TGI Fryday

Mmmmmm... carbs.
Delicious, coma-inducing, ass-widening carbs.
Meanwhile you'll find me in the kitchen trying to 'cheat' my way around carby recipes while maintaining resemblance to real food. Tough sometimes but well worth the effort, I think.
For instance, this deep fried zucchini that I made with a little chemistry and NO FLOUR.

That's right.

They were fatty, crispy, and super yummy.
I didn't measure anything when I made these, just kinda tossed stuff in three small bowls and winged it. Next time I'll keep track. Also, I used one of those T-Fal deep fryers.

Ingredients:

1 medium zucchini, sliced into rounds
Grated (powdered) parmesan
Baking powder
Salt
Unflavored whey protein powder
1 egg, beaten
Water
Garlic salt
Italian herb seasoning

I put some parmesan in one dish, mixed some baking powder with the whey protein in another dish, and beat the egg with a bit of water in a third dish. I first dredged each slice in parm, then dipped in the egg/water mix, then tossed them in the protein/baking powder/salt. Fried em in canola oil that was preheated to 350 until they were golden. Transferred the cooked rounds to paper towel and sprinkled them with garlic salt and Italian herbs. Serious deliciousness.

Zucchini Is A Girl's Best Friend

I've been having severe issues digesting meat lately so I'm focusing on the veggie side of things for dinner. Tonight I felt like 'zoodles'... not that canned pasta crapola, but zucchini noodles. I'd purchased a kitchen gadget that is like a conical grater with a single row of blades on the inside... you sort of twist and push the zucchini into this thing and it grates into loooong pasta-like tendrils. Coolio. I've made them before, just sautéed them with butter and tossed with parm. Simple. Tonight I went a little further...

Fresh batch of zoodles

Baked Zucchini Noodles With Garlic Cream Sauce
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2 medium zucchinis (the approximate 12" dark green ones, not the ginormous variety)
2 tbs + 2 tbs unsalted butter
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp garlic salt
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup shredded parmesan

Preheat oven to 400. Zoodle the zucchinis, set aside. Melt the first amount of butter in a medium frying pan over medium heat. When its bubbly, add the zucchini, lightly toss with a fork to coat. Sprinkle with the sea salt, continue to sauté the noodles until softened but not soggy. Remove from heat, pour into an ungreased 1 quart casserole. Return the pan to the burner, add the second amount of butter. Pour in the cream, reduce heat by half. Stir with whisk or spatula, it will be very bubbly very quickly. Add the garlic salt, continue to stir until mixture thickens. Remove from heat, pour over noodles in the casserole, stir to coat. Top the mixture evenly with the shredded parm, bake for ten minutes to heat thoroughly, then broil for about five to lightly brown the top. Serve immediately.

Hold the Mayo

I'm beginning to loathe eggs. Low in carbohydrates, high in protein, one of nature's perfect foods... blah. They're good for me and everything but I haaaate the egg whites, they smell like farts and have a vomity taste. Mayonnaise is wonderful but the mild flavor doesn't do much to compensate for the barfy egg whites. Inspiration struck during lunch: I had leftover guac and two hard boiled eggs... I wonder if this is how the peanut butter cup guys got started.

Hard boiled eggs, the quantity depends on how hungry you are
1 heaping tbs of guacamole per egg

Peel, rinse, and pat dry the eggs. Slice them lengthwise, carefully remove the yolks into a smallish bowl. Add the guacamole, mash with the yolks. Correct the seasoning (I didn't use any as the guac was medium spicy) then spoon the mixture back into the whites. Arrange on a plate, take pics, Instagram your friends, or just eat them in anonymity.

The Cheese Stands Alone

If I'm not eating, I'm either talking about food, or planning my next meal. How do I come up with these weirdly amazing recipes, you may ask? Simple. I'm a pig. I not only love food, I'm a sharer. When I'm eating at a restaurant, if my meal is particularly delicious, not only does EVERYONE know (unsubtle yummy noises) but I also feel the need to share the delicious meal to all within a three table radius.

During my walk home today I was lost in thought, taking mental inventory of what I have left in the kitchen. The last deli chicken I bought was an f-i-asco so I have fixins for what I had originally planned, minus the chicken: frozen spinach, feta, mushrooms. I also have cream cheese as I'd intended to re-create the dip from last week, but I thought maybe I'd try a new approach: more veg, less cheese. Whaaaaaat???

Spinach and Feta Stuffed Mushroom Caps

15 large white mushrooms

2 tbs unsalted butter

1 tsp lemon juice

sea salt

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300g pkg frozen spinach, thawed

3 tbs unsalted butter or more if desired

100g feta cheese

1/2 tsp garlic salt

sea salt to taste

1/4 tsp greek seasoning

Preheat oven to 400. Over the sink or a bowl, squeeze the living shit out of the spinach with your bare hands, you need to extract as much of the water as possible because ew. You should be left with a couple good handfuls of green. In a medium frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat until bubbly. Lightly crumble/separate the spinach into the pan, sprinkle with the salt, garlic salt, and greek seasoning. Stir to coat, continue cooking until it's hot and delicious smelling. Remove from heat, set the pan aside to cool.

