk. We have soy, rice and oat milks readily available in normal grocery stores here, but no almond milk. I finally found some at the health food store, but it was a tiny box and it was about $10!! Crazy.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. How hard can making homemade almond milk be?? Not hard at all is the answer! I can get raw almonds in bulk for about $11 a KILO here (that's about 2.2 pounds) and I only need a cup to make about a liter of milk, so it's a significant savings over the health food store almond milk. I tend to make small batches, as it only lasts about 5 days in the fridge and I really only use it in my smoothies, so I don't need a whole lot.

Start by soaking a cup or two of almonds in water over night. They will nearly double in size after the soaking:

Drain them and rinse them and put them in your blender or food processor and cover them with 4 or 5 cups of cold water:
Process them on high until the mixture is white and frothy:
Next, strain the mixture into a container. You can use a fine mesh sieve, but I use a bag specially made for nut milks:
That's it! How simple is that? Put it in an airtight container and use it how you would milk! It's delicious, and more importantly, it's so good for you! Now go make some almond milk:

Green beans roasted with garlic and basil in coconut oil

The days are getting longer and warmer and it's that time of year where we are starting to get a lot more fresh produce. Yesterday at one of my neighborhood fruit and vegetable markets there were some green beans I just couldn't pass up, and when Christopher lit the grill tonight, I decided to roast them over the hot coals!
I prepped the beans by tossing them in coconut oil, 2 cloves of fresh garlic, a handful of fresh chopped basil and a pinch of crushed red pepper:
Next, I put them in my roasting basket and put them on the grill:
There was a lot of smoke when coconut oil met hot coals, but the smell was delicious. I just stirred them every 30 seconds or so, and because the coals were so hot, the beans were done in about 4 minutes. The finished result was delicious:
A great way to get one of your 5 servings of fruit and veggies!

Homemade almond/cashew butter

I'll admit it, I'm a almond butter girl on a peanut butter budget, so when I read something about making my own nut butters at home, I did a backflip in my head. I can get raw nuts here in Oslo fairly inexpensively, whereas a tiny jar of almond butter sets me back about $8. If it's possible to make my own for half the price, it's a no-brainer for me. A quick Google search confirmed that I was not the first person to have this idea, so who better to let guide me than a gal called Heather with a blog called 'Heather Eats Almond Butter'? So, if you're tired of paying too much money for nut butters that are older than 10 minutes, look no further. You're going to need whatever nuts you want to use. I used cashews and almonds. I didn't measure, just used enough to cover a baking sheet:

I popped them into the over to roast them. Roasting brings out a really lovely flavor and depth to the nuts, and the aforementioned Heather said the roasted nuts tend to butter up quicker than the raw. I almost burned them, so remember to keep an eye on them:
Put your roasted nuts into your food processor:
Put the lid on and turn the processor on high. You'll get alot of noise and a nut powder first, but keep the machine going, turning it off every now and then to scrape down the sides. Depending on your food processor, this can take anywhere from 9-12 minutes.



Soon you will be rewarded with a gorgeous creamy nut butter:
The sky is the limit as for flavors. You can keep it plain, as alone it has such a glorious depth to it, or you can add maple, chocolate, cinnamon or whatever!

The nutritional benefits of fresh nut butters are too numerous to list here, but this is one thing that is a staple for me in a paleo/primal way of eating. It's also low on the glycemic index, so my blood glucose never spikes when I eat it.

What are you waiting for?? Go and make some homemade almond/cashew butter!

OH Joy! Low Carb Almond Joy bars!