Gently wipe the mushrooms to clean the caps; don't rinse them because they absorb water. Twist out the stems; keep them for future use if you're one of those, I tossed mine because whatever. In a small microwaveable container, melt together the butter and lemon juice. Fully dip each cap in the lemon butter, place on a foil lined baking sheet. Drizzle the caps with any remaining butter, sprinkle them lightly with salt.

I used half of a 200g container of feta cheese, the type that's a feta brick floating in cheese water. Yum. I drained it then crumbled half the brick into the cooled spinach then tossed everything well to combine. Fill each cap with spinach mixture, evenly distributing the cheese. Bake for 15-20 minutes. I suggest letting them cool a bit but I can't tell you how to live your lives. Enjoy.

Raspberries!

I reworked the cheesecakes from the That Stupid Song post; the cheese flavor was obscuring the lime taste but I was reluctant to add more SF Jell-o sooooo instead I halved the cream cheese and increased the whip by half. Oh, and they're pink this time. To quote Carol Channing in whatever movie that was, "Raspberries!"

2 + 1 tbs organic coconut

4oz cream cheese, softened 

1-1/2 cups heavy cream

1 pkg sugar-free raspberry Jell-o

1/4 cup boiling water

Whip the cream until stiff, set aside. Add jell-o to the boiling water, stir until completely dissolved. Beat the cream cream cheese until smooth, continue beating while slowly drizzling in the jell-o, thoroughly mix. Fold in the whipped cream gently, you want this to maintain it's fluffiness because awwwww! Fluffy! Set aside. Distribute two tablespoons of the coconut evenly between 12 paper-lined muffin cups. Spoon the cheesecake mixture into the cups, each should be about 3/4 full. Sprinkle the remaining coconut over the tops of the little cakes, refrigerate until firm (about 4 hours). Yum.

Pumping Irony

Bought the gym, right? Waited til my day off to put it together, right? (it's a minimum 6 hour project.) Just follow the instructions, right? WRONG. Instructions weren't included!
First, I'm not strong enough to lift the parts. I need to go to the gym so I can assemble the gym.
Second, I tracked down the instructions online; the nonexistent correlation between the brand/model number printed on the box and the brand/model number on the website's instructions was fun.
Third, none of the parts are marked or labeled; half are just floating loose in the boxes.
Fourth, in order to assemble this thing I need a couple of adjustable wrenches. I realize I'm supposed to be all 'I am woman, hear me roar' but I'd rather have a couple of adjustable men assembling this thing for me.

Step one: kill self.

Crazy Good

Any experimentation I've done with substituting cauliflower for carbs e.g. potatoes, bread, etc, has been successful in that it was tasty and I didn't go blind after eating it. The consistency of these dishes was usually a little disappointing in that there's no way a plate of mush could double as a grilled cheese... until today. A small series of minor yet unforseen events led to a lovely cauliflower thin crust that not only holds it's shape, it holds it's shape very well and can be handled easily sans total destruction. Warning: the following instructions are just what I did personally, I'm sure there are other ways of achieving similar results... I'm just winging it over here.

Italian Seasoned Crazy Bread

Bread:
1 lb cauliflower florets (I used half of a frozen 1 kg bag)
1/2 cup parmesan
4oz cream cheese, cut into chunks
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/4 tsp onion flakes
1/4 tsp sea salt
2 eggs
2 tbs olive oil

Preheat oven to 375. I used the world's loudest food processor to finely chop the frozen cauliflower until it was the basically the consistency of uncooked rice with a few larger chunks remaining for good measure. I spread it evenly in an ungreased 13 x 9 baking pan then baked it for about 20 minutes to cook out some of the moisture. Removed the pan from the oven and let it cool about 10 minutes then scraped the cauliflower into a large cloth (use a tea towel... I didn't have a tea towel. Mistake AND a lame story) twisted it closed and squeezed the shit out of it over the sink to extract the water. It took a few tries but I was left with a dense lump of 'dough' that looked like it measured about a cup in volume. I was all, whaaaaat? That's it that's all that's everything?? But I pressed on.
Placed the dough in a medium mixing bowl added all the remaining ingredients. I first kind of mashed it all together with my hands (mistake) then used a blender to smooth it all out. Tasted it and corrected the seasoning with another shake of salt. Greased the same baking pan with the olive oil then scraped the cauliflower mixture into the pan and evenly patted it flat. I was horrified... the layer of veg was like 1/4 of an inch thick (mistake) I'd underestimated how far the pound of cauliflower would go, but whatever right? Popped the pan back in the oven, baked for 12 minutes until it was puffing up and brown around the edges. Took it out of the oven, then prepared the topping.

Seasoning:
5 tbs parmesan
1 tbs italian seasoning
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 tbs unsalted butter, melted

I combined the dry ingredients and set them aside. Drizzled the melted butter all over the cauli bread, then sprinkled the seasoning evenly and liberally all over the butter. Put the pan back in the oven one last time and cranked it up to broil. Kept a close eye on it for about 4 minutes until golden (it browned very abruptly) and remove it from the oven. Leave it to cool in the pan about 10 minutes then cut it into squares... and whaddya know, it held together! My stupidity pays off!!