It happened like this: I was walking by my friends office today and mid stride, I suddenly HAD to have one of the 'fun sized' Bounty bars I knew she kept on her desk. For my American friends, Bounty are what the rest of the world calls Almond Joy, sans the almond. It's just coconut and chocolate. Of course the ones she has on her desk are the sugar laden ones and decidedly high in carbs. I ate one anyway. But as the guilt sank in, I resolved to try and make some low carb treats I could keep handy so I wouldn't succumb quite so easily next time. I got back to my office and googled 'low carb almond joy recipe' and you wouldn't believe the number of hits I got! I'm clearly not the first to have had this idea. I then saw that the author of one of my favorite blogs was among the hits returned. Healthy Indulgences, hands down one of my guilty pleasures. It's written by a food GENIUS named Lauren. Seriously check out her blog. She is one of those rare people who comes up with original recipes that make your jaw hit the ground. I bet she could win MasterChef if she tried. Or at least place in the top 4. I digress. I've tried several of her recipes before and have yet to be disappointed, so hers was the one I decided to try.
If you are new to this whole low carb, healthy (yes healthy) way of eating, don't be frightened by some of the strange ingredients we tend to use like erythritol, coconut oil, xylitol and xanthan gum. Seriously, just go buy them. You will thank me for it later.

I started by mixing unsweetened shredded coconut, coconut oil, coconut milk and melted erythritol in a bowl. With my hands I put them on a cookie sheet and shaped them into fun sized candy bars.

Next I pressed a couple of almonds into the top to give it that almond joy feel. Then I put them on the balcony to freeze. Ha! Yes, you read that right. On the balcony to freeze. If you aren't as fortunate as I am to have a huge walk in freezer, simply use your small indoor one, it'll do.

After about 5 minutes, or 10, or 15 or however long it takes you to get the baby to bed, get them off of the balcony (or freezer) and get ready for the dipping phase! Where coconut meets it's lucious lover, dark chocolate ganache. (Don't worry, I'll put the recipe below)
After you've coated them all, and licked the extra chocolate off of your fingers about 19 times, but them back on the balcony to harden again. When you bring them back inside, you'll have something a bit like this:
Please excuse the tacky fingerprints in the ganache, but I've never been known for my finishing touches.
These are so good! Really hit the spot! And the ganache is made from 85% dark chocolate, and for fun I also threw in a few squares of Green and Black's espresso dark chocolate. This is a decadant treat and all your processed sugar eating friends are gonna wanna eat them ALL because they are just THAT good!
Recipe from Lauren at Healthy Indulgences

Makes ABOUT 20 bars

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups fine unsweetened shredded coconut
5-6 tablespoons coconut oil
1/3 cup coconut milk
1/3 cup erythritol or 1/4 cup xylitol
Raw almonds
2 batches dark chocolate ganache
Pinch of unrefined sea salt
1 packet of Stevia

Preparation:
Melt erythritol over medium heat in a saucepan until liquefied. Combine coconut oil, coconut milk, unsweetened coconut, salt, and stevia. Pour in hot erythritol and mix together thoroughly until coconut oil is melted. Put the coconut mixture on parchment paper and do your best to shape into fun sized candy bars. Top with almonds, pressing the nuts down gently into the filling. Freeze until filling is firm and cold.

Dark Chocolate Ganache

1-3.5 oz 85% cacao content chocolate bar
5 tablespoons heavy cream
1/3 cup erythritol or 1/4 cup xylitol, powdered
1 packet of Stevia

Pop it into the microwave and cook on high for about 30 seconds. Take it out and stir to melt chocolate. Keep microwaving for a few seconds and stirring until all chocolate is melted and the ganache gets thick and creamy. You may need to add extra cream to keep it thinned out.

Keep in mind, if you use the ganache, it won't 'harden', so you really need to keep them in the fridge or freezer.

Amazing low(ish) carb and gluten free Peanut Butter cookies!

Pardon me while I dust away the cobwebs around here, it seems as though I just abandoned the blog sometime in February. For that, I apologize. This whole gestating experience has been fairly all consuming! My doctor has put me on a sick leave for the remaining of my pregnancy until my maternity leave starts, so I find myself with time on my hands. I don't do particularly well with time on my hands, but this morning I found myself itching to be the beautiful diabetic and endeavored to create something blog worthy in the kitchen!

Before I got pregnant, I had been actively pursuing a very low carb lifestyle in an effort to control my diabetes. It was really working well, and my blood sugar numbers were quite impressive. Sadly, the words 'pregnancy' and 'low carb' do not get along. My low carb lifestyle, along with my wine drinking, were the first two things my doctor made me give up. I didn't grieve for long, as I now had an excuse to eat BREAD again, so all was good.

Fast forward 7 months and I stumbled upon one of the jewels of the low carb world wasting away in my pantry:

Yep, Organic coconut flour. Word on the low carb street is that this stuff is magical. It has ZERO carbs, which is NIRVANA for any self respecting low carber. It also tastes great and is gluten free. There were several recipes I had wanted to try using it, but as my raging hormones dictate what I make these days, Peanut Butter cookies had been weighing heavily on my heart for about a week.
So, this morning, I decided to try to make peanut butter cookies with coconut flour. There are alot of recipes online for coconut flour, just google it. Here is the one I based my cookies on:

Peanut Butter Cookies

For these cookies, use natural peanut butter, without hydrogenated oil or added sugar. The oil in natural peanut butter usually separates and rises to the top of the jar if allowed to sit for any extended period of time. Mix this oil into the peanut butter. Do not pour it out. If you do pour it out, replace it with an equal amount of melted coconut oil. Maintaining the original fat content of the peanut butter produces the best results with this recipe.

Ingredients

½ cup sifted coconut flour
1 cup natural peanut butter
½ cup peanuts, coarsely chopped (optional)
1½ cups brown sugar
4 eggs
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon salt

Method

Mix together peanut butter, peanuts, sugar, eggs, vanilla and salt. Stir in peanuts and coconut flour. Batter will be runny. Drop by the spoonful 2 inches apart on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 190 Degree C (375F) for 14 to 15 minutes. Cool slightly and remove from cookie sheet. Makes about 3 dozen cookies. (bakers note: HA! 3 dozen? If you like tiny cookies, yes. I got 15 good size cookies out of this recipe)

Yes, that does say 1/2 cup of coconut flour! Coconut flour is very dense and you don't need a lot of it. I started with the organic peanut butter:

And followed with the eggs, salt, vanilla and sugar:

See the white stuff? You know, the granular stuff that looks like evil white sugar?? It's not! It's another one of my low carb superstars:

That, my friends, is a little something called Erythritol. It's an amazing product. Has a GI of ZERO, so it has no effect on bloodsugar, so it's great for diabetics, and it is also a sugar alcohol, but has NO adverse affects on the bowels, so it's also great for people who can't normally handle sugar alcohols or Splenda and the like. It is usually derived from melons and it does tend to have a slight 'cooling' or minty taste. I enjoy it, you may not, but try it and see, as anyime you can eliminate processed sugar from your diet, it's a good idea. The recipe called for 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar, so I did half and half. I find the Erythritol does best when blended with another sweetner, and being pregnant, I don't like to consume mass quantities of Splenda.

Finally, I added my miniscule half cup of coconut flour. You will be amazed at how it thickens when you add it. I stirred everything together really well to ensure even distribution of the flour throughout the rest of the batter and then dropped it in large spoonfuls onto a baking sheet lined with parchment. I also have a sick obsession with macadamia nuts lately, so I chopped up a bunch and added them to the top of the cookies:

Popped them in the over and sat back to see what would happen. I am a fan of crispy cookies in general, with all of the egg in these cookies, I had my doubts about what their degree of crispiness would be. I waited the reccommended 13-15 minutes and then added 2 more minutes and took them out of the oven to let them cool:

My verdict? They are actually really GOOD! They are a cakey cookie, but the flavor is excellent.

Managing diabetes and other food intolerances is a journey. You have to be willing to try new things and adapt your expectations and tastes and try strange ingredients that you never would have considered had it not been for an unfortunate diagnosis. Hang in there. Don't let diabetes or food intolerances steal your joy in food, instead, find ways around it.

These peanut butter cookies with a tall glass of cold milk could just be the perfect start to your new journey:

Enjoy!